Philips HDTV Highlights

Philips HDTV: Net TV
There are two ways to access the Internet on a top-of-the-range Philips HDTV: Firstly, Philips manages its own "Net TV" portal. At the time of writing, this portal provides access to content from a wide range of companies - including, for example, YouTube, eBay, and MeteoGroup. For these offerings, Philips HDTV displays use a universal page-description language known as CE-HTML, which is optimized for displaying on TV screens (and therefore also for typical living-room viewing distances).

The manufacturer decides which companies have access to the platform, but the customer can choose how to group the services and can also remove any unwanted options from the list altogether. The user can also move beyond the sheltered environment of the portal with the built-in browser, which allows access to essentially any page on the World Wide Web.

Televisions.com's experiences with the system have highlighted how awkward it can be to type in page-addresses ("URLs") on a remote control - but it's ‘doable' at least. Since normal internet pages aren't optimized for TVs, the viewer might often find they have to scroll up or down or adjust the zoom.

What's more, the browser in Philips' Net TVs lack support for some types of multimedia files commonly used on web pages. To be fair, though, other TVs can't display conventional internet content at all.

Philips HDTV: 100/200 hertz
Even back in the times of CRTs, Philips was a 100-hertz pioneer. The technology was supposed to help free the bulky glass screens of large-area flicker. Liquid crystal displays, on the other hand, don't flicker intrinsically - here, instead, 100 hertz is used to make objects move more fluidly.

Philips HDTV models provide additional help with the "HD Natural Motion" and "Perfect Natural Motion" motion-prediction systems. From what we've seen so far, the motion prediction on a Philips HDTV works admirably with pictures from a video camera - that is, with TV shows or sports. With film-based material, however, opinions are divided on the technology's effects: On the one hand, movies lose a part of their characteristic look, resembling a video clip instead. On the other, complex movie scenes, such as camera pans, joggers running through the picture, or garden fences, present the technology with unsolvable problems. The result: noticeable block artifacts. The current generation of the Dutch company's technology claims to be sufficiently powerful to avoid these weaknesses - and this is, of course, something that Televisions.com will be checking when we test the devices.

Instead of 100-hertz technology, the top models in the Philips HDTV selection provide 200-hertz technology. While 200-hertz models from Sony and Samsung actually generate 200 images per second, Philips models display only 100 images per second, interspersed with the same number of black frames. These are supposed to improve contrast.

Philips HDTV: Pixel Plus HD/Pixel Precise HD
This has been an extra feature in Philips TVs since the times of CRT - in the meantime, it has inspired many competitors to produce similar technologies. Initially known as "Pixel Plus", the technology attempts nothing short of the impossible: It's supposed to tease more detail from a TV picture than is present in the original signal. Of course, you can't make something out of nothing, but it is possible to trick the human eye.

Televisions.com suggests you use the technology with caution: If you want to display conventional, PAL-resolution images on a Philips' HDTV screen, the pictures will - in any case - have to undergo a "scaling" process. If, at the same time, Pixel Plus HD and Pixel Precise HD can narrow the gap - subjectively at least - between standard- and high-definition content, then why not? With HD source material, such as Blu-ray discs or HDTV broadcasts, however, Televisions.com recommends doing without such sharpness-enhancers.

Philips HDTV: 1080p
To understand how today's top format works on a Philips HDTV, you'll first need to know the basics. Traditional TV services worldwide all have the same inherent problem: interlacing. Broadcasters in Europe transmit 25 images per second - not as complete, "progressive" images, but rather as 50 "interlaced" images. The TV camera splits the image into horizontal lines. Initially, it samples the uneven-numbered lines - the first, third, fifth, and so on. These then form the first interlaced image; the second consists of the even-numbered lines - 2, 4, 6, and so on.

Conventional tube-based TVs plot the images on their screens in exactly same way. When this technology was developed, CRT screens were small, not very bright, and not particularly sharp; the disadvantages of interlacing - flicker on horizontal or diagonal lines - were therefore barely problematic. The bigger and brighter the screens become, however, the more obvious the effect.

Unlike CRTs, for technical reasons, LCD and plasma TVs always work progressively - and the same goes for a Philips HDTV. Ideally, therefore, TV images would also be recorded and transmitted progressively - and in full HDTV resolution (1,920 x 1,080 pixels). In short: in 1080p format.

Movies on Blu-ray discs are already stored in this way - here, the signal has the original movie frame-rate of 24 pictures per second. Flat-panel TVs display each image - depending on the exact model - two, three, or four times. Many HD camcorders and digital cameras with video functions also record progressively, with 24, 25, or 30 frames per second, depending on the manufacturer. But the cameras don't always record in 1080p - often, they'll only do 720p (1,280 x 720 pixels). Many high-definition channels are broadcast in 720p - but with 50 full ("progressive") images per second.

The ideal is obviously 1080p with 50 or 60 frames per second, since this would mean full, flicker-free sharpness and the best motion depiction; at present, sadly, many studios and broadcasters lack the necessary technology. If, however, you connect a modern computer to a flat-panel TV via HDMI, 50- or 60-hertz frame rates in Full HD picture become a possibility, since the PC's graphics card can deliver this format. According to Philips, its current flat-panel TVs support all commonly used 720p and 1080p formats.

Our tests have confirmed that 1080p reproduces flawlessly on current Philips HDTV models. Anything less would be shameful - after all, a TV claiming to display the top resolution should, of course, be able to display such signals accurately.

The following were involved in producing this article on Philips HDTV:

Author(s): Karl-Gerhard Haas
Editor in Chief: Florian Friedrich
Photos: Manufacturer and AV T.O.P. Messtechnik GmbH
Last updated: September 2009