Greg Bruce gets his mind blown by a state-of-the-art new television.
Last week, in Samsung’s state-of-the-art Parnell demonstration centre, I watched a massive 100-inch television playing video of such depth, brightness and precision of colour that I felt like I was living in the future. Yes, I thought, Samsung really has mastered the art of the enormous television. It doesn’t get any better than this.
Then the demonstrator, who was very cool, pointed to his right, where a 115-inch television was playing the same video at the same time and doing it with such depth, brightness, precision of colour and many other things I could only express with awestruck facial expressions that I immediately revised upward my vision of what the future could be. Above this television were the words “Micro RGB” but so transfixed was I by the picture it displayed that they might as well have been “Magical TV”.
As I watched, the word that came to mind to describe the image was “pop”. I was stunned by the pop with which the picture popped. I had never seen anything like it. It was like being at a pop concert in a pop up store while feeding pop rocks directly into my eyes – while reading a pop up book.
I recalled my recent viewing of the Oscar-nominated movie Bugonia on an absurdly tiny 48-inch LED screen and realised how pathetic the experience had been compared to what could have been, had I made the sensible decision to wait until I had convinced my wife of our need for a Micro RGB.
Later, I asked the demonstrator to explain to me, an idiot, the science behind the incredible pop. Handily, he had a display set up to do just that. On it were models of three different technologies: LED, the previously state-of-the-art mini LED and Micro RGB. Basically, it’s to do with the number of lights behind the screen. As you get more lights per square whatever of screen, your picture improves.
Furthermore, where the LED and mini LED both use blue light to artificially create the red, green and blue that make up the picture on a TV screen, every one of the Micro RGB’s lights is firing red, green and blue separately. Each one of those lights is one one-thousandth of a millimetre. Unbelievably tiny.
This means the spikes of colour on a Micro RGB screen are bigger and more defined than the LED and mini LED, which tend to run into each other. When you expand that contrast and clarity across a 115-inch screen, what you get is the benefits of both smaller and bigger in one package, without any of the usual tradeoffs
But what, you ask, does this mean in practice? What it means is pop. Like eating a movie-sized bucket of popcorn while listening to the hit song ‘Soda Pop’ from K-Pop Demon Hunters, on repeat – with your poppa.
Just when it seemed like the demonstration was over, a Samsung representative whispered in the ear of the demonstrator and he said: “Oh yes, soccer mode”.
My ears pricked up. As a long time fan of English football’s greatest club Everton, I’m having a great year watching their progression from seasons of relegation battles to competing with the very best in the league, stewarded by some of the world’s most stupendously undervalued talents.
The demonstrator put on a game between current top of the league Arsenal, who are slightly above Everton, and 17th placed Tottenham, who are miles below. Wow, I thought, soccer mode looks amazing, I must have this for myself. Then he said: “Now look at it in soccer mode.” and hit a button. I couldn’t believe it. In that moment, the world changed. This is how sports can look? I asked myself. Yes, I answered, that’s certainly how it appears.
From the moment Everton played their first game at their brand new Hill Dickinson stadium at the beginning of this season, I had yearned to visit, but now I understood there was no need – it could not possibly look as good in real life as it would on this screen.
People in the sports world sometimes say: “Go big or go home.” If I had the Micro RGB, I’d be able to clap back with the killer retort. “No need friend: I’ve just gone big AT home”, Then I’d go home and watch Iliman Ndiaye put the winner in the top corner from 25 yards to secure Champions League football for Everton next season and I would leap up and down partly in celebration and partly in awe of the picture quality.
Moments like that come along once in a lifetime – typically much less frequently for Everton fans. It would look fine on a 100-inch LED screen I suppose, but don’t your most important moments deserve something more than “fine”? This is exactly the sales pitch I put to my wife in an email after seeing the Micro RGB in action. I’m yet to hear back.
This piece was made in partnership with Samsung. Learn more about the 115-inch Samsung Micro RGB TV here.
