Philips 42PFL9664 picture judder

[admin_exported]

Hi,

This is my first post here although I've used the magazine, site and forum recently to help me buy my first proper tv in nearly 10 years! Anyway, following the reviews and comments posted on this site I bought a Philips 42PFL9664 to replace my old Philips 32" CRT, so I was expecting great things but I'm sorry to say I'm a little disappointed at the moment. I have partnered the tv with a Virgin V+ box connected via a quality HDMI cable, and I also have an oldish cheapish Philips DVD player connected via a quality SCART cable. Although HD tv content is a revelation, SD pictures are poor in comparison with my old set and DVD playback suffers with severe screen judder during faster camera pans. I have used tv settings as described in an earlier post by one of the What Hi Fi team. I plan to replace my DVD player with a BDP along the lines of one of the Sony award winning players.

Where am I going wrong? Was my expectation of great things misguided? Is my DVD player the cause of the screen judder despite not being a problem when using my old tv? Is my set up the cause of the problems? Is my new tv faulty? Help!

Thanks in advance for any advice.

underandover

 

[j4mm3r]

hi,

I also replaced a 32" pixel plus philips crt with the philips lcd 9664 and i dont seem to be having your problems, im finding the sd picture is nothing short if stunning for a lcd tv of this size and very reminiscent of the tv it replaced.

maybe the whf team can make some suggestions?

my tv source is from skyhd box (upscaled to 1080i). what is the picture like on the built in freeview channels on the tv itself, any better or worse? have you turned the motion settings to a minimum or even off?

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I had some difficulty tuning to the freeview channels so haven't been able to make a comparsion. Yes, motion settings are turned down, but perhaps I should turn them off to see if that helps.

 

[j4mm3r]

So is the motion the only issue or do you have other issues with the general picture quality. do you have motion issues on both the virgin player and dvd player, the dvd player does sound a little cheap! i think the better the source the better the reward with this tv.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, the picture judder only seems to occur when the DVD player is the source. HD pictures from the V+ box are awesome. SD pictures from the V+ box are what my wife described as fuzzy, but there is no picture judder. Both of these sources where the same for my old CRT and it is very clear that the SD and DVD viewing was better with the old set. When I say picture judder, what I am talking about is almost a split screen effect such that it makes viewing almost unbearable. I assume that this is a problem of the DVD player not being up to the job of being the source for the new larger tv, but any reassurance on this would be gratefully received. Also, I would be happier if feedback here confirmed that my expectations of the SD picture being as good as or better that on my old CRT were misguided.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Yep, sad to say that your old DVD player simply isn't up to the task of satisfying a 42in, Full HD resolution flatscreen, especially via a Scart connection. But with the budget Sony Blu-ray player seemingly getting cheaper by the day, that can be simply solved for less than £150!

And again, I wouldn't have expected SD TV to look better than on your old CRT, which would have had a significantly smaller screen and lower resolution. Your new Blu-ray purchase will transform your DVDs, though.

 

[j4mm3r]

Have you set the v+ box to upscale the sd to 1080i could make a difference, i was looking at the built in freeview on the tv itself last night to answer someone elses question on here and that looked 'fuzzy' a bit of picture noise that i didnt get when switching back to same channel on sky (which is set to upscale to 1080i).

with regards to your expectations of sd picture, other owners will need to contribute, but having just replaced a philips pixel plus crt tv with this one and watching it for a good month, i can say 100% my sd picture quality is as close to the crt as it could be, the fact the screen size is bigger makes the picture even more amazing. like i say others will need to add their opinions on their findings....

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the confirmation Clare. I'd better go and order myself a shiny new Blu-ray player...maybe treat myself to the S760. I remain a little disappointed that SD viewing is not as good as on my old set; let's hope lots of new HD programmes come along soon!

 

[Anonymous]

I think I have 'upscaled' the signal from my V+ box - this is simply setting the format to HDMI 1080 on both the tv and digital box itself I assume?

 

[j4mm3r]

i dont believe there is setting on tv, think tv's upscale automatically?

on the sky box for example there is a setting to leave broadcasts to auto in which case tv upscales or set the sky setting to 1080i in which case the sky box upscales the picture.

i know there is different picture qualities with differnent brands of sky boxes, so maybe sd on virgin isnt that good, although given, it was good on your old smaller crt tv.

