Which technology will become a must-have in the future of see-through television?

Although television is a traditional technology product, its innovation and evolution as well as its role as an indispensable part of the big screen in the home will ensure that it will always have a place in the future smart home war among major companies. Therefore, its position at CES is still very important. Television production has always been a challenging industry.

Which technology will become a must-have in the future of see-through television?

Although television is a traditional technology product, its innovation and evolution as well as its role as an indispensable part of the home screen will ensure that it will always have a place in the future smart home war among major companies. Therefore, its position at CES is still very important. Television production has always been a challenging industry. So far, there are only a handful of television brands that can last for a long time, such as Samsung, LG and Sony.

In recent years, Sony has significantly reduced its product line and divested its TV business, showing a downward trend. Sharp's market appeal seems to be less than before, but despite this, OLED, quantum dots, ULED, laser cinema, naked-eye 3D and other technologies are still emerging in the TV industry, innovation has never stopped, and the competition in TV technology is intensifying. So what will be the trend of TV industry technology in 2016?

HDR technology may become a new focus in the future

A major trend in future TV technology is HDR technology, which stands for High Dynamic Range technology. It can play videos recorded by HDR devices. Previously, the industry believed that this technology would be more widely used in the field of photography. However, the actual situation is not as the industry envisions. From CES2016, we can see that LG, Samsung, Sony, as well as domestic Changhong, Skyworth, and Hisense have launched products that support HDR. Why do manufacturers attach so much importance to HDR? Is the display effect of TVs that support HDR definitely better than ordinary TVs?

In the past few years, TV resolution has increased from 2K to 4K and 8K, but due to the lack of content sources and supporting transmission and storage devices, the simple resolution increase has not effectively improved the visual experience of TV. HDR technology has overcome this difficulty. For example, this technology can improve the brightness of the screen and the contrast between the brightest and darkest pictures, achieve and obtain a wider color range, improve the picture quality on the existing screen, and provide a brighter, clearer and more realistic visual experience than previous products.

Therefore, its significance lies in determining the industry standard with picture quality as the core. At present, both the OLED TV camp and the LCD TV camp are beginning to move closer to this standard. Samsung's new SUHD TV launched at CES has a brightness of 1000nit because it supports HDR.

Curved screen technology becomes popular and may explode

There is another key technology in the field of television that has attracted much attention, namely the "curved screen". With the maturity of technology and the intensification of market competition, the cost-effectiveness and user experience advantages of curved TVs have begun to emerge. Compared with flat screens, curved screens are closer to the imaging principle of the human eye. The image projected onto the retina is itself curved. In the past, flat screens often produced local deformation when projected onto the retina. The design of the curved screen is closer to the visual imaging of the projected image, and the physical curvature of the screen can bring a better sense of presence.

Currently, traditional manufacturers such as Samsung, TCL, and Hisense are all working hard on research and development in the field of curved TVs. As early as 2014, Samsung began to promote curved screen TVs. According to Samsung's data, about half of the 4K TVs sold last year used curved screens. LG and Hisense have also launched their own curved screen TVs. In the eyes of Samsung Electronics, the curve brings not only a change in appearance, but also a new visual subversive experience.

Unlike the evolution of HDR in picture optimization technology, curved screens are innovative technologies in screen hardware, which is also a special technology possessed by a few manufacturers such as Samsung that have the ability to mass-produce curved screens. At the CES International Consumer Electronics Show, Samsung brought SUHD TVs that retained the curved 4K screen. The highlight of Samsung's curved TV is that in addition to the curved screen design, it also added optimization technologies such as HDR, Nano Crystal Color, and the latest Tizen TV system. At present, the visual improvements brought by the curved screen have also caused many doubts, but from the perspective of a wider range of vision, excellent contrast, immersive experience, and a more realistic picture experience, the design of the curved screen is undoubtedly more user-friendly.

Relevant data show that by the end of 2015, the penetration rate of curved TVs equipped with the most advanced technology, high standards and high configurations by major color TV manufacturers such as Samsung, Hisense and TCL reached 25.6% of the total market size in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and the penetration rate of 65 inches and above has exceeded 50%, and Samsung's curved TV has reached 74%, and will continue to show a trend of gradual expansion in 2016. It can be seen from the fact that domestic TCL, overseas Samsung, Sony and other TV companies have launched products with curved screens that curved TVs may become the darling of home appliance stores in the future.

