Philips 37PF9631D review

[MoFoHo]

Hi there! I just purchased this set on sat, and thought I'd give you my views on it so far... Please feel free to ask me any questions or point out any mistakes!

The Competition.
I choses this set over the Samsung 40R74BDX, Toshiba 37WLT66 and Panasonic 37PX60. I dismissed the Panny and the Tosh quite early on not because of their pictures (which are lovely) but simply because the sets didnt look that attractive to my eyes, at least not as nice as the other 2! My feelings are that with these being such prominent pieces of kit, you have to be very happy with how not only how it performs but how it looks too! The Sammy was very tempting, cheaper and with a bigger screen. Both the Philips and sammy are very attractive sets! I eventually went for the Philips as I think its SD pictures were better. In contrast I found the Sammys HD images to have the edge, but only just mind... I also want to thank Nitesun, and Mackem for their thoughts on this set, after all that's EXACTLY what these forums are for I think, thanks guys!

Design and construction.
Upon setting up the stand and heaving the screen onto its stand its quite obvious the Philips is well made. The shiny black surround is very flash (JUST like the Sammy!), but it needed my sweaty finger prints wiping off it! The finnish is exquisite, even down to the remote.

Connections.
They're all there, almost...
No VGA I'm afraid, but there's 2 scarts (1 of which is RGB), component, and of course the 2 HDMI inputs. There's also a digital audio output AND input. And the usual set of side mounted 'convenience' inputs at the side.

Performance.
Picture.
I've only connected my upscaling DVD player so far, so Im unable to report on the set's internal DVB tuner and upscaled DVD playback. I will connect my Xbox360 tomorrow night and feed it some true HD goodness...
Predictably it looks very good indeed. Once you've fiddled with the myriad of picture tweaks (and there's a lot of them) and reduced the brightness down from retina burning levels, its very pleasing to the eye. There's a settings assistant slideshow, which optomises the picture according to your preferences, and it gets it pretty good. There's no motion blur AT ALL, and black levels are good, although predictibly blacks look 'more black' during daylight hours. At night you loose a little contrast but overall its a very pleasing picture. The colours are very beautiful, they look more saturated than on the new Sonys, and I'd guess THOSE sets have the more natural colour balance. The viewing angle is very good, no problems whatsoever.
Digital Terrestrial- also rather predictibly, it depends which channel you're watching! The better channels look crisp and clean, but get up close, and the digital artifacting is there- probably more a fault with the terestrial system than the set itself. The tuner does seem strong though, it definately outperforms my 23" Samsung, and the newer Sammys I've seen.

I cant really comment on HD yet, Im gonna connect my Xbox360 up maybe Mon night and I'll let you know the outcome.Incidently, no dead pixels on this set...

Sound.
Not bad at all. I know that many people will say that the internal speakers dont matter, that most people here (myself included) will have a seperate kick ass surround system anyway. But sometimes I just want the set to be a good 'ol regular telly and the speakers do a fine job.

Ambilight.
Only had the set a day or so really so I cant make a good judgement. All I can say is I have brown walls, so I'm not exactly bein dazzled by a wide spectrum of colour being splashed onto my walls behing the set. Maybe I'm finding it too gimmicky at the moment. I watched Die Hard 3 last night and was just fiddling with the Ambilight settings all the time. I'll have to live with it for a while. Certainly through the day its just not worth switching it on.
How come whenever you see it being demoed or pics of it in action its always showing something with lots of changing colours? "BLUE sky- cut to ORANGE dessert- fade to GREEN meadow- wipe to BLUE sky again (probably with a hot air ballon). I didnt see any of those saturated hues in die Hard...

The set has a few idiyosyncrassies? My DVD player is connected via both RGB scart and HDMI, yet turn on the player on and it defaults to the scart input- it seems you cant prioritise the inputs? Also when the picture format is set to Auto-format, you cant request that Non-anamorphic 4:3 material is shown as 4:3, it gets shown in 'Superzoom' instead.

Overall though, I'm very happy with the set. The picture is superb and its controls and menus are very intuative. Its a lovely set to use and its pictures catch you eye, for the right reasons.
Would I recommend it to you good people? Yes I would, although you are paying a hefty premium for the Ambilight feature- for around £400 less, that 40" sammy was (and is) very tempting indeed! I guess its also down to personal taste, some people may hate the looks of the Philips, I myself was prepared to pay a premium for those looks.
Hopefully soon, Ill be seeing what this beauty can do with a HD feed, and of course if people want I'll let them know how it performs. Till then, I'm done.
Any questions? lol
Steve.

[MoFoHo]

A few more pics, I'll try and get some 'Ambilight' and Xbox360 ones up soon...

[David Mackenzie]

Very interesting to see that that TV allows RGBHV video to be input over the Component jacks as well as Y/Pb/Pr.

