The move isn’t too much of a surprise, following the company’s decision to pull out of North America back in April, as well as Hitachi’s Australian AV death earlier in the year.

Current managed to have a chat with Matt Moran, Philips’ Lifestyle GM, and he told them that the decision was based upon “global direction”. I guess with prices dropping so substantially over the past few years, it’s becoming harder and harder for these “smaller” players to keep up.

All hope is not lost however – at this stage it looks like the move only effects TVs in Australia and New Zealand, so all your other Philips-related gadgetry should still be available when the company ceases TV distribution on December 31 this year.

[Current - Thanks Adam]

The 47-inch high units have a 70Hz – 35kHz response, and will cost around US$1,250, but there’s no info on availability. [Yamaha and Akihabaranews]

Read on for a detailed take on the screen, it’s surprising audio, what Wong Kar Wai has to do with all this, plus availability and price. Oh, okay, Philips has pulled in a very limited supply to arrive November (Australia was going to be bumped to next year but the local team has secured a small pre-Christmas release) and it’s $5,999.Let’s start with a qualifier. You need to see this in the flesh to truly appreciate the magnitude of its lickability. I see a lot of great products here, but very few give you that “this is what the future looks like” tickle down the spine and Aurea is one of those.

When Ambilight first came along, I was a qualified fan. Nice idea, but there were some issues – a weird buzzing in the lights that developed was a big bad (yes, Philips has fixed this, and has now moved to LEDs from CCFLs too). Ambilight added a sense of artistry and interior design to the television, and Aurea doesn’t just take that to the next level, it takes it to the penthouse.

Technically this is called ‘Ambilight Spectra’, and I explored the options closely today when I got the remote in hand. There is a small section at the bottom of the remote just for Ambilight. Two buttons and one up-down joystick doodad (that’s a technical term). At any time you can turn Ambilight on/off and change its operating mode, or adjust the intensity up-down with the doodad. And when I say anytime, you can even turn Ambilight on when the TV is switched off for some lava lamp action.

I watched the demo footage again in both full room lighting (fluoros and halogens in the roof) and all lights turned off. These demos are quite possibly the best ‘made for purpose’ show pieces I’ve ever seen – there is even a short film made for Philips by Wong Kar Wai for splashing his saturated colour palettes across Aurea TVs.

We then spun up a DVD, Ice Age, to see something that wasn’t custom made for the screen and it showed that more subtle colour shifts still looked great. Ice Age was actually a good tester in this context, with a very muted palette (white, blue, brown).

The screen looks great, even with DVD. Philips are keen to point out that they’ve been doing a lot of video processing to deal with motion and blur issues in LCD for a few generations now through their Pixel Plus engine, and now this has the latest – Perfect Pixel HD. This latest panel is doing 100Hz and at 3ms refresh rates, as well as very good noise reduction and a smart pulldown for smooth 24p playback. It’s no Kuro on contrast, at just 1200:1 native or 8000:1 dynamic. But again the Ambilight Spectra actually puts your eyes into a relaxed space where the finer points of contrast don’t seem so critical.

After a few minutes watching in this way, I switched off the Aurea surround and your eyes hate you for doing so. Particularly when you go for the lights out cinematic experience, Aurea has a great ability to not only fill the room beyond the screen, but it relaxes the eyes and lets you enjoy the picture more than you expect. Fears of it acting as a distraction from the image (something I thought would be the case when first seeing the photos online) were unfounded for me – it enhances and complements rather than drawing attention.

The biggest surprise is the speaker system in the screen, delivering some of the best audio I’ve heard out of a hidden speaker array. When we launched the first disc on the TV the volume was way up and we were trying to turn down the Philips DVD Soundbar – but it wasn’t turned up at all. It was all from the TV, but it still gave that full sound I was expecting to have been from the surround sound bar. It was a small room, but the two 12 speaker arrays left and right, plus two subwoofer boxes, all hidden behind the LCD and streamed out through a narrow channel at the edge of the screen. Seriously, it works a treat – if you aren’t running home theatre but you’re spending this kind of money on a TV (very few of you), this is pretty sweet.

