How are you getting on with your new Philips TV's?

DublinWriter

TouchingVirus wrote: »

To be honest, given the current problems with AVI playback I wouldn't retire the popcorn hour just yet anyways, even if the 8404 did output 5.1 over SPDIF - It's the one aspect of the TV I'm distinctly underwhelmed with (poor AVI playback, and no MKV support),

I just hope I don't hit a brick wall with Philips, because the CS guy told me AVI playback is fine, I've got several AVI TV episodes that say otherwise

Just took delivery of a 47PFL9664h.

Very impressed with the picture and sound *HOWEVER* playback of MPEG4 is very jerky and from reading this thread, appears to be an issue across the whole Philips TV range.

It's understandable really, considering the engine/CPU is 200Mhz and is probably doing a lot of work by default on processing the picture even before you'd task it with decoding an MPEG4 stream.

I'm now using my PS3 via HDMI to browse and playback from my NAS DNLA box and all is fine.

sweetie

TouchingVirus wrote: »

TVersity is a network media streamer, so it's running on my PC and sharing files over the network to my TV. So I can click Home -> Browse PC and watch things on my TV that are on my PC rather than have a USB stick. TVersity practically works out of the box with only the smallest of changes necessary for the TV

hi TV, any recommendations for optimal use of tversity. I am trying it
out but playback isn't 100%. cheers

coward

I've had my tv (47pfl9664) for a few weeks. Very happy with the ordering and delivery process. Many thanks Ash and crew and thanks for the magazine too.

The picture quality is stunning. It always amazes me every time I sit down to watch something. It's mostly used for gaming and viewing HD video files through the ps3. I was a bit confused about the settings at the start. It took me way too long to realise that each input had it's own personal settings! I've analogue cable tv which is fairly good. Some channels are perfect but some are broadcast with a poor signal anyway so they don't look great at this size. There are a few small things that are done really well - like the grid view for selecting channels and the teletext ability to find all pages containing selected words.

After the picture quality though, the most impressive feature for me is the ambilight. Turn it off and something feels missing. I've the tv in a corner position and I wasn't expecting much from ambilight - but it's brilliant. I did try the tv in the center of a wall to compare the effect and found the corner to be just as good.

The best piece of technology I've bought and just in time to enjoy Uncharted 2.

hick

coward wrote: »

After the picture quality though, the most impressive feature for me is the ambilight. Turn it off and something feels missing. I've the tv in a corner position and I wasn't expecting much from ambilight - but it's brilliant. I did try the tv in the center of a wall to compare the effect and found the corner to be just as good.

The best piece of technology I've bought and just in time to enjoy Uncharted 2.

ditto, I have it in to corner too, it's brilliant!!!

god's toy

hick wrote: »

ditto, I have it in to corner too, it's brilliant!!!

Yep me too! Corner works very well.

Using the 47-9703 with ambilight 3 myself. (has light strip on the top and sides)

For me I think it really adds to the whole feeling and mood of the programs.. call me nuts but without it I'm not digging the movie in the same way. I dont think I'll be ever be getting a TV without it.
Also HD on this baby is something to behold, quite simply stunning!

cool_cat

Hi there,

I have a 37PFL8404 for the last 3 weeks and overall very happy with it but I have an issue with divx playback over USB and over the network. After 4 to 5 minutes playback, the frames become jerky and sound is off sync. To fix it, I have to press "pause", then "rewind" for a split second, then hit "play" again. Everything is fine for another 5 min (nearly to the second) and it starts again...

The files play perfect on PC, and the issue happens over USB (several devices tested) and over DLNA from my PC.

Has anyone experienced this, is there anything I can do to fix it? I have latest firmware installed.

Thanks!

zaphodbeeb

Loving the tv. Just watched "The Lovely Bones" over the w/e and the picture quality on the rendered scenes was just amazing.

However one niggle persists. Blu ray player connected via HDMI, then SPDIF to Yamaha DD / DTS amp. Dolby Digital 5.1 is passed through without issue and no sync problems so happy days.

DTS is not - from reading this forum it seems it's being downmixed to two channel stereo. IS THERE A WAY TO TURN OFF THIS DOWNMIXING? It's a real pain for me as I tend to buy a lot of music / concert BR discs. Most of these now seem to be DTS HD Audio and not DD 5.1 (although the new U2 360 disc has both).

So my option at the minute for DTS discs is to:

1) Connect digital co-ax from BDP3000 BR player direct to amp and have a lag with any HD Natural Motion settings on (i.e. hear sound noticeably before see related action)
2) Connect digital co-ax from BDP3000 BR player direct to amp AND TURN OFF ALL HD NATURAL MOTION ETC ON TV and mostly not have a noticeable lag
3) Connect SPDIF from tv to amp, no lag at all, but no DTS (although DD5.1 works).

