Hey,
I just thought Id share my experience with the Philips 32PFL8404 - might be useful to a few people on here who are in a similar position to me.
Short background:
My setup
Sky+ (connected with a €60 scart lead)
1080p upscaling DVD player - Connected through HDMI
Xbox 360 - Connected through HDMI
PS3 - Connected through HDMI
So here was my experience with it:
The good:
The bad
The ugly
Despite what I said above about its flaws (im my eyes at least)... I think that some people would love this TV and it certainly has some redeeming features. So dont take this as a big rant about how rubbish LCD's are in general... its just my opinion on the subject.
So I decided to sell the Philips and have returned to my 50 Htz CRT which I managed to get fixed. I still believe it is a far superior technology to LCD in many ways and it looks like I am going to have to wait for a new technology to come along
I just thought Id share my experience with the Philips 32PFL8404 - might be useful to a few people on here who are in a similar position to me.
Short background:
- Bought a LCD about 5/6 years ago and it was horrific in pretty much every sense... Brought it back and returned to my trusty 50 Htz CRT
- Have followed forums like this closely since then, took trips into Dixons etc on more than one occation... Ultimately I was never convinced by the LCD technology
- 2 weeks ago, it seemed like my CRT had given up for good... So I went out and purchased the Philips 32PFL8404 after reading some favourable reviews online. The fact that the price was somewhat reasonable also helped - €700 here in Ireland. Heres the model - (Philips - 8000 series LCD TV 32" Full HD 1080p digital TV - 32PFL8404H/12 - 8000 series - Televisions - Sound and vision)
My setup
Sky+ (connected with a €60 scart lead)
1080p upscaling DVD player - Connected through HDMI
Xbox 360 - Connected through HDMI
PS3 - Connected through HDMI
So here was my experience with it:
The good:
- Beautiful glossy finish and it fit perfectly into our house
- Loads of connections, both digital and analogue
- The picture quality on certain stations and programs was great. I was especially impressed with skin tones etc
- Some of the features on the TV were great - i.e Ambilight, Usb connection etc. (Although I think Net Tv was a bit rubbish)
- Even on low-bitrate broadcasts etc... The general picture was never awful - certainly nothing compared to what they were a few years back
The bad
- No matter what I tried - I couldnt get the settings right. The picture was either too bright or too dark etc. I think this was the biggest complaint I had with the TV... it felt like that I had to alter the settings in some way according to what station or program I was watching on the TV - For someone who channel hops a lot; incredibly frustrating tbh
- Some backlight bleed in the bottom left and top right corners of the screen - Not a huge issue tbh... but something you would prefer not to be there.
- Motion - I think calling this bad is a bit extreme tbh... The motion handling really has come on leaps and bounds over the last few years. Football etc is certainly watchable. But there is still some noticable loss of focus/sharpness etc in fact moving scenes and its frustrating when you are used to perfect motion handling on a 50 Htz CRT (As a comparison - My parents have a 37 inch Panasonic Plasma and there are little or no motion problems on it)
- Viewing distance - The Tv was placed on a long desk in the corner - At the other end of the desk, I have a PC which I use a lot. As with all LCDs, viewing them from this close is like watching a blurry mess in most cases and it became frustrating to always have to sit x amount of feet away to get a good picture
The ugly
- Pixel Precise HD - It is quite ironic that Philips came up with the tag 'Hd Natrual Motion', when in fact the result when its turned on is the complete opposite. This technology is ridiculous imo... It seems to speed up everything by a fraction of a second... But that completely alters how the program/DVD etc was supposed to be viewed. People seem to be walking differently, moving in a strange fashion etc. Its a very strange effect and Im sure its present on a lot of LCD's (and some higher end 100 Htz CRT's) that have similar technologies. The whole Pixel Precise thing is a joke really - I found that I got the best picture when I turned off pretty much every one of its so called features
- The sound - Sound on this TV is pretty awful - Really flat and I would definately recommend using an external sound setup if you want to get this TV
- Sound/Video sync - I dont know why, but there is definately a sound sync issue with this TV.. in other words, the sound is a fraction of a second out of sync with the video. You find yourself staring at peoples mouths and it can become incredibly distracting.
- Settings - You cannot save your custom settings. So for example, you cannot come up with ideal settings for daytime and night time viewing and save them... So as I said above, you do find yourself messing with the settings on the TV at various points throughout the day.
Despite what I said above about its flaws (im my eyes at least)... I think that some people would love this TV and it certainly has some redeeming features. So dont take this as a big rant about how rubbish LCD's are in general... its just my opinion on the subject.
So I decided to sell the Philips and have returned to my 50 Htz CRT which I managed to get fixed. I still believe it is a far superior technology to LCD in many ways and it looks like I am going to have to wait for a new technology to come along
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