That means you can hook a PC up to it anyway with just a specialised cable.

[MoFoHo]

Originally Posted by Lyris

Very interesting to see that that TV allows RGBHV video to be input over the Component jacks as well as Y/Pb/Pr.

That means you can hook a PC up to it anyway with just a specialised cable.

Yes it explains that in the manual. The AUDIO feed for component is via a 3.5mm jack socket though!

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by Lyris

Very interesting to see that that TV allows RGBHV video to be input over the Component jacks as well as Y/Pb/Pr.

That means you can hook a PC up to it anyway with just a specialised cable.

The problem is, trying to find a damned cable to do it though! I've tried the usual retailers and had a good rake through Maplins on Saturday. No joy. Trawling the net turned up some which were described as RGB/HV to VGA, rather than the other way round, so I was going to ring up and make sure they would work. Anybody manage to source one of these cables from anywhere? Why Philips didn't just include a VGA socket is beyond me, particularly when they've included a fancy USB Multimedia input... which is pretty cool I have to say!

Pleased you like the set MoFoHo. I'm pleased with it too. I really think it comes into its own when showing Hi Def. I have Telewest TVDrive and the picture looks stunning through that. I wouldn't say there's absolutley no motion blur. Fast, long distance pans of the football do show a tad but it's nothing to write home about and pretty much all LCD's have some by nature of the technology. And given the amount of football I've watched over the last two weeks, it's probably my square eyes anyway

[David Mackenzie]

The problem is, trying to find a damned cable to do it though! I've tried the usual retailers and had a good rake through

I actually have one of those.
http://www.mediaatlantic.com/product.php/69589/0/

This is what you need. That's no use though if you're connecting something like a games console that doesn't have its own audio out jacks.

They really should give you a cable in the box...

[MoFoHo]

Originally Posted by Mackem

The problem is, trying to find a damned cable to do it though! I've tried the usual retailers and had a good rake through Maplins on Saturday. No joy. Trawling the net turned up some which were described as RGB/HV to VGA, rather than the other way round, so I was going to ring up and make sure they would work. Anybody manage to source one of these cables from anywhere? Why Philips didn't just include a VGA socket is beyond me, particularly when they've included a fancy USB Multimedia input... which is pretty cool I have to say!

Pleased you like the set MoFoHo. I'm pleased with it too. I really think it comes into its own when showing Hi Def. I have Telewest TVDrive and the picture looks stunning through that. I wouldn't say there's absolutley no motion blur. Fast, long distance pans of the football do show a tad but it's nothing to write home about and pretty much all LCD's have some by nature of the technology. And given the amount of football I've watched over the last two weeks, it's probably my square eyes anyway

Mackem, where is this USB multimedia input?

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by Lyris

I actually have one of those.
http://www.mediaatlantic.com/product.php/69589/0/

This is what you need. That's no use though if you're connecting something like a games console that doesn't have its own audio out jacks.

They really should give you a cable in the box...

Thanks for that Lyris. However slight misunderstanding here possibly. That page opens at "3.5mm Stereo Jack Cable to 2 RCA (Male Phono) Y Cable 10m". It's actually the VGA to RGB/HV that I'm struggling to find. I've just done a few searches of that site for that type of cable but it didn't turn up anything.

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by MoFoHo

Mackem, where is this USB multimedia input?

It's on the side panel. You can plug in any USB device which has a DOS/Windows type file structure. For instance, I have a USB memory stick which I've put a stack of photo's on, then you can play them back through the TV in slideshow format without the need of a PC. You can do the same with digital cameras, video clips in MPEG and one or two other formats and MP3 players for music, although I'm not sure if Apple Ipods would work as they may have a different file system.

[Dazzle]

Does anyone know how much this TV is going for, and if it's the next generation of Phillips LCDTV from the PF9830?

Also does this TV have the much talked about ClearLCD structure?

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by Dazzle

Does anyone know how much this TV is going for, and if it's the next generation of Phillips LCDTV from the PF9830?

Also does this TV have the much talked about ClearLCD structure?

I got it for £1695 from Fenwicks in Newcastle. The more direct replacement for the 9830 will be the 37PF9731D, which is due out in July. That does have ClearLCD wheras this model doesn't.

[Dazzle]

Ah - Cheers, Mackem - I've just found the other thread, regarding the ClearLCD range.

[andersonshatch]

Originally Posted by MoFoHo

A few more pics, I'll try and get some 'Ambilight' and Xbox360 ones up soon...

At what resolution do you have your 360 outputting at?... considering the set's native res is just over 720p

Josh

[kidloco]

http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/v...a.html#hd15rgb

Something like this wouldn't be enought ?

