How Wide Would You like Your Screen Sir ?

HDCriticalFan

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I thought that I dreamed this (or perhaps "nightmared it").

On "Click" this weekend they showed a new "soon to be launched" flat panel LCD TV. It had a 56 inch diagonal (impressive enough in itself) but its main claim to fame was that it was not 16:9, but 21:9 (cue "but it goes up to 11 !" comments).

I can see that there is a slight benefit when watching blockbuster movies whose 2.35 AR more closely fits the 2.333333 AR of this screen ... but even they ain't goint to fit exactly. And many films have an AR of about 1.7 (close to 16:9) ... and ALL HD TV is exactly 16:9.

So I was pleased when Spencer Kelly raised the issue of "legacy" material in the two "narrower" formats.

To my astonishment the guy then waxed lyrical about how the screen would take 16:9 material and the do a "leave the middle alone and strech the sides" job to make it fill the whole screen (after all, we couldn't have black bars, could we !).

If you haven't seen this mode it has to be the worst possible way to treat images. I can just about put up with s-t-r-e-t-c-h-y vision (at least for news and cartoons) and you kind of get to ignore it after a while, but this vario-vision keeps slapping you in the face because, as people and things move about on the screen, they keep changing shape - it's like being in an old fashioned "Hall of Mirrors" ! Any pans also cause distortion with a sort of "fish-eye lens" effect on the entire image.

Spencer even pointed out that the target market for this screen (cinema buffs) are the very people who dislike such distortions.

It gets better ...

For 4:3 material they will do a vario-stretch to get the picture into a 16:9 frame. Unless I'm misunderstanding the guy, he is suggesting the very worst of both worlds; black bars left and right AND a distorted picture. Unbelieveable !

I just can't see the point of this screen. The total width of the image is slightly smaller than that of a conventional 60 inch screen. So a (currently available) 60 inch screen will show 16:9 material (i.e. ALL HD TV) properly AND give a much bigger (and undistorted) 4:3 picture - about 30% higher and 70% by area if Pythagoras is right.


So, in summary :-

- pay (presumably) more than for a 60 inch screen
- get smaller and distorted HD TV
- get smaller and distorted SD TV

And the benefit would be that any 2.35 material (well, 2.333 actually - if any exists) would be displayed without black bars.

One of the humorous taglines is "No More Compromise - No More Black Bars" ... well I can see a few compromises !


This seems to be a "TV for dummies". But am I missing something ? If so, can someone put me right on this ?


The video piece is available on the BBC Click site.


Regards
 
That looks like it.

"Ambilight" too - don't get me started !


I don't understand why, in a darkened room, you can't just ignore the black space above and below the image in much the same way that you ignore all the other black space around the TV ?! I can see that the size of the image and the size (at least height) of the screen is important ... but not the shape.



Regards
 
Shouldn't it be 7:3 not 21:9?:D

Does anyone know what the screen's pixel resolution is?
 
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That looks like it.

"Ambilight" too - don't get me started !


I don't understand why, in a darkened room, you can't just ignore the black space above and below the image in much the same way that you ignore all the other black space around the TV ?! I can see that the size of the image and the size (at least height) of the screen is important ... but not the shape.



Regards

[scouse accent]Calm down calm down [/scouse accent] :D
 
Does anyone know what the screen's pixel resolution is?

Basing the pixels by 7:3 (21:9 / 2.333) ratio the tv should be one of the following:
2520 x 1080
1792 x 768
1680 x 720

I for one would happily get one of these!!

The blackbars annoyed me when I had my old 4:3 CRT tv, when watching 16:9 (1.78) widescreen. Then bought widescreen telly and all was well. Then 21:9 (2.35) came along, blackbars are back again lol - go away
 
Sounds like a through-and-through marketing gimmick... just Philips taking a punt to see if they can differentiate themselves from the rest of the players out there. After all, that's the real background to Ambilight too. Add a feature that a certain proportion of the TV buying population will think is "just too cool" and then you're different from all the other black boxes out there. Mission accomplished! Bonuses all-round!

