By: Erin Pesut
Men and television, they go together like trout streams and dry-flies. Cold beer and Friday night. Marvel and Captain America. Chicken wings and bleu cheese. Ketchup and mustard. Hamburgers and hotdogs. You get the picture. Here is the latest buzz in man versus TV technology.
4K Ultra HD TVs: These bad boys boast four times the resolution of a 1080p HD TV. Due to increased pixel density, even if you sit real close (go ahead, try it...), the image won’t be blurry. The stunning resolution makes a difference. The only downside is the price tag.
HDR: This stands for High Dynamic Range, but don’t confuse it with the HDR function on your phone, which takes multiple shots and combines them into a single well-balanced photo. HDR is the latest in 4K TV technology and the picture is better, brighter and more realistic. The blacks are deeper and darker and other colors glow. It makes images seem ultra-real.
Curved TVs: With these, viewers feel immersed; instead of “watching,” you’re “surrounded.” A curved screen tracks the edge of your eyes so images are crisper. The picture has more depth, and it may even feel 3D. Usually, if you’re not directly opposite the screen, colors lose saturation. Not with curved TVs. Everything keeps its color from any angle.
OLED TVs: This is the holy grail of TV technology. OLED stands for organic light-emitting
diode. These flaunt best picture quality among flat-panel and curved displays. When the pixels shut off, it is “a perfect black.” When it’s color, it’s vivid color.
3D TVs: These sets convey depth perception. They come with 3D glasses or, otherwise, some sets might be autostereoscopic (“3D glassesless”).
Quantum Dot: Quantum Dot is the next best thing in TV and its goal is aiming for higher quality and a cheaper price, compared, at least, to OLED sets. Quantum dot enhances the color. Diffused light is beamed through a polarized filter. Photons hit a layer of liquid crystals that then pass through a colored filter, creating subpixels. Subpixels with electrical charges create blends of finely-tuned, crisp colored light.
TV Equation: Want to know your ideal screen size for any room? Multiply the distance that you intend to sit away from it by 0.535 and round this up to the nearest size.
