Television picture tubes, like so many of us, are getting wider.
Not just bigger but stretched out sideways so they look more like movie theater screens.These new tubes being developed for the much-ballyhooed high-definition televisions of the future will have screens nearly twice as wide as they are tall.
They'll also have higher-quality pictures - and breathtaking prices.
An international standards-setting group, the International Radio Consultative Committee, last month adopted the new wide-screen tubes as the world standard for HDTV, whenever it finally arrives.
The future cathode ray tubes will have a 16 by 9 "aspect ratio," or screen width versus height.
That compares with the relatively boxy 4 by 3 shape of today's tubes.
In today's system, a screen 4 inches wide would be 3 inches tall. In the same fashion, a screen 24 inches wide would be 18 inches tall.
Under the new system, a screen 32 inches wide would be 18 inches tall - a much wider, rectangular shape.
TV sets incorporating wide-screen CRTs will be available in Europe this fall for use in a new TV system that is an interim step towards the crystal-clear pictures promised by HDTV. Wide-screen sets should be available in the United States by 1993.
But they won't be cheap.
Estimates of the initial prices of these sets generally range from $3,000 to $5,000. As with other modern electronic gadgets, though, prices are expected to fall dramatically once a mass market develops.
Will the typical couch potato like these sets?
"We're going to have a real consumer survey starting this fall," says D. Joseph Donahue, a senior vice president at Thomson Consumer Electronics, which has joined with Philips Consumer Electronics to introduce wide-screen TV in Europe.
But Donahue, like most other TV manufacturers, say the 16:9 system "is the wave of the future."
"The only issue is the hour and the day" they'll arrive, Donahue said in a recent interview.
The wide-screen sets are part of a worldwide trend towards larger screens. Donahue said eight TV manufacturers have invested $1 billion in U.S. facilities to crank out 4:3 tubes in the 27-inch to 36-inch range, and they could retool quickly to produce 16:9.
The half-dozen companies competing to have the Federal Communications Commission adopt their HDTV systems as the U.S. standard all will undergo testing in the 16:9 aspect ratio.
"The strong trend is in acceptance of 16:9," says Peter Fannon, executive director of the Advanced Television Test Center, an industry-supported center that will help the FCC decide on a U.S. HDTV system.
Proponents of wide-screen TVs claim viewers will find the wider aspect irresistible. Imagine, they say, being able to see a quarterback hand off the football to a running back, and at the same time see blockers doing battle down field.
Wouldn't it be nice, they add, to be able to see the full image of theatrical motion pictures when they're shown on TV, instead of having the sides cut off by the squarish-shaped sets in use today.
The higher resolution of these screens will allow viewers to sit relatively closer to the their sets without seeing the lines that make up the picture, says William Connolly, president of Sony America Corp.'s advanced systems division. This will enhance the feeling of being "inside" the action on the large screen.
A number of manufacturers have demonstrated these new picture tubes over the past year or so, but they're not expected to be introduced in the United States until after the Federal Communications Commission sets the technical standards for HDTV, about three years from now.
However, European viewers will get a look at wide-screen tubes this fall when Thomson and Philips roll out sets for use with a satellite-delivered TV format known as D2-MAC.
D2-MAC is a so-called extended-definition television (EDTV) system that offers improved pictures, digital sound and wide screens - without being full high-definition TV.
A true HDTV system is scheduled to be introduced in Europe in time for the 1992 Olympics. Japan could begin regular HDTV satellite broadcasts in 1993.
Companies such as Thomson, which manufacturers RCA TVs, are betting the FCC also will approve EDTV in order to cushion the multibillion-dollar costs of converting existing TV networks, stations and cable TV systems to full HDTV.
Thomson, Philips, NBC and the David Sarnoff Research Center have proposed an EDTV system in which existing sets would continue to receive the current U.S. TV signal, while EDTV sets would receive the enhanced picture and wide-screen format.
But some TV industry executives question whether improved pictures and wide-screen views will be enough to persuade customers to plunk down big bucks for a new TV.
Jerry Pearlman, president of the only remaining U.S. TV manufacturer, Zenith Electronics Corp., thinks viewers may balk - particularly if TV programmers are slow to adopt the new wide-screen format.