Press Release

Philips Launches Big Blu-ray Player Range and Cinema 21:9, World's First Cinema Proportioned LCD TV, in India

Brings the Ultimate Cinematic Viewing Experience to Consumers
Superior Performance and Design from Philips Blu-ray Players and Blu-ray Home Theatre Systems

Mumbai – Reinforcing its position as a leading health and wellbeing company, Philips launched the ultimate cinematic viewing experience to India with the rollout of the Philips Cinema 21:9, the world’s first cinema proportioned LCD TV. Philips also announced a big move into the Blu-ray category with a complete range of Philips Blu-ray players and home theatre systems.

Mahesh Krishnan, Vice President, Consumer Lifestyle, Philips India, said, “Philips’ strategy is defined by a clear focus in four key areas in the health and wellbeing domain of which the home, including TV and DVD players, is one. We’ve refined our positioning to focus on the premium market where our advanced technology and design resonates with consumers to provide the ultimate cinematic viewing experience.

“We’ve also looked at the understanding and perception of Blu-ray and developed a totally new ecosystem that will help broaden Blu-ray’s appeal in India and greatly extend the range of titles available. Indian movie fans will be able to enjoy the latest Bollywood blockbusters on Blu-ray and get the full cinema treatment through a series of deals that Philips has arranged with India’s leading production houses.”

The world’s first cinema-proportioned LCD television, Cinema 21:9, delivers the ultimate immersive home cinematic viewing experience. Movies are displayed in the 21:9 aspect ratio – exactly as the director intended – on its 56” Full-HD screen. It is is also the fastest LCD currently available with a refresh rate of just 1ms.

Cinema 21:9, partly designed and developed in Bangalore at the Philips Innovation Campus, is the world’s first TV to deliver a true cinematic viewing experience for home viewers. Traditional LCD televisions compromise on the cinematic viewing experience either by changing the aspect ratio to fill the screen – losing the full scope of the original shot – or by inserting distracting black bars (letterboxing) at the top and bottom of the screen. Cinema 21:9 overcomes these issues and perfectly displays 2.39:1 movie material to give the viewer an uncompromised and absorbing cinematic viewing experience. The Cinema 21:9 is priced at Rs 450,000.

Mahesh added, “Cinema 21:9 and our Blu-ray players bring sleek, superior new technology into homes and give viewers the ultimate cinematic viewing experience from the comfort of their couch. Our Cinema 21:9 technology sets the benchmark for LCD TV’s and promises viewers no more movie black bars on the screen. And, it is of immense pride that our Bangalore innovation campus played an important role in the software design for this leading product.”

As a further proof point to the ultimate cinematic viewing experience, Philips also launched a new range of Blu-ray players and home theatre systems for the Indian market. The range of five new players includes one of the highest end standalone Blu-ray players in the market and a value conscious entry level player. The Blu-ray player prices range from Rs 16,990 to 79,990/-.

Pradeep Kumar Ramachandran, Director - Marketing, Audio, Video, Multimedia and TV, Consumer Lifestyle, Philips India said, “The Blu-ray range offers uncompromising performance at affordable price points. We’re providing superior performance with great upload times across the board with our Blu-ray players. There is something for everyone from an entry level player to the high end.”

Cinema 21:9 will be sold through an exclusive new dealer channel that Philips developed just for this product. The selected dealers specialise in complete home entertainment systems and cater to high end consumer interest. Initially, the Cinema 21:9 will be available from these dealers in Mumbai and Delhi only. To give consumers a rich Blu-ray experience and help them purchase a Blu-ray player and Blu-ray disc in the same place, the Blu-ray range and the latest titles will be showcased in Blu-zones at all premium outlets across the top eight cities – Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkota, Ahmedabad and Pune.

To support and broaden Blu-ray use in India, Philips is also working with a number of key players in the market to further develop the Blu-ray ecosystem. Production houses such as Eros, Yash Raj Films and Big Videos will make available over 500 Indian films before this year’s Diwali. In celebration of the launch, Philips is giving away the latest blockbuster movie New York in Blu-ray format for a three month period.

For further information and images, please contact:

Moushumi Dutt

Director, Corporate Communications and Branding
Philips Electronics India Limited

Email:  moushumi.dutt@philips.com

About Royal Philips Electronics

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is a diversified Health and Well-being company, focused on improving people’s lives through timely innovations. As a world leader in healthcare, lifestyle and lighting, Philips integrates technologies and design into people-centric solutions, based on fundamental customer insights and the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips employs approximately 116,000 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 26 billion in 2008, the company is a market leader in cardiac care, acute care and home healthcare, energy efficient lighting solutions and new lighting applications, as well as lifestyle products for personal well-being and pleasure with strong leadership positions in flat TV, male shaving and grooming, portable entertainment and oral healthcare. News from Philips is located at www.philips.com/newscenter.


About Philips Electronics India Limited

Philips Electronics India Limited, a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics, is the leading health and wellbeing company. Today, Philips is a simpler and more focused company with global leadership positions in key markets of healthcare, lighting and consumer lifestyle, addressing people’s health and wellbeing needs and aspirations as its overarching theme.

As one of the nation's most well-known and well-loved brands, Philips is a part of practically every Indian's life. With the recent launch of Philips Respironics product categories in obstructive sleep apnea management and home respiratory care, home decorative lighting range and ALU range, Philips products find use in virtually every aspect of an individual’s daily life 24X7 - at home, at work, on the move and at rest. Philips stands as a source of easy to use, trendy and innovative internationally acclaimed products with superior design and technology that enhance the quality of consumers' professional and personal lives.

