Philips 34PW9819/17 - any comments?

[toolkit]

I've done a search and didn't turn up much on the Philips 34PW9819 direct view (other than the March Consumer Reports discussion). Anybody own this set? Any comments: good, bad, ugly?

I'm especially interested in hearing from anyone who owns (or used to own) this set and had a problem - any problem. I really DON'T want to hear from people who have only seen it in a store, or who have only heard reports from others. I'm also hoping that I don't get a bunch of "this other one is better" comments. I'm most interested in direct experience with the Philips set in your home.

I know I'm asking a lot, but here's what I would really like to see.

Do you own this set (or did you own it in the past)?
How long have you had it?
Have you calibrated it? (yourself? professional tech?)
Do you use the DVI input?
Have you experienced any problems with your set?
Any unexpected good things you discovered later (after getting it home)?

Thanks a lot!

P.S. Is there another forum someplace where Philips owners hang out?

[gkanders]

Toolkit,

I've never seen many Philips owners on any forum.

I own the 9818, which is supposedly just like the 9819 except NO DVI.

I bought a refurb unit from electronicsnation.com. My TV had a weird (transient) problem where it "hung' and wouldn't turn off, the channel wouldn't change, volume wouldn't change. Basically no method of input worked. YOu had to actually unplug the TV to get it back working right. I had to deal with Philips, and they didn't want to replace the set until they tried ALL ways of fixing it. Unfortunately, they couldn't do any of that in my house, so I was without a TV for over a month. Good news is, they finally replaced the unit.

As for the TV... PixelPlus is amazing on SDTV. I initially ran my progressive DVD into AV3 (component on 9818), but finally decided just to use it on AV2 for convenience. I actually had it on AV1 (component 480i), but didn't notice any difference on AV2 (s-vid). The PixelPlus usually (IMO) looks a little better than progressive, and pans definitely look smother (Digital Natural Motion).

I did a little calibrating on both of my units with Avia, but only used the user menus. I've been a little leery of getting into the service menus, since I can't find a "Philips Service Menus for Dummies" book (or even a source for service manuals). There is a thread here (search on Azazel) that shows how to get into the Service Menu to shut of SVM. I haven't done it yet, again because the picture hasn't been bothering me. This unit does have a slight "shift' to the left and maybe a little more overscan (only on the HD inputs) that I need to venture into the SM to fix. Just haven't gotten to it yet.

HD picture looks great to me, but I've seen many places where people say it is average for 34" TVs. The thing is, SD looks so good (and like I said, from my perspective, HD looks amazing), I figure this is the perfect tube TV for now (SD/DVDs look great, HD looks great). Someday we won't have to worry about SD, but not today.

All in all, I'm very happy with my TV and a little disappointed with the Customer Service, but have to remind myself they did replace my unit. I would buy the unit again, knowing what I know today (unless I just bought a $1500 Front Projector instead).

Greg

[yelroc]

Toolkit,
I purchased this set about a month ago after viewing the fantastic picture in a home theater franchise. I think the pixel plus is what sold me on the unit. I did some comparisons with toshiba and sony and the 9819/17 beat the toshiba and was just as good as the sony. It's a big beast (198+#)and you'll need some help out of the box...setup was easy and I'm a real novice. The only problem I had experienced was with my DVD player, (Onkyo 301), I couldn't get the player into progressive mode through the on-screen menu. After contacting Philips customer service (they were great)I exchanged the Onkyo for a sony N725DVD player with an external progressive control and it works fine. I also experienced the "hung" problem Greg talked about but it didn't happen till comcast installed their cable box for HDTV...I unplugged/replugged the cable box and it cleared up. I'm think this fault is due to the cablebox. My limited HDTV lineup includes INHD/PBS-HD which are amazing. Hockey games are outstanding and a recent boxing match was incredible. I don't use the DVI input and I have calibrated using only the onscreen menu which is a breeze. The pixel plus gives SDTV viewing near perfect quality-great feature. No downside to my purchase and my only complaint is I can't get enough time watching my stuff cause the kids prefere this set to any other in the house now. I wanted a plasma, but for the money, this unit has much better picture quality than the ones I was considering. I also, would purchase this unit again. You won't be disappointed.

[YeuEmMaiMai]

I have the 850h verson and I love it. Took some time to tweak it to the way I want it and now I am pleased.

I used my Radeon 9500Pro and HDapatper with Nokia monitor test to properly set my set up.

I never watch anything in 4:3 ratio I either use AUTO or WIDESCREEN.

[darthgrice]

i have the 34pw8520 its kinda similar i think its a great tv i watch mostly sd sat and dvds on it and am quite impressed it did take some tweaks to get it really good looking now all my friends say damn your picture is so clear..

