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    • March 5, 2009
    Philips Cinema 21:9 (2.33:1) Widescreen LCD HDTV



    By Gary Reber
    Philips has introduced a 56-inch diagonal or wide measurement (not confirmed) “Cinema” 21:9 (2.33:1) LCD HDTV with three-sided Ambilight Spectra background lighting and Philips Perfect Pixel technology. Native resolution is 2560 x 1080 pixels.

    Peculiarly, the aspect ratio pertains to no standard widescreen format, whether motion picture or television based. While describing this as a “Cinema” set the company uses the non-cinema nomenclature of 21.9 aspect ratio. Cinema aspect ratios are always presented in terms of ___:1 signifying a reference to constant screen height. Thus, the motion picture standards are 1.66:1, 1.85:1 (both spherical flat), 2.35:1 (pre-1972 and anamorphic release print), and current 2.40:1 anamorphic release print. At 2.33:1 (converted in motion picture terms) this aspect ratio is in nowhere-land.

    Widescreen anamorphic motion pictures released today are formatted in 2.40:1 aspect ratio and spherical Academy Standard Flat releases are formatted at 1.85:1. As such the Philips HDTV will still reveal black bars at the sides of the image area on screen. Of course, as with the 16:9 (1.78:1) aspect ratio television-formatted image area, black bars will be revealed as well. This assumes that less wide images will be formatted with constant height.

    Philips, in labeling the new HDTV as the “Philips Cinema 21:9” has entirely missed the mark, apparently without knowledge of doing so.

    "With our unique Cinema 21:9 we have developed a television which takes you as close to the experience that you enjoy at the cinema as you can get without buying a ticket," said Philips Consumer Lifestyle Senior Vice President of Television Marketing Des Power, in a statement. "We believe that to really become absorbed in watching a film at home consumers are looking for a real cinematic viewing experience, so we have launched the world's first cinema-proportioned TV screen perfectly complemented by our immersive Ambilight technology."

    Philips states that 65 percent of all movies released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc are shot and presented in the 2.35:1 CinemaScope® aspect ratio the 21:9 HDTV  design is based on. But in reality, while it is true that there is a significant population of “widescreen” presentations released in 2.35:1, the SMPTE standard since 1972 has been 2.40:1 (actually 2.39075:1). Increasingly, new releases on DVD and Blu-ray Disc are presented in the 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

    Acknowledgeably, present-day widescreen movie releases actually fall in a range typically from 2.30:1 to 2.42:1. While the Philips display is fixed at 2.33:1, the biggest single drawback for this HDTV is that the vast majority of “widescreen” television/satellite/cable broadcasts are formatted in the 16:9 or 1.78:1 aspect ratio.

    Another aspect that is overlooked is that even widescreen films that are broadcast or mastered for release on DVD and Blu-ray Disc in the “2.35:1” aspect ratio range are actually “delivered” in a 16:9 (1.78:1) format. This means that the black bars that appear above and below widescreen image areas on screen are included in the picture information encoded onto the broadcast and optical disc masters.

    Unless Philips has another solution, in order to make “16:9-delivered” widescreen movies fit perfectly into its 21:9 image area, the HDTV will have to expand the picture vertically to “push” the encoded black bars off the screen and “push” the image on the left and right edges of the picture off the screen.

    Manipulating and image scaling the picture information may be possible but direct pixel for pixel accuracy compared to the mastered picture is problematic. This will require highly advanced adaptive pixel formatting technology.

    In an ideal world, Philips needs content producers to precisely and natively match their widescreen content to the resolution of their 21:9 (2.33:1) screen rather than continue to deliver widescreen content inside 16:9 black bars. This is possible on the Blu-ray Disc format.

    But for the Philips non-standard widescreen formatted HDTV to become widely “understood” and accepted will require Hollywood to start releasing in this format on Blu-ray Disc. Otherwise, gobs of electronic processing will be necessary, which always results in undesirable artifacts, not to mention added cost.

    Philips says the Cinema 21:9 will be available in "spring 2009." We will have to wait until then to fully understand the technology and find out how well Philips video processing works to fill the 21:9 (2.33:1) screen. I expect the new HDTV will be pricey as well. And given the nature of the consumer electronics industry, I expect other display manufacturers to follow with their own versions of a super-wide flat panel HDTV.




    Tags: - Editor's Couch - - Philips - - widescreen - - cinema - - 21:9 - - Perfect Pixel - - Ambilight Spectra - - aspect ratio - - HDTV - - SMPTE - - Blu-ray - - CinemaScope - - adaptive pixel formatting - - scaling -

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