TV’s Ride on the Wide Side : Latest Technology Brings a New Viewing Experience

Optimists are calling the new wide-screen televisions a technological breakthrough that virtually re-creates the moviegoing experience without the stale popcorn or the chatterbox sitting behind you.

Cynics are dismissing them as expensive videophile toys aimed at a too-small market. Pragmatists are content to describe them as an intriguing interim step between traditional television and the high-definition TVs of the near future.

“There is interest in wide-screen for sure, certainly among video enthusiasts,” said James Barry, editor of Video Magazine, which has already run two cover stories on the issue even though the first wide-screen hit the market in a limited fashion in the spring. “Readers keep asking us about it.”

Television as we have always known it has an almost boxlike 4:3 aspect ratio, while the new wide-screens have either 16:9 or 16:10.7 aspect ratios, more like the shape of movie-theater screens. When high-definition TVs arrive--and experts say it could be anywhere from three to 10 years before the new, improved HDTV is viable and/or ubiquitous--it will be in the 16:9 format.

In the meantime, the new wide-screen TVs--with large screens measuring from 34 to 58 diagonal inches--have been designed largely to accommodate those who collect letterboxed laser discs. About 1 million homes have laser-disc players, and that number is expected to jump to 3 million by late 1994. The new televisions show letterboxed films in full-screen glory without those pesky black bands dominating the top and bottom of the screen.

With wide-screen TV prices ranging from $3,200 to $7,500, however, most of us will have to continue to cope with letterboxing. On the other hand, wide-screen viewers watching normal television generally will have to cope with black strips anyway on either side of their TV.

There are two main considerations for anyone considering buying a wide-screen: whether to go with a direct-view set or a rear-projection set in which images are relayed to the screen without the aid of a conventional TV tube, and whether to choose the 16:9 or 16:10.7 aspect ratio.

Pioneer, the only company manufacturing the 16:10.7 aspect ratio units, is the only one to market the rear-projection product as well (though it also offers a couple of direct-view models).

In terms of picture quality, Barry said that the issue is almost a draw. The rear-projection--an exponential improvement over the big-screen TVs of a decade back--”has gotten remarkably better over the past few years,” he observed. “The limit on direct-view is the size of the tubes--the big sets are heavy and cumbersome. You can get very, very good pictures out of the (rear-projection) technology. They’re super. But empirically, direct-view has the edge in terms of clarity and sharpness.”

The aspect-ratio concern is a bit touchier. Local electronics stores report that the two best-selling wide-screens are the 16:9 ProScan and RCA CinemaScreen, both manufactured by Thomson Electronics, and the 16:10.7 Pioneer Elite Pro series.

Spokesmen for the respective companies talk up their own product’s virtues--Pioneer says its televisions are more attuned to the realities of what is currently available to TV viewers, while Thomson maintains its product is not only viable today, but gives viewers a clearer glimpse of television’s future.

“We’re looking for ways to differentiate ourselves,” said Mike Fidler, senior vice president of marketing for Pioneer. “We took a gamble by converting our entire line of rear-projection TVs to the Cinemawide system. We selected (the 16:10.7 aspect ratio) based on maximizing current (broadcast) signals. We maintain the quality and integrity of the picture.

“Our information on the 16-by-9 product is that letterboxed movies work best on its system. That’s a small installed base of consumers. Our TVs don’t just advance performance characteristics; it adds wide-screen. Consumers are looking for bigger experiences, and this product delivers the benefits to everyone. You don’t have to go out and buy letterboxed movies to appreciate this television. This extends the experience of what you get on a 4:3 set.”

Pioneer manages this by severely reducing the amount of overscan, or the amount of a picture, that TVs routinely crop from a broadcast image. In doing so, even though some of the top and bottom of the image is cropped by the wide-screen format, there still might be less video information lost than on an ordinary set.

By contrast, Bruce Babcock, vice president of wide-screen programming at Thomson, argues that the ProScan and RCA sets offer the cutting edge of technology and--depending on the HDTV system selected by the Federal Communications Commission (a decision expected next year)--may even be adaptable to HDTV, with additional equipment.

“We’ve given customers a true vision of what’s coming,” he said. “HDTV will be 16:9. This is a steppingstone to HDTV. It has the 16:9 format and super-quality audio--six speakers, the most in any set. It’s also the ultimate home theater, more like the aspect ratio in a movie theater. And in high-tech terms, it’s almost avant-garde, complete with all the bells and whistles from a technological standpoint.”

Babcock added that when a regular TV image is expanded to the wide-screen mode, viewers can manipulate the image in a number of ways to create the picture most pleasing to them, from a “fill” mode that subtly expands the image, to a home-grown pan-and-scan mode. “Take a regular broadcast on CNBC, where they have the stock ticker tapes at the bottom. The pan mode moves the picture up and down, so you can watch that.”

Also unique to the ProScan and RCA sets is what Babcock calls “the marriage-maker or marriage-breaker”--the capacity to show two different stations side by side on the same tube. “I’m looking at ‘Monday Night Football’ and listening to it through the headphones, while my wife’s watching ‘Murphy Brown’ and listening through the regular speaker. No one else has that.”

Most of the new wide-screens are also capable of shifting the main image to the left of the screen, showing what’s on up to three other stations on the right side--or, with no one station dominating the screen, can display a menu of up to 15 channels.

Babcock added that Thomson is also involved in Digital Satellite Service, a satellite scheduled to be launched in April, with the capacity to transmit television signals in the 16:9 aspect ratio--meaning, for example, wide-screen films could be presented via pay-per-view. No clients, however, have signed on yet for that purpose.

It’s tough to get a gauge on just how well the sets are selling. Though both Fidler and Babcock maintain that their respective companies are just barely able to keep up with the demand, a spot check of L.A. County electronics stores from the Valley to Marina del Rey suggests that business is adequate to soft. Circuit City on Sunset Boulevard doesn’t even stock them yet, though a salesman said he expected them in in a couple of months.

“They move pretty good,” said a salesman at the Hollywood Good Guys. “A lot of people are hesitant to get involved with the new technology. A lot of film industry people come in to look at them.”

A salesman in Studio City grimaced when asked how the sets were moving, while one at the Marina del Rey Good Guys put it succinctly: “Customers don’t see the point. TV’s not broadcast that way. You have to get a laser-disc player, and some people think that’s too much of a hassle.”