Mapping the Future of Displays: A Plot of Immersion vs. Display Quality
Or, Why Your 8K TV is Less "Real" Than a 90s VR Headset
We live in an age with incredible display technology. We have higher resolutions than ever, brighter HDR, and faster refresh rates. Generally, the believe is that a sharper picture is a more immersive one. But is that even true?
In this post, I propose a thought experiment to classify different display technologies, both real and theoretical, along two key axes: Immersion (the feeling of being inside the experience) and Display Quality (the objective sharpness and fidelity of the image). While these two concepts are related, they are decidedly not the same.
I use the general term Display Quality to cover multiple technologies at the same time: while resolution will generally be the main drive of display quality, we shouldn’t forget about high dynamic rage (HDR), refresh rate, color gamut, etc. I place all them in the quality bucket to simplify the analysis.
A display can have stunning 8K resolution yet feel like a mere picture frame hanging on your wall, offering low immersion. Conversely, a device can have objectively poor visual quality, like Nintendo's infamous red-and-black Virtual Boy, but by completely filling your field of vision as a VR headset, it can achieve a surprisingly high level of immersion. The console had tons of problems, but it was able to pull you out of your living room and into its pixelated world… at least for some time.
The diagram is a speculative map of this landscape. It's based on current technologies, emerging prototypes, and a few dreams from science fiction. By plotting everything from the current smartphone in your pocket to the theoretical sci-fi devices, we can better understand the trade-offs and trajectories of our quest for the ultimate immersive experience. More importantly, we can start to imagine what the "endgame" of display technology might actually look like.
We'll include theoretical marvels like high-resolution, glasses-free 3D displays that finally crack the code on multi-view resolution and viewing angles, and true holographic displays that make solid-looking objects float in space. We'll also place three iconic sci-fi benchmarks: the Star Trek Holodeck, representing the pinnacle of environmental immersion, Star Wars iconic but imperfect holograms, and a direct neural interface (as seen in stories like Black Mirror or 3 Body Problem), which represents something even beyond: a complete override of the senses to achieve the ultimate, and perhaps final, fully immersive experience.
This is not a precise scientific chart, but a tool for perspective. Let's see where our current reality stands, and just how far we might have to go.
Decoding the Chart: A Tour Through the Four Realms of Reality
Let’s start with a quick guide to the map's legend:
Black Text: Real, commercially available products you can buy today.
Dark Red Text: Theoretical, prototype, or science fiction systems that define our aspirations and future goals.
The chart is divided into four quadrants, with a theoretical high-resolution holographic display sitting at the very center. This hypothetical device represents a tipping point: a full volumetric display that can generate a realistic, solid-looking object floating in mid-air. Its "display quality" is high enough to be photorealistic and convincing, and its "immersion" is significant because the object feels present in your world, yet it doesn't transport you into another one. It is the ultimate augmentation of reality, not a replacement for it. This central anchor helps us contextualize everything else.
Quadrant I: The Foundation (Bottom-Left | Low Quality, Low Immersion)
This quadrant is the place of many modern displays and products of our daily digital lives.
At the bottom we find the old standard-definition CRT displays or early LCDs. They occupy the far corner with low resolution and virtually no immersion. They are functional, but the digital bitmap is obvious and distracting.
Moving up the Y-axis, we quickly encounter the standard 1080p monitor or TV, and up to the modern 4K TV or High-DPI Monitor. This vertical climb is all about the relentless pursuit of visual fidelity. Higher resolution, better color gamut, and higher contrast ratios make the on-screen image smoother and more photorealistic. This does enhance immersion, but only to a point. A nature documentary in 4K is breathtakingly sharp, but you're still just watching a very beautiful, flat, moving picture on a wall.
Curved Monitors are an interesting case. They often don't offer the highest absolute resolution, but their physical shape wraps your peripheral vision, creating a more encompassing view that gently pulls you into the experience. They usually have higher refresh rate, which also helps with the overall experience. This gives them a slight nudge rightward on the immersion axis compared to a flat panel of similar specs.
Glasses-Free 3D Devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops and monitors) make a different trade-off. The addition of an optical layer (like a lenticular lens) often means the per-pixel resolution you perceive is lower than the panel's native resolution. You sacrifice pure quality (Y-axis) for the tangible depth and pop of stereoscopic 3D, gaining a significant boost in immersion (X-axis).
We also find the classic "Movie-style Hologram" here. Think of Star Wars holograms. They are immersive, as objects feel present in the room, but its quality is notoriously poor: flickering, monochromatic (usually bluish), and riddled with scan lines. It’s the perfect theoretical example of a device that achieves high immersion through novelty and presence, even with low display quality.
This quadrant reminds us that while resolution and other display advances are crucial, they are not the only path to a compelling experience. The quest to make pixels disappear isn't just about making them smaller; it's about making the screen itself disappear.
Quadrant II: The Window Pane (Top-Left | High Quality, Low Immersion)
This quadrant is home to pure visual spectacle. Here, the goal is not to transport you to another world, but to present a window so flawless that it feels like you're looking directly through glass.
We start with stunning 4K OLED TVs, renowned for their infinite contrast and rich colors. Moving up the Y-axis, we find the cutting edge: 8K TVs and the theoretical 16K display. I've been fortunate to experience several 8K demos, and the effect is staggering. The combination of ultra-high resolution, high dynamic range (HDR), and wide color gamut creates an image of almost unnatural clarity. There is no screen door effect, no visible pixels, just a seemingly perfect picture.
The "Cardboard Cutout" Effect: A fascinating phenomenon occurs at this level of quality. The image is so sharp and detailed that a subtle 3D effect often emerges. It’s not true stereoscopy, but rather a layered depth, like a diorama or a series of detailed cardboard slices placed one behind the other.
