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Television Technology

Samsung Thinks Millennials Want Vertical TVs (theverge.com) 288

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The latest addition to Samsung's TV range is the Sero, a 43-inch TV that was designed with the millennial generation in mind and therefore pivots between horizontal and vertical orientations. From a report: It's a much smarter idea than the phrase "vertical TV" would lead you to believe. Acknowledging that most mobile content is vertical, Samsung says the Sero is designed to encourage young people to project more of their smartphone stuff onto the TV by allowing it to go vertical. Throwing in 4.1-channel, 60W speakers along with an integrated navy stand and a minimalist rear design, Samsung seems to hope this TV will function as both a music streaming hub and a handsome piece of furniture. When it's not used as a conventional TV or a phone enlarger, the Sero can also serve as a huge digital photo frame or a music visualizer, and Samsung's Bixby voice assistant will be on hand, too. Samsung intends to put the Sero on sale for 1.89m KRW (around $1,600) in its home market of South Korea at the end of May.
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Samsung Thinks Millennials Want Vertical TVs More

Samsung Thinks Millennials Want Vertical TVs

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  • wtf (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:04AM (#58509368)

    who is going to adjust large screens like this just to watch some idiot's vertical video?

    vertical video is for idiots

  • Good Reason? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Drethon ( 1445051 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:06AM (#58509376)

    Is there any good reason for this? It seems to me that everything is landscape because that was the better format for movies and video. Vertical is convenient to the smart phone format (if you don't just turn the phone sideways, I take most pictures that way) but is it in any other way a better video format than landscape?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      Vertical might be a better format for showing a solo dance routine or someone's exercise routine on a treadmill.

    • Re:Good Reason? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:27AM (#58509502) Homepage
      Apparently the reasoning goes like this (this is from someone who manages A-list celeb's SM profiles and is an "Influencer" in their own right that I spoke with):
      1. If you're shooting footage you should optimise it for the medium it's going to be viewed in (e.g. movies are shot widescreen for cinemas).
      2. Most social media content is digested via a web browser, and more often than not, on a phone.
      3. The default scrolling direction for the web is vertical, especially on phones.
      4. Ergo, the best format for video or stills to be posted to social media is portrait.

      Personally, I still think the best possible format for still is determined by the subject in question and for video is horizontal because that best aligns with our field of view, but in terms of how the media is consumed that does make at least some sense. Quite whether it's enough to justify a pivoting TV (I guess they're just re-using a pivoting monitor stand) is another matter, but I'd guess Samsung didn't get as large as they are without understanding the needs of their customers and where there might be a market opportunity to exploit it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      I think you've answered your own question, it's convenient for smartphones because at 5" other considerations come into play than what the human field of vision looks like. Some of these clips end up being pretty memorable and you want to watch them again in a comfy setting or put them up on the big screen in a social setting or you're subscribed to some content that's produced for mobile first but you want to watch on the big screen. Plus maybe you do it out of habit and it is what it is, even when you cou

      • Convenient to most people trying to film maybe but doesn't it make good video? Most video I watch that is filmed vertically you could crop a large part of the top and bottom off the screen and it wouldn't negatively impact the video. With landscape, there usually seems to be far less of the screen that you would crop without making the video worse. Admittedly there are situations where vertical is good, but it seems to be a smaller percentage of the videos that I usually watch.

    • Re:Good Reason? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:39AM (#58509576)

      If cell phone makers would realize that it's better to make the phone take pictures in landscape mode even when the phone is held vertically, and to prompt the user to change the aspect when they want to take a portrait image, that would solve a lot of problems.

      Phones are more stably-held vertically. The wrist and arm are below, not off to the side. Make the damn phones take landscape even when help vertically and all of these stupid problems are solved.

    • Re:Good Reason? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:50AM (#58509656) Homepage Journal

      Is there any good reason for this?

      Someone at Samsung marketing realized that if they turn one of their TVs 90 degrees they can generate some nearly free publicity. While laughing at how dumb the idea is, potential punters will also see the other Samsung TVs in the photo and start thinking about that 4k OLED upgrade again.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Your eyes are placed left and right on your head and see more left and right than up and down. Millennials are going to end up looking like flounders.

    • It's better for someone whose two eyes are vertically placed in their face. like say one in the middle of forehead and another just an inch or so below (or above).

    • Back in the 1980's a LOT of desktop publicists like myself wanted a vertical monitor. This was so you could show a bigger image of one page on one screen. Which is exactly the type of monitor someone released. It would show a whole 8.5x11 page at 100% and had a paper white image to it. If I remember correctly, the monitor was like $1000.

