During the meanwhile ...
The 32" 1988 Trinitron (the only TV in the house) still performs quite adequately on the rare occasion that the Wife or myself is interested in DearOldTelly.
Tellies, tellies, tellies… big flat ones that don’t bend, big bendy ones that flatten out, OLED, LED backlit and beyond were all on show at consumer electronics trade show IFA. There was a whiff of more of the same about some of these offerings though with Samsung’s 105-inch Ultra HD LED TV taking pride of place on its stand. …
"She's The Wife. Not My Wife.
There is only one of her, and I don't own her."
Errr... "my wife" doesn't signify ownership it signifies a relationship to the husband. Outside of polygamy a lady can only be a wife in relation to you, to everyone else she can be "married", "have a husband", "a teacher", "a lovely person", whatever, but she can't be their "wife".
"The wife" sounds much more misogynist and demeaning, almost as though you are embarrassed to be associated with her. If there is some slim chance that you are actually married, then I pity the poor lady and would recommend that counselling can help with the trauma.
""The wife" sounds much more misogynist and demeaning"
How the hell do you figure? I don't own her, I've never tried to tell her what to do (unless asked), and she's the only Wife I've ever had, or ever will have. She's "the wife". I'm "the husband".
To my mind, considering her "my wife" would be totally misogynistic, with undertones of ownership. As in "mine", I own it, you can't have it, it has no say in the equation, it's an it, not a woman.
You, on the other hand, seem to think that "My Wife" (implying ownership) is a good idea? Really? Have you ever actually been in a relationship?
Care to show me just exactly how we're missing out on DearOldTelly broadcasts without spending money on a new television every couple of years? Seems to me that we can still partake in the daftness, without spending an arm & a leg every 18 months.
Why yes, I AM a neo-luddite. But only because I see no reason to spend several thousand dollars every couple of years on kit that doesn't actually do anything more useful than kit I already own.
Methinks AC is demonstrating a case of projection.
In which case they'd better automate the Slipper of Death. Android powered, internet-of-things compatible, totally fear-proof?
Maybe combine it with the Dyson tracked vacuum cleaner, so that the spider scuttles across the living room carpet, and slowly, relentlessly the Dyson M1A1 grinds after it, sleepless, indefatigable. Eventually the spider will be cornered, and the machine can vacuum it up, or simply crush it under the tracks, before sending a Facebook update announcing success and showing video confirmation. Or team up with Nerf to give the Dyson proper spider-attack capability. The Middle East model could despatch the spider by....no, lets not go there.
All these possibilities from technology, and the best the makers can give us is a fucking bendy telly and a watch with a battery that lasts a whole day. Knobs!
"the spider has hacked the tracked dyson M1A1"
Not sure about the spider, but if we are to believe our government's security services the Iranians and Norks might. I'm fairly relaxed about the Iranians getting my Nerf-armed vacuum cleaner tank to hunt
Yep, it's ridiculously expensive. While I guess the super rich might be buying one it's basically a technology demonstration. It might find a use at in the display world where a single one can replace a bank of smaller panels. Or simply used in groups to create an immersive wall – think IMAX only more so. In fact it might even be the shape of cinema screens to come: once printable OLEDs become available you'll be able to get one of these made to measure.
Yes, that's why I asked about bendy screens, not curved screens.
Quite simple: adjust the experience at the touch of a button. For some things like films or presumably games you'll want to be in the middle of the action but you'll also a want a flat screens if any friends every come round. Also, making it bendy will allow you to get it "just right" depending on how close you are to the screen. Given the amount of time, effort and money people spunk on home cinema installations, it's not surprising to see it offered for the screens.
.......... connected via a single "OneConnect TV interface break-out box" (to coin a phrase). It should be slim, light-weight (I should in practice be able to hang it on the wall one-handed - yes they can build such a device) and fit flush to the wall. What they can stuff is:
1. Their sodding speakers - I did not buy a reasonably costly home-theatre/hifi system to put up with that garbage/weight/bezel-penalty and have the dubious privilege of paying more to the TV-producer concerned than would otherwise be the case.
2. I am not interested in their ideas of what "smart" might mean - I am smart enough to connect a pc to it (and build it my self for that matter - the pc that is, not the telly :P)
3. They can shove their bendy tellies where the sun doesn't shine - a key element of the modern display for me is to be able to mount it flush to the wall with as little physical projection out into the room as possible and as wide a sweet spot as can be achieved to ensure that those watching it do not have to practically sit in each other's laps.
A 55" telly at a dozen feet is about the same size as a Galaxy S5 viewed at 13.3 inches, an iPhone 5S at 10.5 inches or an HTC One (M8) at 13 inches.
Of course that means at that at 12 feet even the lowly 1080p 55" telly has a "retina" display so I'm not really getting the point of these 4 & 5K resolutions these guys are selling. Consider that the aforementioned 55" telly viewed from 144 inches has roughly 105 pixels per degree of arc. For the sake of completion, at the distances above the respective phones are 105, 62.5 and 104.7 pixels per degree.
Equating that 105 pixels per degree angular resolution to the 105" 5K set gives a viewing distance of only 80 inches. If we buy into the premise that the "average" human eye doesn't resolve pixels at a higher density than that it means the extra resolution is wasted beyond 80 inches. Of course 80 inches is likely a silly distance to view a 105" screen as it would appear to be roughly the same size as the iPhone screen held a mere 3 inches from your face - which isn't to say one could focus on the iPhone at that distance, I know I couldn't.
Curved screens don't seem to make any practical sense in a normal living room. I'd just like a TV that you can still see when the sun shines through the windows. I think it was sony that had projector screens that only reflected artificial light, why can't they bring some of that tech into TV's that you can actually fit in the living room?