If you've been pining over the
Philips Cinema 21:9 display that's available everywhere except in the U.S., keep an eye out for any manufacturers who might use
NXP's new TV550 platform, which promises built in support for 21:9 "
ultrawidescreen" displays. Worried about the extra screen space going to waste while displaying 16:9 formatted television content? No problem, it's also widget-ready to run additional info or VOD menus in the space next to an HD image. Integrating all that into a single chip should also bring costs down, so it'll be even cheaper to bring back family movie night with that one relative who always complains about the black bars. As if that's not enough, there's also the company's other new development, the PNX5130, claimed to be the first video co-processor that handles 3DTV, frame-rate conversion and local dimming backlights all on one chip, for 120Hz and 240Hz displays. NXP chips have most notably recently popped up
in the Roku streamer, we'll be keeping an eye out at CES 2010 to see where it goes next.
posted December 21st 2009 2:56PM
What about PiP support? Why have almost ALL TVs dropped this as we get HTPCs connected via HDMI and HDTV connected via coax when in fact we should be getting 3 and 4 pictures displayed at one time. I would like to see support for PiP on these "ultrawidescreen" TVs because when I do PiP on my Mac, one HD and one SD source, or even two 4:3 sources, there's a lot of blank space above and below the screens, but a wider screen would mean my sources could both be larger.
-Brian
@brianbobcat
I agree. I hope my next TV will be a 55"+ TV with the ability to display 4 HD videos at once. This would awesome for football season, you could have 2 games, the NFL redzone channel, and something from my DVR for when the action dies down. I currently use my split screen HDTV for this purpose, but on sundays there are more than 2 things I want to watch and as you said, there is alot of wasted space
The way I pretty see ultra wide is I can have 16:9 screen and use black bars to get that ultra wide. Yes you have black bars but for most people that's okay. All movies are filmed in the same aspect so you are going to have bars with some movies. And now with black levels getting really deep, and even deeper, you will and already are seeing the black bars as black as the bezel on your TV.