    • Vertical is convenient to the smart phone format

      Phones are usually used vertically due to the need for a virtual keyboard and the way our hands naturally hold the device. It's not necessarily that the vertical format is more intuitive for comprehension, especially for a very constrained width.

      • Vertical is convenient to the smart phone format

        Phones are usually used vertically due to the need for a virtual keyboard and the way our hands naturally hold the device. It's not necessarily that the vertical format is more intuitive for comprehension, especially for a very constrained width.

        Years of using a smartphone and I still prefer horizontal for the virtual keyboard as the keys are larger...

  • Joke's on them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kokuyo ( 549451 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:14AM (#58509428) Journal

    We millennials either have no money to buy this or we're too tired of your bullshit marketing to buy this.

    On a serious note, though, I have never even flipped my 1440p monitor, any of them (EVER!) to vertical, I highly doubt someone would do it to a tv even if it was motorized. Who'd want to wait for that?

    Also how many people actually browse the web on a tv set? Isn't the meme that people bworse on their phones while "watching" tv?

    • We millennials either have no money to buy this or we're too tired of your bullshit marketing to buy this.

      On a serious note, though, I have never even flipped my 1440p monitor, any of them (EVER!) to vertical, I highly doubt someone would do it to a tv even if it was motorized. Who'd want to wait for that?

      Also how many people actually browse the web on a tv set? Isn't the meme that people bworse on their phones while "watching" tv?

      As a software dev, I wish my screen rotated vertically (OK, I wish my cheap company gave me actual widescreen monitors...) for reading code. As a PC user for pretty much anything else, I'm rather meh about vertical screens.

      • I'm a coder also and have three screens (one on my laptop, two on my desktop). I recently got a stand desk and couldn't fit all three screens on the desk. I rotated one of the screens vertically to fit it all and now that's my "code screen." Yes, it's not as wide, but I get to see about many more lines of code on the vertical screen than if I drag the window to my horizontal screen. (Just tested two files. One showed 33% more lines of code. The other 65%. Obviously, it varies depending on how long each line

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Dan Ost ( 415913 )

          I have one vertical and one horizontal screen on my desktop. The vertical screen is good for inspecting log files and db results. It's also good for coding since I limit my line length, but when I'm looking at other folk's code that aren't so disciplined, I end of using the horizontal screen.

      • As a software dev, I wish my screen rotated vertically

        Literally every monitor can be rotated vertically. You might have to invest in a VESA monitor stand but it's easy to do and cheap. Then you just tell the OS to display in portrait instead of landscape. I've done this in a multi-monitor setup where two monitors were landscape and one was portrait for working on documents. Worked fairly well. Stopped being necessary though once I went to a 3 headed 4K monitor setup.

        • As a software dev, I wish my screen rotated vertically

          Literally every monitor can be rotated vertically. You might have to invest in a VESA monitor stand but it's easy to do and cheap. Then you just tell the OS to display in portrait instead of landscape. I've done this in a multi-monitor setup where two monitors were landscape and one was portrait for working on documents. Worked fairly well. Stopped being necessary though once I went to a 3 headed 4K monitor setup.

          Yep, mine can rotate, never actually thought to try it on a 1280x1024 monitor. Still wish they would give me a widescreen monitor so rotating it (or just plain using it, I feel so cramped with this resolution) made any sense.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjbe ( 173966 )

      I have never even flipped my 1440p monitor, any of them (EVER!) to vertical

      I've worked at times with one of my monitors rotated 90 degrees while working with a lot of documents. Sometimes it's really useful. Unfortunately most software designers naively assume you will be using the monitor in landscape and design their interfaces with that in mind. 99+% of the time they are correct but it's a real problem when they aren't. In theory word processors should actually work better in portrait mode but their interfaces aren't designed that way so it doesn't have the benefits it shou

    • Re:Joke's on them (Score:5, Funny)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @10:43AM (#58509960)

      or we're too tired of your bullshit marketing to buy this.

      Tell me about it. Personally I won't pay attention to any marketing until my favorite influencer tells me to.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      so apparently, because people are too fucking stupid to turn their phones sideways when recording video for TV, we have to have vertical TVs? Thats the fix? create tunnel-vision video because the user is too fucking stupid? Considering how much power peer pressure had, what ever happened to just ridiculing and shaming them until they figure it out.

      SHOULD WE ALL START USING ALL CAPS IN OUR EMAIL TOO BECAUSE THERE ARE SOME FUCKING IDIOTS THAT DO THAT AS WELL?

      If being stupid is the criteria for design and engi

    • I do for my 3rd monitor because I don't have enough deskspace to have it horizontal.
      It is kind of nice to put documents and web browsers on.

  • No (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stealth_finger ( 1809752 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:15AM (#58509430)
    No, don't appease these vertical filming fuckwits! Teach them to turn their phone horizontal while filming like a normal, decent person with eyes does and move on.

