16x9 (1920X1080p) was a stopgap.... because movies have a higher aspect ration than that... how long would consumers settle for movies that were just close enough to their theatrical release versions?
2560 X 1080 is 2.33 to 1.... Cinema ratio... CinemaHD
But maybe we will get some 2560 X 1200 2.13 to 1 ... displays... then you could use the bottom 120 pixels for menus that dont intrude on the movie..... like my 1920X1200 monitor that I use how for HD content.
The term you're looking for is Cinemascope, or Scope, which started out as typically being a 2.35:1 ratio, but now is typically a 2.39:1 ratio (referred to as 2.40:1 much of the time as well). Less than half of all films are shot in scope, or any aspect ratio > 2.0, which also includes 70mm (2.20:1) and other variants. Most films are shot flat, which is 1.85:1, which looks almost perfect on a 1.78:1 screen.
There certainly is a market for wider screens (I have a 122", 2.40:1 screen in my theater, Anand has a 2.40:1 screen as well I believe) but most movies are not shot that way. 1.78:1 was judged more as a good compromise between scope, Academy (1.33:1) and Flat (1.85:1) as it is a good aspect between all of those. The fact that there is no hardware support for scope screens at native resolution (unlike DVD, there is no anamorphic flag for packing in extra resolution on a Blu-ray) mean that mainstream adoption wouldn't occur until that happens, and is still likely never to happen. For many cinema buffs, they will install a 2.40 screen or something else, but it'll likely be a niche, and it's certainly not the prevailing aspect ratio in theaters.
Agree. Somehow, I doubt TV content is going to switch to the wider format any time soon because there's little advantage for them to do it. Movies benefit often from the wider format because they're epic with huge amounts of money being spent on details thrown all across every inch of the screen and since we perceive horizontal information in larger swaths than we do vertical (to a point of course), if you want to get more visual going for a user, it's usually going to be horizontal.
But TV shows have budgets, they have limitations, and often they want you focusing on a main center point rather than looking out in the distance and marveling at the massive alien warship landing on top of the Empire State building and humping it. For TV, they want you look at the guys and ignoring the fact their budget is not good enough to have dinosaurs in every scene or giant insects in every scene even if they're supposedly in ancient Earth of the past surrounded by fences with huge gaping holes that invite bugs and what not to come eat the stupid humans.
"Regular" widescreen (especially 720p) offers the high def with a good amount of horizontal info without going overboard and requiring much higher budgets. It suits the way humans perceive visual content more than the old school 4:3 did, though 16:9 and 16:10 do encourage you to buy larger screens for your computers to match up and get the same amount of vertical screen as you used to imho.
There's a reason they are called HDTVs instead of HDFilmViewers. HDTVs are built for compliance with the ATSC broadcast standard, not Academy standards... which are looser than the sleeve of wizard.
All film, the physical medium (8mm-70mm, IMAX, ToddAO, etc.) is natively 4:3 - 1.33:1. The cinematographer and/or director then select the aspect ratio they want for artistic or technical reasons and edit it accordingly. This is why movies can vary between 4:3, 1.85:1, 1.78:1 (16x9), or 2.35/.39/.40 (anamorphic Scope/Panavision) - all from the same 4:3 film stock.
Many of the newer 4K+ digital systems (like RED) shoot natively in just about any pre-selected AR.
Thanks.... Cinemascope is correct... my bad. I didn't know that cinescope was 2.4 to 1... I thought it was 2.35 to 1... so thanks for that info!
Did not know that Blu-Ray had no ability to pack in extra X-axis resolution. always assumed Blue-Ray was flexible from 480P to 1080P, with a variety of aspect ratios 4:3, 16:9, 2.35:1...
I appreciate your summary of formats... as well as nathandrews comments below about raw capture on 35 and 70mm...
DVD only really enhanced broadcast television by using Progressive scanning and more channels for sound, no?
Then Blu-Ray only really caught consumer media up to HDTV...rather than surpassing it and of course added a slew of DRM schemes?
Are you implying that people should use the "zoom" feature? Some people want to see content displayed in its original aspect ratio. Especially the people that would buy this TV.
Personally I like 16:10. It's a good balance for watching 4:3 and 16:9 content.
