What are your thoughts on using a Curved LED LCD UHD TV

[nipzon]

I have three 27" Asus LED monitors running at 60Hz 5760x1080 and was wondering if the new curved quad core TV's will be an improvement?

The TV has the following specs

• Screen Size - 55"
• Resolution - 3,840 x 2,160
• Ultra Clear Panel - Yes

Video

• Picture Engine - Qudamatic
• Clear Motion Rate - 1,200
• Dynamic Contrast Ratio - Mega Contrast
• Micro Dimming - UHD Dimming
• Precision Black (Local Dimming) [1] - Yes
• Wide Colour Enhancer (Plus) - Yes
• Wide Color Gamut - Yes
• Colour Accuracy - Yes
• Auto Depth Enhancer - Yes
• Film Mode - Yes
• Natural Mode Support - Yes

 

[m00ndancer]

No it wont in terms of immersion and be able to look into each turn. Performance, maybe

 

[LeMansAid]

The only advantage I can see is black level. Even then, the local dimming needs to be well implemented, and the discrepancy between number of backlight zones and pixels is even greater with a UHD display. "Blooming" being the issue there. You would be sacrificing in terms of response time, latency, and lateral screen real estate. It's not worth it.

Now if you were proposing a three for three swap, you'd maybe have a more involved decision process on your hands.

 

[nipzon]

Thanks for the response guys.

Unfortunately I will only be able to affort one Tv and not three. Was thinking that a curved would give me the surround of the triples but the TV curvature is not the same. Two might do it but I will have a bezel in the centre of my view.

 

[LeMansAid]

Thanks for the response guys.

Unfortunately I will only be able to affort one Tv and not three. Was thinking that a curved would give me the surround of the triples but the TV curvature is not the same. Two might do it but I will have a bezel in the centre of my view.

Or only drive ovals, and stick to the outside. Then you can have one screen centred, and one for your view of the inside.

What you've got at the moment is great, so spend your money elsewhere. Computers need upgrading far too often for instance.

 

[oqvist]

Larger monitors is more immersive. a 55" is like 4 27" monitors approx. However you won´t get 4K resolution at anything other then 24hz so I don´t think it would work that well. You would be better off getting a 1080p TV for the gaming part. Curved monitors can give an illusion of debth it would be fun to try.

I run a 50" 1080p TV. Sony W6 because it has the lowest input lag available for tvs. I have had it on my cockpit about 1 metre distance. Very immersive but the tallness of it make it sit to high which causes stiff neck. I also get nausea from such a big screen and LCD blur. Or maybe it´s primarily the stiff neck that causes it. If you can mount it lower then your wheel deck it may work out better for you but there is a lot of screen estate and you get a huge cinema effect .

I used to have my 50" behind my cockpit and never had a problem with it there so moved it back now. Maybe about 2m viewing distance. Better distance for the resolution though you don´t get the windshield effect. Compromise as always.

If you don´t care about image quality triple monitors is not that expensive except on the GPU side. My budget tv cost 600Euro if I don´t recall wrong. You can get bad 27" monitors that somehow work for much less then that.

 

[TomBrady]

Larger monitors is more immersive. a 55" is like 4 27" monitors approx. However you won´t get 4K resolution at anything other then 24hz so I don´t think it would work that well. You would be better off getting a 1080p TV for the gaming part. Curved monitors can give an illusion of debth it would be fun to try.

I run a 50" 1080p TV. Sony W6 because it has the lowest input lag available for tvs. I have had it on my cockpit about 1 metre distance. Very immersive but the tallness of it make it sit to high which causes stiff neck. I also get nausea from such a big screen and LCD blur. Or maybe it´s primarily the stiff neck that causes it. If you can mount it lower then your wheel deck it may work out better for you but there is a lot of screen estate and you get a huge cinema effect .

I used to have my 50" behind my cockpit and never had a problem with it there so moved it back now. Maybe about 2m viewing distance. Better distance for the resolution though you don´t get the windshield effect. Compromise as always.

If you don´t care about image quality triple monitors is not that expensive except on the GPU side. My budget tv cost 600Euro if I don´t recall wrong. You can get bad 27" monitors that somehow work for much less then that.

Not to mention Sony's are hands down the most reliable and in my opinion have one of if not the best picture quality as well.

If only there were more OLED TV's though because I can't say enough good things about the screen on the original PS Vita.

 

[Flying_Kefran]

I should have some new toys coming home this week-end

3 × 27 inches curved monitors.

There was a special offer in an online french store (3rd monitor for free) so I could not resist .

It is 1080p but from my perspective I do not need 4k considering PS3, PS4/One and even PC (3×1080p already requires enough GPU power !).

I will report after testing if curved screens bring some benefits... but I am already sure it does in a 3-screen set-up as it allows to get rid of the angle between center screen and side ones.

 

[nipzon]

That is exactly what I had in mind and it looks amazing and 27" is just the right size too. Performance wise we probably know what they are going to be like but the emersion factor should be so much greater.

Let us know what it feels like.

 

[LeMansAid]

Bit of a tragedy that oled monitors are still pretty much non-existent. Would be nice to have three oleds with variable flex, and have them hopefully on a tighter and still persistent arc. True black in the cockpit and for night races would be amazing also.

