Personally, I think the curved idea is brilliant and obvious. All this time television manufacturers have been trying to replicate the theatrical experience for consumers at home, but they didn’t go after the BEST theater experience in existence: curved, Panoramic IMAX film experiences. The high-resolution film has been around forever, bringing the viewer closer to cinematic entertainment than we have ever been. Now imagine that in your living room. It’s coming. And it’s absolutely stunning in person.
Take the LG’s 77″ Curved 4K OLED television, a CES 2014 darling. Seriously, it won Best of Innovations for Video Displays. LG put on a show with amazing clips of opera houses and floating dresses. Silly and random as the visuals may have been, I found it hard to step away from the gorgeous screen, wanting to take it home then and there.
Samsung had some equal talent at their own booth this year, featuring their oversized 110″ (as mentioned), but more impressively their grand lineup of curved UHD televisions. I was particularly partial to their 55″ and 65″ models, the perfect size for your living room. The colors were fantastically vibrant and had decent arc with amazingly real and bright perspective from all angles, which is really the best part of curved televisions.
Of course, Samsung was clear to point out their larger than life 105″ UHD Curved LED television, a stunning depiction of America’s overconsumption of media. It felt a bit absurd, especially considering its viewing aspect ratio is 21 x 9, wider than nearly all standard video content available in the universe. While letterbox will shine, distortion in pixels is going to be more than evident on this monster. Samsung claims they’ll actually be shipping this to consumers later this year. No prices set on these as usual with CES, but it’s certainly a sneak peak of the company’s current capabilities and the future of your home theater.