 

[Anonymous]

This concerns me as I have a 9664 ready to collect on Saturday!! Surely if you have all of the processing turned on to avoid judder it will cause lip sync lag when routed through my Denon 2310 amp? (as i plan to do)

 

[Anonymous]

Our living room is in a state of flux at the moment (wiring/decorating/bad back) and I only have a standard def Sky+ box and a DVDR connected to our TV via SCARTs and we have terrible judder. Edges dance and movement is very tiring with NM off - but I had been assured it was because the signal through the SCART being upscaled and deinterlaced by the TV was not up to the job. I hope that is the case, because the TV is amazing apart from this SD issue. I know at least one other owner on these forums who upscales to HDMI thru his Denon AVR2310 & reports amazing results. There is noticable variation in SD content and I feel US, some video content and film content is not displayed correctly (pull-down). De-interlacing artifacts are present. I therefore turn the Natural Motion off as this makes such content look strange (speeded up hand motions and halos). We do have dancing edges though and I look forward to getting our set-up set up! It took a while to nail-down what was less than perfect about our viewing though.

I was starting to worry - if I'm honest. I went from very happy to perplexed. I hope Clare is correct and I would appreciate any further comments from her good self.

 

[Anonymous]

it seems the philips isnt for people who just want to set up their tv once and leave it alone , several reviews have mentioned how tricky it is to get right ,that different settings need applying for different sources , the samsung b8000 too , theres been quite a few posts here lately from people struggling to get the best from them , especially with sd , this is less of a problem with the best plasmas out there , probably because they need less processing to look their best , i think its something to bear in mind if choosing between plasma or lcd ...

 

[Clare Newsome]

Badamz:
I was starting to worry - if I'm honest. I went from very happy to perplexed. I hope Clare is correct and I would appreciate any further comments from her good self.

Your set will look fine with a decent source. Any Full HD flatscreen of this size will struggle with a source designed for smaller, far-lower-resolution TVs. The set has all those HDMI inputs for a very good reason!

And, MaxFlinn, you don't have to keep fiddling with settings; get decent sources in place and once you're tweaked and conversant with the mode options, you're done and enjoying a stonking picture

 

[j4mm3r]

I spent an hour watching the built in freeview on the tv itself last night and i was going to say this morning i think its the all to do with the source you feed the tv, exactly as clare has confirmed.

Watching the freeview for a second time since having the tv for a good hour and i started to see a lot of things others seem to be suffering from. live at the apollo didnt go down too well, i noticed problems with movement constantly, a bit of football wasnt that bad but not brilliant but what i noticed the most was the vast difference in quality between each channel and picture noise was evident most of the time. an hour was all i could take as the viewing was becoming uneasy.

Switching back to sky, and ahhh bliss, nice sharp crisp clear pictures on all channels across the board and no picture noise or problems with motion. i did not change any settings on the tv on either viewing.

i also brought a component to scart lead last night after work and connected my panasonic dvd player/recorder to the tv and...oh dear! what a terrible picture, colour bleed everywhere, and severe motion issues constantly, glad i found the cable for a fiver in curry's!

i brought my tv at the same time as sky hd and my avr and it seems i was lucky as if i had to put up with the pictures i saw last night id be devastated.

confirming exactly as clare has stated feed any new tv a quality modern source and the picture quality will wont be an issue more of a pleasure.

with regards to tweaking settings i spent the first week messing about to see what every setting did but once happy ive not touched since.

if i thought this tv was rubbish i wouldnt be afraid to admit i brought a dud but i dont really have any negatives about it, except for switching it on and off the button on the side seems to have a mind of its own!

 

[j4mm3r]

oh and hi Badamz again!

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I had a tweek with the settings last night, but found nothing conclusive on the SD picture fuzziness. I'll let you all know the results with the picture judder when I replace my DVD player with a Blu-ray player. What I did notice for the first time last night (only had the set since the weekend) was a couple of new issues with the picture. One was some faint vertcal bars when viewing pictures from any source. The other was when a black screen is displayed briefly between programmes and adverts, the corners of the screen are much lighter than the centre. I assume this is what is referred to as backlight bleed, but again I don't know whether this is normal for a set that is at the higher end of the quality spectrum?

