[BRAND
SPECIFIC][PHILIPS]
64PH9905 Review
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Tip by PM: "I have had the Philips 64PH9905 for about two weeks now, Out of
the box it was not what I would call well calibrated. The worst problem being the
geometry. Still, the set had a beatiful, crisp, detailed image, albeit a bit bent here and
there.
After a service call from Sound Advice I still had poor convergence. The service guy
had the service codes but no manual and no prior experience with this set. He said my set
was the first sold by them in Florida. But hey, now I had the codes, and I could get to
work.
After a day or so of learning the service menus, I had the set in pretty good shape.
When I receive the convergence template I ordered I'll do a mechanical CRT centering and a
complete, from scratch, service convergence. But for now, thanks to a very effective 63
point service convergence mode, the set looks much better.
Let me say this, there is no set that I've seen that looks this good. I know I'm
talking comparing out of the box sets but this set out of the box was just amazing. The
Pioneer x10s lack the detail this set can produce. As far as HD, the only set that comes
close is the Mitsu73. Size does matter, 9" CRTS do make a difference.
The line doubler in this set is excellent. I see no jaggies at all on much of NTSC
material that I watch, whether it is DVD or cable.
Video based material looks excellent with only slight, brief motion jaggies. If you
weren't looking for them , you wouldn't notice. The 3/2 pulldown is incredible on this
set.
Analog cable never looked so good. All movies, many tv series originated on flim, even
some commercials have pefect progressive images with no artifacting at all.
The Panoramic gradual stretch mode works very well, as good or better than the Pioneer
and is my usual mode of watching.
One nifty thing about this set is the ability to do VGA and SVGA (640x680 and 800x600).
When I can , I'd like to build a dedicated HTPC for it. I did try hooking my computer up
to it and I can say it does work and looks quite good at 800x600. It has 2 modes for each
for VGA and SVGA. PC and normal. I think one is 16x9 full and one is 4/3.
The Pronto remote is a Godsend. No more lining up 3 or 4 remotes in front of me just to
watch a DVD. I have currently programmed into the Pronto: TV,Reciver,Audio
Processor,DVD,VCR, Cable Box. The predefined templates aren't perfect for all components
but there is the capability for modification both within the unit and from PC downloads.
There is downside to this set. The cabinet on a set this expensive should be of much
higher quality. This set is also very big and tall. It does give the images more impact I
think though, The screen is higher off the floor than most, so it actually seems to make
the picture appear larger then if it was lower to the floor.(IMHO). The protective screen
is very reflective, I took it off and off it stays. No reflections with no loss of image
quality. One other thing yhat I don't particularly like is the two computer style fans in
the back. They dump a fair amount of heat and are slightly audible during the quietest
scenes.
After owning a Pioneer 700HD for 59 days and returning it this set is wonderful in
comparison. I liked the Pioneer cabinet better though. But finally I can watch almost
anything without concern for how close I sit to the TV. It looks good from any distance.
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