Well, back in april I got my Philips Cinema 21:9 TV. And now it’s time for me to share my own cinematic viewing experience so far.
I ordered this TV the second I saw the original www.cinematicviewingexperience.com site which was pretty much just a press release and a few images of the TV. And I am so glad I did that. I’d recommend this TV to anyone who would care to ask, and to those that don’t.
Prior to this TV I had the 50 inch Panasonic plasma TH-50PZ800 which I’m sure critics will say is a much better TV. But since my favorite usage for my TV is watching movies I allways thought the black bars at the top and bottom where a complete waiste of expensive inches. And that’s just it … With the 21:9 TV every inch payed for has a purpose rather than just displaying black pixels.
Almost every night after the kids (and the wife) are a sleep I pick one of my favorite movies. These are the movies that I’ve seen quite a few times before, but they just look so much better on this TV. And as if 56 inches aren’t enough, ambilight adds the impression of a few more inches – it just looks amazing.
Some of you might wonder what a 16:9 movie looks like when stretched to 21:9, and I’d have to say it looks great. The stretch is greater towards the sides of the image, and since most of what matters in a movie is centered (or nearly centered) you don’t really notice that the image is stretched.
So far, subtitles are the only troublesome thing about this TV. If the subtitles are located outside the actual image on the BD or DVD, you can choose to either raise the image manually, or select a preconfigured viewing mode 21:9 Subtitles. Philips has sent out the BDP-9100 Blueray player which takes subtitles placement into account, and positions them correctly. And guess what…
… you’ll have to excuse me – I’ve got to go hook up my new BDP-9100.