I bet the "Suggestion Box" at Philips is pretty full of wacky ideas.

Only time will tell if it takes off, or not.

Sadly, no-one in Philips seems to have thought about it too much, or they would surely have realised that 21:9 is 7:3... don't you always simplify the ratios down to the lowest whole number in the normal world?

Or maybe 7:3 just doesn't sound cool enough? Maybe as 16:9 screens are so well established that they wanted the numbers to be bigger - after all... 21:9 has got to be better than 16:9, hasn't it? *** After all, it's a bigger number on the left hand side... and 21:9 is obviously better than 7:3 because both numbers are bigger. Can you imagine the in-store Sales training at Currys on this one... it'll be a hoot!

QED.

*** ...in the mind of a Marketeer.
 
That looks like it.

"Ambilight" too - don't get me started !


I don't understand why, in a darkened room, you can't just ignore the black space above and below the image in much the same way that you ignore all the other black space around the TV ?! I can see that the size of the image and the size (at least height) of the screen is important ... but not the shape.



Regards

Or just get a Kuro then the black bars will be invisible to your eyes :D

This philips set looks very very silly indeed, and will probably be another failure from philips.
 
This is a no brainer!!... I can't see anyone buying this. they chipset will have to be TOP notch to muck about with black bars without stretching the picture badly, unless someone develops a Blu-Ray deck that outputs in that RES and totally revolutionizes film making you can forget it. i'll stick to 16:9 if its ok with you Phillips!!
 
This idea is absurd :rotfl:

Firstly the good point. Watching a blueray would be pretty awesome, nobody likes black bar's in any shape or form.

And the bad points??...... everything else :rotfl: Can you imagine watching a broadcast in 4:3 :eek: Those black bars which Philips have miraculously eradicated are now back, not only are they back, they have been to McDonalds and eaten the entire menu.. Fat black bars on both sides :D Presuming this 4:3 will be centered, I work that out to mean that rather than 56", you would effectivly be watching 26" (taking into consideration the size of the bar's)

So the alternative, they may be thinking to stretch 4:3.... my god, can you imagine just how unnatural that is going to look..

This is a truly dreadful idea. Maybe they should market it as a 'dedicated blueray viewing screen'
 
... watching a broadcast in 4:3 :eek: Those black bars which Philips have miraculously eradicated are now back, not only are they back, they have been to McDonalds and eaten the entire menu.. Fat black bars on both sides :D Presuming this 4:3 will be centered,

It's worse than that. If you take the marketing man at face value, he claims that 4:3 material will be stretched in a non-linear manner to fill a 16:9 frame on the screen ... with resulting black bars at the left and right (which, by my reckoning, would be slightly wider than the black bars on a same height 16:9 screen).

So they have hit upon a trifecta of errors :

- the 4:3 image is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d
- the 4:3 image is distorted in a non linear manner
- there are (even larger) black bars

Well done ! I didn't even think that was possible !


Maybe they should market it as a 'dedicated blueray viewing screen'

Well, rather than buy this 56 inch 21:9, why not just buy a normal 60 inch 16:9 ? I'm guessing that it would cost less AND it would be wider. The presentation of a 2.35:1 wide screen movie would be similar (actually, slightly larger/better on the 16:9) and of course all other material (HD and SD TV) would be far larger !


Check out the video article on the BBC Click website (it is linked from the Click summary page).

I have a lot of time for Spencer Kelly, and he was openly critical here, but he did seem to be spouting the company line when he talked about "movies being made in 21:9" as categorical fact. In fact, some are made in 2.35:1 (which is close) but many are much closer to 16:9 ... and of course Ben Hur is quite a bit wider, so that would STILL have black bars on a 21:9 screen !


I think Hippogriff got it right when he hinted that salesmen will be selling 21:9 sets as an improvement of "5" over the "old fashioned" 16:9 ones - chortle, chortle !