I'm beginning to feel like a bit of a killjoy since this tv has been so highly and widely commended, but as a first time owner of a modern tv it seems to me that what I have now is not as good as what I bought ten years ago (for a lot less money to boot). I should point out that when the picture is HD and not moving too fast the detail and clarity is amazing, but it would be a lot more enjoyable if there weren't these other issues. I should also point, as if it's not clear anyway, that I'm not an audiophile and just want a tv with a good picture so I was a little surprised to be a tad disappointed.

 

[Clare Newsome]

I don't like the sound of vertical lines - certainly not something we've encountered. Are you sure you're not now looking really closely for faults, and this could still be a source issue? Are all your cables a) decent and b) firmly seated?

Re the baclklight - again, new to us for a Philips; certainly when the backlight's at a reasonable level.

Of course you could just have a faulty set - it does happen - but just trying to eliminate all the possibilities!

 

[j4mm3r]

underandover, those faint vertical bars dont sound good, nor does the brightness in the corners.

the vertical bars could be poor interconnects/interference/source possibly?

you've not had a good start to your new tv, maybe clare could add some comments, but i wouldnt throw your tv packaging away anytime soon

 

[j4mm3r]

wow, instant replies! not bad eh!

clare you took, i mean, i took the words out of your mouth! im after your job

(really i know nothing lol)

 

[Anonymous]

Hmmm, thanks j4mm3r. Putting the DVD source and related severe picture judder to one side, the very faint vertical bars appear whether viewing SD or HD. The source is my V+ box and the cable is an IXOS HDMI, so would have thought that the interconnect and source should be ok. Perhaps interferance is an issue?

I take it then that the brightness should not be happening? I feel a call to Richer Sounds coming on. What a pain.

 

[j4mm3r]

if you can take the tv back to them or if they can come out to you, you want to ask them to connect their own dvd/bluray player and maybe digibox to your tv with their own cabling and see what happens.

have you tried the built in freeview on the tv, do you get the lines you mention, if you dont that could point to your source.

the backlight bleeding on tvs has been written about lots! if it only happens on a blank screen and you dont notice in normal viewing and or dark scenes then its not really an issue as such.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Clare. I probably am looking closely for faults, but I have sought my wife's opinion just to make sure I'm not imagining problems! Certainly, the vertical lines are faint and on bright still pictures I can't see them. The brightness in the corners is obvious when the screen is black, but I'm not sure what you mean by 'backlight at a reasonable level' - perhaps I have the backlight set at an unreasonable level?

As for cables, my simple set up is a very short cable from my Virgin Media internal wall box into my V+ receiver, then an IXOS HDMI (2m studio) straight to my tv. I have double checked the seating of the cables.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks j4mm3r. So tonight I'll check two things:

1) Tune to freeview (assume I need to connect aerial directly to tv just like in the olden days?)

2) Watch a dark film to test whether brightness at the edges can be detected - if not then the brightness when the screen is blank is normal?

 

[Anonymous]

At the risk of interrupting the WHF instant messaging service this morn......

Well. I'm glad I looked on here yesterday. I've not been on the old WHF forums for a bit, but as my last contribution showed - I would have started a very similar thread to this if it were not for underandover.

I have not had lines (never seen anything like that) and I only notice brighter parts of the screen when the set has only been on a short time though the off-axis viewing issue comes in very quickly. I have had the set switch on in the night by itself, but this is not unique to Philips TVs and seems to be down to connected equipment. I unplug it now. Why don't they have proper mechanical off switches like on the back of a PC?

Thanks for your very much appreciated reassurances Clare. I too came from a CRT (Loewe) (via a Panasonic Plasma that went back to the shop) and I knew there would be SD issues (mainly in the short term for us as I 'alter' our living room). Those edges do dance, flicker and judder though (and the deinterlacing artefacts are many). When watching a decent SD show with no panning the TV is stunning (I stand by that). I look forward to being all HDMI. The Natural Motion does not cure these SCART/SD judder issues, it just makes things very unnatural indeed, so we are putting up with the dancing edges for now (and some weird cadence on occasion).

Greetings to j4mmsr, wise sage and scholer. Nice to hear from you and we also appreciate the testing you put your TV through in the name of this forum! If I had a direct line to you I would have already asked for your opinion on this matter, as I know you would be honest and detailed in your comments. Never knowingly not helpful. This is why I joined this forum and I it proves very useful to say nothing of helping me sleep (having looked at the Richer Sounds receipt!).

Thanks everyone (if that does not sound like I'm stealing this thread!).