[MoFoHo]

Originally Posted by andersonshatch

At what resolution do you have your 360 outputting at?... considering the set's native res is just over 720p

Josh

I output my 360 at 720p, to match the native resolution of both my 23" Sammy and the bigger Philips. There's a lot of debate wether its best to select 720p or 1080i as an output. I'll be testing my 360 hopefully this eve, will try both settings and let you know...

[Mr-Bananas]

Does this Philips store the picture settings for each individual input ?

Saw one of these today running a Hi-Def demo, I was stunned at the picture quality. Never really considred a Philips before, I may have changed my mind......!

[Mr-Bananas]

Can it do 1366x768 1:1 mapping over VGA ??

[Spacecat]

Originally Posted by Mr-Bananas

Does this Philips store the picture settings for each individual input ?

Saw one of these today running a Hi-Def demo, I was stunned at the picture quality. Never really considred a Philips before, I may have changed my mind......!

I bet it was a low panning scene of nature or a waterfall or some flowers up close or some old guy fishing !

they dont show too much high speed stuff in those demos!

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by Mr-Bananas

Saw one of these today running a Hi-Def demo, I was stunned at the picture quality. Never really considred a Philips before, I may have changed my mind......!

I can confirm that the High Def performance of this set IS stunning. Had mine for 2 months now, connected to a Telewest TV Drive for HD. As I've said on other threads, I saw this set in a display beside the much vaunted Sony Bravia's and also a Tosh. All were playing exactly the same High Def feed, which was BBC HD and the Philips was by far the best picture. The Sony showed grain/noise that simply wasn't there on the Philips. The Philips colour's were outstanding too.

[chambeaj]

Originally Posted by Mackem

I can confirm that the High Def performance of this set IS stunning. Had mine for 2 months now, connected to a Telewest TV Drive for HD. As I've said on other threads, I saw this set in a display beside the much vaunted Sony Bravia's and also a Tosh. All were playing exactly the same High Def feed, which was BBC HD and the Philips was by far the best picture. The Sony showed grain/noise that simply wasn't there on the Philips. The Philips colour's were outstanding too.

But how do the latest Philips panels holdup in a dimly lit room (i.e. home environment). With the 9830 the blacks would wash out as soon as you moved off centre.

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by chambeaj

But how do the latest Philips panels holdup in a dimly lit room (i.e. home environment). With the 9830 the blacks would wash out as soon as you moved off centre.

Perhaps not quite as good a viewing angle as my previous Hitachi 32LD7200 but not bad by any means. I certainly don't recognise your description of 'as soon as you moved of centre'. You have to be at such an acute angle that you wouldn't conceivably be watching the set from there anyway. The acceptable viewing angle also seems to be greater when watching HD than SD broadcasts.

Do you watch with Ambilight switched on, as that is supposed to improve perceived black levels?

[chambeaj]

Originally Posted by Mackem

Perhaps not quite as good a viewing angle as my previous Hitachi 32LD7200 but not bad by any means. I certainly don't recognise your description of 'as soon as you moved of centre'. You have to be at such an acute angle that you wouldn't conceivably be watching the set from there anyway. The acceptable viewing angle also seems to be greater when watching HD than SD broadcasts.

Do you watch with Ambilight switched on, as that is supposed to improve perceived black levels?

Ambilight is on. With my 37PF9830 I find that the blacks will turn greyish as soon as you move off centre. The 32PF9830 is better, but the 37PF9830 is hopeless with regards to black levels/viewing angles. The backlight is just too bright. If the whole screen is supposed to be black, you can turn the brightness & contrast right down to zero and the screen will still look slightly greyish in a dimly lit room. I suspect this years Philips models are using a new generation/make of TFT panel. I am interested in the 42PF9831, but it impossible to properly evaluate these displays in somewhere like John Lewis where they have bright lighting.

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by chambeaj

Ambilight is on. With my 37PF9830 I find that the blacks will turn greyish as soon as you move off centre. The 32PF9830 is better, but the 37PF9830 is hopeless with regards to black levels/viewing angles. The backlight is just too bright. If the whole screen is supposed to be black, you can turn the brightness & contrast right down to zero and the screen will still look slightly greyish in a dimly lit room. I suspect this years Philips models are using a new generation/make of TFT panel. I am interested in the 42PF9831, but it impossible to properly evaluate these displays in somewhere like John Lewis where they have bright lighting.

Just checked the spec for the 42PF9831 to see if it had manual back light adjustment to help alleviate the black level issues you describe but alas, no. The 37PF9631 doesn't either and yes, there are some occasions when I would probably turn it down if it had that facilty. Blacks can look a little navy at times, rather than grey as you describe but I haven't found it much of an issue. And as I say, the viewing angle before it 'washes out' is pretty decent. You certainly don't have to be sitting in a 'sweet spot'. Understand what you say about not being able to properly assess a set in a shop environment. Some specialist shops such as Sevenoaks have a 'dark' room set up. Might be worthwhile checking if there's anything like that in your area.