3 x HDMI (1.3) seems to be the standard now – good times, plus 1 x component, and 2 x Scart which isn’t all that useful here, though it can be adapted to other modes. There is composite and S-Video in on the side panel, but no HDMI which is an oversight considering the HDMI enabled camcorders on the market now. Once wall mounted, it’s a hell of a job to get in at the back panel just to plug a camera now and then.

A bonus worth quite a bit is the inclusion of BOTH tabletop swivel stand and the wall mounting bracket. That could set you back $1,000 with some other brands, so it’s worth keeping in mind if wall mounting is your plan.

This is really like a fork in the road for high-end home television. The path of the image phile leads to Pioneer’s Project Kuro. The path of the designer or the aesthete will lead to Aurea. Check out the Aurea website – it’s as stylin’ as the TV. If it gets you going, get down to a store to check these out when they hit in November and see it for yourself. [Philips Aurea] -Seamus Byrne

To minimize visible speaker components, the Aurea uses 26 tiny drivers as opposed to larger speakers. Offering 1080p resolution with 8000:1 dynamic contrast and increased refresh rates, the 42″ 42PFL9900D will cost a pants-dropping $6895 when it’s released in September. And while our source for the story calls the image good, it’s not the best they’ve seen.

So yes, you will be paying a premium for glowy LEDs, but that’s not news to anyone, right? The Aurea will be on display at IFA later this month, so we’ll give you full impressions then.

[tuexperto via technabob]

We recently got a close look at the latest 1080p Ambilight LCD TVs from Philips, the ones that cast colorful glows against the back of your wall in a way that is known to soothe and delight Brian Lam. First introduced at CES, they mostly have “2-channel Ambilight” but one, the premium 42-inch model mentioned below, has full “Ambilight Surround.”

If tripping the Ambilight fandango isn’t your idea of a good time, there are other features that might be more interesting to you. The 120Hz refresh rate found on half of the models is intended to beat the 8ms response time. (This effect is achieved using a multitude of differing techniques, and it might take six months or so for us to be sure who has it figured out.) The Perfect Pixel HD technology for sharpness is also key. Make the jump for my thoughts on a side-by-side comparison with a Samsung, a gallery of my Ambilight shots, plus a cute little newcomer called Modea.

When I went to the Philips suite, the first thing I noticed was a 42-inch 1080p Philips next to a 40-inch 1080p Samsung (the side-by-side shots of the gallery below). And as usual with a bake-off challenge, there were aspects of the Philips that beat the Samsung, but aspects of the Samsung that trumped the Philips. For instance, in the shot of the wave, you can clearly see the added detail that the Perfect Pixel HD technology provides (not to mention the extra diagonal two inches of real estate); however when you look at the rocky cliff, even scaled down, you can make out more detail in the Samsung.

Of course much of this can be fixed; in fact, last Friday I demonstrated how friendly Philips’ picture-tweaking interface is for people who don’t know their hue from their saturation. However, I tend to shrink from side-by-side comparisons set up by one manufacturer.

That said, the TVs were tasty (check out the snikety-snak detail on the PS3 game showing on the 52-incher) and competitively priced for 1080p. Here’s the recap of pricing and availability.

42PFL7432D 42″ 1080p – Currently available for $1,999 April
42PFL9832D 42″ 120Hz 1080p – Coming next month for $2,999
47PFL7432D 47″ 1080p – Currently available for $2,499 April
47PFL9732D 47″ 120Hz 1080p – Coming next month for $2,799
52PFL7432D 52″ 120Hz 1080p – Coming in September for $3,599

The unexpected arrival was a cute little 19-inch LCD called Modea. With a high (enough) definition panel resolution of 1440×900 and a white finish, it’s a bit of a statement, but it’s aimed right at middle America. It just went on sale at Target for $449.99, along with its 26-inch $799.99 brother. Modea doesn’t have Ambilight technology though, so if you were planning to buy it for Brian for his birthday, think again. – Wilson Rothman

Ambilight TV Press Release from CES [Philips]

An Ambilight Fireplace [via Gadget Lab]