People should use 'maintain aspect ratio' to avoid image distortion while using as much screen space as possible.
This screen is fine for a niche that will use it primarily for movie viewing. However as a general video content screen it will still have black bars *somewhere* with *some* aspect ratios unless the user is ok with image distortion, which would be odd for someone buying this screen.
Vizio proposes people use the side black bars on this monitor for 'smart TV' viewing, which is fine if a little ADHD, but that's no different than using top or bottom black bars for the same purpose.
So, I want to watch the entirety of my cinematic content, without any stretching, cropping, or distortion, while also taking full advantage of the display I'm viewing it on?
That makes me technically inept? Really, I'd love to see your logic here.
It's really quite simple. It's a lack of understanding of the difference between an aspect ratio and resolution. That shouldn't need further explanation since you seem to know the issues with fitting different aspect ratios onto a specific resolution.
What you ask for in your first paragraph is only possible with a different display for every single aspect ratio in existence. That's not very practical.
I still fail to understand how desiring a device like this makes one "technically inept". I understand the tradeoff fully; I would much rather have a display tuned for Cinemascope-type video than one tuned for 16:9.
I originally said *complaining about black bars* makes one technically inept, and that goes for complaining about black bars in general. 16:9 content on a 16:10 screen, 4:3 content on a 16:9 screen, 2.35:1 on a 16:9 screen and so on.
My point is there is nothing inherently wrong with black bars. What people who complain about them see is 'Well dernit, that there picture ain't fillin' up my screen.' Not all cinematic content will use this entire display anyway, and definitely not all video content. I guess your caveat here is that you said 'cinematic content' but...
Actual viewable image size is the final consideration. If one gets the correct screen size, showing 2.35:1 content on a 16:9 screen can have the same exact physical image size as this screen (assuming pixel size is the same). It is *not* a 58" 16:9 screen with more horizontal pixels added on to the sides....that imaginary 16:9 screen would measure smaller than 58". Thus, all one needs to have the same physical viewing size as this 58" 2.35:1 is a larger 16:9 screen. Yes, it would have black bars when viewing some content, that is unavoidable with all the different aspect ratios out there, but it will then be suitable for a much wider range of content as well.
In summary, there is nothing objectively wrong with black bars, it's all just perception. Once one understands the interaction between aspect ratio, resolution, and diagonal size/physical image size this should be clear.
I hope this screen ratio NEVER migrates into laptop. I can see the latest 2015 Acer... NOW WITH 21:9 HIGH RESOLUTION 1366x586 SCREEN! Watch you HD movies on your laptop with NO BLACK BARS!
Of course their 58" version comes at 5k€, so VIZIO definitly has the better offer at that size. Personally I have been playing with the thought of spending the 1.5k€ on the 50" version for about a year now. Now if just somebody could go and test for meif these things are fast enough to play games on them ...
... you're scaling aren't you? Isn't scaling bad on a LCD/LED LCD panel? I mean, every time I've seen scaling on an LCD whether it was bad one, a good one, a great one, or an out of this world one, it's always looked worse.
I get that when the black bars are up on each side, the whole thing will scale perfectly (1920x1080 will be pixel perfect), but when you're actually using this thing for its intended purpose, you'll get scaling because the movie'll be at something less than 1920x1080 and be upscaled to 2560x1080.
That just seems odd.
On the plus side, with that much horizontal width, you could start moving a computer's UI to the right and left and reclaim all your vertical real estate. If you wanted. And you had an OS where that wasn't fugly.
The intended purpose would be to watch 21:9 movies on it, which would not be delivered in 1920x1080. Of course they may be coming from old material, with less than 1080 vertical resolution, in which case there still would be scaling. And I have to agree with you, scaling is implemented badly (read bilinear) in almost all monitors around. Not all of them though, specifically the few Quad-Full-HD TVs come with rather impressive scaling capabilities. Of course they absolutely have to, as they can't even digest their full resolution through the connectors that they offer.
"The intended purpose would be to watch 21:9 movies on it, which would not be delivered in 1920x1080".