Balancing Point

OK, in defence of Philips, I will concede that the marketing guy was clearly on shaky technical ground. I'm guessing that these sets will have a range of aspect ratio settings. As well as these "sexy" modes which he was selling, I'm betting that there will be the more straighforward non-distorting ones. Even so, I suggest that one looks closely at the aspect ratio info on the DVD/Blu-Ray boxes in one's library to see just how many of the movies are exactly 2.3333:1 before one buys a screens like this to "eliminate back bars".




Regards
 
First up - I'd be highly surprised if the various methods of distorting narrower images to "fit" aren't optional and that you could simply use the TV with correctly shaped images and varying sizes of "black bar" at the sides. None of which "forgives" the marketing of stretchyvision as a useful feature nor the TV presenter's coverage (described above - I've not actually watched it). But, supposing the thing is used "properly".....

I guess that the idea is the same as the concept that some projector users have of "constant height" projection. Where, exactly like (most) cinemas, the width of the screen (or in this case, the viewable image) is the only thing that changes with differing ratios. Some users even spend an amount not dissimilar to the cost of their projector, on an anamorphic lens attachment to help achieve constant height. There is an AVForums video on this very subject.

I gather our perception of "size" is more determined by height than by width and so it could be argued that constant height is the only "correct" way to do material of varying aspect ratio.

Having said all that - I don't see it being a mass market product.
 
I gather our perception of "size" is more determined by height than by width and so it could be argued that constant height is the only "correct" way to do material of varying aspect ratio.
I'd agree with that. I hear it constantly argued that black bars should be put up with because, so it is implied, they're the directors intention. In actual fact, the director's intention is for the film to appear wider than a standard 1.85:1 flick, and the only way to make this happen in the home was with an expensive anamorphic projection setup.

Philips appear to be doing their bit to make this closer to the mass market, but unfortunately they won't pull it off for a number of reasons. In general, they're full of ideas, but appalling at the execution. If this was designed mainly for 2.35:1 Blu-Rays, it should be 1920x800 (or whatever it would be), but it's been announced that it's 1080 high by whatever it needs to be wide. This means scaling of Blu-Ray content, which is not ideal.

Also recently, Panasonic have released the PT-AE3000 with lens memory feature. This will almost certainly come in cheaper than this Philips set, even if you go for an electric screen with masking! You'd get a bigger image and no-need for Blu-Ray content to be scaled (some have in fact argued that this is a better method than anamorphic lenses for a similar reason).
 
At the risk of disappearing up the proverbial wotsit, the resolution would need to be 1920 x 823 to display the relevant part of a BD or Full HD broadcast of a 21:9 film. However, at that resolution it would not be able to display a full 16:9 HD pic without downscaling.

Alternatively, it would have to be 2520 x 1080 to handle full HD material at full res, but with black bars either side or in stretchyvision. In addition 21:9 (or 7:3) material, which is its raison d'etre, would have to be upscaled to fill the screen.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

BTW, I have just realised my TV is 32:18!!
 
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Also recently, Panasonic have released the PT-AE3000 with lens memory feature.

I've got one of these and a 2.35:1 screen for watching BluRays (which a high proportion seem to be 2.35:1), in fact getting a 2.35:1 screen was my main justification behind a projector, making it a bit 'special' for films compared to my TV. I have a 16:9 TV for watching 'normal' TV and occasional BBC HD broadcasts, which is pretty much all 16:9 apart from a few programs and old repeats, which I can watch with side bars rather than 'stretchy' vision.

I saw this episode of 'Click' and thought that most of the benefits of having a 2.35:1 were countered by the compromises for the 16:9 and 4:3 broadcasts. I didn't hear any mention of resolution either, so we don't know (and probably don't care reading most of the above responses :D) whether the 2.35:1 is upscaled to 2520 x 1080 (or whatever) or if all the other ARs are downscaled (not a good advertising feature) to 'something' x 800.
 
I can't see any problem with a projector screen being 2.35:1 as it is pretty much a passive component of the setup.

The 2.35:1 TV just throws up so many potential shortcomings in relation to scaling etc.
 

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