Philips 56-inch Cinema 21:9 ultra widescreen LCD hands on

We've had more than a few vantage points of the Cinema 21:9 ultra widescreen HDTV from Philips over the last few months but Tweakers.net finally got one loose from the world of concept photographs and trade show demos for some real seat time. Translation isn't necessary to ogle at the Transformers Blu-ray playing with no bars, but looking beyond the pictures revealed appreciation for this LCD's quick refresh rate and relatively low power requirements. Luckily, we won't have to figure out how to get the 153cm x 26cm x 87cm box it ships in home, what with the lack of a U.S. release and all.

[Thanks, Wilbert]

Philips gives Cinema 21:9 HDTV a price and release date

[Darren Pillans Posted Apr 30th 2009 9:49PM]

Why link to us an article that we can't read?

Silly.

[(Unverified) Posted May 1st 2009 2:00AM]

There are more than US people reading this site you know. I can read this article even though it is not anywhere near my native language. Maybe do some thinking before complaining?

[elBradford Posted May 1st 2009 5:33AM]

"Maybe xxxx before you xxxxx"

That phrase is so tired. Please be more original with your condescending remarks.

[bighap Posted Apr 30th 2009 11:27PM]

English conversion link:

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftweakers.net%2Freviews%2F1248%2Fhands-on-philips-cinema-219-ultrabreedbeeld.html&lp=nl_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

[(Unverified) Posted May 1st 2009 12:01AM]

So do we consider this to be a 2K display?


Display device
Diagonal 56 inches (142.2 cm)
Resolution 2560 x 1080 pixels
picture proportion 2,39:1, 21:9
Type IPS alpha, 100Hz
Techniques for picture improvement 3:2 /2: 2 motion pull-down, 3D-combfilter, Active Control with lichtsensor, oppression of serrated lines, Progressive scan, 1080p 24/25/30 Hz processing, 1080p 50/60 Hz processing, 200 Hz Clear LCD, Achtergrondscan
look angle 176º
Clarity 500 cd/m ²
Dynamic baffle contrast 80.000:1
Connectivity
Hdmi 4x (version 1.3)
Component video 1x, YPbPr, progressive
Composite None
Remaining 1x d-sub (vga); 1x s-video (entrance); 2x scart; 1x usb; 1x ethernet (dlna certified); 1x s/pdif (coaxial)
Tuner 1x analogous; 1x DVB-T, DVB-T Mpeg4, DVB-C Mpeg4, MHEG
General
Sound 4x (2 incorporated subwoofers, 2x dome-tweeter), 2x, 15W total, Virtual Dolby Digital
multimedia connections ethernet, usb, wifi 802.11g (built in)
Supported formats aac lc, mp3, ac3, lpcm, wma version 2 to version 9.2, dia presentation files (.alb), jpeg-afbeeldingen, poison images, png-afbeeldingen, mpeg-1, mpeg-2, mpeg4, avi (mp4s, mp4v, mp4v, xvid), h.264/mpeg-4 avc, mpeg-progammastream ntsc, mpeg-progammastream stop, wmv9/vc1
CI-slot 1x (Common interface)
Remaining information
Dimensions 1488mm x 745mm x 324mm (with foot)
Weight 37,9kg (with foot)
energy usage 281W at normal use, standby 0,15W

[Darren Pillans Posted May 1st 2009 2:44AM]

I'm kinda mystified by what resolution we'd be actually seeing on this TV.

If a 1080P Blu-ray has to be zoomed to accommodate the 2.35.1 aspect ratio of a movie, resolution would be lost, not gained. Right?

To fully utilise this TV's 1080 lines, Blu-rays would have to be remastered to look their best on this TV wouldn't they?

[madgamer2000 Posted May 1st 2009 9:30AM]

Really it is a bit higher than 2k rez wise. @Darren, I don't think you would really be loosing any resolution, as it is not tossing stuff out, but everything would have to be upscaled to fit it, as a 2.35 blu-ray is not 1080 vertical pixels. It is displaying every pixel the disk had, but upscaled some. The blu-rays would have to be remastered or at least re-encoded to take advantage of this, the problem with that being that they would be out of spec and the players couldn't likely play them, even with a firmware update, unless you dropped the bitrate down to compensate (or made them run on a PC or something where hardware constraints wouldn't be as much of an issue). That would be my thoughts anyway.

[Darren Pillans Posted May 1st 2009 2:38AM]

Dear Jonsson,

Are you kidding me?

What percentage of this site's readers do you think can actually understand that article?

Your point is still irrelevant.

I'm Australian not American. Maybe it's you, who should think before you post.

P.S. Thank you kevon27.

[(Unverified) Posted May 1st 2009 3:10AM]

Enough people in Europe could read it to make it a completely valid thing for engadget to link to it. The irrelevant point is yours!

[elBradford Posted May 1st 2009 5:36AM]

Just shut up you ninny!

I want this TV! Not to hear some idiot rant about how Engadget HD reader demographics affect the relevancy of a link.

[Joe Las Vegas Posted May 1st 2009 3:28AM]

This thing is useless, if you watch HD tv programming in 16x9, which will be most of tv watching, you'll get blacks bars on the sides, then if you watch SD in 4x3 you'll get huge black bars on the sides, thanks but no thanks!
16x9 TV's are the perfect balance.

[ian9outof10 Posted May 6th 2009 5:01AM]

Actually, with 16x9 material, the TV uses a special stretchy-vision mode to fill the screen.

It's very similar to the 'smart' mode on Sony CRT TVs that pulled 4:3 material out to 16:9. Namely, it stretches content more at the edges than in the middle.

[(Unverified) Posted May 1st 2009 4:01AM]

My Projector screen is 2.7m x1.2m which is roughly the same ratio, and 2.35:1 movies look awesome but you get black bars with regular widescreen which is what most programming is these days.

[(Unverified) Posted May 1st 2009 5:35AM]

The article is in Dutch, my native language. So you just have to use Google translate to translate it from Dutch into English.

Philips is also Dutch, so that's why Tweakers.net did get a review model.

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftweakers.net%2Freviews%2F1248%2Fhands-on-philips-cinema-219-ultrabreedbeeld.html&sl=nl&tl=en&history_state0=

[(Unverified) Posted May 1st 2009 8:38AM]

This is will never make it to the U.S. Is there even a market for this TV?




CC

www.highdefjunkies.com

[Socr209905 Posted May 1st 2009 9:09AM]

There isn't a real market for thalf the junk sold here in the U.S. We either can't afford the new stuff, don't understand the new stuff or just don't care.

This is also my theory on why plasma is dying.

[(Unverified) Posted May 1st 2009 9:30AM]

Don't even get me started on the decline of Plasma! Bad marketing and misinformed people is the reason why.

CC

www.highdefjunkies.com

[(Unverified) Posted May 1st 2009 3:22PM]

There are more than US people reading this site you know. I can read this article even though it is not anywhere near my native language. Maybe do some thinking before complaining?



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