Gadgetory

at CES 2014 curved TVs were all the rage at least if you asked someone who manufactures TVs as a techie with my journalism hat on I was interested in the technology behind it oled displays are thin and they're light they offer fast response times amazing black levels better energy efficient and now they're able to be curved this unlocks amazing new form factors for devices with screens you can wrap around your wrist and bed as a heads-up display on a windshield or helmet and so much more unfortunately when it was time to put my general consumer who has to actually spend money on this stuff hat on I concluded that at least in their current form curve display TVs leave a lot to be desired there are a lot of theoretical benefits being promoted by marketing folks including better immersion and more natural viewing experience with references being made to other situations where curved screens are already used most notably in projection movie theaters the issue with this is that the benefits of curved displays and theaters that is to say pincushion reduction improve brightness uniformity and the ability to have an image wrap around the viewer as it fills up a huge portion of their field of view none of this has anything to do with a 55 inch non projection TV that's going to sit in your living room there is some promotion of curved screen technology that might have some basis in reality that it reduces eye fatigue by ensuring every part of the screen is an equal distance from the viewers eye meaning there is no need to refocus when looking from one part of the screen to the other but even that claim has some serious problems with the current product offerings in order for the eye to be an equal distance from every part of the panel you would have to be sitting in exactly the sweet spot not only dead center in front of the TV but also at the correct distance so you're in the middle of the theoretical circle that would be formed by the curvature of your TV Dennis Berger from home tech tel looked at one of LG's curved TVs and determined you would have to be 11 feet from it for the positioning to be optimal I mean I guess you could sit there but what if you wanted to watch a movie with a group of friends someone is going to get the short straw and end up with a picture that's not only not better than a flat TV but actually distorted and worse and the real-world drawbacks only start with the required exact seating position for a non destroyed image they they don't wall mount for now and they are extremely expensive compared to flat alternatives the worst part of all this is that both LG and Samsung were already showing off 21 by 9 aspect ratio a hundred plus inch ultra HD curb screens that genuinely made the technology compelling as if to say look we know it's pointless right now but just bear with us for a couple of years while we bring this to market this will curve around you and be more immersive but it's just too big of a change for us to do all at once speaking of big changes all at once head over to squarespace.com slash Linus to learn about the fast easy way to change your website into a beautiful one that works just as well on tablets and phones as it does on your desktop Squarespace has been in business over 10 years and offers website templates that are suitable for an awesome blog fantastic company site and even a fully functional online store you can use offer code text enter first purchase which when you consider how reasonable and flexible their website hosting plans already are is a pretty good bargain and it helps us out a lot to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this episode of fast as possible and guys thank you so much for watching it remember to share and like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it and leave a comment to let me know what you think of the future of curved TVs would you buy one now in a year in five years are you going to wait for 21 by 9 so that it actually fills your field of view or are you okay with a regular old 16 by 9 widescreen TV thanks again for watching guys and don't forget to subscribe and I'm back I've actually got an additional special message from Squarespace from now until March 15th 2014 the search is on they're hiring 30 engineers and designers at their New York headquarters and they're even flying folks out for their interviews so if you or someone you know thinks they have what it takes to work at Squarespace head to be a part of it Squarespace calm to learn more