Check it -- our brethren over at Engadget Classic wound up on an elevator heading skyward to a room filled with Philips and DLO gear. Yep, most of that new kit introduced earlier today was on hand, so head on over and take a gander at what they found.

It's right around the midway point between last CES and the one to come, and for Philips, that means it's time to dump a few new HDTVs onto the unsuspecting public. Announced today from atop a New York City hotel, the outfit got official with its 5000, 7000 and Eco series of LCD HDTVs. The 5000 FlatTV lineup includes 32- ($799), 42- ($1,799), 47- ($2,099) and 52-inch ($2,899) flavors, all of which are bathed in glossy black and feature HDMI 1.3a inputs. The Eco sets tout "several power-saving features such as a proprietary dimming technology" and arrive in 42-, 47- and 52-inch sizes ($1,099 to $2,299). Lastly, the 7000 Series ($1,699 to $2,699) -- or Ultimate TVs, as Philips likes to say -- offers up 120Hz ClearLCD / Perfect Pixel HD technology, an "invisible" speaker system and four HDMI-CEC connectors. For what it's worth, Philips is also re-introducing its Profile 1.1-compliant BDP7200 Blu-ray player, which has already been reviewed and brushed aside in anticipation of fresher Profile 2.0 decks.

Whittling down the amount of remotes in one's living room has long since been a challenge for the amateur home theater builder, and while there are some decent universal solutions on the market, the RF4CE Consortium is hoping to make things painfully simple. The group has been formed in order to "drive the adoption of an open radio frequency (RF) entertainment control specification based on IEEE 802.15.4." If you'll recall, this isn't the first time we've heard that standard called, as it's also used in MaxStream's XBee Xtender. Notably, Freescale is hoping to incorporate its Synkro technology into the specification, and in an ideal world, we'd see said protocol filter into DVD players, AV receivers, set-top-boxes and all manners of components. Let the IR-to-RF transition begin, we say.

Read - Sony's RF4CE Consortium release
Read - Freescale's RF4CE Consortium release

It's no secret the rest of the display industry hasn't been happy with Vizio shaking up the low end with its cheap HDTVs, and now Mitsubishi and others have joined in a lawsuit accusing the manufacturer of refusing to license necessary patents. The 15 patents allegedly violated are for MPEG-2 compression that Mitsu, Sony, Samsung, Philips, Thomson, JVC and Columbia University of New York claim Vizio refuses to license. Vizio says it don't need no stinking licenses, since its suppliers already have them and it believes these licenses extend to its products. MPEG-LA also filed a similar suit against Target's TruTech house brand of televisions; while we'll have to wait for a ruling on the case to see who is right, it seems if they can't compete with these lower prices, other manufacturers will make sure cheap HDTVs cost more to make. For its part, Vizio says it does not believe this suit will have a materially adverse impact on its business, so for now, let the low-price flat screens roll.

Read - Mitsubishi, Samsung Sue Vizio Over Video Patents
Read - VIZIO Comments on MPEG-2 Lawsuit By Electronics Competitors

It's no nightmare -- 3D is officially in style. Or it's succeeding in fooling us, one or the other. Further proof that taking things to the third-dimension is all the rage has arrived courtesy of Philips, who has announced its intentions to reveal a 1080p 52-inch 3D display at InfoComm later this month. The unit will utilize the same WOWvx technology showcased a year prior in its 20-inch display, and will feature 700 cd/m2 brightness, a 2,000:1 contrast ratio and an 8-millisecond response time. The auto-stereoscopic display should be "commercially available from Q4 2008 onwards," but we haven't a clue how costly it'll be when it eventually lands.

[Via SlashGear]

Just because Philips has hit some rough water with its TV products and even handed over the US production to Funai, that doesn't mean it's given up. Getting rolled out in the UK is the Ambilight 9600-series LCD TVs. While we're not fans of the Ambilight, the other improvements to the panels sound good to us. An updated Pixel Perfect HD system promises better black levels and contrast, and 100Hz (double the UK 50Hz mains frequency) Clear LCD wizardry should help minimize motion blur; at least as much as 120Hz does here in the US. If you need even deeper blacks, the new backlight can be dialed right down to 5-percent. If sunglasses are your thing, the torch mode on the backlight has been increased by 10-percent. Sounds good, but we'd like to see Philips bring its higher end models like these to the states for our peepers. The models we've seen over here don't exactly stop us in our tracks. Available in 32, 37, 42 and 47-inch sizes for £999, £1499, £1799 and £1999, respectively.

You know what they say: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Such is the unfortunate case with Philips' 42PFL5603D, which possesses quite a stunning enclosure and an eco-friendly design, but falls short in the areas that matter most. According to a recent CNET review, this 42-incher "consumed less energy than any flat-panel TV" it had ever tested, and keeping with the positives, they found the colors to be accurate and a solid port assortment with 4 HDMI sockets. As you'll see, the cons list is quite a bit longer, as the black levels were noticeably light, darker areas tended toward blue, de-judder processing introduced "artifacts" and the off-angle viewing wasn't exactly up to snuff. In the end, it managed to garner a rather low 6.2 out of 10, and unless you're willing to put Mother Earth above image quality (no pressure or anything), we'd probably suggest looking elsewhere.

