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Bundled in the box with the monitor is a fully featured TV tuner. This device snaps into a bay at the back and sports an array of input connectors. First and foremost is the aerial connector for receiving terrestrial analogue broadcasts. For piping video feeds in you get an S-Video port with corresponding RCA stereo audio jacks, and finally a SCART connector. The US and Asian versions of this screen get component video inputs, but unfortunately us Europeans have to make do with SCART.

Firing up the TV tuner is simple, and a quick trip through the OSD will soon get the 150MT2 searching the airwaves for channels and assigning them to numbers. The bundled remote control makes using the TV tuner a breeze and the fact that it’s built into the monitor instead of the PC means that you don’t have to switch on your computer to watch TV.

The images produced by the TV tuner are pretty impressive. In fact I compared the picture quality directly to a Television using the same aerial and there was no discernable difference in image quality. You also get Teletext functionality assuming that you have good enough reception to display it.

But it’s not just TV reception that makes the 150MT2 special. The aforementioned SCART and S-Video inputs obviously make it an ideal display for a DVD player or a digital TV box, and you won’t be disappointed with the results from either medium. However, the 150MT2 has one last very impressive trick up its sleeve.

Most good DVD players these days will have component video outputs and some of the higher-end models will be able to output a progressive scan signal through those outputs. Now if you’re into home cinema you’ll know exactly what progressive scan is, but in case you don’t here’s a little explanation.

Television pictures are displayed in an interlaced format. This means that an image is created using a process of two scans, or two screen draws. So, to create a solid image your TV draws every other line on the screen and then very quickly fills in the gaps with a second screen draw. Now this is fine for still images, since the original alternate lines drawn will be in the same place by the time the second ‘fill in’ draw is done. However, when you have a fast moving image, as with an action sequence in a film, by the time the second half of the image is drawn, it’s not in the same place that it was when the first half was constructed. This can cause a blurring or streaking effect that will be more or less noticeable depending on the video content and how closely you’re watching.

However, a progressive scan image is non-interlaced and so the whole image is created in one pass, thus negating the misalignment problem with fast moving video. I looked at several DVD movies in both interlaced and progressive scan formats and the detail resolution from the progressive scan signal was superb. That said there is a perceptible drop in image brightness when using a progressive scan input, but this is a small price to pay for the improved image quality.

Now you may be wondering how I tested the progressive scan input since the 150MT2 doesn’t have component video connectors. Well Philips has carefully sidestepped this problem by incorporating a second D-SUB connector at the rear for progressive scan video input. To make this mismatch of connectors work together Philips also supplies a component video to D-SUB cable enabling you to connect any DVD player or digital TV box with component video outputs to the screen.

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