Major color TV manufacturers seek transformation and breakthrough

The TV industry was not doing well in 2015. With the rapid rise of Internet TV, industry bottlenecks emerged. Major color TV manufacturers are also seeking transformation and breakthroughs, hoping to break through single-point technology breakthroughs, carve out a path, and open up sales. Among the competition of many display technologies, OLED is also favored by more and more people. Due to its self-luminous properties, OLED is considered to have excellent black levels, higher color accuracy, and wider color gamut that are difficult to match with LCDs. It has become the standard for high-end displays and is generally favored by the industry. Many panel manufacturers have invested large sums of money in research and development and laid product lines. For example, LG Display, a Korean panel manufacturer of OLED technology, has joined forces with nearly 30 upstream and downstream industry chains and research institutions in the color TV industry, including LG Electronics, Skyworth, Konka, Changhong, Haier, Suning, and Gome, to create the "OLED market camp expansion".

Many OLED TVs have already emerged. In 2015, two domestic industry giants, Skyworth and Konka, took the lead in announcing that they would start or would soon mass-produce 4K OLED TVs. LG Electronics exhibited its latest flagship 4K OLED TV supporting HDR function at CES 2016, and Panasonic also exhibited its first OLED TV at IFA. In addition, there are also reports that LG Display plans to invest $8.7 billion to build the world's largest OLED R&D plant and increase the size of OLED screens. Data shows that compared with the price range of 50,000 to 60,000 yuan a few years ago, the price of domestic large-size 4K OLED TVs is already within 30,000 yuan. But in general, the price is still high.

Liquid crystal technology is still the mainstream at present, and it is constantly evolving. For example, compared with LED backlight, the quantum dot image quality engine can maximize the color expression of the high color gamut screen, restore the source color, and effectively reduce excessive blue light, making the picture more delicate and richer in layers. Therefore, quantum dot technology is an important manifestation of the progress of liquid crystal display.

Quantum dot technology is close to reality and may explode

Quantum dots are a hot technology supported by many manufacturers. The reason why quantum dot technology may become a major development trend in the future is that it uses a new backlight technology to solve the problem of low color gamut of TV display. In terms of color gamut coverage, color control accuracy, red, green and blue color purity, it even surpasses OLED TV to some extent. For example, Sony's Triluminous and LG's Prime UHD. Domestic manufacturers such as TCL and Changhong Konka have also launched their own quantum dot technology.

As early as early January 2015, Samsung launched a series of televisions called SUHD TV at the CES Consumer Electronics Show in the United States. Samsung has applied this technology to its flagship SUHD TV product line. Samsung SUHD TV made its debut again at this year's CES. The highlight of SUHD is that the quantum dot material is environmentally friendly and does not contain cadmium, which is truly environmentally friendly. The technology comes from Nanosys, one of the three giants of quantum dots. Samsung SUHD TV uses a 10-bit quantum dot display with a brightness of 1000 nits, and the picture quality is more realistic. When many TV manufacturers have invested in research and development on OLED TVs but have never made a breakthrough, quantum dot technology has allowed people to see the future.

Industry insiders initially expected that only a few quantum dot TVs would be launched at this year's CES, but products from LG and Samsung have proven the feasibility of this technology, which means that quantum dot technology will be scaled up or led by TV giants, and this technology will become a future development trend in the TV field.

We can see the future technological development trends of the TV industry from the flagship products. To sum up, in 2015, the entire TV market will still be a diversified landscape with the coexistence of 4K, OLED, curved, ultra-thin, HDR, quantum dots, laser TV and other product technologies. Looking at the trend of the entire TV industry in 2016 from CES, we can see that quantum dot technology may explode, curved screens are still the highlight, and OLED has not made any substantial breakthroughs.

After curved screens gradually became popular, leading companies such as Samsung and LG have started to play with frameless curved screens. Frameless screens have a futuristic feel, users are more focused on the screen content, and the products will appear more elegant and high-end. Although curved screens are being mastered by more manufacturers, frameless curved screens may become another major trend. From external storage to today's built-in operating systems, subsequent intelligent interactive interfaces may also develop rapidly.

In general, brighter and clearer, more colorful, thinner, more curved, and smarter are the hot spots that will become the popular elements of future TV technology. High brightness, highly vivid picture quality, sharp and layered contrast, thinness, and intelligence are the elements that determine the future of TV technology. At present, the OLED era has not really arrived, and quantum dot technology has become the most powerful competitor of OLED. It maintains the advantages of low cost and color gamut coverage of LCD screens. 2016 may be the year of the decisive battle between quantum dot technology and OLED. From the current stage, quantum dot technology may still represent the future development trend of TV technology.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.