If they're being delivered on Blu-Ray, then the maximum resolution available is 1920x1080, correct? In that case your bottleneck for a greater than 16:9 aspect is the 1920 available horizontal pixels. So the number of vertical pixels that will actually be used for the video image in a 21:9 movie that's delivered on a Blu-Ray will be something in the neighborhood of 822.
In order to display this movie full-screen on a display with a native resolution of 2560x1080, you have to apply a scaling factor of ~1.3X.
Here's a sampling of the actual resolutions for some of my 1080p rips: 1920x800 1920x816
That's correct, Blu-ray content will be scaled up. However, scaling is not such a big deal, provided the scaling hardware inside the TV is very good.
In case anyone was wondering, this TV has 2,764,800 physical pixels, roughly 75% more than 16:9 1080p set of the same width would have inside its 21:9 viewing area. While adding more pixels won't magically increase the quality of the content, they may make the picture less grainy when sitting closer to the screen due to a higher pixel density.
Here's what confuses me, 2560x1080 gives an AR of 2.37:1. The article claims the set is AR 2.33. Neither of these will display 2:35 content perfectly..
Its bad enough that HDTV noobs always use the stretch feature to fill the screen when viewing 4:3 content. People look 4 feet tall and weigh 200 pounds withit enabled.
With a 2.33:1 screen it will make everybody look like dwarves now.
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HardwareDufus - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
We all saw this coming a while back...16x9 (1920X1080p) was a stopgap.... because movies have a higher aspect ration than that... how long would consumers settle for movies that were just close enough to their theatrical release versions?
2560 X 1080 is 2.33 to 1.... Cinema ratio... CinemaHD
But maybe we will get some
2560 X 1200 2.13 to 1 ... displays... then you could use the bottom 120 pixels for menus that dont intrude on the movie..... like my 1920X1200 monitor that I use how for HD content.
cheinonen - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
The term you're looking for is Cinemascope, or Scope, which started out as typically being a 2.35:1 ratio, but now is typically a 2.39:1 ratio (referred to as 2.40:1 much of the time as well). Less than half of all films are shot in scope, or any aspect ratio > 2.0, which also includes 70mm (2.20:1) and other variants. Most films are shot flat, which is 1.85:1, which looks almost perfect on a 1.78:1 screen.There certainly is a market for wider screens (I have a 122", 2.40:1 screen in my theater, Anand has a 2.40:1 screen as well I believe) but most movies are not shot that way. 1.78:1 was judged more as a good compromise between scope, Academy (1.33:1) and Flat (1.85:1) as it is a good aspect between all of those. The fact that there is no hardware support for scope screens at native resolution (unlike DVD, there is no anamorphic flag for packing in extra resolution on a Blu-ray) mean that mainstream adoption wouldn't occur until that happens, and is still likely never to happen. For many cinema buffs, they will install a 2.40 screen or something else, but it'll likely be a niche, and it's certainly not the prevailing aspect ratio in theaters.
HisDivineOrder - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
Agree. Somehow, I doubt TV content is going to switch to the wider format any time soon because there's little advantage for them to do it. Movies benefit often from the wider format because they're epic with huge amounts of money being spent on details thrown all across every inch of the screen and since we perceive horizontal information in larger swaths than we do vertical (to a point of course), if you want to get more visual going for a user, it's usually going to be horizontal.But TV shows have budgets, they have limitations, and often they want you focusing on a main center point rather than looking out in the distance and marveling at the massive alien warship landing on top of the Empire State building and humping it. For TV, they want you look at the guys and ignoring the fact their budget is not good enough to have dinosaurs in every scene or giant insects in every scene even if they're supposedly in ancient Earth of the past surrounded by fences with huge gaping holes that invite bugs and what not to come eat the stupid humans.
"Regular" widescreen (especially 720p) offers the high def with a good amount of horizontal info without going overboard and requiring much higher budgets. It suits the way humans perceive visual content more than the old school 4:3 did, though 16:9 and 16:10 do encourage you to buy larger screens for your computers to match up and get the same amount of vertical screen as you used to imho.
nathanddrews - Friday, June 29, 2012 - link
There's a reason they are called HDTVs instead of HDFilmViewers. HDTVs are built for compliance with the ATSC broadcast standard, not Academy standards... which are looser than the sleeve of wizard.All film, the physical medium (8mm-70mm, IMAX, ToddAO, etc.) is natively 4:3 - 1.33:1. The cinematographer and/or director then select the aspect ratio they want for artistic or technical reasons and edit it accordingly. This is why movies can vary between 4:3, 1.85:1, 1.78:1 (16x9), or 2.35/.39/.40 (anamorphic Scope/Panavision) - all from the same 4:3 film stock.
