As humans, we rely heavily on our peripheral vision. How many times have you caught a glimpse of something important out of the corner of your eye? Perhaps you’ve avoided an accident with another vehicle. Or what about that great pass you threw to your basketball teammate in the pickup game last Saturday when you saw him cutting to the hoop? (Never mind that his 50-year-old defender was doubled over on the wing, trying to catch his breath that had last been seen in 1990.)
Peripheral vision could be important in gaming, too, giving you a chance to catch edge-of-the-screen movement and anticipate an opponent’s action. However, with a traditional flat computer monitor or TV, the screen is directly in front of you, and your peripheral vision isn’t a factor. Your peripheral vision catches everything going on in the room beyond the screen, but it really doesn’t come into play in regards to the game.
Wrapping the screen around your field of vision, an idea NEC and Alienware recently showcased at places such as MacWorld and CES, could bring a whole new feel and look to gaming. With the extra-wide, curved screen, your peripheral vision can join the game.
 Curves In The Right Places
Both NEC and Alienware are working with Ostendo Technologies of Carlsbad, Calif., to develop the curved monitor. The screen measures 42.4 inches diagonally, and it curves around the viewer, providing an immersive experience. | 
The Curved Monitor |
To create the curved screen, Ostendo chose DLP (digital light processor) technology for the display, which involves rear projection.
“With LCD and plasma, you can’t get a continuous curvature,” says Erhan Ercan, director of product marketing for Ostendo Technologies.
Richard Atanus, NEC vice president of product development, says that to make a similarly curved LCD monitor, the glass thickness would have to be less than 0.2mm. In the current market, most LCD monitors use glass measuring about 0.7mm in thickness.
“When curving the LCD glass, it becomes too fragile,” Atanus says.
Using DLP
The curved display makes use of four DLP projectors, all of which are XGA projectors. DLP monitors usually offer a 1,024 x 768 resolution, but designers turned the projectors vertically and overlapped them to achieve the 2,880 x900 resolution.
Ostendo decided on the 2,880 x 900 resolution in part because it’s double the most commonly used resolution for 17-inch widescreen monitors (1,440 x 900).
“Most graphics cards can support” the resolution, Ercan says, “and have multi-monitor support built in. We certainly have plans dictated by our customers for going into higher resolutions. Our technology is scalable.”
The curved monitor makes use of 18 LEDs for the light source (six each of blue, red, and green) per projector, which helps yield extremely fast response times, which range from 16 to 20 microseconds.
“We believe it’s the fastest display the market has ever seen,” says Patrick Cooper, director of product management for Alienware.
By using LEDs for the light source with DLP, the curved monitor has better contrast and better pixel control than other rear-projection options. “DLP is a great option to get the speed and form factor that creates this wrap-around effect,” Cooper says. “You can’t do that today with LCD. It’s a changing paradigm for a display. The market is creating generation after generation of the same flat-panel monitors.”
Developing The Curved Monitor
Ostendo began working on the curved monitor soon after its founding in October 2005.
“We’ve focused on a multiprojection display concept,” Ercan says. “After many iterations and discussions, both internally and externally, we believe curving the display gives it the most immersed experience.”
NEC has worked with Ostendo for nearly two full years in developing the curved monitor, Atanus says, and NEC will build its own chassis for the products.
Alienware’s Cooper says his company had been working on a curved display on its own before connecting with Ostendo.
“The concept of a curved display is not new to us,” Cooper says. “We’ve been imagining a world where the display wraps around you. Displays worn on the head have not been successful yet.”
Best of all, all three companies say major updates to games or other software to make use of the curved display won’t be necessary. Games with multidisplay support should migrate easily to the curved display.
“We demonstrated it on Crysis with no changes to the game,” Cooper says. “Our relationships with game developers will drive feature sets into their products.”
Some Drawbacks
During the demonstrations, a few drawbacks became obvious.
• The monitor, obviously, is huge. It’s not overly heavy, at about 25 pounds, but because of its width and depth, you’ll need a lot of desk space to hold it. For those comfortable with the slim, flat-panel LCD designs, this curved monitor is a drastic change.
• The best viewing angle for the monitor comes from someone sitting in the middle. The screen isn’t viewable from other locations.
“It’s not geared to serve multiple people,” Ercan says. “It’s geared to serve one person sitting directly in the middle.”
•The demonstration models sometimes showed three distinct lines in the display, matching the areas where the four projectors overlap.
All three companies say the problems with lines will be fixed before the release of the monitors, which will occur sometime in the second half of 2008. (No one we spoke with was willing to narrow down the release time frame.) Although “the amount of customization will determine the exact [release] schedule and cost,” Ercan estimates that the curved monitors will cost $5,000 to $6,000.
“Basically, what we were looking at was obviously this product will be going after the high end of the market,” Ercan says. “We are only looking to address those who have needs that can take advantage of the curve and the response time.”
NEC will aim its monitors at professional consumers, with uses in 3D modeling, medical fields, flight simulations, security, and other areas, Atanus says.
In future versions of the curved monitor, NEC plans to increase the height, resolution, brightness, and contrast, Atanus says.
“We’re looking for the niche users at the top of the pyramid,” Atanus says. 
by Kyle Schurman
Curved Monitor Specifications
The CRVD-42DWX+ at a glance (even out of the corner of your eye). Model CRVD-42DWX+ Native resolution 2,880 x 900 Diagonal measurement 42.4 inches Screen dimensions 40.4 x 12.6 inches Response time 0.02ms Number of colors 68.7 billion Dynamic range 12-bit, 4,096 levels Contrast ratio 10,000:1 (minimum) Brightness 350 nits Aspect ratio 3.2:1 Pixel pitch 71dpi, 0.36mm Weight 25lbs Sources: Ostendo, Alienware, NEC |
How DLP Works
 Texas Instruments invented the DLP chip in 1987.
(1) A DLP chip contains up to 2 million microscopic mirrors (sometimes called DMDs, or Digital Micromirror Devices) that measure less than 15 microns in width. (Human hairs range from about 50 to 100 microns in diameter. A micron is a millionth of a meter.) The mirrors are hinged and switch "on" and "off" several thousand times per second. Mirrors that are switched "on" more frequently than "off" create lighter shaded pixels; mirrors that are switched "off" more frequently create darker shaded pixels; and mirrors that are continuously off create black pixels.
(2) As the light source lamp projects light toward the mirrors, the light passes through a color wheel, which filters and mixes the light as it strikes the mirrors to create colors.
(3) The mirrors then reflect the light through the projection lens onto the screen.
Source: DLP.com |
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