Philips' 56-inch Cinema 21:9 HDTV gets showcased on video
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 29th 2009 4:35PM
posted Jan 29th 2009 4:35PM
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I want me one of those!
kudos to murphmeister for using "a fortnight ago"
This'll come in mighty handy for watching all those 21:9 formatted TV shows that aren't being produced.
It's for movies. And in theory, it's cheaper to manufacture than a 16:9 screen of the same resolution, (smaller area, can get more panels per sheet). Other than that, I see no point in it.
But at one point we will get 21:9 computer and laptop screens, for that "authentic movie feeling". Only, they won't stretch present resolutions, from say. 1680x1050 to 2450x1050, like they did when we wen from 4:3 displays to 16:10. They'll crop the resolution to 1680x720, the way 16:10 screens are going towards 16:9.
Not to mention games, totally pointless for games 16.9 games anyway, THO the black bars piss me off i would rather have them on top than a TV that basically crops them as it hasn't get the screen space to show them!
2520x1080?
count me in!
But, please, make it OLED!
@neal
What black bars? You still play PS1 games on your HDTV screen??? I thought Xbox360 games were natively into WIDEscreen...
Not to mention PC games which run in any resolution you tell them to (with rare exceptions).
Oh no...
I'm not buying ANOTHER set of DVDs, TVs, Video cards, etc. etc.
Regular 16:9 Widescreen is just fine by me. I'm also still waiting to have more than 20 out of 400 channels I get finally be broadcast in widescreen (let alone HD)
Wait, when you say 21:9, don't you mean to say 7:3? They might be saying 21:9 it because it seems much bigger.
Maybe theyre trying to compensate.
dumb as rocks idea with absolutely no audience for it outside of a post-production suite.
By definition an HDTV will be 16:9 to match HD broadcasts. Why bother buying a device that letterboxes 90% of aired content?
Those that care enough to need a device that shows only OAR movies without bars have a projector and 100 inch screen.
Well, If you've ever played Halo 3 multiplayer with more than a single person on your HDTV, I bet there are black bars to be pissed at. Oddly enough, single player Halo 3 online has no OMGIHAETYOUZ! black bars. I think that's more of a Bungie thing though.
The set looks nice but I would be concerned about Philips reliability more than anything else. They have gone downhill badly in that area over the years.
For example just look at the track record of their DVD recorders and what users say about them.
Why can't TV makers get their ratio math correct? As they teach in school, you use the lowest common denominator.
Examples:
10:5 really is 2:1
21:9 really is 7:3
16:10 really is 8:5
I guess the answer can be two fold: The general public is too ignorant and thinks 4:3 is a wider and better ratio than 2:1 or that 8:5 must be not as wide as 16:9. I am betting that marketing departments are working hard only to appeal to the public ignorance..
Although theatrical release are closer to this aspect ratio, most widescreen DVD (BD) releases are in the 16:9 variety to match the common HDTV.
Almost all theatrical releases are this exact aspect ratio however it is normally listed as 2.39:1 instead of 21:9. The 21:9 is a new fad so that consumers understand it in relation to the common 16:9.
Also, and this is certainly non-scientific, but my experience with BD has been that most are NOT 16:9 and are in their OAR of very close to 2.39:1.
Lastly, this is not for TV watching. This is for a small theatre room or perhaps even for production facilities.
My question, and this is just basic math I suppose, but I'm lazy. I suppose the 56" is still measured diagonally. So if you're watching a 2.39:1 source is the source actually larger than if you watched it on a 60"-65" 16:9 display but in letterbox?
A 56" 21:9 screen shows 21:9 content at the same size as a 59" 16:9 screen.
However, a 56" 21:9 screen shows 16:9 content the same size as a 45" 16:9 screen.
So, this seems like a bad tradeoff:
You basically, "gain" three inches for cinemascope content, but loose eleven inches for 16:9 content (not to mention 4:3!)
Hope I got that right :)
How does this play out for the IMAX scenes in The Dark Knight? I ask here because you seem to be the mathy group on this thread so far...
There are plenty of movies that are still shot in 1.85:1, which is pretty close to the now-standard TV ratio, 16:9. Even some action and effects movies are shot in this ratio.
-FreeRange, you're going in the wrong direction entirely. The oldschool, 4:3 ratio is much closer to Imax. Don't expect a decent home-Imax experience any time soon.
@chispito I ask because when you watch The Dark Knight on a 16x9 set it goes to full screen, no bars on the top or bottom, to accommodate the IMAX scenes. With this set, I imagine it would make those scenes pillar box, right?
Are they assuming that the people who hate letterboxing will love pillarboxing when they watch their 16:9 tv shows?
One little greenie to you, sir! ;)
They are going to release a curtain set for the tv so you can cover the bars movie theater style.
Maybe the movie industry to switch to 16:9 rather than making us once again by new hardware. Isn't 21:9 just a tad too wide anyway? How about we go for 25:9. Hell, let's just put a video ribbon around our living rooms like they have in basketball arenas.
The film industry went to use that wide screen format to compete with tv, so if they started changing everything back to tv's format, they will lose that "attractiveness of watching a giant movie screen and everyone would wait to see it in their house.
