My new 9607

Ok folks, got my new Philips on Friday.

What a nightmare trying to shift that big git.

Any hoo, heres me tuppence worth:

Pixel plus - fantastic, takes some getting used to and the heat haze effect is very, very minimal (maybe they've updated something?)

'Wobbling' on NTSC - yip it does this, but i really can see ho anyone can be too worried about it. At the end of the day you can either turn off pixel plus or just concentrate on the file. It only happens in the far extremeties of the screen.

Geometry - ok, as good as can be expected. I could go into the service menu and mess about, but i really want to avoid that from now on.

General Picture quality (SKY DIG) - on some sources, its not great. However on channels such as BBC1, and SKY one its amazing. Family Guy looked incredible. So clear and crisp. DVD Quality is TO DIE FOR. Anyone out there who has pixel plus, i ask HAVE YOU SEEN GLADIATOR!!!, its amazing on this set. really.

Buzzing - none, my Sony was like a small blender.

Purity - i think i may be getting some in the bottom left corner, i think though it may be my speaker. Hopefully it wont get any worse.

Remote - great, easy to use.

Menus - Loads of em, and a lot of tweaking is available. I am delighted as i thought Philips wouldn't have as many options as Sony for picture control. I was very wrong.

Black - looks lovely, very black and very clean.

All in all, i like it. I'm scared to say that out loud. So, lets just leave it at that. Is it better than my Sony FQ75, DX100, FQ80. Well, both manufacturers have their own problems. I want this TV to be good, and to be fair i reject sets very quickly. So all i can say is, if you are a retentive git like me, you will like this set (maybe quite a lot), if you dont stare all day looking for faults - You will be blown away.

 

Exactly my sentiments when I saw Gladiator on my 9617 for the first time!

I won't jinx it by saying that your ordeal is over, but I'm really glad that things seem to be looking up for you

 

nice one astonbilla lets just hope everything stays that way for you.& you can finally start watching tv without faults on screen.

 

You too mate, i hope you get things sorted. At the end of the day - this set isn't perfect as i said, but this has to end somewhere.

 

I also had the same delivered on fri and yes it's well heavy to get a grip and place on the stand, I left the facia bits off the stand to ensure that no damage was done.

As for the picture it looks great with a good sky source but when you view any low bit rate channels it becomes over processed but I'm used with this as this TV replaced my old 4x3 philips 46" RPTV which I had for last 7 years, I now need some time to get used to the reduced picture size first.

Football last night looked good on sky camera 4 but a bit distant on normal view, also watched Black Hark Down DVD and that's a great picture, the blacks scenes look great with lots of detail.

Currently I have my philips DVD Q50 setup to the front S-Video imput and I have just watched a R1 DVD but could not see any 'Wobbling' it may only be present via the scart RGB so has anyone checked this out as my picture looks rock solid.

 

Hi,

I too have the dreaded FQ75,
I am wondering, I once tested the PixelPlus tv's and found
on the 32" variety that when I was viewing a scene which
has a lot of activity or shaking (like in Aliens) that it stared to
pixelate and the quality droped.

Are you guys seeing this as this was the main reason I droped
this tv in the first place.

Just wanted to know as I may have to switch to one of these.

 

Ive just got the 32"/9527, first impressions were excellent. The only time the picture deteriorates is when there are fast scenes with detail, sometimes get a line (others refer to it as a halo i think) round moving object.

Noticed blocks as well on dvd, only a couple of times during a film. its just like a patch of little blocks. doesnt appear to happen on any particular type of picture, seems random. Anyone else seen these blocks? (sorry, dont know technical term)

Other than this im very happy with the set, cant believe how real the picture looks, dvd picture is very good, have cable as well, movie channels are good as well. although picture does vary between channels. Im still trying to figure out best connections for best picture.

 

Have had the Phillips 9607 for a couple of weeks now and what an awesome set this is.

Replaced an old Philips 32PW9763, which I absolutely adored and didn't want to let go, but the wife didn't feel that it went in our new front room, so out with the old fashioned and in the with the new.

My only niggle is with the top corners of the screen when watching in 4x3 mode the black bars are not entirely straight and bend outwards at the top of the screen, not too much though, but it is more pronounced when there is a bright picture.

Also watching in 16x9 Anamorphic widescreen, any straight lines like door frames, lamp posts etc that point out of the top of the screen tend to bend out of the screen at the top corners rather than straight out.

It's not as bad as it sounds but I was just wondering if this is simply a characteristic of this set or if I should think about getting a man in to look at the geometry.

Is there a way I can adjust geometry in the 9607 myself, without the possibility of ruining the set.

