New ‘transformer’ TV shows how the 1% will watch Netflix… and its shocking price tag

It’s like watching a Transformer go from a fire truck to a battle robot, except this is a television built for the one percent.

The C-Seed N1 starts out as a decorative, glossy box, but at the touch of a button, five ultra-sharp Micro LED screens rise from the base and fold together – without a seam appearing between the screens.

The process takes about a minute and creates a stunning screen measuring 165, 137 or 103 inches wide.

DailyMail.com visited C-SEED’s showroom in London’s glamorous Knightsbridge to see the machine in action and watched as the panels unfolded like the petals of a blooming flower to create a 144-inch television.

It isn’t cheap, however, costing $275,000, but customers sometimes buy up to five at a time to outfit their superyachts, the company told DailyMail.com.

James Common, C-SEED sales director, said: “A large part of our market is residential, but we have started making a lot of superyachts.

‘We are finding that customers are specifying five TVs for their superyacht, due to the versatility and the fact that space on a superyacht is really at a premium.

‘So we see that more and more customers are opting for folding TVs for bedrooms and living areas.’

In homes, buyers are installing N1 screens in living rooms and bedrooms, Common said.

Some customers have had the screen installed in private spas to experience a waterfall effect or simply watch the sport while sitting in the sauna.

The company has a showroom in Los Angeles, but also in Paris, London and Rome

C-SEED’s affluent clients enjoy having a television that ‘disappears’ so that the focus of their rooms can be on artwork and views from the windows.

‘You can put a television like that in that window, and then it goes away when it’s not in use. You can focus everything from that point of view,” Common said.

“And you probably paid a lot of money for that view, whether it’s the New York skyline, whether it’s a palm view in Dubai or Miami.”

The televisions are also rotatable, so that they can rotate around, for example, to be viewed from the kitchen, or from the living room, or even from the garden.

But the C-SEED N1 is actually one of the least extravagant televisions in the company’s decade-long history.

C-Seed First, a ‘vertical rocket’ television, debuted 10 years ago and was used at events such as F1 races in Abu Dhabi.

The 201-inch outdoor television cost $600,000 and required a concrete shaft drilled into the ground – and began attracting billionaire buyers.

Common said the need to drill into the ground was an issue, with customers worried they would be drilling into the garages where they kept their supercars, for example.

As the resolution of the screens improved, the company created indoor TVs based on micro-LED screens.

The latest model, the N1, the ‘naked’ version because it does not have to be built into homes and simply works on its own.

“This is a sculptural work of art,” Common said.

‘For our customers it is not mainly about costs and value. With this TV we reach a different price range, different wealthy individuals.

‘So we are no longer at the level of hundreds of millions of billionaires. We are among the people who get maybe 20 million every year. I’ll buy a new sports car or buy something or treat myself.’

The screens have a 4K resolution and are based on Micro LED technology – and the screen is the reason they are so expensive, rather than the motors and foldable tiles.

Micro-LED is a different technology than that used in home LED or OLED TVs, with no backlight and each pixel consisting of a single LED.

Micro-LED is extremely expensive and is not yet used in consumer televisions.

The difference is clearly visible, with the N1’s screen being breathtakingly sharp and clear.

“It can produce the colors more vividly, accurately and vividly and then individually turn off all of its LEDs to create pure blacks, which increases the contrast and therefore increases the realism of that image and the immersiveness of that image. Mean said.

For customers who do not make compromises, Micro LED becomes the screen technology of choice: there is no glass on the front, so there are no reflections and the screen looks ultra real.

The price means it will take “a while” to reach the consumer market, Common said.

Both LG and Samsung now make Micro LED televisions, but the screens are usually extremely large and the prices are aimed at the luxury market – starting around $90,000.

But previous screen technologies such as plasma and OLED televisions were initially extremely expensive and aimed at the wealthy, before settling on prices better suited to the consumer market.

It may take a few years (or decades), but one day ordinary people might have something like this in their living room.