I contacted Philips support via the Live Chat on their site but the muppet I was talking to told me that the SPDIF ONLY ever outputs two channel stereo regardless. He is wrong. I pointed this out and things went a tad downhill. :-)

Any suggestions? As I say, not so much of an issue now that I can turn off all HD processing on the tv and that seems to sort it, but surely there is a way to have the TV output the audio stream its' receiving without downmixing and leaving HD Natural Motion on?

Richersounds.ie: Ashley

Hi Zaph

Have you made the following selection on the BR "Settings" page
AUDIO SETUP - Digital Audio - BITSTREAM?

Also do you have the SPDIF connection direct from BR player to amp or routed via TV?

Ash

dnme

Hi Ash

I hope it's ok for me to post here (even though I did not buy the TV off you, I was ordering one from you but you had none in stock),

I have a 37PFL7605H, bought it last week.
Been playing around with it non stop since. I have upgraded firmware, tried out all the gizmo's etc. I will say that I am happy with the TV but it's not without it's flaws. Picture quality is OK on analog, SD, its beautiful on HD. If I DVI my laptop screen to it, it looks stunning, basically gives me a 37" very stable very high res monitor. Bring on the F1 sim:)


So far, I have noticed the following...
Some shows render much better than others depending on source terchnology, formats, fps etc

1. I think the operating system is linux. When you first turn on the tele, its very sluggish and slow to respond (bit like a pc jst after booting)

2. Under the home menu, re-ordering devices does not work

3. Hd Natural Motion, if it's set to anything above minimum, the picture seems to render like a video game. Sometimes a little rushed, a bit wierd.

4. Net TV, The Philips server is often down, particularly when trying to access it for first time. Took me three days of trying (google reveals this to be common).

5. Net TV, If you register (via TV), and then reinstall/factory reset, you have to register all over again.

6. Ports are awkward to get at, particularly those at the back facing downwards. I have to pull out cabinets, crawl in behind with a flash lamp to see what Im plugging into.

7. Remote control is awful, very minimalist and relies on on screen menus to do some of the most basic functions. e.g. Try adjusting the brightness/contrast, these are fundamentals that should have their own buttons. You cant even adjust them via the Experience button, you have to go into Setup, Advanced etc to adjust the brightness...(I am replacing the remote with a decent universal - Harmony One)

8. Clock does not display on screen (no matter what I try, setting it to manual, auto, country dep etc) When I press the button to bring up the menu where clock should be, it aint there.

9. Philips sell a seperate Wireless Dongle for each piece of their own kit. So if you want to use Net TV/DLNA wirelessly, you buy a dongle for the TV, but if you have a Philips Blu-Ray and want to wi-fi that, you have to buy a different dongle. Talk about adding value??????

10. Sometimes contrast ratio is too much, I notice for e.g. shots of a sunny day, the shade part is very dark while the light parts can be too bright or ok etc

11. Playback compatibility is limited. Many video types (various avi wrapped etc) will not play back from USB. Hopefully this will be addressable via firmware.

Tips:
====
1. You can put a small USB hub into the USB port and it expands your USB port quantity. I have a 4 port hub plugged and am browsing 2 different usb keys right now on a passive hub. Anoher advantage here is that the model I bought has its ports on cables so I can have them at the front of the TV. Probably advisable to opt for a powered hub though (unlike mine)

2. You can pick up Irish DTT in most places now, I am getting it perfectly near Athenry on internal rabbits ears. I have a combo DTT/Satellite box which gives me all the DTT/Freesat channels together.

3. The tv is controlled by open source software and believe it or not, if you write to Philips, they will make their source code available to you (geeks only). This means that hopefully we will start to see some tasty feature packed unofficial firmware being released.


Be very interested in yours or anyone elses comments on this post. If I think of any more I will edit this port. I rate the TV, 7/10 considering I got it cheap

zaphodbeeb

zaphodbeeb wrote: »

Blu ray player connected via HDMI, then SPDIF to Yamaha DD / DTS amp.

I've since reverted to SPDIF out of BR player into amp and just turning off all HD Natural Motion (tried your suggestions re Bitstream etc - made no difference).

The lag now is down to a very small no of milliseconds that is - to all intents and purposes - unnoticable. Just annoying to have to turn off the image processing etc that's meant to be one of the big sellling points of the tv.

I'm convinced this is a fixable bug in the sets' firmware BUT as the tv must be a year or more in production and it's not fixed, (along with very poor DIVX playback) perhaps I'm wrong.

Thanks for the suggestion in any case. Still [99% of the time] loving the tv despite this.

-ZB