Curved TV's?

octatonic

I'm looking at buying a new TV, as ours is 1080i and massive considering its resolution.

Pretty much everything in the mid range and up seems to be curved, especially the Samsung ones.

It doesn't seem possible to buy a flat Samsung with the fastest processor- you have to go curved.

Anyone got one?

Is it a gimmick?

Do they work?

I'm not against a gimmick per se, but don't want to end up living with the modern equivalent of beta-max.

Myranda

How big are you looking at?

What resolution are you looking at?

How big is the room?

Do you need the one with the fastest processor? Looking at Smart TVs?

Curved screens are useful because LCD screens sometimes look worse at anything other than 90degree angles... some things like IPS & AHVA (not AMVA) make viewing angles significantly betterer but they have their own drawbacks - like not very fast (and ignore the "you can't see more than 30 frames so why do you need better than 30hz thing", it's much more complicated than that). So with really massive TVs unless it's curved the edges will look different to the centre - that's why the first curved screens were at the 100" mark.

Now a curved screen is never going to be incompatible - like Beta-max, but there are situations where it's not going to make a difference. OLED screens of say 40" at 20' away would be better flat - they don't have the viewing angle issue and at that distance with that size the difference in angle between the centre and edge isn't sufficient to warrant a curve even if you did have LCD. So usage requirements and desires are important in advising you.

LCD screens are not all created equal either so an idea of your budget might help

rsvmark

I bought a 1080 smart TV a year ago. Great picture etc. Went into Costco last week and these 4g (?) curved tv's are AMAZING..... But I'd would think they are only good on demo mode or with a bone fide 4g av source. As far as I know there is very limited sources of that kind of signal- (Amazon prime?) or a few blurays only. Equally there was a huge Panasonic for £599 at 'normal' 1080 HD. Personally I would wait a few years until the quality of the source signal catches up with the display.....

Oops, sorry misread the op. If you have 1080, what size is the screen? 

Myranda

rsvmark said:

I bought a 1080 smart TV a year ago. Great picture etc. Went into Costco last week and these 4g (?) curved tv's are AMAZING..... But I'd would think they are only good on demo mode or with a bone fide 4g av source. As far as I know there is very limited sources of that kind of signal- (Amazon prime?) or a few blurays only. Equally there was a huge Panasonic for £599 at 'normal' 1080 HD. Personally I would wait a few years until the quality of the source signal catches up with the display.....

Oops, sorry misread the op. If you have 1080, what size is the screen? 

Psst. 4K ... also there are several distinctions of HD: HD ready or 720p, FullHD or 1080p, and QuadHD (mainly PC monitors) 1440p and UltraHD 2160p. Technically speaking that means he doesn't have an HD television as it's not one of the HD set definitions 1080i is not the same as 1080p.

As for 4K sources - Netflix, Amazon and Youtube all have 4K footage which makes a big collection to begin with, but you're right. As yet there's little native 4K material. There are also a lot of poor quality 4K panels out there in what seem like well priced TVs brining the prices over-all down (good) but will leave much to be desired next to a better one (bad).

octatonic

Myranda said:

How big are you looking at?

What resolution are you looking at?

How big is the room?

Do you need the one with the fastest processor? Looking at Smart TVs?

Curved screens are useful because LCD screens sometimes look worse at anything other than 90degree angles... some things like IPS & AHVA (not AMVA) make viewing angles significantly betterer but they have their own drawbacks - like not very fast (and ignore the "you can't see more than 30 frames so why do you need better than 30hz thing", it's much more complicated than that). So with really massive TVs unless it's curved the edges will look different to the centre - that's why the first curved screens were at the 100" mark.

Now a curved screen is never going to be incompatible - like Beta-max, but there are situations where it's not going to make a difference. OLED screens of say 40" at 20' away would be better flat - they don't have the viewing angle issue and at that distance with that size the difference in angle between the centre and edge isn't sufficient to warrant a curve even if you did have LCD. So usage requirements and desires are important in advising you.

LCD screens are not all created equal either so an idea of your budget might help

We want to have TV in two room, one dedicated TV/cinema room.

It is 16' x 14'.

I was going to put a 55" tv in that- for watching movies and box sets, especially in winter.

I want 4k and looking at a smart TV.

The other room is what we call the 'sun room'- it is 24' x 18' but also has a dining area too. 

It is where we'll spend most of our summers as it opens up completely to a patio.

That will be more for news and the odd tv show, rather than movies.

We don't need quite so big a TV there, I was thinking about a non 4k 40" full HD (so 1080p I guess).

I was thinking about spending up to £2k on the cinema room and under 1k for the sun room.

octatonic

rsvmark said:

I bought a 1080 smart TV a year ago. Great picture etc. Went into Costco last week and these 4g (?) curved tv's are AMAZING..... But I'd would think they are only good on demo mode or with a bone fide 4g av source. As far as I know there is very limited sources of that kind of signal- (Amazon prime?) or a few blurays only. Equally there was a huge Panasonic for £599 at 'normal' 1080 HD. Personally I would wait a few years until the quality of the source signal catches up with the display.....

Oops, sorry misread the op. If you have 1080, what size is the screen? 

It is an 8 year old Phillips 42".

It was relatively cheap at the time- I am definitely getting rid of it, probably trading it in at Richer Sounds as they will give me £250 off a new one.

rsvmark

@myranda psst- sorry: I knew it was 4 something but too much Bombay sapphire this evening but don't tell anyone! Thanks for the heads up. As someone who spent £3.5k on an original plasma screen I acknowledge my mistake was to buy a fuck off TV without quality source material. It's now junk. lesson learned

Myranda

octatonic said:

Myranda said:

How big are you looking at?

What resolution are you looking at?

How big is the room?

Do you need the one with the fastest processor? Looking at Smart TVs?

Curved screens are useful because LCD screens sometimes look worse at anything other than 90degree angles... some things like IPS & AHVA (not AMVA) make viewing angles significantly betterer but they have their own drawbacks - like not very fast (and ignore the "you can't see more than 30 frames so why do you need better than 30hz thing", it's much more complicated than that). So with really massive TVs unless it's curved the edges will look different to the centre - that's why the first curved screens were at the 100" mark.

Now a curved screen is never going to be incompatible - like Beta-max, but there are situations where it's not going to make a difference. OLED screens of say 40" at 20' away would be better flat - they don't have the viewing angle issue and at that distance with that size the difference in angle between the centre and edge isn't sufficient to warrant a curve even if you did have LCD. So usage requirements and desires are important in advising you.

LCD screens are not all created equal either so an idea of your budget might help

We want to have TV in two room, one dedicated TV/cinema room.

It is 16' x 14'.

I was going to put a 55" tv in that- for watching movies and box sets, especially in winter.

I want 4k and looking at a smart TV.

The other room is what we call the 'sun room'- it is 24' x 18' but also has a dining area too. 

It is where we'll spend most of our summers as it opens up completely to a patio.

That will be more for news and the odd tv show, rather than movies.

We don't need quite so big a TV there, I was thinking about a non 4k 40" full HD (so 1080p I guess).

I was thinking about spending up to £2k on the cinema room and under 1k for the sun room.

at 55" in the bigger room depending on placement between 5(ish) degrees and 27(ish) degrees off perpendicular according to my back-of-a-receipt maths. Personally I'd not advise sitting 30cm from a TV that size it would be uncomfortable (says me 60cm from a tripple monitor set up that's likely significantly wider. But at a reasonable distance (somewhere at a comfortable 3 and a bit meters ish) a curved screen will look good - ish.

There's a complication about where you both might be sat... and the distance within the room...

Speaking personally I'd go with a curved screen, and have it at least as close as you had the 42" screen or closer, so it will feel more like a cinema screen, though this depends on you both sitting fairly close. With the higher resolution you can sit significantly closer before making out pixels.

If you want to sit further back, then the curve wont make an awful lot of difference so if you can get a better flat 4K for the same money go with that.

So, in answer to your original question, it's somewhere between great and a gimmick 

octatonic

I guess we will be around 2.5m from the screen in the cinema room.

We'd be sitting pretty much dead on to it.

Myranda

octatonic said:

I guess we will be around 2.5m from the screen in the cinema room.

We'd be sitting pretty much dead on to it.

then big and flat means a reasonable delta between the edge and the centre... go with the curve

octatonic

Myranda said:

octatonic said:

I guess we will be around 2.5m from the screen in the cinema room.

We'd be sitting pretty much dead on to it.

then big and flat means a reasonable delta between the edge and the centre... go with the curve

Ok, cheers for the info.

I think I get it now.

holnrew

Do you want to buy me a TV too?

octatonic

holnrew said:

Do you want to buy me a TV too?