Many of the newer 4K+ digital systems (like RED) shoot natively in just about any pre-selected AR.
nathanddrews - Friday, June 29, 2012 - link
Oops, I mistyped:"All film, the physical medium (8mm-70mm, IMAX, ToddAO, etc.) is natively 4:3 - 1.33:1"
should read
"All film, the physical medium (8mm-70mm, IMAX, ToddAO, etc.) is natively 4:3 - 2.40:1"
I would also add that most common 35mm film stock is 1.33:1 and most IMAX film stock is 1.66:1.
Bad morning to lack an edit button. :(
HardwareDufus - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Thanks.... Cinemascope is correct... my bad. I didn't know that cinescope was 2.4 to 1... I thought it was 2.35 to 1... so thanks for that info!Did not know that Blu-Ray had no ability to pack in extra X-axis resolution. always assumed Blue-Ray was flexible from 480P to 1080P, with a variety of aspect ratios 4:3, 16:9, 2.35:1...
I appreciate your summary of formats... as well as nathandrews comments below about raw capture on 35 and 70mm...
DVD only really enhanced broadcast television by using Progressive scanning and more channels for sound, no?
Then Blu-Ray only really caught consumer media up to HDTV...rather than surpassing it and of course added a slew of DRM schemes?
always learning.
tumbleweed - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
I like using the black bar below to put subtitles, so they're much easier to read than being on top of the picture.MadMan007 - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
People who complain about black bars are just technically inept.duffman55 - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
Are you implying that people should use the "zoom" feature? Some people want to see content displayed in its original aspect ratio. Especially the people that would buy this TV.Personally I like 16:10. It's a good balance for watching 4:3 and 16:9 content.
MadMan007 - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
People should use 'maintain aspect ratio' to avoid image distortion while using as much screen space as possible.This screen is fine for a niche that will use it primarily for movie viewing. However as a general video content screen it will still have black bars *somewhere* with *some* aspect ratios unless the user is ok with image distortion, which would be odd for someone buying this screen.
Vizio proposes people use the side black bars on this monitor for 'smart TV' viewing, which is fine if a little ADHD, but that's no different than using top or bottom black bars for the same purpose.
JMS3072 - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
So, I want to watch the entirety of my cinematic content, without any stretching, cropping, or distortion, while also taking full advantage of the display I'm viewing it on?That makes me technically inept? Really, I'd love to see your logic here.
MadMan007 - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
It's really quite simple. It's a lack of understanding of the difference between an aspect ratio and resolution. That shouldn't need further explanation since you seem to know the issues with fitting different aspect ratios onto a specific resolution.What you ask for in your first paragraph is only possible with a different display for every single aspect ratio in existence. That's not very practical.
JMS3072 - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
I still fail to understand how desiring a device like this makes one "technically inept". I understand the tradeoff fully; I would much rather have a display tuned for Cinemascope-type video than one tuned for 16:9.MadMan007 - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
I originally said *complaining about black bars* makes one technically inept, and that goes for complaining about black bars in general. 16:9 content on a 16:10 screen, 4:3 content on a 16:9 screen, 2.35:1 on a 16:9 screen and so on.My point is there is nothing inherently wrong with black bars. What people who complain about them see is 'Well dernit, that there picture ain't fillin' up my screen.' Not all cinematic content will use this entire display anyway, and definitely not all video content. I guess your caveat here is that you said 'cinematic content' but...
Actual viewable image size is the final consideration. If one gets the correct screen size, showing 2.35:1 content on a 16:9 screen can have the same exact physical image size as this screen (assuming pixel size is the same). It is *not* a 58" 16:9 screen with more horizontal pixels added on to the sides....that imaginary 16:9 screen would measure smaller than 58". Thus, all one needs to have the same physical viewing size as this 58" 2.35:1 is a larger 16:9 screen. Yes, it would have black bars when viewing some content, that is unavoidable with all the different aspect ratios out there, but it will then be suitable for a much wider range of content as well.
