IRVINE, CALIF.: Cinephiles without
the means to build their own
home theaters may have reason
to rejoice, but some industry observers
are wondering out loud if
Vizio may be stretching itself too
thin—or in this case, too wide—
with the set maker’s new 21:9
aspect ratio 3D TV being introduced
this summer.
Vizio is the largest shipper
of 16:9 LCD sets in the United
States. (although it does not release
actual sales figures). In early
July, it rolled out its XVT Series
Cinemawide LED Smart TV with
3D featuring a Cinemascope-like
21:9 aspect ratio housed within a
58-inch screen. It’s the first 21:9
unit to be sold in the United States, albeit
strictly online, where (to date) it has
no competition. But that might not be
enough to make it even a niche success.
BYE TO BLACK BARS
The idea behind Vizio’s ultra-wide
screen (model XVT3D580CM) is to allow
movie buffs to eliminate those pesky topand-
bottom black bars while viewing typical
2.35:1 feature-length motion pictures.
Vizio, based in Irvine, Calif., began offering
the unit for $2,500 at Amazon.com
and Vizio.com, targeting “taste makers,
movie lovers and creators to give them a
much more elegant and immersive widescreen
2D and 3D experience,” according
to Vizio Product Marketing Manager Carlos
Angulo.
And when 21:9 owners are not viewing
motion pictures? Apart from what it
calls the option of an “intelligent zoom”
of 16:9 HD content to fill the wider
screen, Vizio thinks one popular application
for its LED sets falls squarely in the
smart-TV category. “Users can enjoy fullscreen,
1080p 16:9 HD television on the
right side of their screens, while accessing
Vizio Internet Apps in a [tablet-sized
panel] on the left side of those screens”
simultaneously, Angulo said.
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Paul Gagnon |
Paul Gagnon, director of North America
TV Research for NPD DisplaySearch
of Santa Clara, Calif., sees 21:9 sets in the
U.S. strictly as a niche category. “Philips
has been selling 21:9 sets for two years
[overseas] with some modest success,
shipping maybe 10,000 [sets] a year, maybe
more, and I wouldn’t expect Vizio to
do much better than that in the United
States,” Gagnon said. Philips has apparently
abandoned an earlier plan (noted
at recent NAB and CEA conferences) to
ship 21:9 units to North America anytime
soon. (The Dutch firm did not respond to
numerous inquiries about its 21:9 plans.)
“As far as our current forecasting,” Gagnon
said, “globally we never see the 21:9
market growing beyond about 50-60,000
units a year. We see it staying as a pretty
small part of the overall TV market,” he
said. “Besides, the percentage of TV sets
going for $2,000 and above in America is
pretty small… maybe one or two percent
of all sets sold.”
Gagnon said for most Americans, bigger
is usually better. “The Vizio 21:9 set
at around $2,500 is more than twice the
price of similar-sized 16:9 screens,” he
said. “We also now have a pretty high-level
concentration of flat-screen TVs in the
U.S., but in a few years a lot of consumers
will be looking at their next flat-screen
set and then they’ll have options. One option
is simply getting an even larger 16:9
screen like maybe 60 inches or more. The
second option is opting for a somewhat
smaller 21:9 set that’s far more expensive.
We think most viewers in [North America]
will opt for the bigger, less expensive
16:9 screens,” Gagnon said.
BAD TIMING?
A TV consumer looking to get a bigger
bang for the buck is especially important
these days, says Peter Putman, president
of ROAM Consulting of Doylestown, Pa.
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 |
Apart from what it calls the option of “intelligent zoom” of 16:9 HD content to fill the wider screen (L), Vizio thinks one popular application for its LED sets falls squarely in the smart-TV category. |
“The TV business, in general, is depressed
right now. 3D has pretty much
been a failure except in China and Indonesia,
and even Connected
TV isn’t doing
all that well as a sales
[tool], which to me is
surprising,” Putman
said. “The problem
with 21:9 sets is the
average person has
just gotten used to
16:9, so a Cinemascope-
like TV is not
going to excite the
consumer, especially since most of today’s
content in 16:9 is going to put black bars
all over a 21:9 screen.”
Putman, who manages the online resource
HDTVexpert.com, said any company
like Vizio
understandably
is going to sell
its 21:9 sets
at premium
price points so
it doesn’t lose
money. But he
said putting
higher prices
on any TV product
right now
doesn’t make
a lot of sense
from a consumer
point of view.
“Even avid movie
buffs probably
aren’t going to
watch motion pictures on 21:9 LCD TVs.
They’d probably build a home theater,”
said Putman.
Putman also doesn’t see a lot of synergy
potential between Vizio’s higher-priced
21:9 offering and its established retail outlets.
“Vizio typically sells its 16:9 TVs to
the mass market through such places as
Costco and Walmart. But 21:9 sets are not
geared to the mass market. Most people
will look at that much higher price tag
and say, ‘Hey, come on, who’s gonna pay
$2,500 for a TV these days!’ There may be
an application for 21:9 for the commercial
markets, maybe for a certain type of
custom-imaging. But I think Vizio’s 21:9
sets will very likely be gone in the U.S. a
year from now.”
Vizio, for its part, won’t reveal any
numbers on how its 21:9 sets are selling
in these early days, but Angulo called the
online launch “successful” and said the
movie-friendly units “will continue to be
available as long as they remain popular.”