  • Protrait and landscape modes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:16AM (#58509442)

    This is just the natural consequence of everyone and their brother using TVs as monitors, because of the lack of quality and inexpensive flat panel monitors out there.

    There are reasons to put a monitor into portrait mode: Suppose you have a 3 monitor setup: Two portrait mode monitors on either side of a very large landscape mode monitor. The landscape mode monitor is the primary display device, and the other two are satellite monitors. You can display a full length article in the left monitor (say, the comprehensive API reference for your current project?), be doing your daily task on the landscape monitor, and have your mail client/chat client open on the right portrait mode monitor. You get the benefits of the increased horizontal capacity in the primary monitor, and also get the benefits of the increased vertical capacities of the satellites. You also don't consume nearly so much desk area this way.

    People that suggest they cannot see uses for monitors that can be easily switched between modes like this just lack a very versatile imagination for managing their workflows.

  • So that's how you solve the phone camera problem.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @09:21AM (#58509476)
    In Russia - TVs are flipped to vertical!
    Honestly it's not a bad idea in general - with monitors becoming more generalized and cross purposed for both reqular viewing and computer use allowing a screen to be flippable is an interesting feature.
    Placement will be an issue though.

  • There is only one reason I have ever wanted a large vertical screen: Raiden Fighters.

  • in fact, damn early in the week to be in the running for the most idiotic public statement... but Samsung, you're a lock so far. there is no content for vertical. there will be no content for vertical. you are wrong, Kimchee breath.

  • Vertical is good for video pinball!

  • I was writing drivers for this type of display when I first learned 'C'.

    In the 1980's.

    We used these for legal sized tax form display.

    Another old idea that is coming back around.

  • Standing up?

    Unless this can be wall mounted, it'll be a maddening experience sitting in your comfy chair and having to watch a movie on a screen that's tilted back. Unless, of course, you want your home movie viewing experience to be just like sitting in the front row at the theater. All the time.

    Pass.

  • How soon before this trend moves over to the movie theaters?
  • If your head is sideways, your eyes will also be vertical aligned, but there will always be a problem with inner ear fluid that tells you are not watching an horizontal image (sea water would fell to the side of the screen :P
  • oh ffs

  • ...judging by the amount of "vertical video" they post on youtube FFS

  • We were warned (Score:5, Funny)

    by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh@@@gmail...com> on Monday April 29, 2019 @10:09AM (#58509750) Journal

    ...about the dangers of Vertical Video Syndrome. [youtube.com]

  • ideal: Samsung makes all video horizontal (Score:4, Insightful)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @10:18AM (#58509806) Homepage Journal

    The solution here is for cell phones to always record video in landscape mode. With a typical 12-megapixel camera, it shouldn't be too difficult to always keep the video horizontal, and just adjust which pixels are used for the video as you rotate the camera. You could get the best video quality by holding the phone horizontally, but in good lighting conditions, that wouldn't matter.

  • Just fold the left and right edges of the display over, and there you are.

    Oh, wait.

  • What I want (Score:5, Funny)

    by Shane_Optima ( 4414539 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @10:25AM (#58509840) Journal
    I want my goddamned 2015 websites back. You know, the ones that actually looked good on widescreen ("horizontal") displays.

    I swore I wasn't going to be one of those assholes who bitches about millennials on their phones/tablets, and it honestly didn't bother me at all until every website everywhere, almost simultaneously, decided they needed to switch to a dogshit UI for the sake of not confusing folks who are coming over from their phones. The problem with that is--well, ONE problem with that is--the UI is fundamentally vertical. And none of my monitors on are swivels. Even if they were, that would be such a horrible hack and it would still be such a horrible, godawful UI to be stuck with when you have a high precision UI device (mouse) in your hand.

    I almost never use Youtube suggested videos any more after the switch over. And I'm genuinely curious as to how anyone at all tolerates the new Reddit... the day "old.reddit.com" stops working is the day I stop using Reddit unless someone sends me a direct link to something specific.

    Unfortunately, none of this matters. They're not losing any sleep over losing my clicks. I've aged out of the target demo (and besides, I admittedly use uBlock Origin.) The only thing that matters to them now is that we not confuse this generation of technologically illiterate asshats (remember when the cliche was that these "digital natives" were going to breathe tech like it was air, that they wre going to run circles around their parents? Bah) who literally grew up spending half of their waking hours smearing their fingers against a 5 inch piece of glass and calling that "the internet."

    ....

    brb, putting bear traps on the lawn.

    • And none of my monitors on are swivels. Even if they were, that would be such a horrible hack...