In summary, there is nothing objectively wrong with black bars, it's all just perception. Once one understands the interaction between aspect ratio, resolution, and diagonal size/physical image size this should be clear.
nathanddrews - Friday, June 29, 2012 - link
No reason to continue arguing. IMO, anyone without a constant image height projection (CIH) system is technically inept. It's the only way to live!Pneumothorax - Wednesday, June 27, 2012 - link
I hope this screen ratio NEVER migrates into laptop. I can see the latest 2015 Acer...NOW WITH 21:9 HIGH RESOLUTION 1366x586 SCREEN! Watch you HD movies on your laptop with NO BLACK BARS!
JarredWalton - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
Amen to that!Sivar - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
It would be conveniently keyboard-shaped, though. That and you could view the top half of the logo of two or three web pages at once!ShieTar - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
"VIZIO has announced their new XVT 58” HDTV, the first ultra-widescreen HDTV to hit the US market"Look at that, seems that for once Europe has gotten a technical product before the US have. The Phillips Cinema line has been around here since 2009:
http://www.support.philips.com/support/catalog/pro...
Of course their 58" version comes at 5k€, so VIZIO definitly has the better offer at that size. Personally I have been playing with the thought of spending the 1.5k€ on the 50" version for about a year now. Now if just somebody could go and test for meif these things are fast enough to play games on them ...
HisDivineOrder - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
... you're scaling aren't you? Isn't scaling bad on a LCD/LED LCD panel? I mean, every time I've seen scaling on an LCD whether it was bad one, a good one, a great one, or an out of this world one, it's always looked worse.I get that when the black bars are up on each side, the whole thing will scale perfectly (1920x1080 will be pixel perfect), but when you're actually using this thing for its intended purpose, you'll get scaling because the movie'll be at something less than 1920x1080 and be upscaled to 2560x1080.
That just seems odd.
On the plus side, with that much horizontal width, you could start moving a computer's UI to the right and left and reclaim all your vertical real estate. If you wanted. And you had an OS where that wasn't fugly.
ShieTar - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
The intended purpose would be to watch 21:9 movies on it, which would not be delivered in 1920x1080. Of course they may be coming from old material, with less than 1080 vertical resolution, in which case there still would be scaling. And I have to agree with you, scaling is implemented badly (read bilinear) in almost all monitors around. Not all of them though, specifically the few Quad-Full-HD TVs come with rather impressive scaling capabilities. Of course they absolutely have to, as they can't even digest their full resolution through the connectors that they offer.somedude1234 - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - link
"The intended purpose would be to watch 21:9 movies on it, which would not be delivered in 1920x1080".If they're being delivered on Blu-Ray, then the maximum resolution available is 1920x1080, correct? In that case your bottleneck for a greater than 16:9 aspect is the 1920 available horizontal pixels. So the number of vertical pixels that will actually be used for the video image in a 21:9 movie that's delivered on a Blu-Ray will be something in the neighborhood of 822.
In order to display this movie full-screen on a display with a native resolution of 2560x1080, you have to apply a scaling factor of ~1.3X.
Here's a sampling of the actual resolutions for some of my 1080p rips:
1920x800
1920x816
flyingpants1 - Sunday, July 1, 2012 - link
That's correct, Blu-ray content will be scaled up. However, scaling is not such a big deal, provided the scaling hardware inside the TV is very good.In case anyone was wondering, this TV has 2,764,800 physical pixels, roughly 75% more than 16:9 1080p set of the same width would have inside its 21:9 viewing area. While adding more pixels won't magically increase the quality of the content, they may make the picture less grainy when sitting closer to the screen due to a higher pixel density.
Here's what confuses me, 2560x1080 gives an AR of 2.37:1. The article claims the set is AR 2.33. Neither of these will display 2:35 content perfectly..
johnsmith9875 - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Its bad enough that HDTV noobs always use the stretch feature to fill the screen when viewing 4:3 content. People look 4 feet tall and weigh 200 pounds withit enabled.With a 2.33:1 screen it will make everybody look like dwarves now.