Big Picture Big Sound

It was billed as the TV that would put the wide in widescreen. Last month, Philips showed off its 21:9 widescreen LCD at the annual Consumer Electronics Show. Just a little over a month later, the revolutionary LCD has a price, details and a date (sort of).

Don't start clearing out what's left of your 401K, though. Sadly, there are no current plans to bring the unit to the U.S. Still, if you happen to be visiting Europe this June and have five grand to burn, you may be able to stuff one of these things in the overhead.

Philips designed the 56-inch Cinema 21:9 with the idea that it would eliminate those annoying black bars on cinemascope (2.35:1) movies. Engadget HD says that the unit will include a 2,560 x 1,080 native resolution panel, an 80,000:1 contrast ratio, five HDMI 1.3 ports, Spectra Ambilight technology, a 1ms response time, 200Hz Clear LCD, Net TV features, DLNA support and built-in Wi-Fi.

The design and specs aren't quite finalized, but what we've seen sure looks pretty. In case you want to torture yourself further, there's a little promo video available on YouTube.