Curved TV Displays: Improving the Big Picture
Curvature can be breathtaking. Consider a meandering sun-drenched river, crescents of the evening moon, swirling autumn leaves, gently rolling hillsides or the aurora borealis.
In homage to naturally curving beauty, mankind has added curved design elements to our most pleasing monuments. For centuries, many of the most memorable man-made creations have had a curved shape to them. For example, the Sydney Opera House, the Lotus Temple, St. Peter's Basilica, the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Guggenheim Museum and the Missouri Gateway Arch all pay their respects to the splendor of the curving spectacle.
Today, elegantly curving UHD or Full HD displays are beginning to change the shape of TV viewing with top-of-the-line TV display screens that offer a more realistic, immersive user experience at work or at home.
Expanded realism
Curved TV displays simulate the feeling of theater-like viewing. They convey distortion-free images with eye-friendly appearance and efficient design, delivering uniform picture quality throughout the panel, even at the edges of the screen.
Few would argue that videotaped and filmed imagery has always appeared more life-like when seen on a big-theatre screen. But more importantly, when a screen is large, viewers process greater amounts of visual data than they would on a small screen, which makes everything appear all the more "real."
The very same approach to increasing visual information has been applied to curved TVs displays. They can deliver the penultimate immersive experience in theater-like viewing by providing an extended field of view that makes viewers feel like they are watching a larger TV than they really are.
Curved TV displays are carefully designed when a great deal of consideration given to the movement of the human eye. Because eyes are spherical, the shapes of flat objects actually appear somewhat distorted when reflected. Conversely, if an object takes on a curved plane of field, it appears flat as was intended.
Take the Parthenon for example. Behind this incredible monument of Greek architecture, one can find the secret of curved design. At a glimpse, the temple looks perfectly flat. But if it was built flat, it would look distorted. Greek architects well understood the visual distortion that human eyes trigger. So, the temple was actually built with a curved shape to make it appear flat! Samsung display engineers applied the same architectural solution to our curved TV design in order to deliver distortion-free pictures to viewers.
From any angle
Another important attribute of curved TV displays is the clearer picture quality they provide, compared to flat TV panels. In order to have an excellent view, consumers can position themselves uniformly at an acceptable distance from literally any viewing angle.
A flat TV's edge is located further away from its center, so distortion will creep in as we move off-center. On the other hand, the 4200R curvature of the latest Samsung curved TV display allows for uniformly crisp viewing all the way to its edges.
Moreover, the image quality of a curved-display TV remains high when viewed from the side. Our viewing analyses have revealed that, with a flat TV, as viewers move further to the side, the narrowed viewing angle causes picture quality to decrease to a significant degree. But you can allay any concerns that curved TV display designs degrade when a TV is viewed from a side angle.
Let's also consider learning efficiency. In some classrooms, the use of curved monitors has been shown to enhance the attention span of the viewer, resulting in a better digital learning environment.
In 2014, tests by the prestigious KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) revealed that students watching a video lecture on a flat-display TV exhibited a disoriented learning pattern highlighted by a significant lack of focus, compared to students viewing a curved-screen TV. The students watching the curved TV focused better on the prescribed on-screen educational material.
In recognition to all of their visual benefits, you might like to know that curved TV displays were certified this April for outstanding picture quality by the CESI (China Electronics Standardization Institute).
Heavenly viewing
Let's welcome the new era of curved electronic devices – led by what has long been the icon of home consumer electronics: the television. We at Samsung invite you to experience the curved display's more immersive, clearer and more comfortable viewing yourself.
The great Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi once said, "The straight line belongs to men, the curved one to God." Indeed, if heaven had form, it would likely be curved.
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