Topic: The Future of Television

[Bonk]

With ongoing aspect ratio changes and no end to it in sight, this is how I expect TV to look in the future. (Right now I am looking at two crops, I have seen three deep and would not be surprised by four...) It won't be long until you need a twenty foot screen to show a two foot image. You know it's true.

[toasty0]

Before you know it we'll be back to 1.33:1 and raving about it.

[candle_86]

lol well yall can go to that, my TV is still a 4:3 and so is my computer screen. Cathoderay FTW

[Javora]

Cable and Dish companies have found out that people will pay a premium to watch TV show or movie that takes up the entire screen.  It's their new cash cow.

[candle_86]

unless that persion is me lol, I hate LCD and plasma, digital takes away, sutle but it takes away. I can see the color diffrence set an old cathodray tv next to a brand new 2000 dollar LCD the old CRT TV will have crisper more viberant colors and stronger and crisper lines. This is why I wont switch, when HDTV comes to CRT form maybe

[Voidwar]

CRT's pwn and flatscreens look like sh*t compared to them.

We all know this, with our eyes, and then some nerd quotes a stat, and we stop paying attention to the data our eyes are giving us, that the CRT presents a vastly better picture, at all angles.

[Corbomite]

I have an LCD and it looks awesome. You do have to sit right in front of it to get the best picture though. That part still needs work.

[Kreeargh]

unless that persion is me lol, I hate LCD and plasma, digital takes away, sutle but it takes away. I can see the color diffrence set an old cathodray tv next to a brand new 2000 dollar LCD the old CRT TV will have crisper more viberant colors and stronger and crisper lines. This is why I wont switch, when HDTV comes to CRT form maybe

The Days of the CRT are dead i belive. The industry/Govt wants us all to buy new crap to fit their agenda. Make a bigger profit with a lesser product while the other gets to spy on you.

[candle_86]

dead I think not, as long as TV repair shops have older techs working CRT will live. I have a 40in SONY TV, says HDTV as a matter of fact its from 1989 and has a minidin-15 port aka VGA port on it, supports 1600x1200 so I could run 720p easily on it, though 1080p escapes it, only downside is I have to use my computer to do it, but im not getting rid of that TV period, yes it takes 5 grown men to move it, and forget moving it up stairs, but I dont care.

[TAnimaL]

And I heard the Ford Model-T got better gas mileage than any car up til the 90s...

CRTs are the 8-tracks, Betamax, and Kodachrome of TV sets. You can curse them or revel in nostalgia, lament their passing or pi$$ on their graves, but don't kid yourselves, CRTs are on the way out. I'd treat that Sony of yours reaalll nicely, cause it won't last forever. And LCDs, plasmas are just going to get better, and be joined by OLED, LED, and somthing or another we haven't heard of yet...

Aspect ratio changes?? TV got it's 4x3 from 35mm and 16mm movies and that's been standard def. HD is taking the 16x9 from movies since the 70s...

you guys know that most TVs have a "format" button to resize the screen, right? 

[candle_86]

well because to go above 480 I have to hook it up to my computer and I can force any res at that point thats, 720p is just letterboxed on it lmao.

I got it from a High School that upgraded all of there TV's ect to LCD, this one had a sticker on it for computer lab, Im guessing it was used for help turtiouals or some other stuff ran on it, maybe to show a presentation to the class dunno, but I paid 80 bucks for it, cant beat that.

In my bed room is a 32in CRT TV sits on the dresser. And both of these sets have DirectTV on them, just the big one runs off my computer so the directTV comes into my TV input card after I pass it through a certain peice of hardware not 100 leagal i have on the coaxial line.

[Tus-XC]

CRT's pwn and flatscreens look like sh*t compared to them.

We all know this, with our eyes, and then some nerd quotes a stat, and we stop paying attention to the data our eyes are giving us, that the CRT presents a vastly better picture, at all angles.

