Philips brings new meaning to Widescreen TV

Oh my lord, I've been waiting for them to make something like this! I want one so bad... I wonder how damned expensive this will be?

This is great. Think about playing games on this :). I want one too. I think they will be pretty high priced to strat off with but I think once other companies start releasing things similar they will come down quite a bit. I an predicting around the 3k - 5k mark

whilst your putting your advanced orders in best put an order in for a wind farm or an industrial diesel generator for the back garden at the same time lol :O)

Weather forecasts in the UK already have them scrolling the country because of the 16:9 problem. They can't show the country in one go, like they used to just fine, because the new wide screen tv's are shorter. It's also partly to do with the new dumb way they show the weather on BBC.

If 21:9 became the standard for general TV then things would only get worse. 4:3 is actually a very useful size for a general TV, sometimes you need height, sometimes width. How are they going to show someone tall, something tall, a full person frame if the height of an average tv is only 15 inches? This widescreen thing is such a gimmick, I can't believe people are still falling for it.

32 inch 4:3 was a large telly, now you need at least 42inch widescreen to have the same physical height. I'd rather have a 42 inch 4:3 than a 42 inch 16:9.

2.35:1, though it can range. Originally called Cinemascope.

Only a PC can truly take advantage of this. with DVD you could output your DVD's to 16x9 but not with Blu-Ray or any current HD media. I would assume the TV would have to chop off the black bars and each movie has different resolutions, 2.35:1, 2.42:1, 1.79:1, how will this TV handle all those resolutions.

And why would I want to stretch a 16:9 formatted movie or show?

lEt'S hOpE tHeY rEmEmBeR tO sTiCk 2+ TuNeRs In ThIs ThInG, sO yOu CaN dO sIdE-bY-sIdE cHaNnElS AnD PiP... AnD... AnD...

Oh dear.

Now I guess we can expect to see 4:3 aspect ratio programs stretched to 21:9 by pub owners who do not know how to setup their new TV... Lots of places I have visited seem to have notion that you are not utilising your TV properly if you don't use every square inch of the expensive new screen.

Sorry but I don't get the point of making a special 21:9 aspect TV for 2.39:1 content.

Shouldn't it be a 2.39:1 TV? Why go through all the effort and still have scaling - no matter how small.

Then again it's a Philips so it would never be on my shopping list regardless.

I'm not really sure I understand the point? Anyone buying this either has a nitch use, or simply "doesn't get it". Some Blue-Ray movies such as "Dark Knight" actually have 16x9 content mixed in on a few of the screens.

This "Ultra Wide" screen would simply crop it out. Also; I assume these TV's are of lower resolution 1920x1080 being 16x9 full HD, these are likely 1920x823.

Newer display tech such as 8G Plasma, OLED, and the still-born SED offer contrast so deep that the borders disappear anyway making this aspect only useful for inferior display technology such as LCD.

I don't get why they just didn't use the golden ratio from day one and stick with it (1.6181:1). Any maths boffin would tell you that it's inarguably the best ratio for all viewing purposes. The ratio doesn't exist on any production TV, but 16:9 is closest (but is still too wide).

I see the above comment about pub owners stretching a 4x3 image to fit the 21x9 screen. It is entirely more likely that pub owners will simply put on two or three different 4x3 sports games simultaneously (side by side by side).