Higher quality screens make watching TV more enjoyable, study suggests

Bingeing your favourite boxset will be more enjoyable if you’re watching it on a modern TV screen, new research suggests.

Identical twin brothers were monitored by AI as they sat down to enjoy the same episode of Game of Thrones in separate rooms on different TV sets.

Experimenters found that the sibling watching on the most up to date screen displayed the greatest physical and emotional responses.

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Bingeing your favourite boxset will be more enjoyable if you’re watching it on a modern TV screen, new research suggests. Identical twin brothers were monitored by AI as they sat down to enjoy the same episode of Game of Thrones (pictured)

Researchers from Realeyes, based in London, conducted the test on identical twin social media influencers, Henry and William Wade, at TV manufacturer LG’s facility in Weybridge.

Realeyes uses computer vision and machine learning to study how people react as they watch content.

They set out to compare the differences between the pair’s physical and emotional response when watching Game of Thrones on a 2019 LG OLED TV versus a 2013 LED TV. 

The twins were separated into blacked-out TV immersion rooms where they simultaneously watched ‘The Battle of the Bastards’.

This is rated on IMDB – an online database of information and ratings on films and television shows – as the most popular episode of Game of Thrones.

William watched on a 2019 set, while Henry viewed a 2013 TV, representing the most common type of TV in homes across the UK.

Mihkel Jäätma, CEO and co-founder of Realeyes, said: ‘This experiment by LG was a really interesting and fun way to utilise our ground-breaking AI technology.

‘We’ve taught computers to read and understand human emotions and attention, which allows us to offer scientifically sound measurements of a viewer’s immersion.’

Identical twin brothers (pictured) were monitored by AI as they sat down to enjoy the same episode of Game of Thrones in separate rooms on different TV sets

William watched on a 2019 set, while Henry viewed a 2013 TV (pictured), representing the most common type of TV in homes across the UK

Realeyes’ AI platform analysed the facial expressions, head movements and body language from more than 144,000 frames of video footage captured of each twin.

Their physical responses were also measured using heart rate monitors.

The results revealed the 2019 OLED TV held 25 per cent more attention than the 2013 LED.

Throughout the episode, 27 emotional peaks were observed on the newer TV compared to just four peaks on the older model.

Happiness, which in the context of the experiment was linked to level of entertainment, was also three times higher.

Overall, the 2019 TV provided a 15 per cent more intense experience from a positive emotional standpoint.

Realeyes’ AI platform analysed the facial expressions, head movements and body language  (pictured) from more than 144,000 frames of video footage captured of each twin. Their physical responses were also measured using heart rate monitors.

As part of the research, LG also polled 2,000 adults on their TV watching habits.

It revealed that the average person will sit through 78,705 hours of soaps, sports, news, movies and box sets during their lifetime.

That is an average of three-and-a-half hours a day spent watching television – a total of 1,248 hours-a-year. 

People will immerse themselves in 3,639 films at home over the span of an average adult’s lifetime, as well as watching a staggering 31,507 episodes of TV shows.

The average household will also have two arguments a week over what to watch.

More than half of those polled said they would struggle if they only had one TV in their household.