
When you have to buy a curved television so that you can still see the edges of the screen whilst watching your favourite stop frame animation, it's time to turn the television off, step out into the big, bad world, and get yourself a life.
If you have a bob or two going free – well, the best part of at least $9,000 – Samsung will now sell you its monumental curved OLED TV, previously only available in the US and Asia. The 54.6-inch screen, dubbed the S9C, is gently bent for what Samsung claims is a more cinematic viewing experience, though telly hardware pundits …
When you have the money to burn on that kind of luxury, I'll bet that when you step out into the world, it's with a glass of champaign in your hand and a beautiful creature at your arm, that you can lead to your expensive car for a (very) nice ride.
And if you have all that, I'm pretty sure you think that you're having a pretty good life.
I'll bet that when you step out into the world, it's with a glass of champaign[sic] in your hand and a beautiful creature at your arm, that you can lead to your expensive car for a (very) nice ride.
Or you're a sad geek who still lives with his Mum, and spends his money on pointless gadgets instead of a mortgage?
When you have the money to burn on that kind of luxury, I'll bet that when you step out into the world, it's with a glass of champaign in your hand and a beautiful creature at your arm
I like beautiful creatures as much as the next man, but I won't be lending my arm to one. I prefer to have a beautiful woman there.
OLED has historically had a shorter life span, that's why it's taken so long to get to TV. I guess you're assuming the manufacturers are idiots and just released it when it wasn't ready for TV yet.
Screen burn is often lumped together when it exists in both a transitory and permanent state. OLED has no transitory 'burn'. Burn in only occurs after a very long time of the same image, which is unlikely in most usage scenarios, unlike plasma. OLED long term burn is the same issue as short life.
Terrible colour reproduction. Hmmmm... You know I feel more understanding of your point here. However it's the opposite way round. OLED has a wider colour gamut than any other consumer display technology. It's capable of showing richer colours. Sadly, this richer colour capability is often used without sufficient engineering thought or restraint, making images look "over colourful". To truly take advantage of a wider colour gamut, you need a colour gamut system (camera, format, post production and display) that is specced for it. I believe HDMI has some sort of support built into it for higher dynamic ranges.
OLEDs are thinner and could be cheaper than LCD, they are more capable in terms of colour gamut and they have outstanding contrast that beats plasma and LCD. Longevity is the issue that must be demonstrated to have been solved, but I'd be very surprised if the Industry have ignored it and just rolled it out with longevity problems like you suggest.
Not true, but they can burn in (so can LCDs if properly abused).
We use OLEDs now as broadcast monitors, and the grey tracking, contrast and stability are wonderful. Colour is slightly perplexing - for most purposes it looks neutral and controlled, but compared against a CRT or a plasma, there's a slight "thinness" that's difficult to define.
One thing that's uniquely problematic is colour shift off-axis. the Sony BVM and BVM OLEDs shift to cyan as you move out of the central 70 degrees, and these are 24" units. Curving a 55" OLED seems like a sensible way to try and tackle this shift.
I'd certainly be very keen to have a look at a 4K model, particularly now Panasonic has stooped plasma development (albeit with a wonderful final product).
Not at all, the screens are simply becoming more concave with time. Give it another couple of decades and we'll all have a cylindrical screen to sit inside (and shoot pretend bad guys from).
I was treated to a very quick go in a 360 degree Immersive Combat Environment chamber a while back - it was cool, very holodeck.
Well, there are some actual reviews coming in this time (like http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/samsung-kn55s9c/4505-6482_7-35823374.html), so this OLED TV is not vaporware any more like the other 55" OLED TVs demoed by LG and Samsung in the past few years have been. The previously largest consumer level OLED TV you could actually buy was the 15 inch LG a few years back, so this really is the first OLED TV in a usable size. Finally.
Oh, and according to the reviews it is the best picture quality TV yet, beating even the Kuros and Panasonic Plasmas by some amount. Not bad for a first generation product.
So the OLED TV is here at last, it's a big milestone. In three or four years time, as prices start to fall, it may even make some financial sense to buy one if you are interested in a high end TV set.
I remember seeing a big plasma widescreen for the first time back in the mid nineties. I think the asking price was about six thousand pounds, so these new-technology screens are nominally a comparable price, but taking inflation into account much cheaper. I won't be remotely surprised if they are available for a few hundred quid ten or fifteen years from now.