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Philips pitches black with monster contrast LED backlight

More black than black is our motto

IFA In move to take on the likes of the Pioneer Kuro and Panasonic's Viera, Philips has announced the 42PFL9803 TV with black-enhancing LED backlight technology.

The 42in display features what Philips calls "2D dimming control" covering 128 individual areas, enabling the LCD TV to compete with the best plasmas TV sets, the company claimed.

And to be honest, having had a sneak preview at this screen at the IFA show in Berlin before it was officially announced, we can honestly say it will present some healthy competition for the likes of the Pioneer Kuro and Panasonic's Viera.

Philips 42PFL9803 HD TV

Philips' 42PFL9803: you can't really do it justice here, but take our word for it

The 42PFL9803 is the first LCD TV to feature Philips LED LUX dimming backlight technology, which comprises 128 segments of LEDs (1152 in total) in eight rows, each containing 16 segments. Nine LEDs are assigned to each individual segment and these LEDs 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 to accurately reproduce the image. Because there is no light leakage, the dark parts of the image become darker and the bright parts become brighter, delivering dramatically superior contrast and deep black levels with an incredible claimed 2,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio.

Beat that, Sharp. The Japanese company today announced an LCD TV with a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, indicating that an increased focus on hyper-high contrast, blacker-than-black displays is clearly under way.

Expect to pay around €2500 for this pitch-black puppy. It will go on sale across Europe at the end of September.

IFA 2008 complete coverage

Latest Comments
(Written by Reg staff)

Re: Interesting...

For chrissakes, someone saw it and fixed it, Christopher, OK? THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP. File closed, theory debunked, little green men put in a blender and made into milkshakes for the FBI. OK?

Jeeeezus.

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Interesting...

...I make a comment about a grammatical error... the error mysteriously disappears, and my comment mysteriously fails to be accepted... coincidence? I guess this one won't be appearing either then. I smell a conspiracy.

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Anonymous Coward

@IP violation?

well if they are licensing the dolby tech then there is no issue.

Isn't it only a violation if they do it that way. if they achieve it by other means then is it ok?

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@Peter Timon

The price is in Euros.

and Mark Aggleton. What? What is wrong with the word puppy, or wat that a joke?

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0

Can't....resist......

So, is this thing the New Black then?

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