Philips 50" Plasmas: Opinions?

[gq91355]

Specifically, the 50PF9966.

Not a lot of discussion on these units. The Ambilight feature looks nice and the picture looks great. Any additional feedback will be appreciated.

Thanks.

[collingwood]

I had a NEC xr4 on order...was taking too long and a great deal on a 50PF9966 came up. I took it. My first HD TV but I am astounded at how good it looks. The family won't let me turn the ambilight off...the effect is hard to describe, but it seems to be unanamously enjoyed. Consumer reports rated it second to the Panny in 43" form. Blacks seem very good but I have yet to mess much with calibration. PM me if you'd like some pics of it. I meant to put a review together and post pics but have not gotten to it.

[Maineiac]

I just ordered the 50PF9966! It is interesting that the consumer reports rated the Philips 42-66 higher than the panasonic in terms of HD and DVD picture quality but lower in terms of S-video, ant/cable PQ. I think that the MSRP price being $500 more was a ding too. I will post a report after I get mine in and up and going.

[jcslam]

I think that the 50PF9966 is awesome. I spent this past Saturday going store to store comparing the Philips to the Panasonic's, Sony's, Pioneer's and many others. Both my wife and I felt the picture on the Philips was either superior to its siblings or at least on par with those models which cost a minimum of $1K more.

I hope you got a great deal on the 50PF9966. Prices seemed to have dropped this morning or I was just spending too much time studying and checking things out this weekend that I got mixed up. I have seen this model online for around $5K. I was seeing mid 5's to upper 5's Saturday both online and at b&m's.

[Maineiac]

I had another thread going, J&R Musicworld via Amazon (mid 5). I ended up going straight through J&R. They were not the cheapest online price but my research made me feel more comfortable and gave me some peace of mind. Man some of these online places have like a 40% hate ratio for their feedback. I was amazed. A local hi-fi buys wouldn't even quote off from their $7K price and BB offered to come off 10% on the 56, but couldn't get the 66. I placed my order last night online and they called today to verify the order and said it would ship Tuesday.

[gq91355]

jcslam: Are you sure it was the 9966 you saw in a store and not the 9956?

Maineiac: I look forward to your comments on both J&R and the unit itself once you get it.

Thanks!

[jcslam]

Tweeter's had the 66 on display. BB only had the 56.

[collingwood]

Finally got a PC hooked to the HDMI input on my 9966 last night..WOW. I did this to run our digital pictures to the big screen and they look FANTASTIC! What a great way to enjoy digital pics. The sharpness and colors is amazing.

[Maineiac]

I got my Philips 50" 9966 on Friday and am just settling in with everything. The picture in HD and DVD is excellent. I have watched solely a tube CRT before this plasma and the SD PQ will take some getting used to. The screen fights off glare really well and stands up well in both brighter light as well as dim light viewing at night.

I have been playing with the settings a good bit and need to get a set-up DVD to really tune it. I have it mounted on the wall, which was easy with the included bracket. I have one issue that I am still trying to track down, when you switch formats on the HD sattelite box, the new format can sometimes come in all green. Turning the HD box or the TV off/on fixes it.

I ordered it from J&R directly on Sunday night and it came to my house in metro Atlanta on Friday. Not bad.

[jjsf]

Maineiac, have you posted a review somewhere? If so could you please direct me to it? Thanks. Costco carrys the 50PF9966 and I am very tempted.

One specific question. The official Philips site only mention pixel plus regarding this unit. However many online retailers, including the forum sponser tvauthority.com and my local Bose showroom all claim pixel plus 2 for this unit. And I remember reading comments about pixel plus 2 available as an option in the menu. Do we have a definative answer to the pixel plus or pixel plus 2 on this unit? Thank you very much.

[MisterNJ]

I ordered one of these a few days ago. I'm really looking forward to getting it and playing some Xbox 360 on it. Not much chatter about these TVs around here.

Anyone have positive or negative experiences with this model they want to share?

[MisterNJ]

I've had it for a couple months now and I have to say I really love this TV and everyone who has seen it absolutly loves it as well.

Hooked up my PC to it yesterday---I couldn't get it to work through the HDMI port---I ended up using a VGA to Component transponder and its working well now--although I have to have the TV tuned to another channel for the first 39 seconds or so while the computer is booting up or it will say it can't find the signal.

I play a ton of xbox 360 games on it and am pleased with those---a lot of the xbox live arcade games have static (still/constant) images or borders on the games and sometimes if I've been playing them for a while you can see the boarder when the screen is black---there has been no permanent image burn in or anything though--the image usually disappears after watching a DVD. Also, I had to change the output of the xbox 360 from 720p to 1080i because there was a small black border around the outside in 720p.

I'm really looking forward to having HD cable hooked up to it this Friday. I'll probably wind up doing the same with the cable--have it run in 1080i so as to get rid of the border if there is one.

I'll try to post some pics once I have everything set up the way I like it.

[avjeff]

I looked at this set when I was looking at the 50PX60U. I liked the price, but I don't get the whole ambilight thing. Most importantly, to make that ambilight possible, the Philips has a very wide frame around the screen, making the set too large for the area I wanted my set to be. Ultimately I went with the Panasonic. Also I have read elsewhere on this forum (don't recall where) that they have a high rate of repairs.

[MisterNJ]

I actually bought mine factory renewed and haven't had any problems (knock on wood) so far---also I got it for over $1K less than what I've seen the TV selling for in retail stores.

[PhilipsPhanatic]

I believe that this earlier 50" Philips plasma is internally the same as the 9630/9631 models.

If so, if any of you want the Philips Tips Sheet, PM me with your e-mails. It's a "best of" from threads on AVS regarding the Philips plasmas.