By Mathew Henry
SYDNEY: Philips Electronics Australia today launched its new flat panel TV range including the brand’s first LCD TVs with ClearLCD technology, which the brand claims finally eliminates motion blur and delivers pictures as good as CRT and plasma.
In a demonstration conducted by Philips at the launch today, the 42-inch LCD TV with ClearLCD displayed an impressive ability to eliminate motion blur compared to the previous generation of Philips LCDs, a competitor model and even Philips’ current 42-inch plasma.
“This new ClearLCD technology really takes LCD to the same level as CRT or plasma,” said Philips marketing manager, Matt Moran.
During the demonstration, Moran commented that moving images on the ClearLCD model in fact looked smoother than on the company’s flagship plasma.
This visible improvement is achieved by the scanning backlight used in ClearLCD models, which switches the backlight on and off 75 times a second (75Hz) to hide the visible blurring of pixels as they change.
Philips also demonstrated its first flat panel TVs to incorporate the fourth-generation of its Ambilight technology – Ambilight Full Surround, which will be launched at the end of June.
Philips Australia CEO, Harry van Dyk, said the launch of unique technologies is part of Philips’ strategy of maintaining value in the market.
“With prices in the market dropping, we are faced with the choice of either murdering our cost base to lower prices, or differentiating our products,” he said at the launch.
Philips also announced that flat panel TVs incorporating its next generation 3D TV screen technology will be available within 18 months to two years. The technology promises images with a true sense of depth without the need for special content or glasses.
In another exclusive preview for the media today, Philips demonstrated a TV technology currently in development called ‘Panorama TV’, which offers an cinema-like aspect ratio. Two extra display panels are added to the sides of the 16:9 plasma to give a true cinema widescreen picture, completely eliminating the black bars users still experience when watching many Hollywood movies on a 16:9 widescreen TV.