Samsung Series 8 HDTV and Mornings @ ANC

Yesterday, Samsung Philippines introduced their new line of HDTVs just in time for the Christmas shopping season — the Series 7 and Series 8 LCD TV with 46″ and 52″ models.

Despite the premium price tag of Php250,000USD 4,260INR 361,150EUR 4,058CNY 31,025 for the 52″ model, Samsung Series 8 HDTV makes it up with a ton of features:

• Full HD @ 1080p (1920×1080 pixel resolution)
• 70,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio
• DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) function
• 120Mhz frame rate

Not the slimmest in the market but at 1.8″, that’s thinner than the other previous models. I’ve seen their tech guys hooking it up with a wireless router (it has Ethernet at the back) so you can share media content from any PC or laptop in the house and the TV will be able to play it. I was told all the decoding is done on the TV but didn’t get which file formats are supported.

There’s a USB port (WiseLink Pro) where you can plugin a flash drive and read off media files from there. I’m guessing you can also attach it to an external drive for some DivX or MKV action.

Samsung also introduced a Blu-Ray home entertainment theater system (7.1) worth about Php69,000USD 1,176INR 99,677EUR 1,120CNY 8,563 while the stand-alone Blu-Ray payer costs about Php24,900USD 424INR 35,971EUR 404CNY 3,090.

Early this morning, I guested at Mornings @ ANC to join the discussions about the product. We wanted to demonstrate the DLNA and wireless features but the team forgot to bring the necessary routers. We had to settle with a Blue-Ray copy of the movie “300” rushed in from TJ’s house.

Disclosure: I was contacted by Samsung PR (Jayce Perlas of Perlas & Luna) to join them on ANC and was paid for my appearance.