IFA 2008

Phillips pioneers with the new LCD Flat TV featuring LED backlighting

August 28, 2008

Berlin, Germany – Philips sets a new benchmark for LCD picture quality with the introduction of the ground-breaking 42PFL9803 FlatTV equipped with LED backlighting technology. Winner of the EISA ‘European LCD-TV 2008-2009’ award, the 42” set delivers levels of contrast and motion smoothness never achieved by an LCD before.

Philips sets a new benchmark for LCD picture quality with the introduction of the ground-breaking 42PFL9803 FlatTV equipped with LED backlighting technology. Winner of the EISA ‘European LCD-TV 2008-2009’ award, the 42” set delivers levels of contrast and motion smoothness never achieved by an LCD before.

In its official citation, the EISA judging panel states “The new 42PFL9803 solves two of the most critical challenges in current LCD TV technology: black level and motion blur. Thanks to its genius LED backlight, featuring 2D Dimming control over 128 individual areas, the 42PFL9803’s black level can now compete with the best plasma TV sets. The Clear LCD 100Hz technology, meanwhile, reproduces crystal-pure images that are also naturally fluid thanks to Philips’s extremely sophisticated motion compensation algorithm. The picture-sensitive Ambilight is another smart feature exclusive to Philips. Sound quality is better than average, but this does not compromise aesthetics: the loudspeakers are, in fact, invisible.....”

Des Power, Senior Vice President Marketing Television, Philips Consumer Lifestyle, explains:
“Philips new LED Backlighting technology is a true milestone in the ongoing evolution of our FlatTV range. Not only does the new 42PFL9803 offer the unique LED LUX Backlighting technology, but it also features ground-breaking Philips technologies, including the latest generation of Perfect Pixel HD engine and the immersive Ambilight Spectra system. All these elements have been combined into a sleek design to make this the must-have purchase for consumers who demand breathtaking picture quality.”

LED LUX - LED local dimming backlight technology
The 42PFL9803 is the first LCD TV to feature Philips unique LED local dimming backlight technology, LED LUX. Until now, LCD TVs have suffered from washed-out blacks caused by light leakage from pixels that cannot be completely switched off. The LED local dimming backlight system employed by the 42PFL9803 helps eradicate this problem and deliver industry-leading black level performance.

The LED LUX system comprises of 128 segments of LED’s (1,152 LED’s in total), in 8 rows containing 16 segments. Nine LED’s are assigned to each individual segment and these LED’s can be individually dimmed to precisely control the output of each pixel. So, even if a segment contains both bright and dark portions, the pixel values of the dark portions can be dimmed to deliver optimum contrast performance.

The amount of dimming actually required by each LED is continuously calculated and re-calculated to accurately reproduce the image. Effectively, because there is no light leakage the dark parts of an image become darker and the bright parts become brighter delivering dramatically superior contrast and deep black levels with an astonishing 2,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast ratio.

100 Hz Clear LCD with 2ms response time
The 42PFL9803 is also the world’s fastest LCD courtesy of 100Hz Clear LCD and a 2 millisecond response time which finally banishes the motion blur problem common with most other LCD TVs. 100Hz Clear LCD creates extreme motion sharpness for clear and vibrant images even with fast on-screen motion. The Double Frame Rate Insertion works with a high 100Hz refresh rate. It increases the sharpness of motion reproduction to more than twice that of conventional LCD, resulting in a performance with a response time of 2 milliseconds – the fastest LCD refresh rate in the world.

Perfect Pixel HD Engine
As well as featuring the pioneering LED local dimming backlight system, the 42PFL9803 comes fully equipped with Philips most advanced screen processing technologies. The latest Perfect Pixel HD engine processes five million pixels per second (double the performance of its predecessor), to deliver unrivalled sharpness and detail. Each pixel of the incoming picture is enhanced to better match the surrounding pixels, delivering a more natural and lifelike picture.

Perfect Colors is the combination of new color sources, advanced colour processing for both existing and new sources, and a Wide Color Gamut display. The powerful 17-bit Color Booster technology pumps out a mesmerizing 2,250 trillion colors, producing brilliant life-like images with natural skin and white tones. The Wide Color Gamut display and x.v. Wide Color HDMI input display the most vivid and vibrant colours.

Perfect Natural Motion ensures judder-free and razor sharp images, which is particularly critical with 1080p/24 source material. Perfect Natural Motion estimates motion in the picture and corrects juddering movements in both broadcast and recorded movie material (e.g., DVD and Blu-ray Disc). Perfect Natural Motion results in smoother and quieter pictures with excellent sharpness surpassing even the motion performance in a cinema.

Ambilight Spectra 2
The set boasts immersive Ambilight Spectra 2 technology, which accurately identifies dominant on-screen colors and generates accurately-matched ambient lighting from both sides of the screen onto a rear wall. The Ambilight Spectra on each side independently generates a series of colors that match a part of the picture on screen, rather than a whole block of colours on the left and right sides. Ambilight Spectra 2 also adjusts the timing of its LED’s to help enhance on-screen motion.

Integrated Digital TV tuner
Ready for future advancements in the digital era, the 42PFL9803H features an integrated MPEG-4 HDTV receiver to receive pristine high definition broadcasting where available.

Connectivity
Easy to use and set-up, the 42PFL9803 boasts four HDMI 1.3a EasyLink inputs to ensure easy connectivity between HDMI devices and also features an Ethernet port enabling access to the PC and all networked content.

For more information please contact your local Philips press officer or:

Philips Consumer Lifestyle
Katy Hartley, Product PR Director Television
Tel: +31-6-22232801
Email: katy.hartley@philips.com

About Royal Philips Electronics

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is a diversified Health and Well-being company, focused on improving people’s lives through timely innovations. As a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting, Philips integrates technologies and design into people-centric solutions, based on fundamental customer insights and the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips employs approximately 133,000 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 27 billion in 2007, the company is a market leader in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting solutions and new lighting applications, as well as lifestyle products for personal well-being and pleasure with strong leadership positions in flat TV, male shaving and grooming, portable entertainment and oral healthcare. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.