If you like movies so much that you want a wide scope to display the full frame you could just get a projector and get as close as the real thing.
Movies are meant to be seen in a theater not your living room. I still feel very weird when watching a dvd on the pc monitor while doing something else, the tiny display takes off all the atmosphere.
@Ridgecity
So thats why all my friends are amused by my widescreen 30-inch monitor...
Just get a bigger screen!
still think it'd make heck of a computer screen, screw those movies…
Yea - I'm wondering what the resolution of this is? Once the tech comes down in price quite a bit it might make more sense than these 2560x1600 screens (which, at $1k approximately nowadays, blow everything else out of the water).
Also... what would a standard definition broadcast look like on it? Could you fit two side by side without any scaling?
Do the math, regular TV is 4:3, common denomiator = 9, so 4:3 * 3 = 12:9, so if you want to fit two side by side a screen will have to be 24:9, so there will be some stretch, but not a whole lot
I've seen very few films in a 2.33 format. It's getting more common these days in cinemas, but for HDTVs, they tend to resample the video to a much more common 1.6 or 1.77 aspect.
no they dont- are you talking abotu movies outside od the US market? If not, name me one major blu ray releae that has not kept the original film aspect ratio
No, I'm not talking about the US as US isn't the center of the universe...
Yay another new aspect ratio.
It's been in movies for some time before this TV came around.
Yet another piece of hardware everybody will buy by market leader Philips !
I actually think this could be useful. On my old CRT widerscreen (I don't know the aspect ratio... I was only 10), we could watch any two channels side by side. Only problem was that just watching one channel had fat people, and watching two channels made them all skinny. Maybe this would have 4:3 working perfectly side by side?
It's starting to look more and more like a projector that can display in any aspect ratio is the way to go.
You still have to choose which aspect ratio you want for the screen, unless you decide your wall is good enough for display.
Is there any way we could just change movie theaters over to 16:9? We just went through a transition from 4:3 to 16:9 and now they want another? Give me a break! Talk about money hungry!
Is there seriously an arguable position for why movies should still be filmed in 21:9? Any reason why 16:9 isn't good enough? I look at the photo and I get the feeling that I would have to actually turn my head a bit just to go from one side of the screen to the other. A bit too wide? Maybe....
And yeah, most TV shows in HD are 16:9 so yeah, pillars FTW!
I am so sick of letterboxing on my BRAND new TV. How about you studios realize noone gives 2 fucks about your omfgsuperduperwidescreen, at the theater. Just put up giant 16x9 imax screens and be done with it. We dont need 45 different resolution aspect ratios.
Seconded!...right? In any case I second that.
think of what SD 4:3 tv shows will look like on that if they are stretched
I Say screw this cause i find the black bars more cinematic and this T.V. kinda zooms in and also cuts off some things
Seriously, 21:9 or 2.35:1 is not a new format - in the cinema world it is known as scope and the majority of films are made using the format. Scope was first used in the 1950s and some seriously big films were made using the format - Star Wars was filmed in scope in 1977.
I agree that TV might not look great - but this is aimed at film lovers!
Seriously the wider the screens get the less pixels we do get...
Imagine a 100" LCD with just 1 Pixel height... that might be really wiiiiiiiiide but not good at all.
For those who wonder what the heck I mean:
a 15" 4:3 notebook hat much more pixels than a 15" 16:9 one - assuming they got the same amount of pixels per square inch (density)
You correct, but thinking about it all wrong. Say you had a square display, cut that display in half and stick them side by side. You now have a screen with the same area and pixel density and thus the same amount of pixels but the diagonal measurement has increased. If you got a square display with the same measurement as this rectangle one it would have more pixels, but only because it has a larger area. This is why it's stupid to compare a 4:3 and a 16:9/10 screen of the same 'size' as they aren't, it's only useful for comparing screens of the same aspect ratio.
21:9 refers to the aspect ratio (I believe this is 2.35:1 like anamorphic dvds) as in 21 inches wide to 9 inches tall. The pixel density is what matters and this is still going to give you HD but with some stretching cause the height pixel count is still 1080.
I'd hit it....
With my Wiimote
Someone needs to learn how to reduce their ratios.
21:9 is just a stupid way to say 7:3.
It's 7:3, 21:9 is a marketing number.
This reminds me of when widescreen TV's were introduced here.
The advertisements would all try to convince us that, compared to the 'normal' screen, you GAINED an extra piece of screen on the left and on the right (English is not my native language but you understand what I mean I suppose).
Ofcourse that was bullshit then, just like it is now with this new TV.
Suppose we had allways had widescreen TV's to begin with, and they wanted to sell us 'highscreen' TV's....then the advertisements would tell us we would GAIN an extra piece of screen at the top and the bottom of the screen!
Truth is ofcourse that you don't get anything extra, you just get a screen with a different aspect ratio.
Hm, I hope any of you understand what I mean :-/
I'd say that this is marketing garbage, I say stay with 15:9 just like the all new Apple Cinema Display.
