Review: Philips 42-inch LCD HDTV with Ambilight 2

Surrounded by Light

February 2008 By Marshal M. Rosenthal

Photos

Get the Flash Player to see this rotator.

It’s not easy for a HDTV display to stand out from the pack these days. Premium features like 1080p, electronic program guides, beefed up speakers with virtual surround, memory slots for viewing photos and listening to music—these are now being made by just about every TV manufacturer. But having illuminated “Ambilight” side panels that project colored light in sync to the image being displayed, well that continues to be a unique and intriguing idea—essentially your back wall become a dance club disco light. So the real question is whether the Philips Ambilight is a valued addition to the viewing experience of this LCD display.

Since wall mounting wasn’t possible, I set the 42-inch model on a TV stand up against the off-white wall of my bedroom using the included swivel base (its glass base nicely compliments the glossy black chassis). I first went into the TV’s menus and see there were demo modes showing how the Ambilight and the Perfect Pixel video processing work. It’s worth watching, as is using a Settings assistant to simplify getting everything up and running.

I attached the Philips to a Dish HD satellite receiver (providing 1080i video) along with a Sony 1080p Blu-ray player. Standard resolution TV along with regular DVDs benefited from tweaking such video menu controls as Noise and MPEG artifact reduction, but picture enhancements and a fast motion response rate of 120Hz (a fairly new technology for LCD TVs that reduces motion blur) can only do so much with a low resolution signal. However, switching to HD programming enabled colors to go vibrant, blacks to go deep and the overall image to approach a more life-life look. This continued when playing the Blu-ray disc of “Meet The Robinsons” as being able to see patterns in dresses, rust on water pipes and shading in the character’s face and hairline all contribute to making the film appear more three-dimensional. While watching a trailer for “Enchanted” (featuring both live action/animation) the TV readily resolved fine detail and motion in both bright and low-light scenes, such as inside Central Park and the Manhattan skyline.

Cycling through the various Ambilight modes using the remote lets you gauge the effect, which is also influenced by what you are watching. Lowering the overall brightness of the Ambilight a bit, I bypassed the constant “Color” setting and chose “Dynamic”—which my wife and I both found a bit too intrusive while watching nature scenes like on the Discovery Channel or the Blu-ray disc of “Planet Earth” (action movies on the other hand appear well suited for the aggressive effect as it makes them seem “bigger”). We ended up using the “Relaxed” setting as it was more subtle. And in turning the Ambilight on/off, my wife pointed out that with it on there’s a perception that the picture is sharper and with an increase in contrast to the black areas as well.

It’s not like the Ambilight reaches out and grabs you by the throat because after watching for a while it’s like one of those white noise machines where you forget that it’s there. But in a similar way to how surround sound enhances audio by moving it “around” you, Ambilight can make it feel like the image is expanding out past the confines of the screen. It is an acquired taste but an interesting one that can enhance viewing when combined with the splendid picture this Philips HDTV presents.

Have you ever watched this TV? If so, talk about it in the E-Gear forums.