These displays represent a refinement of the traditional screen. They offer the highest fidelity available today, but they fundamentally remain a destination for your eyes, not a portal for your mind.
Quadrant III: The World Augmenter (Bottom-Right | High Immersion, Low Quality)
This quadrant is defined by a different philosophy: instead of creating a new world, it seeks to enhance the one you're already in. Immersion here comes from seamlessly blending the digital and the physical.
Today's consumer AR Glasses (think Microsoft HoloLens or Meta Ray-Bans) live here. They are highly immersive because they overlay information directly onto your reality, making it feel integrated. However, this immersion often comes at the cost of display quality. The field of view is narrow, the virtual objects can appear translucent or faint, and the resolution is functional rather than spectacular.
The hypothetical Fully Depth-Aware AR Glasses represents here the ideal of this category. Imagine a system with perfect spatial mapping, able to anchor digital objects to the real world with rock-solid precision, occluding them behind real-world objects. The display quality for such a device likely does not need to be photorealistic. A high-quality, 8-bit HUD (like inside Iron Man's helmet) that provides crucial data and simple geometries would be immensely powerful and immersive. The value is in the perfect integration, not the raw graphical horsepower.
This quadrant proves that immersion isn't always about escape; it can be about empowerment and augmentation, even with relatively simple graphics.
Quadrant IV: The Final Frontier (Top-Right | High Immersion, High Quality)
This is the promised land where both immersion and quality converge to create truly alternate realities. This is where current ambition meets future fantasy. Here was what people were talking about when hyping the Metaverse.
We begin with real, high-end hardware like existing 8K VR Headsets. These represent the bleeding edge of consumer technology, offering incredible immersion through wide field-of-view and high-resolution displays that minimize the screen-door effect. A theoretical 12K VR Headset would push this even further, inching closer to "retina" resolution within a virtual space.
The High-Res multi-view 3D TV is in my opinion a critical and theoretical bridge. It represents a glasses-free display that it can project dozens of unique, high-resolution (e.g., 2.5K/4K) views simultaneously1. This would allow multiple people to experience perfect 3D from different angles without headsets or tracked glasses, a social and shared immersion that current technology can't achieve at scale.
The Star Trek Holodeck represents the pinnacle of environmental immersion. It's a full-room, glasses-free volumetric display that engages all senses, not just sight and sound. Its only limit, perhaps, is the physical space of the room itself. While the Holodeck remains a fantastical concept from movies, one can view it not as a single impossible technology, but as the logical endpoint of our current trajectory: a room tiled with high-resolution, multi-view 3D displays, augmented with haptic and sensory feedback. This framing doesn't make the challenge any less immense, but it transforms it from cinematic magic into a (very complex) engineering problem.
The Direct Neural Interface represents the absolute endgame. It bypasses displays entirely, directly stimulating the brain to create experiences indistinguishable from reality, or any reality imaginable. This is the ultimate fusion of immersion and quality, a complete override of the senses that reframes reality itself. It is the final, logical step in the quest to not just show us a world, but to let us live within it. We can already trace a logical, but long, path to this ultimate interface. The journey requires converging several fields of progress: the pursuit of perfect display quality is, in essence, a deep study of the human visual system. The drive for better VR is a massive investment in understanding proprioception and spatial awareness. The Holodeck's challenge of engaging all senses will complete the map of human perception. A neural interface “simply” demands we learn the brain's language to write directly to this map. While this is likely one of the most colossal undertaking in human history, spanning generations, it is profoundly optimistic to realize there is, in fact, a path. It’s the final integration of every sensory breakthrough we are already beginning to make.
As said, this quadrant is our destination. Every innovation in the other three quadrants (sharper screens, better AR integration, more immersive VR…) is a step towards making the dreams of Quadrant IV a reality.
Conclusion: The Two Paths to Disappearing
This exercise in mapping displays reveals a fundamental insight: the journey of visual technology is not a single march toward higher resolution, but a complex quest to make the screen itself disappear. We defined here two parallel paths:
The Path of Perfect Windows: This is the pursuit of absolute fidelity, pushing further into the top-left quadrant. It’s the dream of a flawless, invisible device through which we can observe other worlds with perfect clarity. Our 8K TVs and ultra-high-DPI monitors are the vanguards of this path.
The Path of New Realities: This is the pursuit of absolute immersion, charging toward the right-hand side of the chart. It’s the dream of being transported, or of seamlessly blending the digital and physical. From the subtle depth of a glasses-free 3D display to the all-encompassing embrace of a VR headset or the augmented vision of AR glasses, this path sacrifices pure resolution for the profound feeling of presence.
The most exciting part of our map is where these two paths are destined to meet: the top-right quadrant. This is where the relentless pursuit of quality finally converges with the radical architectures of immersion. The theoretical devices we've plotted (the high-res multi-view display, the true hologram, the Holodeck, and ultimately a neural interface) are not just science fiction imaginations. They are the logical endpoints of the very real, incremental progress we are making in both display quality and immersive engineering every single day.
The chart isn't just a classification of screens; it's a blueprint for the future. It shows us that the phone in your pocket and the headset on your face are all part of a continuum, a centuries-long project to dissolve the barrier between the human mind and the worlds we wish to explore. The ultimate display won't be something you look at. It will be an experience you inhabit, and we are already on our way, even if the destination is still far from us.
Let’s get some numbers to see how crazy this is with current technology: a back of the envelop calculation indicates that you may need at least 32K resolution (30720 x 17280 pixels), that’s a total of around half a billion pixels. For contrast, an 8K panel available today (7680 x 4320 resolution) has 33 million pixels. And this is just the hardware, I don’t even know how to calculate the computational power required to generate real time rendering on such device.