Let me think about it.

Bogwhoppit

holnrew said:

Do you want to buy me a TV too?

Ask Sting, he wanted a TV a few years ago, I should imagine he's got some spare these days..

stickyfiddle

Wis for @Myranda. We have a flat 55 and a friend has a 45 curved. I wouldn't want a curved one in the smaller size as it's really pointless, but for 55 or up curved is not unreasonable. Still slightly pointless imo but not a bad thing.

Axe_meister

Curved screens look ok when sitting Omar TV stand but very odd when wall mounted. Personally I'd go with a 1080p OLED TV. Even at 1080p to my eyes the picture quality looks much better.

Myranda

Axe_meister said:

Curved screens look ok when sitting Omar TV stand but very odd when wall mounted. Personally I'd go with a 1080p OLED TV. Even at 1080p to my eyes the picture quality looks much better.

Wait till you see a 4K OLED... Mind-blown!

Lodious

We have a Samsung 60" curved. We bought it a few months back and didn't bother with 4K as at normal viewing distance, it wasn't worth it (check out the viewing distance calculators on the net). My personal opinion is that the curved aspect is pretty much a non issue, it can stretch reflections, but I use the TV for watching films with the blinds closed anyway. I wouldn't go out of my way to get a curved screen, but it wouldn't put me off either.

Our's has significant backlight bleed, which is not ideal, but TBH, I just can't be arsed getting excited about it. I done the whole AVForums TV quality paranoia think to death, and I just can't be bothered any more.

I strongly believe that with all TV's, it's not the features which the TV has which are important, it's the flaws which nobody mentions which affect ownership enjoyment the most. With that in mind, buying from Costco and having the option to return with in 90 days is the way forward IMHO.

The image quality with the Samsung is really, really good, but like all modern TV's, the user settings are far more important then the differences between 1080/4K, OLED / LCD or curved / non curved.

boogieman

If you're going for a home cinema set up hopefully you're going for decent speakers or a soundbar too? Most of the TVs I've looked at have microscopic inbuilt speakers and they generally sound rubbish. The only exception I found was the high end Phillips range.

Myranda

Lodious said:

We have a Samsung 60" curved. We bought it a few months back and didn't bother with 4K as at normal viewing distance, it wasn't worth it (check out the viewing distance calculators on the net). My personal opinion is that the curved aspect is pretty much a non issue, it can stretch reflections, but I use the TV for watching films with the blinds closed anyway. I wouldn't go out of my way to get a curved screen, but it wouldn't put me off either.

Our's has significant backlight bleed, which is not ideal, but TBH, 

The image quality with the Samsung is really, really good, but like all modern TV's, the user settings are far more important then the differences between 1080/4K, OLED / LCD or curved / non curved.

So, the one criticism of your current TV you mention is the backlight bleed, but a technology that has no backlight, so no bleed isn't likely an improvement? Just some gimmick, far better to have have the ability to adjust the brightness one iota more (and ... OLED TVs also have user settings - crazy I know)

See... this is something I've noticed more and more lately.

Sure, audiophiles think that the price of a cable changes the quality of the music it's transmitting, or a mahogany volume knob will smooth out imperfections in the metadata... but there's a flip-side: Ludditism is on the rise. I can't see the point in 4K - looks the same to me, oh sure there's better picture/colour/backlighting/viewing angels on OLED, but that doesn't make up for the volume only being adjustable in 100 steps...

4K IS better quality than 1080p. You could have a bigger screen the same distance away, or the same sized one closer, filling more of your field of vision (like a miniature IMAX in your home) without limiting the quality.

OLED is brighter, more colourful and has better viewing angels than LCD

These are not esoteric subtleties they're observable provable facts. User settings and features are secondary - because you can have a good screen AND good controls (they're not mutually exclusive), but you can't watch a movie on the menu.

I also don't think users should be allowed the option of fiddling with settings - we all have friends who have set their TV with reds so intense they cause 3rd degree burns, and if you offer to fix their apparently broken TV tell you that is how they like it even though everyone on the screen looks like they have severe sunburn AND highblood pressure... factory calibration should be standard and buttons should only be there to account for different ambient lighting conditions.

octatonic

I've decided to get the Samsung UE55JS8500.

I tried getting last years model (the HU) but they are all sold out now, only floor stock remaining.

Found a place that does them for £1770 shipped, everywhere else (including Richer Sounds) has them for £2200.