IFA 2013 - First Look at the Philips 65PFL9708 4K UHD TV - news discussion

Steve Withers

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Philips reveal their three steps to TV heaven

When Philips announced that their 65PFL9708 4K UHD TV had won the EISA award for Best Product of 2013, it came as something of a surprise because it was the first we had heard of this particular model. However, with IFA just finsishing and Philips happy to show off their award-winning flagship, we finally had a chance to take a closer look at the latest TV to join the growing ranks of 4K capable displays on the market.

Philips approach to creating their new flagship model has been based around three steps, or building blocks, the first of which is to create a premium platform for Full HD picture quality. Given that the majority of content people will initially be watching on their shiny new TV won't be 4K, it's important to ensure that all this non-4K material is handled correctly. To do this Philips take all the standard and high definition sources and utilise their Ultra Pixel HD Engine and various picture processing features to deliver the best possible images to the UHD panel.

It is this UHD panel that forms the next building block. It has a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels and comes in two sizes, a 65” version and a whopping 84” model. The 65” screen size uses a VA panel and the 84” is an IPS panel, whilst both use edge LED lighting and passive 3D. This immediately tells us that the panels are coming from two sources, the 65” is the same panel used by Sony and made by AU Optronics, whilst the 84” is made by LG.

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The PFL9708 uses Micro Dimming Pro, which sits between regular Micro Dimming and Micro Dimming Premium. For those unfamiliar with the ways of Philips, Micro Dimming is a global dimming feature that just dims the entire image depending on what's on screen. Micro Dimming Premium is a local dimming feature that uses zones to dim certain parts of the image. Micro Dimming Pro is a global dimming feature but when used with a light sensor, it can adjust the brightness depending on the ambient light. When asked why Philips didn't include Micro Dimming Premium on their flagship TV, they said that there is currently no supplier for a UHD panel with local dimming.

The final building block is the back-end processing, where the TV upscales any content to the full resolution of the 4K panel using Philips Ultra Resolution processing. Here the processing takes advantage of the increased resolution of the panel, taking the original pixel and calculating the picture information for three more pixels to create an image that is visibly sharper and better detailed. Philips also employ line thinning to enhance the width and intensity of lines and details in a picture. There are also enhancements made to native 4K sources using the Ultra Resolution processing and the PFL9708 has quadruple the processing power to handle four billion pixels at a time.

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In terms of its overall design, the PFL9708 is attractively styled but is slightly deeper than much of the competition, with a wider bezel. This increased size is undoubtedly to accommodate Philips unique Ambilight feature. The PFL9708 uses three-sided Ambilight, which allows you to create a neutral biased light behind panel, thus improving perceived blacks and reducing eye strain. For those who prefer a more immersive Ambilight experience, the PLF9708 can even be connected to Philips in-room LED lighting but such a feature does detract from image accuracy.

The PFL9708 has HDMI 1.4 inputs but Philips said that owners will be able to buy an adapter to upgrade to HDMI 2.0, which is strange because Sony seem to think that their UHD TVs can be upgraded using a firmware update. It would seem there is still a lot of conflicting information surrounding the next generation HDMI connector. The PFL9708 also includes 900Hz refresh, passive 3D glasses, built-in WiFi and their handy dual-sided remote control. There is also the latest version of Philips Smart TV platform, which includes their new Cloud TV app, as well as popular services such as Spotify and Netflix. There is also Miracast for second screen viewing and Cloud Explorer for sharing content in the cloud across your home network.

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We had a chance to take a close look at the PFL9708 and whilst a show floor is never the ideal place for critical viewing because you have no control over the environment, content or settings, both the native 4K content and the upscaled material looked very impressive. The images were certainly bright and thanks to the use of a VA panel on the 65" version, the native blacks appeared very good. In direct comparisons between upscaled images with the picture processing turned on and off, there was clearly an improvement in perceived detail, although at times there appeared to be slightly too much sharpening. However given that the TV is upscaling content to the native UHD panel, a degree of sharpening is acceptable and it would probably be a case of choosing which setting you prefer.

However as good as the images looked, what will really catch your eye is the price, with the 65" version retailing for £4,500 and the 84" version costing a slightly more toppy £13,000. Whilst the latter might seem expensive, that's half what a similar TV from LG or Sony would have cost you a year ago. As for the 65" version, a suggested price of £4,500 sets a new benchmark for the other manufacturers to follow. In fact, if Philips/TPVision CEO Maarten de Vries is to be believed, we can expect more price cuts to follow as manufacturers seek to monetize their investments as quickly as possible through higher volumes. If Philips and IFA are anything to go by, 4K Ultra HD is here and it means business.
 
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thanks for this write up, just recently, this philips 4k range came on the news scene and has steered me away from the toshiba 84" 4k, solely due to the ambilight, which i have always previously had, and seeing as philips have at least thrown us a bone of an hdmi 2.0 upgrade path and toshiba havent, then philips is looking like they will get my money...now to start saving some more for 84" 4k goodness!
 
small correction : 3D glasses are passive, not active (not needed anyway since you have 4x the pixels to deliver full HD to left & right eye.

I saw in photos that this screen is also so very reflective. I don't like looking into a black mirror in dark scenes. Anyone recognize this ?
 
Sorry typo, I've corrected it now.

The screen wasn't very reflective in real life, certainly no better or worse than the competition.
 
Did you had a look on the Sony 4k too? Which TV did you prefer and why?

Thanks.
 

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