Philips has been operating in India for over 75 years and employs over 4,500 employees around the country. The company has an excellent pan India distribution and after-sales service network.


CINEMA 21:9 – The Features:

Cinema 21:9 is the fastest LCD available in the world today; with a refresh rate of just 1ms to allow the fastest on-screen action to be realistically life-like and smoothly rendered thanks to 200Hz Clear LCD. Perfect Contrast helps boost contrast levels to deliver an 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. Picture quality is further enhanced by Perfect Natural Motion that ensures moving objects glide naturally on-screen, eliminating the judder associated with other LCD TVs.

Cinema 21:9 combines superb picture quality courtesy of Philips powerful 2009 Perfect Pixel HD processing engine (500 million pixels per second processing power and 2,250 trillion vivid colors) with immersive three-sided Ambilight Spectra technology. Ambilight projects ambient LED lighting from the top and sides of the TV that absorb the viewer into the picture and expands the content beyond the confines of the screen. The color and intensity accurately change to match the on-screen action and lock a viewer’s vision on the screen to immerse them further in the movie. Completing the picture package, Cinema 21:9 is equipped with a Full HD 2560x1080p screen with 8.3 million pixels that guarantees crystal clear and razor sharp images with high definition sources.

Cinema 21:9 is equally accomplished with more-common 16:9 material from sources including broadcast television, gaming and DVDs, which courtesy of best-in-class auto formatting technology can be resized to fill the screen (note: auto formatting technology can also be switched off).

Consumers with multiple HDMI devices will appreciate the versatile connectivity options of Cinema 21:9, which sports five HDMI 1.3a ports, DLNA and Wi-Fi connectivity.

“With our unique Cinema 21:9, we have developed a television which takes you as close as you can get to the experience that you enjoy at the cinema , without buying a ticket. We believe that to truly become absorbed in watching a film at home consumers are looking for a real cinematic viewing experience, so we have launched the world’s first cinema-proportioned TV screen perfectly complemented by our immersive Ambilight technology,” commented Pradeep Kumar Ramachandran, Director - Marketing, Audio, Video, Multimedia and Television, Consumer Lifestyle, Philips India.

He added, "Philips new Cinema 21:9 takes enjoying movies at home to an entirely new level, the advantages over a traditional 16:9 ratio screen in side by side comparisons are truly striking.”

Cinema 21:9 is available for Rs 450,000 through an exclusive new dealer channel in Delhi and Mumbai.

Philips Blu-ray range – The Features:

The Philips Blu-ray Player BDP7500 comes in a stunning design made from real aluminum and is available in two colors, Sophisticated Silver and Black Silk.

It offers superb performance and all the features users can expect in this class. The Blu-ray Player BDP7500 gives unmatched HD performance with full HD 1080p at 24 fps, plus has a smart touch censor for easy navigation. Enhancing the cinema-picture sharpness are DivX® Ultra for enhanced playback of DivX® media files, DVD video upscaling to 1080p via HDMI for near-HD images. Sound is excellent due to HD lossless formats boosted by Dolby TrueHD and DT-HS Master Audio for 7.1 surround sound. The BD-Live (Profile 2.0) lets users enjoy online Blu-ray bonus content, plus it has other features such as a Hi-Speed USB Link 2.0 that plays video/music from USB flash drives and AVC HD for high definition camcorder recordings on DVD. Users can enjoy their CD’s, DVD’s and Blu-ray DVD’s on this one player.

For value conscious users, Philips offers the Blu-ray Player BDP3000. This player offers a compelling entrance into the world of Blu-ray without compromising on quality. As with all other Philips Blu-ray players, it offers all the important features such as BD-Live, HD audio support and high quality DVD playback, bundled in a compact, extremely easy to use and affordable Blu-ray player.

Philips complete range of Blu-ray products
For a truly immersive home cinema experience, sound and picture quality, Philips has also included Blu-ray playback in its extensive range of home theater systems. All models provide the best high definition viewing experience through Blu-ray playback and the best listening experience with high-end proprietary sound technologies from Philips.

The new Philips HTS8160 incorporates a complete home theatre system into one unit and includes the Philips SoundBar with Ambisound. Users get multi-channel surround sound without all the wires and numerous speakers cluttering their space. In addition to HD Blu-ray playback in full HD 1080p, the HTS8160 boasts DTS-HD and Dolby True HD for high fidelity 7.1 surround sound, proprietary DoubleBASS technology for deeper bass and connectivity with BD-Live (Profile 2.0), Deep Colour for vivid images and x.v. Colour for more natural colour from HD camcorder videos.

The Philips HTS7540 promises high definition pictures and speakers delivering high fidelity surround sound. Users get a superior listening experience through features such as DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD for high fidelity 7.1 surround sound, advanced digital amplifier, soft dome tweeters, Clear Voice and DoubleBASS technology. The HTS7540 also comes with increased connectivity and is known for its Energy Star rating for low power and energy efficiency.

Following the HTS7540 is the Philips HTS7200 for the value user. This home theatre system gives sound clarity via the DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD for high fidelity 7.1 surround sound, Dolby Virtual Speaker, DoubleBASS technology, soft dome tweeters and 440W RMS power. The Philips Blu-ray players and home theatre systems are available across India in eight cities - Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkota, Ahmedabad and Pune. The products range in price from Rs 16,990 to 79,990.

Product                       MRP             MOP      
BDP7500SL/51 25990 24699
BDP3000/94 16990 16199
HTS7200/51 39990 39990
HTS7540/93 59990 59990
HTS8160/B 79990 79990