Philips AmbiLux TV uses nine tiny projectors to take immersion to a new level
It’s Ambilight, but not as we know it
Philips has been releasing Ambilight TVs for years – sets that shine coloured LED lights onto the wall behind the screen in order to “extend” its colours – but today at IFA it’s cranked things up to a new level. Meet the AmbiLux TV.
This is a 65in 4K model, which would be fairly impressive in itself, but it’s also the first Ambilight screen to replace those rear-facing LEDs with tiny pico projectors. Nine of them, in fact.
These projectors do a far more accurate and nuanced job of stretching the image beyond the screen’s borders than the old system could, with both motion and colours extending almost seamlessly (thank you, extremely narrow bezel). The images themselves are a lot punchier and more vivid than those created by LEDs, too.
You can also use the projectors as a sort of high end wedding disco lighting system for your living room, with Ambilight’s new Music Mode analysing any music’s dynamics and delivering a light show to match.
The AmbiLux TV (or the Philips 65PUS8901 to give it its full title) runs on the Android 5.1 smart TV platform, and has a quad-core processor, 16GB of internal storage and voice control. We don’t know the release date or price for it yet, but given the size, the 4K resolution and in particular the next-level lighting stuff at play here, we’re pretty certain that it won’t be cheap.
Philips has also unveiled a new 65in 9600 flagship TV with 4K resolution, four-sided Ambilight (yes, just the regular old kind!), HDR support and Android TV. This will be available in the fourth quarter of 2015, with the UK price yet to be set.
You can read about more of IFA 2015’s best new products in our round-up here.
Sam Kieldsen
Contributor 
