Curved TV

The first TVs to be manufactured were black and white CRT TVs. As technology improved, CRT TVs evolved from black and white to color and then from analog to digital. Then came LED, 3D, and Smart TVs and more recently UHD, OLED, and curved TVs.
Although the consumer TV market in 2013 was expected to be dominated by LCD and OLED TVs, OLED TV sales were sluggish countered by an unexpectedly high demand for UHD TVs. With more and more UHD broadcasts and media content expected in the near future, this high demand for UHD TVs - especially 50” and larger - is likely to remain at least until 2015 and curved TVs and other variants equipped with features for the optimal UHD viewing experience will become increasingly more mainstream.
The History of Curved Displays
The world's first curved screen was the Cinerama, which debuted in New York in 1952. Countless theaters, including the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood began to use horizontally curved screens to counter image distortions associated with super-wide formats such as 23:9 CinemaScope.
When projecting images onto a completely flat screen, the distance light has to travel from its point of origin, i.e., the projector, increases the farther away the destination point is from the screen’s center. This variance in the distance travelled results in a distortion phenomenon known as the pincushion effect, where the image at the left and right edges of the screen becomes bowed inwards and stretched vertically, making the entire image appear blurry.
Curved screens, however, make it possible to keep the distance light has to travel to reach all points of the screen more or less the same and in this way eliminates the distortion effect for a more natural viewing experience.
The Advent and Features of Curved TVs
Why Curved?
Modern TVs are growing in both size and resolution in order to produce increasingly more realistic images. The curved form is used to offer a more immersive viewing experience. More specifically, curved screens when compared to flat screens, offer wider viewing angles when viewed from the optimal distance for more a realistic and immersive experience, and render better screen contrast for clearer and more vivid images.
#Greater Immersion: The wider viewing angle produces a more realistic and immersive viewing experience.
#Natural and Comfortable Viewing Experience: Curved screens are better suited for the visual-perception system in humans and maintain an even viewing distance across the entire screen for a more natural and comfortable viewing experience.
#Clearer Picture Quality: Images displayed on curved screens appear sharp and clear across the entire screen.
Greater Immersion
Curved screens augment the viewer’s field of view for a more realistic experience that draws the viewer deeper into the scene.
Because the focal plane of a curved screen is closer to the viewer than that of a flat screen, the viewer also experiences a greater stereoscopic effect.
A Natural and Comfortable Viewing Experience
Curved TVs are better suited for the visual-perception system in humans, because when looking at a flat image, the human eye and brain compensate for distortions, and interpret the flat image as a curved image. Seeing images in an already curved state, as in those shown on a curved TV, frees the visual-perception system from making the necessary compensations allowing viewers to enjoy images in their more natural and realistic state.
All points on the curved screen are equidistant from the viewer, resulting in a more comfortable and natural viewing experience.
Curved screens also maintain an equidistance between the viewer’s eyes and all points on the screen, eliminating the need to make focal adjustments when viewing fast-moving scenes and thereby making the viewing experience far more comfortable.
Furthermore, curved screens produce a panoramic effect that fills the viewer’s field of vision and makes the images on the screen appear more real and immersive. Flight simulators and head-mounted displays also use similar effects to recreate realistic experiences. In fact, tests have shown that curved screens produce the greatest sense of realism.
Curved TVs also feature a smaller open angle, reducing the amount of side light reflected off the screen and being cast into the viewer’s face. Reduced glare creates a more comfortable viewing experience.
Clearer Picture Quality
Whereas with flat TVs the contrast ratio and clarity are at their best when the TV is viewed directly from the front, curved TVs offer superior contrast and quality even when viewed from an angle.
<big>Expert Opinion on the Features of Curved TVs
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Similar to a movie theater having good and bad seats , there is an optimal position when it comes to watching TV at home. This optimal position is directly along the central axis of the TV with the central point of the screen at eye level. Viewers seated in any other position come to experience degradations in picture quality ranging anywhere from minor to severe, the most notable being trapezoidal distortion.
This essentially means that watching a flat-screen TV at home allows only one or two people at max to enjoy the best picture quality possible. TVs that feature a curved screen on the other hand, effectively expand the viewing angle and allow viewers seated outside the optimal position to enjoy the optimal picture quality with minimal trapezoidal and other types of distortions.
Perhaps the greatest advantage that curved TVs offer is the fact that they drastically reduce glare from ambient light thanks to their curved screen design. The smaller open angle of curved TVs minimizes glare from nearby light sources that improves contrast and color and produces optimal images with darker shadows.
Examples of Curved Display Applications
In order to create added realism and minimize distortions along the outer edges of the frame, it is possible to use multiple flat-screen monitors and set them up so that the monitors are angled in towards the viewer’s eyes.
21:9 aspect ratio monitors were developed to display the maximum amount of information on a single screen, but the extreme wideness of the screen created severe distortions on the left and right edges of the screen. Curved 21:9 monitors were then developed to address this issue and provide a distortion-free, wide-angle viewing environment.
Curved screens are also widely used in IMAX and standard movie theaters for their ability to produce natural expressions and draw the audience deeper into the scene. Here, IMAX, which stands for Image Maximum, refers to a massive, high-resolution film recording and display format created by the IMAX Corporation. A standard IMAX screen is 22m wide and 16m tall, but there are screens with even larger dimensions. IMAX is the most successful large-format, specialized cinematic-film system.
The Future of Curved Screens
Curved 21:9 Displays
The most common aspect ratio in consumer TVs today is 16:9, but TVs with the optimal movie viewing aspect ratio of 21:9, have started to emerge. Most cinematic movies are produced in a ratio known as CinemaScope (2.35:1), and displaying these movies on a regular 16:9 TV results in black stripes on the left and right edges which is a phenomenon called letterboxing. 21:9 (2.33:1) aspect ratio TVs, on the other hand, are able to better accommodate the original aspect ratio of cinematic movies and display them in full. The result is a more immersive viewing experience, and this is why many manufacturers are now starting to release TVs, personal computers, and monitors in this aspect ratio.
The problem with flat 21:9 screens is that, contrary to their initial design intent, the extreme width of the screen causes distortions on the left and right edges of the screen, and in fact creates a less immersive viewing experience. Curved 21:9 screens, on the other hand, minimize these distortions and allow viewers to become fully immersed in the scene. Accordingly, we will see an increasing number of curved 21:9 products released.
Forward and Backward Curved Screens
The potential applications of curved displays are expected to result in a significant increase in demand for both forward and backward curved screens. Backward curved screens, for example, can be used as digital signage devices that can be installed in various ways and at various locations to produce greater exposure.
Added Gaming Realism
Realism is even more important when it comes to playing video games. The common practice of gamers in the world today is to use multiple monitors to form a single, large screen and create a more realistic and immersive gaming environment. With this type of setup, however, bezels of the monitors cut across the screen and hinder a truly immersive gaming experience. Large, curved screens with high resolutions, on the other hand, create a truly realistic and immersive gaming environment, free of unsightly bezel lines.

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