Analog/non-light displays

They do say that e-Ink displays are easier on the eye. To judge from the current market, we'll all get the chance to find out in the next few years or so.

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You can and SHOULD turn down the intensity of the TV screen to fit the environment in which you are watching it. That is if a human being were to stand besides the TV screen with an image of a humam on the screen, both should display similar intensity levels and skin tones.

But the fault is that of the user, wanting colors that are too saturated, too bright, and not at all realistick. All TVs that I have seen in the past 20 years come with a control unit tha allows the user to FIX the color should he not be so blind as he cannot correlate reality with TV.

Mitch

TVs are typically shipped with default display settings that are way too bright, over sharpened and too contrasty with posterised colours. That is apparently what the slimy marketeers have determined sells most kit!

I guess they have to be bright to look good in shop windows.

You can adjust these settings to get a sensible real looking default picture. A few of the newer ones now dynamically vary the back light brightness to enhance to total luminance range displayable and/or respond to changing ambient light levels automatically.

I can only agree with you. Some of the better LCD displays use IPS panels and they offer a noticeably wider colour gamut. The other advantage is that people can see the display with accurate colours from a wider range of viewing angles. I find this beneficial too.

Regards, Martin Brown

Bingo.

Last year, when I was TV shopping, I saw something which at least brings a ray of hope to the situation. A particular LCD TV's setup screen had a whole bunch of brightness-and-contrast choices: and one of them read something like "Store Demo". It was, if I recall correctly, the brightest and most garish of the lot.

I don't mind that a bright, competitive "store demo" setting be included... but it'd really be nice if it wasn't the default!

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Electro-mechanical puppets!

Only the story line needs to be sent. The computer works out all the motions.

I, for one, find it very hard to correlate reality with tv. It has nothing to do with the colours, or the display settings, though.

-- mrr

These days I find it very hard to correlate tv with entertainment. It's difficult to believe that anyone could watch most of the crap that's on.

For many years (decades now) I've maintained that the so-called "Neilson families", whose viewing habits largely determine US television programming, consist mainly of latch-key cats and unattended sets.

George

I was a 'Neilson family' for two years. I took it on as I saw it as my chance to make a difference. However, at the time I had a couch-potato flat mate who 'watched' 10x more TV than I did so in the end my input made little to no difference. :-(

Now that many, if not most, of us have digital cable boxes, I'm sure all that information is available with much finer detail and with much larger samples. For example, they might weight TVs that are switched between channels very infrequently less heavily, in the expectation that nobody is likely watching the screen.

I'm sure Yakov Smirnoff would have something pithy to say about this development.

Neilson always did that (counted channel switches and discounted static channel selections). You're right though, there is a *lot* more information available from set-top boxes, but there is a bias there, too. Satellite subscribers aren't counted and neither are the three OTA customers.

Does TV suck, or what?

TV sucked in the '60s. It's gone down hill since then. :(

I always associate Nielsen (the correct spelling) with a resuscitation procedure - which seems very appropriate for couch potatoes :-)

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

little

Yeah, I goofed the spelling. Apologies to Nielsen. No excuse but I do know someone whose name is "Neilson".

Anyway, my own family kept the diary for 3 months one summer, but we weren't asked to continue ... probably because our viewing habits (well written/acted dramas) were so far outside the norm of reality shows and idiot sitcoms.

George

I've read that it's likely to be the blue portion of the light that interferes with the sleep pattern.

Robert Miles

Yes, that's correct but that doesn't stop many companies from making alarm clocks now with bright blue LED backlight stuff. Had to tape over my display on a DAB clock radio because of that.

Or automobile manufacturers from using blue console lighting.

Completely off topic but,

I don't know about other people, but the stupid blue consoles hurt my eyes - even turned down to minimum intensity, at night I see after-images of the console when I look back to the road. I have excellent night vision but my eyes don't re-adjust quickly enough any more after looking at a light - I have trouble with oncoming headlights too even though I wear yellow lenses to drive.

I currently have an older car that has orange console lighting (turned to minimum intensity - other people get in my car and can barely see it) and I hate having to rent a car when I travel. I dread the day my car will eventually die because I don't know what to replace it with ... it seems that only some really expensive cars have orange (or adjustable color) console lighting - almost all mid-range American and Asian cars use blue - I've seen a handful of green but no red/orange among them. I've never seen any aftermarket kits to change the console lighting either.

We now return to the regularly scheduled discussion. George