Cheers

 

To enter the service menu key in 062596 then press i+

You can change channels as usual in the service menu to use as references e.g. SkyGuide, although geometry grids such as those available with the Ultimate DVD Platinum will allow you to tweak it as much as possible

Take down all settings before you play with them and don't touch anything other than the geometrical alignments; this way you won't screw things up.

Info on the Philips Service Menu in general is available at http://home.hccnet.nl/m.majoor/ . Good luck

 

Cheers rct...

As a matter of interest, did you tweak with your geometry and if so what are your geometry settings ?

Cheers

 

LEMONPJ, yes I did tweak it to almost perfection (aside from a tube induced bend downwards at the bottom LHS).

I'd be glad to give you my settings if I had them with me (not at home at the mo') but to be honest they'd be little use to you. Firstly my TV is a 32PW9617 and secondly (and more importantly) even two identical sets will have different geometry setup down to the characteristics of the particular parts used in each individual set. This is why sets leave the factory so poorly calibrated.

At the prices we pay for these TVs, it really isn't cost effective to give each set the individual attention it needs to set up geometry properly.

I hope that you can sort it out

 

Well guys, its been a week and i have to admit a few things are starting to annoy me. The wobbling on NTSC DVDs through RGB or SVHS is really getting to me. I have over 250 R1 DVDs and i don't know if i should settle for this. Also in the lower left corner of the screen i have blue staining, this same patch during R1 playback actually flickers as well as wobbling.

I am at a loss as to what to do as the picture on R2 DVDs is superb. Also, i feel its a wee bit lacking in clarity when playing console games compared to my old Sony FQ.

 

astonbilla what settings are you useing for your games console.i use digi scan & the picture on my xbox is out of this world.plus does all of the screen wobble when playin r1 dvds. an engineer may be able to get rid of the blue stain by degaussing the scren for you.it`s a shame as i thought you had got a tv you were happy with.

 

Liverpool, both sides of the screen wobble and Consoles look either too soft or to pixelated. Remeber, you don't have to work around the pixel plus technology. I find when i switch to normal 100Hz, it looks too soft.

 

both sides of the screen wobble.well that is what i had on my tosh 36" but that did it on everthing sky/dvd/xbox/& that was a pain in the arse & something i could not live with.anyway let us know what you are going to do next.

 

Astonbilla....

How close do you sit to your screen ?

I can see the wobble too on my NTSC discs when I'm close up to the screen, however at my normal sitting distance I see no wobble and the quality of picture on my NTSC discs is the best I've ever seen a R1 NTSC disc look.

The Pixel Plus with the Natural Motion has reduced the jerkiness on panning shots on R1 discs that I used to see on my old Phillips 32" widescreen enormously, almost making them look like PAL discs.

Just another thought, I went to a mates house yesterday to see his new BIG telly, he has just had a 42" RPTV, and whilst the set looks good (in his room that is), the picture quality on it just reminded me of all the reasons as to why I settled for the Phillips 9607 and boy am I happy with my choice.

 

Dont get me wrong, i know the picture quality is the best that i have ever seen IMO, but the wobble is very noticible to me and i love my R1 DVDs too much to not have them 100%.

Do you have a 36"?

 

Yes I have the 36 PW9607, have had it almost a month now, have done nothing but tinker with it since I got it though, to try to get it just right.

"rct" one of the users of these forums, kindly gave me the service code so I could manually adjust the geometry myself (which has been the only gripe I've had so far) and I must have sat and played with it for hours last night and thankfully although nor perfect, I've now got the geometry set to my satisfaction.

The screen wobble you mention is evident and I noticed it last night when using an NTSC set up disc to help me calibrate the set, however I was only a foot away from the screen when I noticed it, my normal viewing position is 3.5 metres away and I'm buggered if I can see any wobble at that distance. Me and the wife watched Halloween and Halloween II last night both on R1 and both anamporhic NTSC and the picture was fantastic.

 

By the way "rct"... thanks for the service code you gave me last night, I've improved the geometry enormously.

Cheers

 

Also, has anyone noticed how things get bigger at the sides of the screen? an example would be scrolling text. When scrolling from the left it is quite large and separted well, near the centre it becomes narrow and less spaced, at the right hand side it levels out once again.

AND the tube seems to bend around white or bright objects. The white at the sides of my sky info bar is a prime example. It is warped when you first change channel, then straightens out. Anyone else have this?

 

Bigger at the edges than the middle sounds like super-wide screen mode. Are you watching a 4:3 signal?

Otherwise the horizontal linearity needs adjusting.

 

no this seems to happen in most cases, surely it would choose the right mode for DVDs etc? they are all widescreen/anamorphic.

thanks for the info though

 

The "wider at the sides" is what bugged me most about the 9607.

