DVD made to be played instore on the first real flat-panel (42- inch plasma) TV. Price on it was about $15,000, and most of its electronics were in a separate box you had to hook to the panel to make it work. It did have a Pro-Logic surround amp built into it, which was very convenient considering multi-channel Dolby Digital and DTS were already out.
I don't know what they were thinking when they produced this disc- ALL of it is in 4x3, even the 3 movie clips, and here you can see a mind-numbingly awful 'explanation' of aspect ratios too. This TV couldn't even display 4x3 without annoying grey bars on the sides (I held out getting a widescreen TV until I could get one that showed 4x3 with BLACK side bars with no risk of burn-in). Most stores probably played this stretched or cropped. From what I remember seeing in stores, the picture on this was not great either- someone else remarked it was made for people with "too much money and not enough sense."
Notice also there are a couple glimpses of CDi in this video, even though it had already disappeared from stores by then (in fact around this time I got a system for $15 at Fry's, but it didn't work too well.) I read that Philips never admitted that CDi was a failure.
29 мар 2011