LED tvs mate

[TAnimaL]

got a little education on "LED LCD" and "OLED" TVs today, and in the process learned about "Laser TV" - I just love the name...

LCD TVs have something akin to a compact flourescent to illuminate the screen; now there are "LED" Tvs which are LCDs with LED illumination - better than the CFL...

And then there's OLED or Organic Light Emitting Diode, which are even better but don't come much bigger than 11'' at the moment...

And there's LaserTV, which uses, yes, you guessed it, frickin' lasers. Supposed to be really nice, but don't come smaller than 63" right now. Mitsubishi has one for about $7000, and when you consider the cost per square inch.... hmm, do I really need a car?

[candle_86]

call me when we go back to shooting microwaves at a lead reinforce glass screen

[Bonk]

you guys know that most TVs have a "format" button to resize the screen, right? 

Windows media center has quite a few options for aspect ratio and zooming/cropping. However, none of them can cope well with material originally 16:9 cropped/letterboxed to fit 4:3, then displayed on 16:9. There seems to be quite a few permuations on how this occurs, but nothing can really be done about it by the viewer. I cannot change the format of the cable signal or air broadcasts provided to me.

Oh I get it, this is where the pay extra for fullscreen broadcasts comes in? No, I will not subscribe to digital cable services for $100 a month just to get to watch something in fullscreen. This is an obvious downgrading of the analog signal to try and sell the new services. There is no need of it. This kind of crap will kill television. I already pay the cable company $109 a month for an internet connection. Another $100 for TV? No way. Not going to happen.

[Javora]

Oh I get it, this is where the pay extra for fullscreen broadcasts comes in? No, I will not subscribe to digital cable services for $100 a month just to get to watch something in fullscreen. This is an obvious downgrading of the analog signal to try and sell the new services. There is no need of it. This kind of crap will kill television. I already pay the cable company $109 a month for an internet connection. Another $100 for TV? No way. Not going to happen.

I think the cable companies are underestimating streaming shows over the internet.  It's this kind of arrogance that IMHO will start to kill off cable TV.  The media outlets don't care and are tired of DVR's cutting the ads.

[Corbomite]

Apparently 3D is the future of TV:


http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/18/3D.home.television/index.html

[candle_86]

megavideo, tudu, and hulu are the future of TV

[Bonk]

OMFG...

21:9 

http://gizmodo.com/5628624/brighter-than-before-philips-3d-219-tv-does-films-justice

I may have to revise my diagram... I can easily see video screens in the future being many meters long still using only a portion of the display.

I think I might start designing a 40 foot 96:9 display now to handle the media of the future.

The film industry seems to think we see in a narrow band. While I agree that we are always looking through a frame of some kind, I don't think it is best represented as a horizontal slot. At least not for me.

Perhaps video display will become one dimensional in future? Just a single line of resolution. Do people really see that way? I don't.

[Bonk]

Related question. We are long past the x,y scan of the crt yet still design displays in a 2-d Cartesian fashion.

Why not other tessellation models for flat panel displays? Layers? A hex grid makes sense to me, and even an overall hexagonal display form factor. Though I  expect I am biased from gaming. Other more organic tessellations might make a lot more sense especially when it comes to video compression models and perception.

Initially the math would be more complex, but I think the potential gains are worth exploration. The texturers amongst our modelers might appreciate the concepts best.

[stoneyface]

3d tvs are not the future, they are a flash in the pan. they will not last.

as far as crt's thanks but i will skip the radiation shot into my brain thanks.

[Bonk]

Ya, I agree with the common assessment that 3d is generally dozy (cept some of those old video game arcade trick boxes).

The point of my posts in this thread is the constantly widening aspect ratio. I'm sure DieHard would have an appropriate analogy. It is friggin ridiculous.

21:9 !!!   They sold us on 16:9 as the be-all-end-all for ages... now it is not good enough? (not to mention that is never fits the screen anyway...)

