I’m considering new TV. Curved screens seem to be getting more popular but I don’t know anyone that has one. If you have one or have watched one, what are your thoughts? Anything I should look out for?
Thanks.
I’m wondering about ‘hot spots’ – reflections of lamps and whatnot. With a flat screen, you can position the TV so you can’t see them. What about a curved screen?
I’m not sure what problem they’re trying to solve. I’m happy with flat. Maybe I’m just more used it it.
It’s New & Improved™.
I bought an OLED TV recently. It came in flat and curved and the salesperson told me flatly (yep, pun intended) not to get the curved. This was from a top guy at a dedicated electronics store. I don’t remember the reasons but he was emphatic about it.
The claim is that light takes longer to hit the corners of the screen than the middle. This article explains it nicely, but also points out that a television is probably too small for it to matter, and creates its own light anyway (as opposed to a movie projector), so it’s probably not worth it.
That can’t possibly be right. Light travels 1 nS/foot - for the difference between the center and the edge of a TV, that’s like a 500pS difference - almost unmeasurable.
I think the real reason is perspective. If you are close to a large flat TV, you are viewing the center dead-on (90°) and the edges at a substantial angle, resulting in distortion. Curving the TV minimizes this effect. It’s still pretty useless in my book.
Curved TVs only make sense if you’re a gamer and are going to be very close to the screen, and want an immersive experience. Unless you have total control of every light source in the room, you’re going to have issues with reflections. When you go shopping, take a small flashlight with you to see what those reflections look like.
They are making curved screens because it was possible to do so. They do not solve any problem.
In that case, a curved screen is a non-starter. My living room has 16 windows in it. I learned that lesson with my plasma TV.
I’ve had to pack and move a couple out in the wild, they look hella cool dude! and if you’ve never had to pack one and move it, and don’t have the original packaging, they look hella scary(they’re actually pretty sturdy ime). They’re curved, that’s what makes them special. there is some immersive effect, but not much. Although I suppose not much is way more than not any. I don’t know about reflection. The TV’s I’ve seen were big 80" screens used in home theater type rooms with dim recessed lighting and minimal if any windows.
eta; jesus! when did 80" become merely big and not HUGE?
When I was a kid, 20-inch screens were usual. Posh people had 24-inch screens! :eek:
right and if you had a 36" or whatever screen maaaan you were RICH! beyond mere poshness
(the super-privileged kids in my neighborhood had small color televisions in their rooms)
It would be a nightmare. With a flat plane, you shift it around until you have minimal glare. You would stand no chance with a curved TV.
I guess no one watches TV as a communal experience anymore?
Try watching a curved-screen TV from different points in the room. It loses its immersive appeal really quickly.
It seems that it was only yesterday that all TV screens were curved, and it was a big deal when the TVs with flat screens came out.
These are curved in the other direction, right?
Concave, but only along the horizontal.
This. Maybe I just missed the commercials, but I’ve yet to see an ad saying why the’re better. They needed a new selling point, so they push curved screens as if they are somehow better.
Yanno, I always thought they were just developed as a tiny baby step in the evolution of the TV into the “Goddamned Noisy Box” Holovision
That’s a terrible explanation of pincushion effect in that article. It’s not because light takes longer to get to the corners at all. Rather it is the fact that magnification increases away from the optical center, making the picture looked pinched.
A curved screen allows the far corners to be closer to the same optical axis as the center pixels. Magnification is (more) equal). But TVs and monitors are corrected for pincushion anyway.
Dennis
Make sure you get some Monster cables to go along with that curved screen.