So you have a standard 16:9 aspect ratio HDTV set and you’re enjoying the latest episode of American Idol in HD which nicely fills the screen from edge to edge. Then you pop in a copy of Transformers in Blu-ray and you’re bugged that the film doesn’t fill the entire display. Why?  Because Transformers is shown in anamorphic widescreen or 2.35:1 aspect ratio. So what do you do? You can always try and zoom in or scale the picture to fit the screen but you’ll either lose other data or distort the resulting picture.

Philips has a better idea – why not create a widescreen display that closely matches the anamorphic format? That’s exactly what they did in creating the new Cinema 21:9 display – a display that closely matches the 2.35:1 aspect ratio found in most movies today (it’s just slightly off). The Cinema 21:9 display measures a large 56 inches and features three-sided Ambilight Spectra technology which illuminates the background edges to match the content being displayed.

Oh and what about 4:3 and 16:9/16:10 content? According to the Philips press release, the content will be stretched or “adapted” to fill the 21:9 screen. Personally, I’d rather see it presented in the original aspect ratio and suffer through vertical black bars. Can’t win it all can we?

The Cinema 21:9 LCD TV will be available this spring.

[Check it out via CrunchGear]

Technorati Tags: Philips, Cinema 21:9 LCD TV