I'm quite surprised you're considering another Philips, given that you've been pretty vocal in your criticism of them? All I can say is that I'm very happy with my 37PF9631 and 2 months down the line, it doesn't seem to suffer from any of the issues reported for the 9830 series.... touch wood!

[MoFoHo]

Originally Posted by Mackem

Just checked the spec for the 42PF9831 to see if it had manual back light adjustment to help alleviate the black level issues you describe but alas, no. The 37PF9631 doesn't either and yes, there are some occasions when I would probably turn it down if it had that facilty. Blacks can look a little navy at times, rather than grey as you describe but I haven't found it much of an issue. And as I say, the viewing angle before it 'washes out' is pretty decent. You certainly don't have to be sitting in a 'sweet spot'. Understand what you say about not being able to properly assess a set in a shop environment. Some specialist shops such as Sevenoaks have a 'dark' room set up. Might be worthwhile checking if there's anything like that in your area.

I'm quite surprised you're considering another Philips, given that you've been pretty vocal in your criticism of them? All I can say is that I'm very happy with my 37PF9631 and 2 months down the line, it doesn't seem to suffer from any of the issues reported for the 9830 series.... touch wood!

Im very pleased with my set too! Thanks for the recomendation Makem! Have you done the firmware update on this set, to enable the 7 day EPG? And is there any way to enable some sort of auto-switch over to the HDMI inputs? Or is this just not possible with HDMI inputs? It seems silly, since the humble scart lead auto switches on an input?

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by MoFoHo

Im very pleased with my set too! Thanks for the recomendation Makem! Have you done the firmware update on this set, to enable the 7 day EPG? And is there any way to enable some sort of auto-switch over to the HDMI inputs? Or is this just not possible with HDMI inputs? It seems silly, since the humble scart lead auto switches on an input?

No, didn't realise there was a firmware update available. I don't normally use the tuner in the TV itself as I have Telewest TVDrive. I'll have a look though. Cheers for that.

As for your HDMI switching issue, I don't have this problem. I have the TVDrive connected by both HDMI and SCART but it always starts up via HDMI. The reason for that will be that I have the TVDrive set to output by default via HDMI. I therefore suspect that it's actually your DVD player that's sending a signal via its SCART connection which is causing the TV to default to that connection. Why do you have both connections enabled? I suggest disconnecting the SCART if you can or if not, seeing if there's a setting on your DVD player to make it default to HDMI.

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by MoFoHo

Im very pleased with my set too! Thanks for the recomendation Makem! Have you done the firmware update on this set, to enable the 7 day EPG? And is there any way to enable some sort of auto-switch over to the HDMI inputs? Or is this just not possible with HDMI inputs? It seems silly, since the humble scart lead auto switches on an input?

Oh.. and also, from the Philips web site, if it applies:

"You did some personal settings and after switching off and on the set, your personal settings are reset.

This is because your set is in the LOCATION SHOP. In the location shop all settings are prefixed. These settings will be set each time the set is turned on.

To store your own setting make sure your set is in the LOCATION HOME.

Press the MENU/BROWSE key on the remote control.
Select TV menu and press the cursor right.
Select Installation and press the cursor right.
Select Preferences and press the cursor right
Select Location and press the cursor right
Select Home and press the OK button
Press the MENU/BROWSE key to leaf the menu "

[Mr-Bananas]

Does this Philips store the picture settings for each individual input ?

Can it do 1366x768 1:1 mapping over VGA ??

Thanks

[Mackem]

Originally Posted by Mr-Bananas

Does this Philips store the picture settings for each individual input ?

Can it do 1366x768 1:1 mapping over VGA ??

Thanks

Yes, it saves the settings for individual inputs.

From the manual, the supported computer formats are:

VGA - 640 x 480
SVGA - 800 x 600
XGA - 1024 x 768

So I guess the answer to that question is no, although I've not actually used
my computer through it. The reason being that there isn't a straightforward PC connection if your computer doesn't have a DVI/HDMI output. You need a VGA to RGB/HV cable and I haven't been able to find one in the shops. You can get them off the web but I haven't got round to it.

[stanleyntl]

I thought the 9631 models were ClearLCD, but only Pixel Plus 2HD, not 3HD as with the 9731/9831?
How is the sound for movies on the 9631?
How does the Picture compare with a Panny LXD60 LCD? (No Philips clear lcds stocked locally. )

[I MustAVit]

Mackem. Seriously hoping to audition the above baby real soon. For now any chance you could provide the above dimensions particularly the length i.e. can the base pedestal sit on a table 80cm wide without any ovehang?