Philips' 56-inch Cinema 21:9 HDTV gets showcased on video

Philips' groundbreaking Cinema 21:9 HDTV looked so curious when it launched a fortnight ago that we actually questioned its authenticity. Clearly, this beauty is for real. Pocket-lint was lucky enough to be on-hand for its unveiling in London, and it hosted up a nice video showing off the 56-inch beast in action. The black bars you've grown used to detesting were indeed gone, and while Philips wouldn't dole out any hard specifications, we are told that it boasts five HDMI sockets, a Spring release date and an estimated £3,000 ($4,276) price tag. Vid's after the break, per usual.

[Kel @ Feb 5th 2009 8:14AM]

I want me one of those!

[indigo_theatre @ Jan 29th 2009 4:41PM]

kudos to murphmeister for using "a fortnight ago"

[Max @ Jan 29th 2009 4:46PM]

This'll come in mighty handy for watching all those 21:9 formatted TV shows that aren't being produced.

[Fara @ Jan 29th 2009 4:52PM]

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.

[neal @ Jan 29th 2009 5:34PM]

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!

[Shinigami @ Jan 29th 2009 7:32PM]

2520x1080?
count me in!
But, please, make it OLED!

[Shinigami @ Jan 29th 2009 7:34PM]

@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).

[RoboDan @ Jan 29th 2009 9:07PM]

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)

[Pokoleo @ Jan 29th 2009 11:49PM]

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.

[arkweld @ Jan 30th 2009 5:34AM]

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.

[Chris @ Jan 30th 2009 11:48AM]

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.

[adrian @ Jan 30th 2009 12:04PM]

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.

[IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII (BarCODE) @ Jan 31st 2009 1:46AM]

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..

[kjb434 @ Jan 29th 2009 4:47PM]

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.

[JaceFace @ Jan 29th 2009 5:02PM]

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?

[DAR @ Jan 29th 2009 5:17PM]

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 :)

[FreeRange @ Jan 29th 2009 5:46PM]

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...

[chispito @ Jan 29th 2009 11:14PM]

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.

[FreeRange @ Jan 30th 2009 12:04AM]

@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?

[Jake Johnson @ Jan 29th 2009 4:52PM]

Are they assuming that the people who hate letterboxing will love pillarboxing when they watch their 16:9 tv shows?

[loocas @ Jan 29th 2009 5:01PM]

One little greenie to you, sir! ;)

[Richard @ Jan 29th 2009 7:18PM]

They are going to release a curtain set for the tv so you can cover the bars movie theater style.

[Poke4Christ @ Jan 29th 2009 5:00PM]

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.

[Ridgecity @ Jan 29th 2009 6:05PM]

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.

[Shinigami @ Jan 29th 2009 7:39PM]

@Ridgecity
So thats why all my friends are amused by my widescreen 30-inch monitor...
Just get a bigger screen!

[huth.sebastian @ Jan 29th 2009 5:01PM]

still think it'd make heck of a computer screen, screw those movies…

[wickedpheonix @ Jan 29th 2009 5:19PM]

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).

[Leo @ Jan 29th 2009 5:01PM]

Also... what would a standard definition broadcast look like on it? Could you fit two side by side without any scaling?

[blueshimmer007 @ Jan 29th 2009 5:11PM]

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

[loocas @ Jan 29th 2009 5:03PM]

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.

[iansilv @ Jan 29th 2009 11:25PM]

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

[loocas @ Jan 30th 2009 8:55AM]

No, I'm not talking about the US as US isn't the center of the universe...

[broli @ Jan 29th 2009 5:05PM]

Yay another new aspect ratio.

[injate @ Jan 29th 2009 5:55PM]

It's been in movies for some time before this TV came around.

[jocedeg @ Jan 29th 2009 5:06PM]

Yet another piece of hardware everybody will buy by market leader Philips !

[PCIV @ Jan 29th 2009 5:11PM]

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?

[Chris Vaughan @ Jan 29th 2009 5:12PM]

It's starting to look more and more like a projector that can display in any aspect ratio is the way to go.

[ky13 @ Jan 29th 2009 6:02PM]

You still have to choose which aspect ratio you want for the screen, unless you decide your wall is good enough for display.

[moo083 @ Jan 29th 2009 5:16PM]

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!

[Dillinger @ Jan 29th 2009 5:16PM]

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.

[Rick @ Jan 29th 2009 5:50PM]

Seconded!...right? In any case I second that.

[austin @ Jan 29th 2009 5:30PM]

think of what SD 4:3 tv shows will look like on that if they are stretched

[Killa Aaron @ Jan 29th 2009 5:52PM]

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

[Jake @ Jan 29th 2009 5:53PM]

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!

[Nova @ Jan 29th 2009 6:01PM]

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)

[Kieran @ Jan 29th 2009 7:22PM]

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.

[edscot @ Jan 29th 2009 7:50PM]

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.

[aaron @ Jan 29th 2009 6:10PM]

I'd hit it....


With my Wiimote

[mykie @ Jan 29th 2009 6:11PM]

Someone needs to learn how to reduce their ratios.

21:9 is just a stupid way to say 7:3.

[Scott @ Jan 29th 2009 6:11PM]

It's 7:3, 21:9 is a marketing number.