Philips BDP9600

The BDP9600 is the crowning glory at the very top of Philips' range of Blu-ray players, and has a price-tag to match.  It left us very curious: just what bells and whistles does it have that an ordinary, more affordable Blu-ray player doesn't?  According to Philips there are plenty, including a Qdeo image treatment system to reduce visual artefacts, a Buzz-Brown digital to analogue converter from Texas Instruments with a 192 KHz sample rate at 24 bits, and a separate power supply with a toroidal transformer for audio.  That's all very good on paper, but we want to see what this bundle of much-hyped features can do for some of our favourite films. 

Hardware & Design

Philips wants the BDP9600 to make a big impression, and not just with its tech specs.

With 3 mm of aluminium around the outside, your investment is well-protected, and it's hard to make a dint in 4.2 kg of hardware.  It certainly doesn't feel hollow and empty like most Blu-ray players do.  And what's inside doesn't just seem to be marketing fluff, either.  The design is there to match, with a curvaceous form that complements the look of Philips' TVs.

The glossy front panel is totally stripped back and contains nothing but the power switch and a flap which opens to reveal the single USB port.  The other touch sensitive controls only light up when you switch the BDP9600 on.  But the biggest surprises are hidden at the back—that's where all the action is.  Video is covered by HDMI, component and composite ports, while there's optical, co-axial and 7.1 analogue for audio.  And all of those connectors are gold-plated.  We're starting to get a better idea of Philips' target audience with the BDP9600.


There's an SD card slot, but it's only used for storing content downloaded from online VOD services.  For BD-Live content, you can choose between using the internal memory or a USB key.  So you can enjoy Philips' NetTV service, 802.11n WiFi is included.  One thing that we've enjoyed on a lot of recent Philips products is missing here: support for an external keyboard. 

Perhaps a future firmware update will add this feature which is, after all, already available on the 7000 series.  And although the menus give the impression that firmware updates are possible directly over the air, you actually need to download them from the manufacturer's website.  We upgraded from version 1.56 to version 1.60, but that didn't offer a radical change.  We were ultimately rather disappointed as despite having impressive hardware, the BDP9600's software doesn't reach the same heights.  It seems that Philips hasn't done much more than copy across the menus from its entry-level models without customising it.  The basics are up to the job, of course, but it's disappointing that Philips hasn't made more of an effort. 

The upshot of all this is that the NetTV experience is similar to what's provided by the BDP7600, but without a keyboard.  Apps are displayed in a grid on screen, and include a web browser and offerings from several big names including YouTube and Facebook.  None of the content—whether in the browser, over VOD or on YouTube—is available in 1080p. The best we got was with online video service Vimeo, which produced some decent results in 720p.  Overall, we'd say the whole thing could do with being responsive and offering a wider range f applications.


The BDP9600 is certified as being compatible with the DivX Plus HD standard, but once again, Philips' piecemeal approach to upgrading the firmware means that the media player isn't up to much.  Another recent release from the firm, the BDP7600 and with support for the same standard, managed to gain 3.8/5 in this section, compared to just 3.5/5 for this player.  The difference lies with the .m2ts files that the more inexpensive player could handle that the BDP9600 refused to deal with.  That's still a reasonably good score for a device of this type.  It doesn't have any trouble dealing with video with multiple chapters, or subtitles or audio tracks for that matter.

Image Quality

The BDP9600 and the BDP7600 reproduce colours in exactly the same way.  We can only refer you back to the 'Image Quality' section of our last test of a Philips Blu-ray player for more information.  Or to get straight to the point: the results are absolutely perfect.

But what about Qdeo?  According to Philips, the technology is designed to reduce the amount of electronic noise visible on screen.

In the menu, you need to go to Image Settings > Custom > Artefact reduction > Maximum

The screenshots below should give you a good idea of how it works.  As you can see, the electronic noise visible around the player disappears as if by magic.  All of the artefacts have totally disappeared.  The unwelcome side effect is that sharp SD content, like text or other graphics, can end up looking blurry.
 

Qdeo does an incredibly impressive job of smoothing out visual artefacts, but its use very much depends on the quality of the original source.  The fact that a manufacturer has finally delivered a solution that at least partly lives up to the hype generated by its marketing department leaves us very optimistic.

Audio Quality

Philips has invested heavily in getting the audio quality of its Blu-ray players right.  The BDP9600 doesn't just offer a wide range of connectors, but also a separate power supply and a Burr-Brown digital to analogue converter.  That's enough to produce an audio signal that isn't plagued by feedback, and a much more faithful reproduction of the original than most players can offer.  In fact, it's so good that there's no need to use an external audio decoder.  The investment has paid off and the results of this audacious experiment are there for everybody to hear.

Energy Consumption

With so many advanced components to power, the BDP9600 sucks up 25 W while playing a disc, but doesn't need anything while on standby.  That might be a lot more than the 13 W required by the BDP7600, but then again the quality that's on offer isn't the same either.  Heat is evacuated efficiently without recourse to an external fan so there's nothing to ruin that great audio quality.