Samsung Brings Curved Screens To The Living Room With New HDTVs
Leveraging Quantum-Dot technology, Samsung is introducing three new Ultra HD televisions and ushering in a new term – SUHD (Super Ultra HD?). First up is the UN65JS9500.
This 65-inch curved display uses a Quantum Dot layer for greater dynamic range and a wider color gamut. With a 10-bit signal path for fewer banding artifacts, the JS9500 covers 92 percent of the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) color gamut. Considering OLED panels can only render 85 percent of DCI, this is a major breakthrough in gamut size when compared to other flat-panel technologies. Hopefully, there will be a Rec.709 color preset to match all currently available content. DCI hasn't made it beyond the commercial cinema yet, so it's important for wide-gamut displays to support today's standards as well as tomorrow's.
We've been following the Quantum Dot story for quite a while now, and this is the first time we've seen the tech used in a shipping product. Quantum Dots are self-illuminating like the phosphors on a CRT or the cells in a plasma panel. Their big advantage over plasma is that they can be turned completely off (like OLED) resulting in a potentially infinite contrast ratio. Poor dynamic range has always been the bane of LCD panels which to this day lag far behind legacy CRT screens and now-dead plasma technology. OLED has held promise for years, but poor manufacturing yields have priced it out of most consumers' budgets.
We don't know what the future holds for Quantum Dots, but hopefully, it means we will be seeing more colors and better contrast in televisions (and monitors) from all manufacturers.
The UN65JS9500 will be available in Q1 2015 at an as-yet undisclosed price.
For one-percenters looking for their next great conversation piece, we present the UN105S9B.
This 105-inch panel comes in a 21:9 aspect ratio, uses the same Quantum Dot technology we spoke of above and get this – it's bendable. You can control the curvature to your liking by simply pressing a button on the remote. A special high-torque gearbox automatically expands or contract a sliding panel to keep the picture uniform even during the bending process.
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Samsung has not announced a ship date, and you can be sure the price will exceed that of most automobiles.
Making do with just a plain-old LCD/LED panel is the UN78JU7500 Ultra HD TV.
This 78-inch curved display sports 3840 x 2160 resolution with a curvature radius of 4200 mm to help increase the viewer's sense of immersion. You also get 3D capability and a new faster quad-core processor to manage the SmartTV streaming and app functions. The panel runs at a native refresh rate of 240 Hz which helps to reduce motion-blur and offers maximum flexibility when processing different film and video framerates. Also included is Samsung's Clear Motion. This technology employs black frame insertion and backlight scanning to reduce motion blur even further.
Samsung did not provide any ship date or pricing information by press time.
Christian Eberle is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He's a veteran reviewer of A/V equipment, specializing in monitors. Christian began his obsession with tech when he built his first PC in 1991, a 286 running DOS 3.0 at a blazing 12MHz. In 2006, he undertook training from the Imaging Science Foundation in video calibration and testing and thus started a passion for precise imaging that persists to this day. He is also a professional musician with a degree from the New England Conservatory as a classical bassoonist which he used to good effect as a performer with the West Point Army Band from 1987 to 2013. He enjoys watching movies and listening to high-end audio in his custom-built home theater and can be seen riding trails near his home on a race-ready ICE VTX recumbent trike. Christian enjoys the endless summer in Florida where he lives with his wife and Chihuahua and plays with orchestras around the state.
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damianrobertjones What EXACTLY does a curved screen give you? I'm struggling to find any SOLID evidence despite being told that they're awesome and that I need one.Reply
Usual marketing rubbish -
clonazepam ReplyWhat EXACTLY does a curved screen give you? I'm struggling to find any SOLID evidence despite being told that they're awesome and that I need one.
Usual marketing rubbish
With 27", I do struggle slightly to read text in chat windows that are off to the sides. With a curved screen, the information on the edges has less distortion. The amount of distortion from the viewing angle was so slight to begin with, that only marketing could make it sound really bad. The same applies at any screen size. It's a HUGE problem if you are in marketing hehe -
Innocent_Bystander I see no point in curved screens beyond traditional cinemas. I don't think Quantum Dot or OLED really need that feature to sell. They should be able to stand on their own just by their contrast ratios and color gamuts.Reply
Selling TV's these days is a tough marketing jog indeed. -
crystaldragon141 The Kindle Fire HDX 7" uses quantum dots. The 8.9" uses a LTPS screen as does the 2nd gen Nexus 7 released about the same time.Reply -
crystaldragon141 In response to damian^ (cause I can't get the flipping quote to work). The real benefit to curved displays is that when you are at the epicenter of the arc the screen is equidistant from your eye at all positions. This means greater immersion and more importantly better peripheral vision and reduced eye fatigue. Personally I don't see the benefit of curved TV screens. However give me a 21:9 34" screen for my computer and sign me up (if only I was rich ;P). At close distances the curve is much more relevant than at far.Reply -
fuzzion Curved screens are most beneficial when they comprise of a 120 degrees view from the person standing in front of the screen.Reply
9 feet screen standing from a 6 feet distance is good.