TVs of the Future: Behind the Scenes at Samsung, Episode 2: Formats

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Simon Dongbae Lee, the Principal Engineer at Samsung's Korean R and D lab also raised the problem of formats and aspect ratios when we went to see him: what if 16:9 goes out of fashion?

Simon's main arguments came from his own anecdotal experience.  To justify the strength of the current system—which is by no means guaranteed to last—he referred to several meetings he'd had with James Cameron, the director of Avatar.

Because Samsung doesn't just make decisions off its own back, nor does it only really on talking to its colleagues in the world of consumer electronics.  Instead, media companies and content providers are at the heart of future developments and that's why Samsung thinks it's essential to communicate with the big studios.

Cameron doesn't like 24 fps or 16:9!

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'One day, Cameron asked us to share Samsung's vision of the future, and hear his,' explained Simon.  The director's first big gripe was the framerate used in modern cinema: 24 frames per second is just not enough for him!  And it gets even worse if you show it at 50, 60, 100, 120 Hz or even higher.  Both Cameron and Samsung foresee a move over to 60 frames per second for shooting films.

The advantage of such a transformation is obvious: most American TVs use the NTSC standard and can only produce refresh rates at multiples of 60 such as 60, 120 or 240 Hz ...  It's PAL at 50 Hz that would lose out.  But let's not complain: a native framerate of 60 fps can only make for more fluid movements with much less jerkiness.

Cameron's second problem was that the CinemaScope aspect ratio used for most movies (2.35:1 to 2.66:1) isn't tall enough for him.  That's why he shot Avatar in IMAX, which has the aspect ratio of 1.33:1, the same as good old-fashioned 4:3 TVs.  Samsung told us that it's examining leaving 16:9 (1.77:1) behind.

That's completely the opposite to Panasonic, which has recently begun producing TVs at 21:9, closer to the aspect ratio currently used in films.  That also goes against what we've heard from companies that manufacture panels for display equipment: they say that 4:3 panels are beginning to disappear because they're more expensive to produce and end up with more waste.

To be continued ...

> TVs of the Future: Behind the Scenes at Samsung's Lab, Episode 1


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