" found it to be like looking through a goldfish bowl. it happens on all picture ratio modes, 'morphic or not. Doesn't matter.

On my set, I noticed it most on the right hand side of the set.

I had so many problems with this set. yes the pic quality was ok, but everything else just ruined it. I had:

Dark bars at edges
Goldfish bowl effect
Colour staining
Rubbish geometry

I also think the dark bars and goldfish bowl effect were linked, ie the goldfish bowl effect happened as the image panned over the dark bar areas.

It seems that all the sets have the same problems, and it's just that some people haven't noticed the problem.

I've never been so disappointed with a tv set as I was with the 9607. Especially after all the good things I'd heard.

Still, i guess you pay your money, you makes your choice... as they say.

Matthew

 

Matthew, those problems seem identical to mine. Have you still got the set? or have to swapped to something else?

 

I'm glad to be of help

Try and get hold of a set-up disc to do the contast/brightness/colour etc. you'll be amazed at the difference it makes!

 

I got shot of the tv just as soon as I could.

Ended up with the tosh 36" strata.

This has got the darker sides issues, but is nowhere near as bad as on the 9607.

Doesn't have the other issues the 9607 has.

Obviously, the tosh doesn't have pixel plus. No great loss as far as i'm concerned. Everyone else (friends, family etc) who saw the 9607 thought the foreground of the picture looked superimposed over the background. The general opinion was the picture looked "weird", due the to natural motion, p+ halo effect and goldfish bowl effect.

So, no more P+ for me, but I do now have NTSC progressive scan with component inputs

Cheers

Matthew

 

yeah, i think i may be parting ways with the set. The whole idea of a bigger screen was for a more cinematic experience. The flickering, wobbling and pixel plus is making everything thing feel like weird eastern block documentaries.

Can't decide between 36FS76 and 44PX2. Also, unbeatable might not take it back knowing my luck. I got an FQ80 from them which i didnt open as citylink delivered it opened and upside down. the second FQ80 had dodgy focus down the left of the screen and with this philips citylink said they werent delivering anymore TVs!!

 

Astonbilla,

Atleast someone has confirmed what I spotted when I got my 9607 a few months ago.

I was actually quite impressed when I first got it, until I discovered that NTSC or PAL60 material caused the screen to wobble.

However, at the time, no-one else seemed to notice this and it concerned me that I was the only one.

I visited several stores and saw the problem on theirs, but still no-one would confirm my findings.

Even thought it was VERY minor, I still found it annoying.

Whilst you can switch PP off, you could then see 'scan lines' so it was a no win situation.

Then I started to notice the 'linerarity' where things would get fatter as they got to the edge of the screen.

In the end, I had enough, sent it back and bought a Plasma.

Best £3K I have ever spent. Whilst its not perfect, ALL of the things which bother me (geometry, convergence, purity etc) are ABSOLUTELY perfect!

I figured that as I had already spent almost £2K on a TV the extra grand for another 10" wasn't too bad.

 

Jon, i am so glad you noticed the fattening at the side of the screen. It was driving me crazy!

Also, did you not find that turning pixel plus off caused the image to be very soft?

Without PP it really doesnt compare to my ols Sony FQ.

I am heatbroken though. So is my wife, we have gone through hell the past few months - citylink causing most of it single handed.

I can't fault unbeatable though - they are top, 3 sets all returned. No hassle or fights.

I cant stretch to a plasma though, and i play a lot of consoles, would they not burn the screen.

I tempted by the Sony FS76 or the 44PX2. Can't decide and i reckon it doesn't matter as either will have faults anyway.

 

We are not alone.. Looks for posts talking about the 'goldfish bowl' effect.. Thats what people are calling this problem you are seeing about the 'fat sides'

I went through years of Hell with my 36" TV.. I started with a Panasonic, changed it for the Sony FS70.. Had a perfect one for 7 months until it went faulty, but during transit back to Empire, the courier dropped it.

They then sent me several which were in 'used' condition.

Switched to John Lewis.. All of their were in the same condition.

Finally got a visit from Sony, they bought me a new one straight from the factory.. Faulty!!

Switched to the Philips.. Liked it, but too much processing going on.. Noticed the wobble.. Got a refund.. Now a proud owner of a Plasma.

It makes you feel good to have one.. In 2 years, all people have had to say about my 36" CRT was "its a bit big"

Last night had friends over for a party.. All left stating "I want one of those".. Funny thing was, that it was the wifes, not the blokes who was saying this.

One went as far as to say that she would spend an inheritance she had received on one.

Nothing gives the same 'wow' factor!

Good luck with you selection!