#109 – Size

I really thought that by now everyone would have an entire blank wall dedicated to being a TV screen by now. That’s what all the 1980’s Sci-Fi movies taught me. I had no idea that what would really happen is we would all get individual tiny screens to look at. I guess the Nintendo Game Boy was the real future predictor we should have seen coming.

Also, Hugs Bison shirts are back in stock!

Tags: , ,

13 thoughts on “#109 – Size”

  1. Chuck says:

    I think the problem with a full wall TV is that you would have to sit really far back in order to enjoy it, and most houses are just not big enough for that. Still the TV in my living room is friggin huge. It took me a week before I could watch without feeling sick.

    1. samuel says:

      Well in my future the giant screen would orient the image to the viewers, to give a true 3D view and to allow a comfortable view any distance from the TV

    2. Octothorpe says:

      Haha, that reminds me of this one house. It was a relatively small house, but when I looked through the window, there was a HUGE TV in it. What the heck was the guy thinking when he bought it. I can just imagine that family scrunching against the opposing wall to see everything on that TV.

  2. Kree says:

    You mean like the one in Barney’s apartment? 😛

    I’ve got a cheap second hand projector stashed away that we used to set up for watching movies on a blank wall. After investing in a moderately-sized widescreen TV, I’m suddenly not all that interested in setting up the projector to watch stuff on a whole wall anymore.

  3. kingklash says:

    So Wierd Al should have been singing about Frank’s 2 1/2-inch TV?

    1. Chris says:

      Hahaha!

  4. R. E. Hunter says:

    They’re getting pretty close to wall size, if you can afford it:

    Panasonic’s 152-Inch 3D Plasma the Biggest TV Yet

    1. Chris says:

      Crazy!

  5. Extraneous says:

    New Scientist mentioned some broject being undergone where you have what is essentially a massive computer screen, except the things you want to look at follow your gaze. Sounds pretty handy to me.

  6. spidercow says:

    I watched a documentary on netflix about new technologies and stuff, and one of the things they talked about was a portable projector thingy hooked up to a webcam that was connected to a laptop computer carried inside a backpack or something. The projector would show what was on the laptop screen, even if it was closed, and the webcam had some kind of software that let you interact with the projections. It was kind of like kinect or something. The point is, you could just sit on a couch or something with this projector rig (which is about the size of a necktie, by the way) and watch a movie on your laptop, and the thing would be projected onto the wall.
    here’s the link, if you want to watch it, its only like 10 minutes long.
    http://movies.netflix.com/WiPlayer?movieid=70232728&trkid=3325854&t=TEDTalks%3A+Rad+Invention%3A+Pranav+Mistry

  7. tahrey says:

    Actually, we’re nearly there, stroke actually-there. It depends on how much space and money you have, really. You can already buy 70-inch LCDs (with touch sensors, no less – we just had one installed in a conference room at work), and Hitachi is working on a 145″ ‘hexadecuple-HD’ one (4320p!). For everyone else, there’s always the perennially popular full-HD home cinema projector, which can project onto a 110~120 inch screen with (ambient) daylight visibility, so long as you can afford the floor and ceiling space and headroom (it usually has to be positioned about 10-15 feet back from the screen, the units tend to be at least a foot thick and need another six inches of ventilation and installation clearance from the ceiling or any adjacent light fittings, and you need to keep the beam area free of obstruction. The truly loaded can opt for an ultra-short-throw lens and either an in-ceiling or (very space-consuming) rear projection system instead.

    Or you can do what a few people round this place have done and salvage previous-generation video projectors for almost-the-whole-wall, standard def imagery, with the beamer placed on a coffee table and the curtains closed… and curses thrown at anyone who walks through or puts their drink down in the way of the beam. Hey, it’s free, and no-one can really see THAT much difference on the kind of material they get used for (fast moving sports and Big Dumb Action Movies)…

  8. tahrey says:

    Oh yeah, and they all have VGA-standard inputs for computers. Sometimes DVI/HDMI too. OK, the resolution blows (most of the “junk” take-home ones are SVGA, and we’re just getting to the point where some XGA ones are being retired), but they tend to be remarkably good at downscaling the input (far better than a typical LCD monitor) and so you can quite happily read a typical webpage at XGA via an SVGA unit.

    (Except for this one, where the comment box seems to be expecting a monitor that’s at least 1080 pixels wide not 1024, so it keeps scrolling right and left if a line is slightly too wide to fit)

    Keep the laptop on your lap for typing and mouse-padding, but relax your neck and eyes to look at the larger and much more comfortably distant screen.

  9. Rob says:

    Let us not forget the gigantic wall above our beds, available for projection.
    Or that this has been made, and I hope it will be made again!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpVQ_BXZOHw

Leave a Reply to Chris Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *