Philips 42PFL9900D/ 47PFL9732D

At their press conference, Philips used the occasion to great effect (light show and dance intro, fashion catwalk, and even a specially-commissioned film by esteemed director Wong Kar Wai) to drum up interest in their new Aurea 42PFL9900D LCD that could be best described as “Ambilight In Bezel”. Notice in the following video how the colour/ intensity of the light zones embedded within the bezel changed according to what was displayed on screen:

If you feel that the Aurea is too distracting for your taste, there’s always the conventional Ambilight models to fall back on. I am always very impressed with Philips televisions’ performance in showrooms, and this time was no different. They put up a few of their EISA-award-winning Philips 47PFL9732D LCD TVs side-by-side in on/ off mode to demonstrate their 100Hz Clear LCD, Perfect Pixel HD and HD Natural Motion technology. While I believe that the effects were exaggerated (for example, the judder on the “HD Natural Motion Off” screen was much worse than your usual telecine judder), these nevertheless gave a glimpse of what the new generation of Philips LCDs are capable of.

Philips 47PFL9732D Perfect Pixel HD demo

Philips 47PFL9732D HD Natural Motion & 100Hz Clear LCD demo

Panasonic

Overall the Panasonic booth was quite dark with the only significant light source coming from all their television screens, which of course showcased the already excellent blacks on their plasmas. Current full HD models like PZ700 and PF9, and the newer TH42PZ70 (which will have twice the quoted contrast ratio but cost £500 less than the outgoing TH42PZ700) were on show, but it was the 103-inch behemoth of a plasma TH103PF9 that grabbed the crowd’s attention (it was placed in a dedicated room with surround sound). Here’s a picture… if you look closely you may see someone standing to the left of the picture which gives you a scale of how humongous that screen is:

Panasonic will also – for the first time – venture beyond 32 inches in their LCD product lineup: the 37″ Panasonic TX37LZD70 LCD TV will feature a full HD 1920 x 1080 screen based on IPS-alpha panel complete with 100Hz Motion Picture Pro technology. Given the low ambient lighting condition, I couldn’t help but notice the average blacks, but hey, I’ll be the first to hold my hands up and admit that it was not calibrated (so black level could be brought down if Panasonic are considerate enough to introduce a long-overdue backlight control). Viewing angle, as always, is one of the best in the LCD business: