If you‘ve bought a TV lately, you may have noticed that even 50-inch screens are now considered small. These days, many households are opting for TVs in the 65-85 inch range! But why have our television displays ballooned to such tremendous sizes? There are several technology advancements that have enabled this major inflation in TV screen real estate. Let‘s discuss the reasons behind this dramatic shift.
TV screen sizes have exploded over the past decade
Back in 2010, the average TV screen size was just 36 inches. Flash forward to 2022, and the average size has skyrocketed to 55 inches! The percentage of TVs 70 inches and up has surged from a mere 5% in 2010 to over 33% in 2022. Just look at how drastically screen dimensions have changed in a few short years:
[insert chart showing average TV screen size by year from 2010 – 2022]It‘s obvious our television displays are getting more and more gigantic! A 50-inch TV used to be reserved for premium home theater set-ups, but now even budget buyers are opting for this once-massive screen size. So what exactly is fueling this inflating trend?
Manufacturing larger screens got drastically cheaper
The switch from bulky CRT televisions to sleek flat-panel displays like LCD, LED and OLED radically reduced production costs. In 2004, a 50-inch plasma TV cost over $5,000. But thanks to efficiency improvements, you can now buy a 50-inch 4K LCD TV for under $300!
Screen production costs declined by over 85% from 2000 to 2020. For every square inch of display area, manufacturers are now spending less than a penny to produce it. This huge drop in price per square inch enabled giant screens to go from luxury items to affordable commodities.
Higher resolutions demand expanded screen sizes
Modern 4K and 8K TVs have 4-8 times the number of pixels compared to old 1080p sets. But to appreciate this extra resolution, you need a sufficiently large screen. On a 40-inch 4K display, the content won‘t look much different than 1080p. However, when you watch 4K video on a 70-inch screen, the boost in clarity and detail is obvious.
Larger screens allow you to fully experience the visual benefits of increased resolution. So as 4K and 8K get more prevalent, buyers are moving to bigger screens to showcase these ultra high-def formats. Bigger screens and higher resolutions go hand in hand!
Super slim designs provide more space savings
Remember bulky rear projection televisions that consumed your entire wall? Even with their huge footprint, they maxed out at 70 inches. Modern LED and OLED displays are paper thin in comparison. For example, LG‘s 65-inch OLED TV measures just 4.3 mm thick!
These ultra slim displays take up way less space while allowing screen sizes of 80 inches and up. A few years ago, an 80-inch TV meant dedicating a huge portion of your room to just the TV. But today‘s thin designs let you fit gargantuan screens into relatively compact spaces.
More immersive and engaging viewing experiences
Watching movies on a 50-inch screen just hits different than on a 32-inch screen. The larger display fills more of your field of view, giving you that immersive, cinematic experience. You feel like you‘re right in the action along with the characters!
Larger screens are especially transformative for gaming. Racing, sports and adventure titles feel more real and engaging when your TV occupies more of your vision. Big screens offer a mesmerizing escape into the on-screen world.
Falling prices enabled the masses to go mega screen
As rapidly as screen sizes expanded, prices contracted. Even as early as 2013, you could buy name brand 60-inch 1080p TVs for under $700. This allowed giant screens to shift from exclusive luxury items to accessible options regular buyers could afford.
Between cheaper manufacturing and relentless price competition among brands, huge TVs are now attainable for most households. The average selling price of TVs declined by over 40% from 2018 to 2022. With such affordable pricing, going mega screen is no longer a distant fantasy but a very attainable reality!
Streaming and gaming demand more display real estate
Today‘s smart TVs aren‘t just for passive watching – they‘re interactive platforms for gaming, web browsing, apps and more. These activities benefit tremendously from larger screens. Who wants to game or video chat on a tiny 32-inch display?
As streaming and online gaming replaced cable TV as our main entertainment sources, the demand rose for more expansive screens. Big screens aren‘t just for movies – we now want that increased display space for all our web-connected activities!
Technical innovations enabled extra large displays
Old CRT and projection systems capped out at 50-60 inches for regular consumer models. But current technologies like LED, QLED and OLED can manufacture screens at almost any size. If you can dream it, they can build it!
Advances like improved pixel fill rates, 8K image processors, HDMI 2.1, and OLED‘s fast response times conquered the technical hurdles of making colossal displays usable. The more problems engineers solved, the bigger our screens could get. It was a digital gold rush – screens kept getting larger!
So in summary, while TV screens were once limited to smaller sizes, they now span a vast spectrum of mega-display options. Improved manufacturing techniques, higher resolutions, ultra thin designs, plunging prices, and advanced engineering opened the floodgates for today‘s gigantic television screens. 65 inches used to be big – but now even 85 inches is just average! Our screens are growing, and the end doesn‘t seem to be in sight.
