Great picture. All the color, clarity and crispness you should get with 1080i. Non-HD programs look good. Good looking piece of furniture, I like the piano black and stand.
It feels good to have a bought a TV that's works well, has the features I want and it only cost me $450...especially when original retail was $5000!

The owners manual is more concerned with the operation of the Pronto remote and not the TV itself. On newer TV's, they seem to focus more on set-up. Though I was able to figure it all out, would have been nice to have a better manual.
The biggest weakness to picking up a used TV like this is that there is no support from Philips and not a whole lot to find when searching the internet.

I bought this Philips used from an individual who was the original owner. I already have a Samsung 32" LCD, so I know what great looking HD is. I am very impressed with the Philips. Though it is "old" technology, it produces an HD image that is very close to my up-to-date Samsung.
Interestingly, analog signals coming through my HD set top box are very crisp and clear on the Philips. The Pronto remote is a lot of fun, though I haven't figured out what the Macros is all about. A few days after I brought this unit home, I removed the back cover and spent thirty minutes vacuuming and blowing out the accumulated dust. That seemed to improve the picture quality. If, like me, you happen to run across one of these TV's for less than $500 like I did, I would recommend it.

Great picture. All the color, clarity and crispness you should get with 1080i. Non-HD programs look good. Good looking piece of furniture, I like the piano black and stand.
It feels good to have a bought a TV that's works well, has the features I want and it only cost me $450...especially when original retail was $5000!

The owners manual is more concerned with the operation of the Pronto remote and not the TV itself. On newer TV's, they seem to focus more on set-up. Though I was able to figure it all out, would have been nice to have a better manual.
The biggest weakness to picking up a used TV like this is that there is no support from Philips and not a whole lot to find when searching the internet.

I bought this Philips used from an individual who was the original owner. I already have a Samsung 32" LCD, so I know what great looking HD is. I am very impressed with the Philips. Though it is "old" technology, it produces an HD image that is very close to my up-to-date Samsung.
Interestingly, analog signals coming through my HD set top box are very crisp and clear on the Philips. The Pronto remote is a lot of fun, though I haven't figured out what the Macros is all about. A few days after I brought this unit home, I removed the back cover and spent thirty minutes vacuuming and blowing out the accumulated dust. That seemed to improve the picture quality. If, like me, you happen to run across one of these TV's for less than $500 like I did, I would recommend it.

Great looking black cabinet and stand. Everyone who sees my TV says WOW! Pronto remote, the best 4:6 to 16:9 screen conversion for regular analog broadcasts.

Only one 1080i imput, but I am using a JVC true component video switch box that sells for less than 100.00 for both my HD cable box and DVD player. There is a minor problem with sometimes curved scan lines that show up on the screen only when using the internal progressive scan feature of the TV or a progressive scan DVD player. Technical service at Phillips told me that this normal and I have mininized the effect by changing the contrast and brightness settings. Because of this and only having one 1080i imput I have to give the TV a less than perfect rating.

This is great TV. After looking at what the future holds for digital TV and the 16:9 format for HD, I stepped up and bought technology for the future. I do not have a lot of space so; the 34" was the largest I could go. I compared the Phillips vs. Sony and I felt the Phillips has a better picture. Remember that these new digital TV's with their ability to up convert the quality of regular analog broadcasts can look terrible with a poor broadcast signal. The Sony 4:6 HV600 I originally purchased over pixilated the picture and looked terrible no matter what I did to adjust the control settings. The Phillips looked the best. As for HD digital broadcasts, I looked into a direct TV dish but the cost for HD hardware was around 700.00. Purchased a Samsung over the air tuner and could not get a signal. I now have Time Warner digital cable with their HDTV box (best kept secret here in So Cal) and have the TV hooked up with regular analog, digital and HDTV. Once you get used to viewing the 16:9 format you can't go back. The black cabinet looks great and the Pronto remote alone is worth 400.00. Some complaints about this TV menu system and the ability to choose imputs however, you can browse through TV imputs using the Pronto remote and customize the Pronto with one button macro functions. The Pronto remote is user programmable to control all of your IR controlled components. This TV also does the best job of converting regular 4:6 picture formats to 16;9 without any noticeable distortion. The auto screen format works great however when you are viewing a 4:6 sports broadcast with top or bottom on screen scoreboards you may loose some of the picture however, you can adjust via the menu the picture up or down. Using the 16:9 "zoom" feature on the menu instead of "auto" locks in your screen setting. The sound quality of the TV is really good. I'm not using the built in rear speaker outputs for Dolby pro logic, but you could with a separate AMP. I have Panasonic RP91 progressive scan DVD player and hooked up through the 1080i imput and the picture is outstanding. Phillips internal line doubling with progressive scan is so good I would recommend that you first view a regular DVD player through it's regular S video or component imput, you may not want to spend the extra bucks for progressive scan. I did for the benefit of playing DVD 5.1 audio CD's. There are many features of this TV that you may or may not use, freeze frame, replay etc. but, it’s worth the money. Finally, although I purchased an extended five year warranty, standard Phillips warranty is one year bumper to bumper. I have heard that some only give 90 days on the tube. Frys Electronics is now featuring high end Phillips products and has this TV priced at a closeout price of $2200 and the stand at $200. Run and but it before they are gone. List price on the TV with stand is $5000.

