Whilst most of us are still enjoying 16:9 ratio widescreen televisions, Philips are going one step further: last year they launched a new set with an ultra wide 21:9 ratio. This is the same as found on many cinema screens.

Now the Philips 21:9 vision is being updated to support 3D TV. The 58 inch Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum Series was announced at the IFA 2010 exhibition in Berlin. As well as 21:9 and 3D support the new TV sets will feature a direct lit LED screen and a refresh rate that Philips claims as the fastest on the market.

If you fancy buying one of these big beasts, they’re expected to retail at around 4,000 Euros complete with glasses.

The PS3 3D upgrade for Blu Ray discs had been expected to be released at the end of this month but has slipped a little. Speaking at the IFA trade show in Berlin, Sony CEO Howard Stringer has announced that the firmware upgrade is now due for release next month, October.

The PS3 is probably the most common Blu Ray player in the market so this upgrade is big news for the 3D industry. Having the ability to play 3D BluRays – as well as 3D games – on their existing console might just be the push some people need to go out and buy a 3D television set.

Telecomms research and development consortium CableLabs has announced a specification guide for 3D content providers. The Content Encoding Profiles 3.0 Specification (OC-SP-CEP3.0-I01-100827) details requirements for 3D content into the formats used by cable TV.

Tony Werner of Comcast said:

This spec release marks a great step in the commercialization of 3D TV because it is the first public specification that fully describes the coding and signaling for these top-and-bottom and side-by-side 3D video formats.

Jim Occhiuto of Showtime Networks said:

A key part of this specification includes the definitions for signaling 3D content over existing digital video infrastructure that uses either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 (AVC/H.264) coding. This signaling is critical for the receiver/decoder to enable automatic format detection and simplified user experiences when going between 2D and 3D programs.

Technical “behind the scenes” specs like this are things that most people who buy 3D and watch television will never need to know about. However the release of the new standard shows how seriously the industry is treating 3D and bodes well for the future of the technology.