P&F USA, the company that markets Philips-branded TVs in North America for Funai Electric, told HD Guru this week that its previously announced 8600 Series of 4K Ultra HDTVs supporting Dolby Vision high dynamic range (HDR) will not be available in the U.S. this year.
Karl Bearnarth, sales and marketing TV and home audio executive VP for P&F USA, said “the only TV series that we showed at CES that won’t be coming to market this is year is the high-end Dolby Vision series. Those won’t be coming to market right now. We’ll now bring those in 2017. There’s lots that’s changed with Dolby Vision,” which necessitated the delay.
Read more on updated plans for the 2016 Philips TV lineup after the jump:
Philips announced at CES 2016 in January that its 2016 TV flagship line was to be the 8600 Series of 4K UHD LED LCD TVs, featuring the 55- and 65-inch screen sizes.
Both models were to support the Dolby Vision HDR standard, Wide Color Gamut covering 82 percent of the BT.2020 format, BrightPro backlight, Micro Dimming Pro, 802.11ac Wi-Fi with MIMO antennas, HDMI 2.0a with HDCP 2.2 on all ports, 240 Perfect Motion Rate technology, Pixel Precise UltraHD processing engine, Sonic Emotion Premium sound and a range of popular streaming apps including: Netflix, YouTube, Vudu, Xumo and Pandora.
Both sets – the 55PFL8601/F7 ($1,199.99 MSRP) and 65PFL8601/F7 ($1,699.99) – were originally announced with a July delivery date.
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However, Bearnarth said Philips has just started to ship its new Google Cast-enabled 6000 Series TVs for 2016, which will be available in the 43-, 49-, 55- and 65-inch screen sizes. All offer 3840×2160 4K Ultra HD resolution and the Google Cast smart TV platform. Unlike Vizio, which removes over-the-air tuners in its Google Cast enabled “Smart Cast” TVs this year, Philips includes tuners in all of its Google Cast models.
“We privately showed [the 6000 series] products to some of our customers at CES, but not with the Google Cast feature. We announced the addition later when we formally introduced the line,” Bearnarth explained.
The 49- and 55-inch 6000 series models feature a BrightPro LED backlighting system along with Micro Dimming backlight for “enhanced HDR performance on IPS LCD panels,” which support wider viewing angles than typical LCD screens.
The 43- and 65-inch models feature a Macro Dimming LED backlight and HDR support using VA panels, that generally produce pictures with better contrast than IPS panels.
All models incorporate 802.11ac Wireless LAN with MIMO antennas for faster, more reliable connections when streaming.
Other Philips TV products in this year’s line include a 75-inch 4K Ultra HDTV, and a 7900 series with 49- ($1,199.99 MSRP), 55- ($1,499.99) and 65-inch ($2,499.99) models. Those models feature the brand’s Razor Slim cabinet design, and feature HDR-10 support, wireless LAN with MIMO antennas, Pixel Plus UltraHD processing engine, 120 Perfect Motion (60 Hz native refresh rate), Sonic Emotion sound, wireless screen casting, and NetTV platform with support for, Netflix, YouTube, Vudu and Pandora apps.
The company also maintains a Philips-branded lineup of Full HD LED LCD TVs in the 32- through 50-inch screen sizes.
Under the Magnavox brand, P&F USA is offering this year, 32- through 55-inch non-connected TVs, 32- through 55-inch connected TVs and 50- and 55-inch 4K Ultra HDTVs.
By Greg Tarr
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I’m thinking about getting the 65PFL6601 model and am hoping features a beautiful picture. I’m pretty tech savvy but don’t know too much about Phillips 4k TV’s yet…As long as the refresh rate is at least 120 and the picture is impressive I will go for it, would you recommend? I will be gaming on Xbox S (4k) and video steaming movies in 4k also…thanks for the help!
Hi Gus,
The 65PFL6601, unfortunately, DOES NOT have a 120 Hz native refresh rate. They have listed motion handling as “120 PMR”. This number is meaningless. It’s a name they have given to their motion smoothing techniques (back light flashing and so forth) that is supposed to equate to the look of a native 120 Hz refresh rate. We have yet to see any of these systems, from any manufacturer, where the fake refresh rate number equates to a native refresh rate panel, although some are better than others.
When you see a number listed like 120 PMR or 120 Motion Rate, etc., you can generally halve the number in the name to get the actual native refresh rate. In this case it’s 60 Hz. That said, a 65 inch screen size is pretty big for a 60 Hz TV. You are definitely going to see some motion blurring and picture judder artifacts unless you are watching it from the back of a very big room.
Other than that I can’t say how the set performs because we haven’t gotten a review sample yet to give it a proper run through. Nice that it’s 4K and is supposed to be HDR compatible, but we can’t know the peak luminance level or how it handles black level without a proper test. So, sorry, I can’t say how it handles HDR. (I can almost assure you it won’t be up to the standards of a Samsung KS9800, Sony X940D or any of the LG 4K OLEDs, but those all cost significantly more.) Take along a magnifying class when you go for a demo. Hold it up to the screen and if you see pronounced grid structure in the pixel layout compared with a higher end Samsung or Sony 4K TV in the store, the TV might be using an RGBW panel. By CTA (formerly CEA) standards, these are not full 4K Ultra HDTVs because they fail to display all of the RGB sub-pixels in the 3840 pixels across the screen. Read more about this here. This is a cheaper panel that will not provide the same color luminance levels in reds as regular 4K panels. So, keep that in mind. P&F USA executives would not tell us if they are using RGBW panels or not in any models this year and are not disclosing it on literature or shelf tags, which makes me nervous. — GT