That exchange rate gives me the heebie jeebies. i remember when that would have been more than $6000
As far as the screen is concerned i think its a nice idea but id rather have a less extreme one that is wider than 16:9 because when you watch things like south park on this it will take up like a third of the screen real estate.
When we got widescreen tvs, did nobody think to standardise the aspect ratio of films and tv to make them the same? I mean really...
As a film-lover this TV is a great idea. Everyone who truly enjoys films and going to the cinema knows that even current 60" Pioneers don't come close to the feel of actually being in a move (and people that claim it does haven't been to the cinema in a looong time), this however at least brings something to the home which is a little closer to the experience of your local cinema.
I agree it pointless for normal television but as someone above mentioned it is most useful as a second TV for a home cinema room or something similar, if you can afford to have a TV just for this purpose (and many people can) then its going to be a very attractive purchase.
aka 7:3
4:3 will look HORRIBLE on that.
Get a 4:3 monitor for your 4:3 needs.
No more black bars and no more money... Nice!
This would be convenient for playing Crystal Chronicles on Wii. Except I doubt there will be any 7:3 games coming anytime soon.
21:9...?
I guess 7:3 just wasn't marketable.
the voices in my head (M$, gogel and apel) tell me 63:27 is how it'll roll
the thing is they're trying to play on most average's people ignorance... "omg, look at my camera. it can take pictures with 0.1mp more than yours!" or "jyeaaa look at my mini, super, car-efficient car with 2gallons/mile more than yours"
>.>
No, just get a projector and a bigass screen. It emulates the theater much better than this, and is much more adjustable to different aspect ratios.
21:9 Anamorphic is a cinema standard that has existed more or less since 1952 as a widespread technique. I work as a professional cinematographer, and while I don't think that this TV really does have any purpose besides cinephiles, I rejoice. Go watch the full screen version of rebel without a cause and then watch the wide screen (which is presented in letterboxed anamorphic on the DVD). Watch the police station scene, and notice how the entire action of the scene is cut from the full screen in favor of focussing on james dean. This TV is made to rectify 50 years of inequity at the hands of the Television industry, and I, as a professional rejoice that movies shot in 2.39:1 can be watched in the same aspect ratio in which i film them.
fantastic, this is the way to go.
God I even hate the thought of a new standard if it ever got to that extreme, which Im sure one day it will, then you'll have to re-buy everything. 16:9 from 4:3 was a smart move but this, nah.
Great we got rid of the black bars on the top and bottom!! Not Great, we have black bars on the left and right when we watch 16:10 (normal hdtv) and most anything else that is found on the tv these days. Not to mention what 4:3 will look like. I mean am I right nor not, 16:10 WILL HAVE BARS ON THE SIDE!!
They're so stupid with this crap, "the black bars are gone", yeah right! they'll be back on the sides when watching 16x9 stuff, which is the norm now, extra wide is only when you watch a dvd.
This set is almost a complete wasted effort. It's ratio is 2.33333333333333333:1 so um what movies are that? last time i looked 2.35:1, 2.39:1 ,2.40:1 , 1.85:1 and for HDTV 1.78:1 were used. So is the TV going ot crop those images or still have letterboxes (albeit "thinner" ones) ? We'd have pillarboxes for 1.33:1,1.78:1, 1.85:1, and letterboxes for all the rest. How does that help ?
This would mean that every single picture format sent to the display would have to be scaled or processed because noting I know of uses 21:9 as their standard ratio. The "Spaghetti Westerns" that were filmed with that ratio were almost always cropped to 2.35:1 anyway.
I just do not understand the choice of that ratio over 2.35:1 or maybe 1.85:1. Both are a better compramise between ratios that fit it natively, well 1.85:1 not so much but atleast it is more of a middle ground.
What if the scaler inside the unit is crappy? we'd be left everything looking bad that it displayed. I'd rather have a OLED or flexible Fixed height display as the next step. that way all content could be displayed in it original ratio without loss of resolution without distotion.
At the moment you need a projector to do that with a anamorphic lens, a scaler and screen masking and that is a bulky inelegant solution.
I wonder if philips will make a 3:2 display for photographers next.
What really grinds my gears is that When i went to hd I thought the black bars were over especially the horizontal ones. and then lo and behold im watching BD and there they are a nice set of bars which looks really dumb considering the movie is in widescreen
$4300 to see 4:3 content with half the screen with in black on the sides? Hell, even 16:9 content would have black bars would it not?
Yo why do monitors need to have bezels?
Well, nice, and while this makes *purrrrfect* sense for 2.35:1 material, it will leave you with black bars ON THE SIDE for all your mainstream 1.85:1, 1.78:1 and smaller. It *would* make sense for PIP scenarios as you could fit a decent 2nd screen in there for browsing or whatnot. Overall I think 16:9 is the best compromise for a TV. Projection will give you a much better deal if you truly need a big 21:1 picture.
Oh and shoddy video btw.. If you have what, 30 seconds?, I don't want to see the bloke talking for half the time. Show the frickin' product.
Hey, look what just popped up, now just bring it to the USA!
www.cinematicviewingexperience.com
By the way 7:3 = 2.33333 to be ~ to the 2.39:1 cinematic view