TV

There is pessimism, then there is reality. This is the latter. I dream of a revitalized television experience, I’d pay top dollar for it, and I think it will happen… eventually. The major technology media outlets have taken hold of this idea and run with it far beyond reason. You’ve got business men and women theorizing and then just assuming “the engineers will figure out the details.” 

Consider this: the engineering side of it has been figured out for a while - brilliant smooth UIs, voice control, motion sensors, Bluetooth remotes, unified search, all of these exist today. That isn’t the problem. There are two major issues where the tech media has praised solutions yet I strongly disagree with their viability; when I say “major” I mean fundamentally damning to the entire notion.

There has been a lot of 4K news at CES, no surprise there. Computer monitors make sense and a 4K computer monitor should excite anyone who uses desktop monitors. 

TVs are a different story. When talking TVs, the important thing to remember is that you don’t sit nearly as close to them. When you sit farther back, even the most perfect human eye can only differentiate a certain level of detail. Read more here. Here’s the quick version; this diagram shows you the screen size versus viewing distance chart and shows at which range a given resolution is actually valuable.