Upside
Philips' Ambilight is a back-lighting system built into the rear side panels of the TV that adjusts ambient lighting around the television to match the colour of the content featured on screen. With a soft glow on the wall behind the set, Philips claims that users will benefit from reduced eye strain, as well as perceive better picture quality in terms of contrast, colours and detail.
Ambilight can be set for real-time adjustment of light intensity and colour to complement the viewer's television programming or movies. It can also be fixed on a colour choice of the consumer's preference - red, green, blue, white or combination thereof - when the set is on or off. So it can be used for normal ambient room lighting when the TV set is in standby mode.
To reduce glare and reflections on the screen, Ambilight technology is also coupled with an external light sensor to determine how much light there is in the room. It then can control the TV light output accordingly. A dark room will trigger less light, whereas a bright room will drive more light output.
Pixel Plus is a digital picture processing feature which improves the resolution of still and moving pictures. Philips claims that Pixel Plus 2 improves colour reproduction and increases resolution, picture depth and contrast ratio by up to 30 per cent over a conventional television by creating more brilliant colours and true natural details from any image source.
Other picture enhancing features include Full Active Control that automatically analyses the incoming signal and adjusts the key picture settings on sharpness, digital noise reduction, colour and contrast at a rate of 50 times per second. Its Digital Natural Motion function also estimates motion in the picture and corrects juddering movements.
Throw in Virtual Dolby Surround, HDMI connectivity, full Dual Screen and PIP to simultaneously watch two different channels and you're looking at a pretty complete plasma package.
Downside:
The theory that the ambient lighting reduces eye strain and improves picture perception is certainly sound, but the real-time colour adjustment is reminiscent of the Saturday Night Fever dance floor - the rapidly changing red, green and blue lights are distracting, but presumably you'd get used to it over time.
Note too that this feature-laden HD model is not the one to break any price barriers for the mass market. The $12,699 price tag will scare off the big screen posers.
Outlook
With great looks, great technology and ambient room lighting as a bonus, this Philips plasma should please the tech heads and interior designers alike.
Like this article? Click below to send it to your mobile for free!
H Store
28/03/2008, 02:52 PM
rating
2/10
Beware Philips 42" Plasma with Ambilight. Has a beautiful color until it doesn't work. Ours stopped working after 7 months. We had to pay transport to get it to the repair shop and was without it for 2 weeks and then had to pay transport to get it back home - only to have the same problem happen again. The Scarvio Board, which is supposed to be the brains of the computer. Philips did not want to know about it.
Report offensive comment
bwander
11/09/2007, 05:39 AM
rating
2/10
DO NOT BUY ANY PHILIPS PLASMA PANELS. I purchased the previous top line 50" Ambilight model two years ago for from Best Buy, who installed it as part of a home theater system. Within months, it was subject to a factory recall because the ambilight system was arcing (and could cause a fire and burn your house down). I live in San Diego, which is not a small town. Philips services their products with a crazy quilt of low cost Mom and Pop service providers. Tommy's TV, picked up the panel, bounced it back and forth in their van for an "in shop repair, and then promplty went out of business. Only 22 months after purchase, the plasma panel became an extension of the "ambilight" system -- no images, just pulsating colors. It was inspected for $125 by their new hole-in-the-wall authorized provider, "3 Techs," who indicated it was propertly installed and not subjct to any customer abuse. They pronounced it D.O.A. and said I should contact Philips N.A. Customer Service who were well aware of the high failure rate of their plasma sets. Despite numerous calls and a letter written to their "Concession Request" Dept., all I got was a big runaround. They will do nothing once their products are outside their 1 yr. warranty even though they know the product is defective. BUYER BEWARE!
Pros: Looks nice.
Cons: A black hole for your hard-earned money.
Report offensive comment
iand1
22/08/2007, 11:21 PM
rating
8/10
Excelent PQ particularly with Philips DTR7200 HD STB.
Pros: PQ, Ambilight, clean design.
Cons: Inbuilt analogue tuner as the automatic default on start-up...needed a Harmony remote to manage push thru to STB
Report offensive comment
Ted
20/03/2007, 08:52 PM
rating
10/10
MAGNIFICENT
Pros: Fine PQ - Ambilight leaves all other Plasma's in it's wake
Cons: Setup in shops is porr -was so much better once set-up properly with DVE at home
Report offensive comment
22/08/2006, 02:16 PM
rating
9/10
a brilliant product
Report offensive comment
Kevin Ft Lauderdale Florida
20/04/2006, 03:59 PM
Superb Product Innovation from the inventor of DVD
Report offensive comment
laurie
17/06/2005, 06:19 PM
Fantastic and Funky
Found this TV to be a great purchase! Love the picture; it's very sharp. With limited knowledge it was easy to setup and configure with the helpful menu system. Even though i wouldn't call the Ambilight a must have, it definitely is very effective at night. Price wise - got it on sale for almost half the RRP listed here. Highly recommend this Plasma!!
Report offensive comment
09/06/2005, 11:45 PM
Fantastic package, superb picture
Report offensive comment
13/04/2005, 11:21 PM
This plasma is DOPE!
The freshest display this side of the internet
Report offensive comment
Rudolf Keijzer
25/01/2005, 11:21 PM
Best product ever seen!!!
Report offensive comment