Something to broaden your TV viewing experience!

Richersounds.ie: Ashley

This new soon to be launched Philips TV will make a perfect home cinema centre piece for the Blu-Ray and DVD fan.

It's the worlds first 21:9 widescreen TV which will do away with the black bars found on 2.35:1 ratio films!

Information is scarce at the moment but this link www.cinematicviewingexperience.com will give you a taster.
Once I have anymore info I can share I'll update this post as soon as I get it.

Also once we get our hands on this exciting TV, expected April or May this year, we are considering a boardies exclusive launch evening in store to showcase it.

Anyone interested???
Dig out your favourite Cinescope discs now!!

All the best
Ash

Richersounds.ie: Ashley

Just out of interest I had a little look through my BR & HD-DVD discs tonight to see just how many would get the full benefit from this TV, the results I thought were quite interesting.

I have far more discs with wider ratios than 16:9 (I have FAR too many discs:D)

Out of 76 HD discs, 54 are 2.35:1 (or wider ratio - a few state they are 2.40:1 on the box but have exactly the same sized bars top and bottom as 2.35:1 films - I measured..) compared to 22 with ratios closer to 16:9 (1.77, 1.78 & 1.85:1)
(oh and 28 Laser Discs in 2.35:1 and 5 in the 1.85:1 ratio, but they don't get spun very much now:( but gez my LD player is sexy looking..)

My DVD collection also favours the wider ratio by a huge margin as well (tried to avoid any ratio/wide puns there...)

I have one DVD, The Bridge On The River Kwai, which is formatted at 2.55:1:eek:.

Constant Image Height front projection systems seem to be getting popular in the America for those with VERY, VERY DEEP pockets - you'll wince when you see the price of the anamorphic lens systems alone to add to compatiable projectors - So for those lucky people who want to get the best from the bulk of their superwide films this TV would be an ideal soloution.

More tech details on it, other than the fact that it's a 56" screen size, are still pretty scarce, But you can bet John McD and I will be pressing for one for the shop as soon as Philips get hold of one - even if it means a covert raid on the Philips HQ show room!!

night
Ash

joeperry

Hey what happens when you watch a 16:9 movie on this telly?

Richersounds.ie: Ashley

I'm curious about this myself.

I'd guess there will be a couple of options similar to what we see on regular 16:9 TV's so I'd expect some form of image manipulation mode to fill the screen (if desired) and hopefully, a unscaled/native ratio mode to "pillar box" the 16:9 image on the TV.

As soon as I have an answer I'll post it up

Cheers
Ash

JoeA3

I've read discussions on this over on avforums and there's a lot of negative vibes towards this idea over there.

First of all, even with your 1:2.40 ratio blu-rays, the black bars top/bottom of those films are actually hard-coded into the picture - i.e. those black bars are encoded onto the disk itself, not on the TV! This is why it often says "made for 16:9 TV" or similar on the cover. So, if you were to play your current cinescope DVD's on this new TV, you would end up having to crop/zoom the picture anyway, thereby losing out on detail and resolution.
And.... a lot of cinescope DVD's that use sub-titles, the subtitles are often encoded into the bottom black bar. I read that Philips are in discussions with the major movie distributors to release material that is actually properly suitable for this screen ratio.

- 16:9 films/programs would have chunky black bars down the sides. 4:3 programs would look like a postage stamp in the middle of the screen! So without cropping / zooming, which loses you details, you will have black-bars a lot of the time!


full discussion here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1112470

Richersounds.ie: Ashley

Hi JoeA3

All good points you mention.

Until I can see one in the flesh and have a good old playabout I wont know just what it's capable of or how it deals with the various aspect ratio's out there.

I have noticed alot of subtitles reside in the actual image area of films I have, even subtitled things like Directors commentaries, English for the hard of hearing etc, but there is a couple I have that dont - So will be interesting to see how these are dealt with.

Cheers
Ash

pa990

joeperry wrote: »

Hey what happens when you watch a 16:9 movie on this telly?

I saw this TV on some Tech / News programme during the week, for the life of me i cant remember which one

Basically, it will stretch 16:9 to fit and it will display 4:3 with black bars at the side.

anything that isn't 21:9 will be stretch/squeezed in someway or another

Richersounds.ie: John

be stretch/squeezed in someway or another[/QUOTE]

...sounds painful.

I'm going to see the beast on the 25th - I'll smuggle in the old Camera phone and post asap - see if Ash will be a rich man or a laughing stock by Christmas (Although to be fair most movie buffs do appear to be gumming to get their paws on it..Well at least the Movie Buffs who have a 16:9 as well in the main room)

See more here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_eu6OI36Us