Curved TVs Nothing But a Gimmick 261
Lucas123 (935744) writes "Currently, the hottest trend from TV manufacturers is to offer curved panels, but analysts say it's nothing more than a ploy to pander to consumers who want the latest, coolest-looking tech in their home. In the end, the TVs don't offer better picture quality. In fact, they offer a degraded view to anyone sitting off center. Samsung and LG claim that the curve provides a cinema-like experience by offering a more balanced and uniform view so that the edges of the set don't appear further away than the middle. Paul Gray, director of European TV Research for DisplaySearch, said those claims are nothing by pseudo-science. "Curved screens are a gimmick, much along the same lines as 3D TVs are," said Paul O'Donovan, Gartner's principal analyst for consumer electronics research."
Re:No Way! (Score:5, Informative)
Curved TV's aren't better? I can't believe it!
The odd bit is at the end of TFS where they say that curved TVs are a gimmick like 3D TVs. There is a big difference, 3D TVs actually give an appearance of 3D when viewing 3D content, (all the brain-and-eye confusing tricks and deception notwithstanding). Every reasonably normal sighted person can see the 3D effect, most just don't think its worth the price (or the headaches).
Curved TVs on the other hand provide a picture that is indistinguishable from normal flat screens, EVEN when you see them side by side in the store.
Re:Mostly but not _totally_ gimmick? (Score:5, Informative)
Per the internets, the curving is done in movie theatres to help avoid the pincushion effect from the projector. Since we are talking about TVs and not projectors, the pincushion effect is irrelevant.
Curved television displays aren't "largely" a gimmick-- they're just a gimmick.
Re:No Way! (Score:3, Informative)
Sadly I seem to be in the minority in that opinion.
Only Relevant to Projection (Score:5, Informative)
In a movie theater, which uses projection, the curved screen is to alleviate the pincushion effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pincushion_distortion [wikipedia.org]) created by the anamorphic lens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic_lens [wikipedia.org]) that the theater uses. This is utterly irrelevant to the image created by a monitor TV.
In short, yes; pure marketing BS.
Re:No Way! (Score:2, Informative)
3D is a gimmick. It's always been a gimmick. Always will be a gimmick.
"Cinema like" is the biggest joke. (Score:5, Informative)
TV screens are not being projected on with an anamorphic lens. There is equal spacing between each pixel on a TV. So making a TV screen curved simply ADDS the distortion that curved cinema screens are designed to prevent.
This is the worst part though:
The slight curvature also reduces visual geometric distortion. When you watch a perfectly flat TV screen, Soneira explained, the corners of the screen are farther away than the center so they appear smaller. "As a result, the eye doesn't see the screen as a perfect rectangle - it actually sees dual elongated trapezoids, which is keystone geometric distortion," Soneira wrote.
WHAT? The screen is a rectangle, so our eye sees it as a rectangle, just as it would any other rectangular object! The visual cortex of our brain makes sure of that. How can someone who works with TVs not understand basic concepts of human vision?