I mentioned CRTs only as a historical note. The point there was xy coordinate systems versus different approaches to a 2d display array such as polar coorodnates... confocal ellispoidal coordinate systems or just different x-y tessellations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessellation

I'm not so sure the usual squares are necessarily the best approach. Let alone using a constant size for all of them.... could not some at the periphery be larger? etc...

I'm thinking about displays designed with video compression in mind - much as psychoacoustics plays a role in audio compression, but with video the final hardware for display could possibly play a role in data management. Though perhaps it is a bad idea to tie a data format to a display design? (perfect vendor lock-in model though - Apple would love it)

How about that guy that can see with his tongue?

(of course all this has equivalents in CCD design - I loved how these guys modeled the retina back in the nineties...) Bio-mimetics - why re-invent the wheel - let's just take nature's best designs and utilise them.

Like something like the inverse of this circular tessellation might make the most sense for CCD and display design: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Escher_Circle_Limit_III.jpg

Something mandala-ish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala). In the retina the structures are layered an all interconnected. I don't know about the 2-d layout though.

Ah, the hell with it, I should just buy a nice mandala, hang it on the wall and forget about ever buying a TV. (which I already have really) I like that idea.

[stoneyface]

the crt comment was more for the pro crt argument presented. i own widescreen monitors and have loved widescreen for a long time now. i hated pan and scan movies as that is not what i saw in the theater. i am a movie snob, admittedly, i watch LOTS of movies and hope to someday get on the voting staff for the oscars (just to have a level-headed voter and not some retard vote for the most popular) movies are shot in widescreen and that is how i want to see it. for me the black bars have never been an issue. back when a 19 inch tv was pretty standard for lower income people it might have been a problem, but now i have a 28 inch lcd and i love my widescreen. if you use vlc player you can fit the picture to the screen and change the aspect ratio to whatever you want. some people may not like the bars but i don't mind.

[marstone]

I find it kind of retarted, I have a widescreen tv, but have the blackbars.  isn't it the reason for the widescreen tv's so you can have a full picture?  Why isn't widescreen, actually in the right aspect for movies?  I have a nice widescreen sony, but unless I set it to stretch the movie out to fill it up I get black bars.  Not really what I was shooting for.

[stoneyface]

no the widescreen assures that you have the full picture side to side at 16:9
if you want the whole screen to be filled you can switch the resolution to 16:10

the 16:9 format is supposed to have the black bars on it

[Bonk]

the 16:9 format is supposed to have the black bars on it

 

[FoaS_XC]

ACK!

[Sirgod]

Heh, I canceled the HD part on my Directv today, as I could see no visible difference at all in the shows.

saved ten bucks, then spent another 30 to watch Blizzcon. :facepalm:

Stephen

[Bonk]

After having read several more 21:9  set reviews I have come to a realisation.

The ultimate display aspect ratio = 131480184:9

How did I arrive at that? 131480184 is the circumference of the earth in feet.

Two tricks to this idea, the aspect ratio at the top of the screen will be larger than that at the bottom. (bonus? projection calcs are gonna need mongo supercomputers - or we could lay it down flat to avoid this). The other trick is what content could fill a screen that circumscribes the earth? Four thousand different movies at once? No, no the directors will want this... you'll have to make an international phone call to a friend on the other side of the earth to find out what is happening on that area of the screen... the story... it could get complicated. And the areas in the mid-pacific... we'll have to send boats out to get that part of the story.

Just watch. It will happen. Distributed storytelling?  Lost 2.0?  

This is the tamest of my ideas this morning...  what about sound? Ranged FM transmitters? I wonder if either AM or FM transmitters on the same frequency with the right processing could be used so that a travelling receiver would reproduce the sounds as if ambient? (effectively summing the sources according to distance - all on the same frequency) What about stereoscopic receivers? The drive-in/thru of the future...

Actually, I think you could do some pretty wild stuff with that radio idea... modern participatory performance art kind of stuff... make it work on smartphones...