Recent activity is making 2009 look like the year when manufacturers will be leaving the plasma party en masse, for sure. Even if the number of brands on the shelves isn't greatly diminished, the number of independent manufacturers will be. Since Philips has continued to reduce its stake in the LCD production venture with LG and handed over North American production to Funai, it'd be no great surprise to see it exit the plasma biz. Just like every party, sometimes the really crazy stuff happens in the wee hours, after the initial exodus; we'll see next year if plasma goes out strong or sad.

[Via TGDaily]

It's no shock that Profile 1.1 players have lost their luster with Profile 2.0 being all the rage, but we figured it prudent to pass along CNET's recent review of the CES-announced BDP7200 just in case. Philips' BD player features a fresh, attractive design, supports Dolby TrueHD / DTS-HD Master Audio in bit-stream format and performed excellently in 1080p24. So, what's the problem, you ask? Unfortunately, there's no onboard decoding of the previously mentioned audio codecs, no Ethernet port for firmware upgrades, an inability to understand Profile 2.0 and "subpar image quality in standard 1080p mode." All in all, the 6.4 out of 10 rating screams "mixed bag" to us, and while this particular device may actually be right for some, we'd certainly take a gander at the review linked below before diving on in.

If you were still refusing to believe that the 3D push was on, um, it's on. Announced at NAB Show, 22 international firms (including some pretty major players) have launched the 3D@Home Consortium, which aims to "speed the adoption of 3D entertainment in the home." Led by Disney, Philips and Samsung -- and joined by Thomson, IMAX, TDVision, 3DIcon, Corning, Planar Systems, QPC Laser, SeeReal, 3ality, DDD, In-Three, Quantum Data, Sensio, Fraunhofer Institute IMPS, Sim2, Setred, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Holografika and Volfoni -- the non-profit alliance is focused on "creating and publishing useful technical roadmaps, developing educational materials for consumer and retail channels and facilitating the development of industry standards and their dissemination." From the outside looking in, it seems these folks are sort of jumping the gun, but given that we've already seen a 3D format compatible with legacy 2D systems and a successful live 3D broadcast here in the past 48 hours, maybe being ahead of the curve isn't such a bad thing.

Certainly not the first watermarking scheme we've seen of late, Philips has introduced a new method that it hopes will thwart any plan to snag sensitive PPV material and distribute it illegally on the intarnetz. The VTrack solution, set to debut at NAB Show, is aimed at hoteliers who enjoy offering up PPV films well before the DVD release date. The company will be integrating the technology -- which makes content captured via camcorder traceable -- into its 26-, 32-, 37- and 42-inch HDTVs, and if someone does set up their own bootlegging studio and then share it with everyone on the web, content owners can unearth the time, date and location of the deed. In Soviet Russia (and hotels with Philips sets), content watches you.

As seen previously, the FCC isn't scared to put the financial smackdown on anyone it finds not playing up to the rules of the digital transition, and has dropped about $6 million in fines on 11 companies. Several of the companies fined were retailers it says did not properly mark TVs that had only analog tuners and won't get OTA TV after it's shut off next year. Wal-Mart got dinged for $992k, $1.1 million went against Sears, $712k for Circuit City, $296k against Target and $280k against Best Buy. Syntax-Brillian was one of two companies that caught a charge for importing TVs without a digital tuner after the deadline, two more were fined for V-chip violations, while Panasonic and Philips were among seven others that settled to avoid fines. That probably won't cover all those $40 coupons, but it can't hurt.

[Via Zatz Not Funny & Cable Digital News]

We've had a feeling Philips wasn't really in love with the TV market lately, and now word comes from the New York Times that it will no longer manufacture displays for North America. The name -- and apparently the high concept Ambilight designs -- will still be on shelves, courtesy of a five year deal branding Funai-built televisions (already the name behind Emerson, Sylania, Symphonic and others.) Seeking -- like every other manufacturer lately -- to reduce risk and focus on its patents Philips will still design and manufacture TVs outside N.A., as well as oversee U.S. marketing, while Funai takes over all other operations Stateside beginning September 1.

Update: Philips let us know Ambilight remains dead and buried, but its 2008 models will continue as planned.

LG.Display, née LG.Philips, will soon have a little less Philips in it, after the Netherlands portion of the collaboration sells off about 23 million shares (valued at $1 billion). Why Philips is distancing itself (dropping from an original 44.6% share of the company to 19.9% before this sale) from what at least seemed to be a good LCD operation once upon a time -- especially when everyone else is looking for a teammate -- is less clear, but maybe it just wants to help Toshiba out with a few bills. [Warning: subscription req'd]

Apparently, 100 million certified DivX video devices simply isn't enough, as a half dozen new standalone players have just had the coveted "DivX Certified" seal bestowed upon them. Joining the DivX-friendly PlayStation 3 is the Panasonic DMP-BD30 (no surprise here), Philips' BDP7200 and Denon's own DVD-2500BTC1B, DVD-3800BDC1B, DVD-3800BDSP and DVD-2500BTSP. According to In-Stat, worldwide shipments of BD players is "expected to reach 23 million in 2011," so we're betting that quite a few more units receive this badge of honor in the not-too-distant future.