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.

If you're the type of person who cares more about the appearance of a TV than the picture itself, then the Philips design collection led by the new 7000 FlatTV line is made just for you. The 52PFL7603D (pictured) is the lineup's flagship and is the "Ultimate Dream TV". If you thought Ambilight was cool, then you're really going to love Invisible Sound and Pixel Plus 3HD, which btw is anything except 3D. But the bad news is, that you'll somehow have to contain all of your excitement for new line until the spring, when the 42, 47 and 52 inch models are expected to be available.

Yeah, this thing is pretty hot. Sure, it helps that Philips commissioned its very own art film to showcase the new Aurea Ambilight TV, but we're pretty sure this unit would be just as at home showing of Saturday morning cartoons or lighting up the home shopping channel. You know you want one.

Right on schedule, Philips has unveiled its new wave of Ambilight-powered television: Aurea. Sure, it's not as sexy when you call it by its 42PFL9900D model number, but the 42-inch 1080p LCD is sure to turn heads either way. Under the hood Philips has 100Hz refresh, "invisible speakers" and even a trio of HDMI inputs. The new Ambilight Spectra tech uses 126 LEDs and shoots light through the "Active Frame" for a more extensive Ambilight experience. The displays will be available next month, but there's still no word on price. Peep the gallery below for some stylized shots of the display by fashion photog Vincent Peters.

Philips fans eager for a taste of Perfect Pixel HD can now look forward to a 32-incher that sports the technology -- if you live in Europe, that is. For now, it seems that the recently introduced 32PFL9632D LCD will be holding it down exclusively across the pond, as that integrated DVB-T tuner won't do us American lads much good. Regardless, the panel also boasts a WXGA resolution, 100Hz Clear LCD technology, three-millisecond response time, two-channel active Ambilight, a USB port for photo slideshows, a trio of HDMI inputs, 550 cd/m2 brightness, and four built-in speakers to boot. Best of all, this one's available as we speak for £999 ($1,977).

[Via Messe-Berlin]

Consumer electronics manufacturer Philips will demo their successor to Ambilight -- the ambient lighting technology that generates light effects on the sides of a television -- at European expo IFA on August 30. The new technology, named Aurea, will be featured using a film by director Wong Kar called Seduction by Light. From early photos, the new sets incorporate the lighting directly into the frame, instead of using the previous method of a glass frame around the set.

Has it really been 10 years since the first Ambilight television? Does anyone care? After all, the press release was issued back in January at CES and missed by nearly everyone, including us. Well, Philips certainly cares and aims to celebrate by dishing out a triplet of Ambilight LCDs ranging size from 42-, 47-, and 52-inches. As you'd expect, they've got all the sweetest buzzwords covered: 1080p, 120Hz, LED backlighting. They also feature Philips' Perfect Pixel HD processing engine, plenty of HDMI inputs (3x on the 52-incher) and of course, Philips' Ambilight glow for a more immersive experience with reduced eye strain -- or so says Philips. Priced at $2,999 for the Ambilight Full Surround (independent lighting on all four sides) 42-inch 42PFL9832D (pictured) or $2,799 for the 47-inch 47PFL9732D and $3,599 for the big 52-inch 52PFL7432D with Ambilight 2 for that left and right glow. All are expected to roll Stateside as early as June.

[Via Electronic House]

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Post-sale of the one millionth Ambilight, the mood at the Philips booth was understandably upbeat. How did they celebrate? By shipping in dozens of Ambilight equipped displays, and creating one -- which you've already seen -- that has a whole lot of diamonds on it.

In a slug-fest destined for Betamax v. VHS proportions, the adaptive ambient lighting battle roy-ale is about to go down in The Netherlands. Dutch upstarts, ARE (Ambient Reality Effects) are looking to undercut cross-town rivals Philips, with a low-cost Ambilight alternative. For a, uh, not so low-cost $255, ARE will send you their Basic Starter package to project color behind your TV or computer monitor for hot, mood enhancing fun without the risk of flashback or scuffles with the 5-0. The kit contains a USB controller, software, and a single "high quality" LED strip fitted with 10, multi-colored RGB LED light sources for placement behind your display. The controller supports up to four strips to bring the economic hurt on Philip's Full Surround Ambilight action. So best stock-up on canned foods folks 'cause when word gets out there'll be pandaemonium -- sure, it'll be pleasant and soothing, but pandaemonium nevertheless.

[Via Pocket-Link]

Question: how do you make a ginormous 100-inch LCD display even better (aside from actually releasing it to the public at a very reasonable price)? Well if you're Royal Philips Electronics, you endow that bad boy with some of your sweet, immersive Ambilight technology -- we've known since CES that Philips had both three-sided Ambilight Surround and four-sided Ambilight Full Surround in the pipeline, but we had no idea that the company possessed the strength, the courage, the sheer willpower to roll out ambient lighting on such a massive scale. Unfortunately for us consumers (and by "us," we actually only mean Mark Cuban), this monster display is only a prototype being shown off at IFA as a way for Philips to flex its technological muscle, so don't expect to see it at your local Costco anytime soon. Plus, even if you could buy one of these retail, it would probably cost approximately one million dollars; so for now, at least, you'll have to settle for plasma if you want a 100-inch set, or a relatively tiny 70-inch screen if you absolutely need to go LCD.

[Via HDBeat]

Some of the best do-it-yourself projects are ones that give you the functionality of an expensive commercial product on the cheap, and such is the case with RafkeP's MoMoLight "Movie Mood Light" mod, which lets you endow your laptop or PC monitor with the same type of peripheral lighting found in Philips' Ambilight displays. Unfortunately, also like many of the best DIY projects, this one requires no small amount of electronics knowledge and programming skills, as you have to modify your own micro-controller, procure and install your own cold-cathodes or LED strips, and then tweak the necessary software to get the effects synced with the on-screen action. Luckily RafkeP has taken at least some of the hard work upon himself and posted the directshow filter he wrote for real-time analysis of on-screen colors, making the build a lot easier once you've assembled all of the hardware components. It's still not gonna be a cakewalk to get everything functioning properly, but when you consider that a real Ambilight set costs several thousand dollars, being able to get similar results for under $90 is probably enough incentive to give this project a shot.

[Via Hack-A-Day]