Useless Product of the Day: Philip’s 21:9 CINEMA TV
Ever watch a movie on your 16:9 LCD or Plasma TV only to be disappointed to see the black bars above and below the picture? That’s because the movie you’re watching was shot in glorious 2.35:1 aspect ratio, so the picture has to fit in the vertical centre of the screen. “But rye”, you say. “That’s why I bought a widescreen TV in the first place; to avoid those annoying bars!” Well, apparently Philips feels your pain, and now proudly presents the Philips Cinema, a 56″ superwide screen that does away with horizontal black bars by sporting an advertised 21:9 ratio.
If it sounds like Philips is the first to the finish line in the race to build the first TV that matches Industry standards, there are a couple things to consider:
1) No such race exists
2) As Fast Company points out, there is no such standard:
Interestingly the TV’s ratio is 2.33:1, and a quick Google shows that movie aspect ratios vary all the way from TV’s 1.33:1 up to Ben Hur’s MGM Camera 65 tech which had a picture of 2.76:1 ratio. There’s no actual standard at 2.33:1, the closest is Cinemascope at 2.55:1, so you’ll probably still get some form of letterboxing with this TV.
So if trading horizontal black bars for vertical ones is your thing, then rejoice, for your day is at hand.
You’ll be able to enjoy your Blu Ray copy of Transformers in all its 2.35:1 glory as early as Spring of 2009.
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I should point out that when I say “trading horizontal bars for vertical ones”, I’m referring to basically any content on the planet that isn’t presented in 2.35:1.
That Fast Company quote is so wrong. The closest is not 2.55:1 it’s 2.35:1 which as you note is the ratio for Transformers. Plus Blade Runner. Plus the first Alien. Plus actually many many *many* other movies. For FC to leap to the very uncommon 2.55 when CinemaScope is classically 2.35 and modernly 2.39, that’s just dumb, they are dumb. There are a *lot* of movies out there that would fit this screen almost perfectly with almost no letterboxing. This television is obviously manufactured to fit the *other* major widescreen standard — a few points of difference is irrelevant, since even 16:9 TVs are a few points off from the ‘standard’ they are built to emulate. (16:9 gives you 1.78 whereas ordinary widescreen is 1.85, so they are even further off that ‘standard’ than 2.33 is from the 2.35/2.39 mark.)
P.S. This is mostly a gripe about Fast Company’s completely ass-wrong characerisation of there being no resembling standard, not the rest of your article. I probably wouldn’t buy this even if I could afford it, but it should be plainly obvious which standard it was built for.
P.P.S. Most modern movies listed as 2.35:1 are actually 2.39:1, they just don’t want to appear to deviate from the 2.35, because it’s the classical CinemaScope *standard*.
I know right? 2.35 is obviously the next closest thing.
I see it as just another tradeoff…if you buy thi thing to watch 2:35 movies, then your 16:9 content will suffer…if you buy a 16:9 to watch HD content, your 2:35 will suffer, and so on and so on. It all boils down to personal preference, but I just see this thing as useless because it’s nothing more than an extravagance that trades one problem for another.
But if all you watch is 2:35 movies, well, then this isn’t that useless after all.
Well, yeah, you’re right. The only counterargument might be that you could reach the largest viewable frame sizes for 2.35 movies cheaper with a 2.35 TV ratio than with an ordinary HDTV, but I just did the math, and it would only require a 59″ 16:9 HDTV to give you the same exact picture size when watching a 21:9 movie as would see with this 56″ 21:9 Philips TV. And that 3″ shorter diagonal difference does not seem very likely to generate a lot of savings, especially since 21:9 will be a specialty low-volume item. It might even be *more* expensive than achieving the horizontal equivalent with a more standard 16:9 set.
I’m not in the market, but comparing the price of the Philips Cinema to a 59″ or 60″ ordinary HDTV would be an interesting and relevant exercise.
Pricing for the Cinema has not been released, but for comparison’s sake:
The closest size comparison in the LCD market is 65″. Best Buy sels the 65″ Aquos for $4999.
The closest size comparison would be to a Plasma set, which come in 58″ flavours. BB has the Samsung PN58A650 for $3748.
It’s not really an apples-to-apples comparison though; but if all you care about is that you can watch your super-wide-aspect movies at the same size as this (likely vastly more expensive) Phillips TV, it’s the best comparison to make.
I thought 60″ HDTVs were fairly common…? Don’t really know though as I have never shopped for one. GOogle turns up a bunch of both plasma and LCD 60″ers the value of which I can’t really judge.
Huh…I didn;t google it…I always thought the ranges were 38/42/46/52/65 for LCD, and 42/50/58 for Plasma. Maybe those are just the most common.
This thing has been priced, at least in the UK. €4000 (£3535/$5044)
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/02/20/philips_cinema_tv_dated/
Definitely does not seem worth it considering the prices RebelScum quoted above for 16:9 TVs that would produce similar picture size even when letterboxing a 2.35:1 image.
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