Similar Products Used:

None

1. First and foremost, a great-looking picture. This set was made for DVDs. Use a progressive scan DVD player and you will not be disappointed. Even poorly mastered DVDs look great. 2. Great looking cabinet. Avoid silver cabinets as they do not provide a proper visual bias for the picture. The high gloss is actually a bit too glossy (matte black would be the best in terms of bias), but I can live with piano black over silver. 3. Calibration via Video Essentials yielded tight consistent results. Numeric values allow for easy calibration, unlike certain Sony 34XBR2 sets I know of that don''t display numeric values so you''re left guessing. 4. Pronto remote.

To be fair, many of the nits I''m about to list are intrinsic to all sets in this class. 1. No easy access to the geometry menu controls (you need to enter a secret code). You will need to access this menu because the factory-calibrated settings will be ruined in transit. 2. This set tends to suffer from moire but you can compensate for this by tweaking the geometry controls (see above). 3. No direct access to video sources. So, to get from TV to AV4 requires hitting the "source" button over and over and over... 4. The "Digital Natural Motion," inverse 3:2 pulldown, is automatically engaged every time the TV is turned on, regardless of whether you previously turned it off. So every time you turn on the TV, you must manually turn this off if you don''t want it. 5. This TV only has one progressive scan input, which is AV4, and which automatically locks into widescreen. 6. This set makes no distinction between locking out a channel and skipping it. Engaging the channel lockout means all that V-chip crap kicks in. Very annoying. 7. Menu system is slow.

Like other direct-view 480P/1080i 34" widescreen sets, this model offers a stunning picture. Also like other models, it is not perfect. I recommend it over its competitors, however. At least until the 720P models hit the market...

Similar Products Used:

The Pani and the Sony.

Picture clarity, HDTV ready, built-in line doubler, automatic screen size feature, high gloss piano black cabinet.

The TV is so clear you will find it hard to watch inferior quality broadcasts.

This TV is awesome. Unbelievable clarity. I have only had it for 2 weeks, but so far I have no complaints. DVD''s played on this set look as good as HDTV. Philips has perfected the auto size feature this year. You can watch a 4:3 broadcast using the entire 16:9 screen with no distortion. The screen is streched evenly top and bottom to fill out the screen. Other 16:9 sets only seem to stretch outward and make a persons head look like a watermellon turned on its side. I use the "progressive natural motion" for live sporting events and digital cable. I turn it off for non-digital cable broadcasts. My system includes a NAD 751 Dolby Digital/DTS receiver, Philips Q50 Progressive Scan DVD player (with a Faroudja Chip), Paradigm Monitor 7 fronts, Paradigm CC370 center, Velodyne VLT1012 Subwoofer, Paradigm AMS250 rears and a Yamaha CDC-685 CD player. Also, the TV comes with a Pronto remote. It is a learning remote and once you get the hang of it, it makes it easy to program all of your other remotes into a single touch screen device.

I have now had a while to watch and try out all this TV's features and I can say I have not yet found anything that I do not like about this tv. I have the high glossy black cabinet which is just georgeous !! Lots of fun stuff to try out on the Pronto Remote that came with it and the picture is unbelievable. There are so many features that come with this tv that it would take too long to explain. All I can say is that I would bet good money you will not be disappointed if you buy this.

Minor pickey thing.....if you're watching an analogue signal in the 16:9 format, some of the picture top or bottom will not show all the way on the screen. This can be fixed by adjusting the picture from the Pronto. Not a big deal to me.

I am not a person of many words so go by what I've already told you.

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1st and hopefully only widescreen, flatscreen that I'll own for quite some time. My last tv was a Magnavox 26".....old,old tv with no bells and whistles.

Just purchased. Came with a Pronto remote.....this is the remote to have if you're looking for one. Just wanted to show price paid and where bought. Will submit review after I get hooked up with my home theater system and watch it for a bit. Good Guys came down $1000 to match Circuit City for the same TV but I received 12 months 0% interest with no payments so I went with Good Guys. Free delivery. This TV had all the bells and whistles I wanted and I did plenty of research before I purchased. Free delivery and setup also. I also have a Toshiba DVD SD 9200 $749 half price !! A Monster power center HTS 3500, a Yamaha Surround Receiver 5.1 HTR 5460 with JBL speakers.
This is my first and hopefully only Home Theater system I will ever own so I tried to go 1st class as far as my budget would let me. If any of you serious audiophiles want to give me any feedback about any of the components I mentioned above, please do so as I appreciate any feedback you can give me. I am a novice at this so all I know is from the research I have done. Please email me at jeffheld66@earthlink.net. Thanks. When I come back in for my review about the performance of the product, I hope to be able to keep both my ratings at 5 stars.