 

[Flying_Kefran]

Screens received

It seems very nice ... This will require a lot of testing

Most impressive is that from any position the image is nice to look at. There is not anymore an exact position to calculate taking into consideration screen angles and distance from eyes to center screen. Sweet.

 

[Flying_Kefran]

.

 

[Flying_Kefran]

After some hours of testing I have some first feedbacks:


1/ On a 3 curved screens set-up in general


First of all: I made all tests positionning the screens so that the curve is regular over the 3 displays. I consider it is how all this will work best.

As I expected, getting rid of the angle between centre screen and side ones makes everything very natural.
I think it is the key point: you face a 48/9 format image and not anymore a 3*16/9 structure. Therefore, and it may seem strange, but in a way the image seems more "flat" than on flat displays !

Driving games test:
The magic works perfectly. It is impressive to see how quickly you feel that playing this way is the normal way.
I started my tests with Grid Autosport (PC) and the time required to get used to the new screen configuration was exactly 0 seconds: It is crazy how looking at the road and opponents on those 3 curved screens is natural.
Can't wait to do a full race !

FPS games test:
I do not play FPS but I had Crysis 2 on my PC so I gave it a try.
I had a different feeling with this game: It was somehow more impressive when you sit in front of the screens for the first time than driving games. I think these games will work very well to impress visitors.

Third person action games test:
I tested the assassin's creed series and again the result was amazing. In those games you spend a lot of time looking at side monitors so you really benefit from the smooth visual transition between center screen and side ones.


I am really pleased with the improvement compared to my previous set of screens. I do not like curved TVs for watching movies and even playing games but 3 curved screens positionned correctly is a different story. :-)


2/ The screens I used

The screens I have are the Samsung S27D590C (sometimes referenced S27D590CS).

- They have really good viewing angles thanks to the VA technology. This is very nice for multi-monitior set-ups.
- Input lag is reasonnable (less than 15 ms - data from tests I read), even when not using the game mode.
- Good reactivity: Not measured as good as pure gaming monitors... but I barely noticed a difference moving from my previous 1ms display to these s27D590C (after tuning)
- Contrast after tuning is above 1000:1 (again, not measured by me); This is decent for a gaming monitor but far from what you get on the best TVs. Brightness can go up to 350 cd/m2 (you will prefer the 120-180 range) so the issue is in the black levels. In my opinion, the perceived contrast is good for a PC display once tuning has been done. Some user reviews advise to use the "game mode" to feel a better contrast but it comes at the price of excessive sharpness and other issues so I would not recommend it.
- Screen Homogeneity is very good from a multi-monitor stand point: right and left of the screens have very similar colors and brightness so nothing seems strange when you put screens side by side. It is more important than what one could think at first: I have had 3 ASUS VG248QE in the past: they are very good gaming screens but colors tend to be slightly diffrerent on right and left sides so multi-monitor use is far from ideal.
- Bezels are quite thin: to compensate borders on PC, I had to add 124 "hidden pixels" for 4 bezels. Normal thin bezel monitors would be at around 200... but the best screen from this perspective is the Dell U2414H where bezel cover 50-60 pixels in total.
- It has a Displayport and 1 hdmi input (and a VGA...)
- It is only slightly curved, much less than the samsung curved 4K TVs. One could be disappointed... but once you are in front of the screen, it also works more than you would expect. This being said, considering the price premium, I am not sure I would recommend it for a single screen usage, it is in 3-screen configuration that the magic appears.
- For a PC gaming use, the screen misses the 2014-2015 fancy features: 120 or 144 refresh rate, 1440p, nvidia G-Sync or AMD FreeSync... but for a mix multi-monitor use with PC/consoles, it is less an issue (you prefer 1080p in that case and features like G-sync would likely make the screen not compatible with PS/Xbox anymore)

So this is a very good screen for mix usage. It would have been ideal with state of the art thin bezels, 120Hz and additional HDMI or DVI inputs.

 

[oqvist]

Nice review. Do you find the blacks washed out a bit on the side monitors. VA you need to sit in front of to getting full benefit of the better black levels over IPS.

And would you feel more curvature would work even better?

 

[Flying_Kefran]

Image quality when not in front of the screens has globally surprised me positively.
I would say that "side blacks" are satisfactory so far and much better than on my 21/9 IPS screen (Dell U2913WM) for sure. I have not done specific tests (I need to test in dark situations like night racing in GT6). It is something it will try.

For curvature, there are two ways to see it:
- When you look at the S27D590C the first time, you could even miss that it is curved ! I was expecting more.
- In game, with 3 displays, it works very well. At least as I was expecting.

So I would say that there is margin to increase curvature a bit... if does not come at the price of picture quality. Especially in 1-monitor situation, the current curvature can be a bit disppointing.

But for multi-monitor gaming, if I could change something it would be the bezels in priority: they are thin but some screens do better (the Dell U2414H I mentioned already or the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q): It would make the viwing transition between screens even better.

 

[Blood*Specter]

The curved screen in 65 inch setup is tailor made for racing/flight sims. If you don't have the cash for three monitors and dual GPU for SLI the curved screen is the ticket. I think the overall viewing pleasure for movies is up to where in the room you have to sit. But dedicated to a racing game cant help but to be very good. I saw one hooked to Forza in the Navy Exchange. Worth a look.