      I use dual monitors, with the left (main) one mounted horizontally and the right (extended) one mounted vertically. No need for an actual swivel mount.

      For most things I prefer the horizontal mode, but in some instances vertical mode works better - with long, scrolling websites, or spreadsheets with a lot of rows. Also, the majority of documents I work with are formatted for letter size paper, which is an inherently vertical format.

      I still detest vertical video, but at least with a hybrid setup I can just th

  • You insensitive clod! (Score:3)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @10:39AM (#58509932)

    My TV screen is round.

    Now get off my lawn!

  • My mom had a Radius ColorPivot back in the early 1990s. It was useful for desktop publishing, as you could see a whole page at a time, but you just moved the monitor and it was back in landscape.

    These days, monitors have a high enough resolution that you can just look at two pages side-by-side, so I really don't see the need for this.

    The only useful feature on it is the ability to be rotated on demand. If you just want a portrait mode display, you can do that in software easily enough with any cheap monit

  • I mean, I've seen a few creative uses of LCD screens as signage where it was oriented vertically. (Looks nice for things like displaying menus or lists of suite/room numbers for an office buuilding.) But this was always done with a regular display mounted vertically and the device generating the image instructed to draw it vertically.

    I can't see any value in buying a vertical TV though? Even the biggest users of streaming content from phones to a TV would probably still want to watch a lot of stuff on th

  • It's called portrait (Score:3)

    by bobbutts ( 927504 ) <bobbutts@gmail.com> on Monday April 29, 2019 @11:14AM (#58510120)
    Not "Vertical"
  • to Vertical Video [youtube.com].

    Oh, and what Millennial can afford a $16k TV?

  • Meh ... (Score:3)

    by PinkyGigglebrain ( 730753 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @11:18AM (#58510158)

    VESA TV/display mounts and stands with swivels have been on the market for ages.

    move along, nothing to see here.

  • Stupid people (Score:3)

    by OneHundredAndTen ( 1523865 ) on Monday April 29, 2019 @11:21AM (#58510176)

    When are you going to learn to turn your phones ON THEIR SIDE when taking videos? Come on, it is not rocket science. If you can't master that skill, try to get yourselves a video app that makes sure videos are taken the right way even when you hold your phone vertical.

    Those videos taken with phones held vertical look, for the most part, ridiculous.

  • Did Samsung just toss the word in to get some free press? If so it worked.

  • "Samsung Thinks Millennials Want Vertical TVs"
    "Samsung intends to put the Sero on sale for 1.89m KRW (around $1,600)"

    So their target demographic is one that can't even afford this TV? Gotcha!

  • In the mean time, Windows 10's default desktop-mode photo viewer still ignores the JPEG rotation flag.

  • I had a computer monitor for about 15 years that could rotate; never used it in portrait mode -- not even once.

  • Our "Millennial" intern has both this 16:9 monitors vertical. One I can understand, but not both.

    As Hank Hill would say " That boy ain't right"

  • The screen goes sideways, because our vision goes sideways, because our eyes go sideways, because the horizon goes sideways. I have two 25.5" IPS LCDs, both were cheap for various reasons. Both of them have stands which permit rotation. I've rotated both of them. I don't rotate them any more, here's why.

    1. Viewing angle. IPS LCDs have phenomenal side to side viewing angle, but merely good top to bottom angle.
    2. My eyes don't go that way. I have to tilt my head to see the stuff at the top of the display when I'm sitting up close to it. This doesn't apply so much to the TV since it's far away.
    3. Even if my eyes went that way, the language I'm dealing with is still horizontal, so my eyes are scanning sideways anyway. Adding more line breaks just makes reading take longer. I was in GATE and spent many hours in the library watching the speed-reading machine, so I have deep routines for scanning text that reduce the cost of retrace, but it still takes some time which seems significant to me. It probably could be measured by watching my pupils, but I don't have a good camera for that.
    4. Can't rotate the monitor if you've got crap stacked up under it. I have stuff there, and it takes very little of it to obstruct the monitor. A bigass TV rotating on the wall is going to have similar problems, in that you're going to need a whole bunch of free wall around it.

    Once upon a time, there was a monitor which ISTR was called the Radius Pivot 15. It was available for Mac or PC. The PC version connected to Radius' own 2d accelerated ISA video card for Windows, and I had one in a machine when I worked for the County of Santa Cruz. It made some sense because the monitor was small, and therefore pivoting it made a big difference in terms of just getting a decent vertical space. But that monitor when pivoted wasn't as tall as my LCD monitors are now when they're in landscape. Pivoting makes sense with handheld devices for the same reason, it's an itty-bitty screen. It just doesn't make any sense for large ones except in certain digital signage contexts. But then, you're not pivoting it back and forth, you're just mounting it sideways.

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