[newtodvd]

I own the 9819 and, with the exception of one pesky problem, I'm very pleased with it. The pesky problem, which I'd love to know if anyone else has, is that the menu display on my unit is somehow sensitive to vibrations such that if you walk past the TV, the menu display pops up. Very, very annoying.

Other than that, the picture is awesome, both in PP and in progressive scan for DVDs. The picture on Finding Nemo was incredible - I couldn't believe how clear everything was.

I would recommend this unit to anyone, and will be even more impressed with it if I can get my little problem fixed.

I would caution you to buy it at a B&M retailer, if possible, however, because the thing is a behemoth that weighs 175 pounds. If you have any problems with it, you want to be able to either have someone come to the house or be able to take it back to a store. Sending it back anywhere would be ridiculous.

[OneArchitect]

Can anyone say if the Philips 34PW9819 does 720p

[alaindelon]

No,the 9819 doesn't display 720p-it's converted to 1080i. newtodvd,I hope this isn't a stupid question but you do realize that there is a menu button on top of the unit and if you put your center speaker on top of the tv,it will press down on the menubutton.Put the speaker on 2 spacers or move it back.Otherwise i don't understand how the menu would suddenly appear from a vibration.

[diegom22]

alaindelon, does the 9819 upscale 720p? Ive read the 9818 doesnt accept 720p (shows black screen), and so far i know, the 9818 and 9819 are the same except for the 9819s dvi imput.

newtodvd, i bet your problem its related with the light sensor of those tvs. Whem someone walk in front of it, the light change, so the tv should do some image processing that makes the onscreen menu jump.
Put Active Control in Disable or Minimun to disable the sensor and see what happens.

ive read you cant change the aspect ratio of the HD imputs (av3 and av4).
How annoying is this? how difficult is to use the tv as a monitor for the computer (with Radeon 9600)?

This is the only HD tv avaibable here (Philips 36PW9818 36"), so i dont have many options. What do you think?
How good or bad is the SDTV on it?
Thanks!

(sorry for me english)

[YeuEmMaiMai]

as far as I understand it the4 philips set does not display 720p at all. You will need a set top box to convert it to 1080i.

[cxan]

How can I get 1080i on this TV? AV4? I got no picture with the dvd switched to 525i, while I can see the picture if I switched to 525p mode. On my old 30pw850h I can see picture under both modes.

[YeuEmMaiMai]

1080i and 540p timings are identical so they should work interchangeably. AV4 is usually the HD input on most philips sets that are HDTV ready.

I dunno what you mean by 525i but ntsc is 525 lines but only 480 are available for picture use (the rest are used for CC and other stuff)

[SpencerR3]

cxan,
your 850H had auto-detecting Y, Pb, Pr inputs (480i, 480p, or 1080i), while your 9819 does not. therefore only 480p or 1080i will work on the 9819's AV4. just a diversity between the sets...

[diegom22]

Does AV3 accept 480p/1080i?

Reading the manual, its seems to be a HD inputs like AV4.


YeuEmMaiMaim:
how difficult is to use the TV as a monitor for the computer (with Radeon 9600)? Any special setting using Powerstrip? Do you have the timings?

Why do you use the component HD adapter from ATI instead of going with a direct connection to the VGA input of your set? Is there any benefit?

Thanks

[oryan_dunn]

The 850H like YeuEmMaiMai and I have doesn't have a VGA input, so we need the component adapter. With the radeon, I don't use powerstrip. The driver that I am using (3.7 i think) has a resolution that works quite well, 1776x1000i.

[rickmccamy]

Well hell, I know it's been months since anybody posted, but I picked up my 9819 on December 1st and am in loooove. I found the pixel plus very enhancing for SD and once I picked up a Sony prog. scan DVD I see an excellent picture. It also handles D*'s HD extremely well. I would recommend it to anyone. I picked it up on Good Guys closeout for $999. I understand the replacement 850 or whatever, does not have as many features to keep the price down. I feel extremely lucky to have found it on the last night of its sale. 34" is a perfect size.
It also dectects and processes the sony DVD's 480p.

[Tele-TV]

Hi Ricky, AND to Everyone Elso who owns a 9819,

This is my first post in a 9819 thread. As you guys (probably) all know, the owner's manual say's/there's a correction in there about the Zoom Feature not being applicable to this model after all, but it DOES work (LOL). As I accidently discovered one day while using my Sony SAT-T60 Tivo remote. I had the TV input/Sat input toggle button on the side of the remote, on the TV setting, and then (accidently) pressed the Right cursor button, and then voila! I hope this helps.

Regards,

Matthew