Philips unveiled the 21:9 LCD set in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The initial release markets included the United Kingdom, Belgium, France and Germany.
The LCD model sports 21:9 aspect ratio, which is capable of displaying likewise cinematic formats such as Panavision, without letterboxing the picture.
The Philips 21:9 features a 200 MHz refresh rate, five HDMIs, WiFi, a USB Port, the Philips Pixel Perfect HD Engine and Ambilight technology that projects the same color of light being shown on the TV onto the wall behind the set, making the picture appear even larger. The set is said to be priced at £4,500, or $7,347 U.S. at current exchange rates.
Over 60% of DVD and Blu-ray movies support the 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 formats usually used by movie directors. Philips’ super-wide LCD set is designed to show them without changing the aspect ratio. Its actual screen shape is a compromise, at 2.39:1, with a resolution of 2560x1080p, but the immediate effect is that you don’t see black bars at top and bottom when viewing a 2.35/2.40:1 image.