Is there any way to fix the overscan problem on the Phillips 30PW9100D HDTV? A lot of the information and picture is cut off on the top, bottom and sides and I was curious if there a simple fix to this? Below is the HDTV which I have.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Philips_30PW9100D_CRT_TV_30/4505-6481_7-31420586.html

moved

To get to the SAM (Service ...something.. Menu), I type 062596 [Info] (while in analog mode) and then you can go to Geometry where there are a plethora of options to change.

My biggest problem with this set is the "ghosting" I experience. Does yours have any of that?

To get to the SAM (Service ...something.. Menu), I type 062596 [Info] (while in analog mode) and then you can go to Geometry where there are a plethora of options to change.

My biggest problem with this set is the "ghosting" I experience. Does yours have any of that?

my tv ghosts as well.

i'm not sure how to fix this.. do you have any clue?

im going to be calling philips tomorrow morning about this. i got this tv unit TODAY! :/

I returned mine, mostly because of the ghosting, but also because it turned off on me and wouldn't turn back on. I got my money back and picked up the Symphonic WF32L6. It's an LCD and it's only a little more ($600 MSRP) than the Philips.

Sorry for responding so late. Still no luck with the overscan issue. Any more suggestions or advice?

I returned mine, mostly because of the ghosting, but also because it turned off on me and wouldn't turn back on. I got my money back and picked up the Symphonic WF32L6. It's an LCD and it's only a little more ($600 MSRP) than the Philips.


hahah, i did the same exact thing with the philips, and also got the same LCD, i couldnt be happier now

So I have the PHILIPS 9110D model a little newer than 9100D, but I have big overscaning, there's the pics below as you can see! So does anyone know what #s should I put in for the geometry settings at the service menu to get it right??? Did anyone did this with this or an older model yet, how did it go???

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a22/shurik355/DSC02155.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a22/shurik355/DSC02153.jpg

^^^ anyone??

So I guess no one did!?

If your set's under warranty... call for service.

If your set's under warranty... call for service.

I did! A Philips technician came down here and said "ahhhhh this is not a TVs problem, it's the PS3s not proper 16:9 ratio!" I was like okkk! how is this not a TVs overscan, it's on all 16:9 channals as well not just on gaming! He was like ohhh it's a common thing there's nothing wrong with it! So he refused to fix it by proving me that this is a normal thing all TVs suffer!

So I gave my hopes away and decided to ask you guys, if you could help me!

Shurik,

I have the exact same model TV you do, and When I play the XB 360 through it I get the same overscannng - I only notice it on a few games because of the game's HUD (in Marvel Ultimate Alliance it drove me crazy).
I noticed it also happens in regular DVD movies (I have an upconvert DVD player going through the HDMI port). So it's gotta be something with the TV.

My TV is still under extended warranty to I'll call Phillips and see if they can get a tech to look at it - hopefully I won't get the same response as you did from your tech. :) I don't want to go in the service menu for fear of really messing up the TV.

Oh and my roomate's brother brought over his PS3 and hooked it up to my TV so I can see how it looks on my TV, and we noticed the exact same thing as your screenshot of The Playstation Store. I didn't notice it in Resistance or any of the other demos he had.. Didn't try Grand Tourismo demo.
Also, do you run your PS3 through HDMI? That's how I hooked it up on my TV, and it would not play any BluRay movies. My roomate's brother said something that the HDMI port on the TV is not HDCP compliant or something, and it won't work until Sony fixes it in a firmware upgrade..

Shurik,

I have the exact same model TV you do, and When I play the XB 360 through it I get the same overscannng - I only notice it on a few games because of the game's HUD (in Marvel Ultimate Alliance it drove me crazy).
I noticed it also happens in regular DVD movies (I have an upconvert DVD player going through the HDMI port). So it's gotta be something with the TV.

My TV is still under extended warranty to I'll call Phillips and see if they can get a tech to look at it - hopefully I won't get the same response as you did from your tech. :) I don't want to go in the service menu for fear of really messing up the TV.

Oh and my roomate's brother brought over his PS3 and hooked it up to my TV so I can see how it looks on my TV, and we noticed the exact same thing as your screenshot of The Playstation Store. I didn't notice it in Resistance or any of the other demos he had.. Didn't try Grand Tourismo demo.
Also, do you run your PS3 through HDMI? That's how I hooked it up on my TV, and it would not play any BluRay movies. My roomate's brother said something that the HDMI port on the TV is not HDCP compliant or something, and it won't work until Sony fixes it in a firmware upgrade..

Thanks for the response! yeah defenately keep me updated on how it will go with your TV when tech will come by! I'll also try calling again and ask another tech to come over and fix this problem.
Well I did play my PS3 with the HDMI cable! I didn't play Blue Ray DVDs though, just didn't try. But I did use if for the games and I couldn't tell any difference from the regular blue, green component HD cable!

BTW when you put your TV on mute, is your mute icon cut half way on top of the screen as well? If yess that's weird, why did Philips didn't correct that?

Thanks for the response! yeah defenately keep me updated on how it will go with your TV when tech will come by! I'll also try calling again and ask another tech to come over and fix this problem.
Well I did play my PS3 with the HDMI cable! I didn't play Blue Ray DVDs though, just didn't try. But I did use if for the games and I couldn't tell any difference from the regular blue, green component HD cable!

BTW when you put your TV on mute, is your mute icon cut half way on top of the screen as well? If yess that's weird, why did Philips didn't correct that?

OK, I will call them tomorrow after work to see if I can get a tech to come out here.

Please try playing a BluRay movie via HDMI and let me know if it works. I think the one we tried was Kingdom of Heaven.

When I put my TV on mute, I don't notice the icon halfway cut on the top. it is touching the edge of the screen though, and I can read the "MUTE" letters. It always stays in the same place whenever I toggle the aspect ratio.

OK, I will call them tomorrow after work to see if I can get a tech to come out here.

Please try playing a BluRay movie via HDMI and let me know if it works. I think the one we tried was Kingdom of Heaven.

When I put my TV on mute, I don't notice the icon halfway cut on the top. it is touching the edge of the screen though, and I can read the "MUTE" letters. It always stays in the same place whenever I toggle the aspect ratio.

Yeah I guess I might call them up again as well! They might ignore me this time, but who knows!
yeah I'll try watching my Blue ray DVD with HDMI, see how it'll work!

Hey btw do you have a ghosting images problem on the TV? and those ghosting vertical moving lines when you watch something on 1080i resolution? If yes try telling him to fix it as well when tech will come in! See what he'll say!
Well keep me updated bro! Seeya

I had this tv for about three months before retuning it for a sony xbr970. I fixed the over scan issue my self using a sevice manual i found on a differnt thread. it is technical but fairly easy to correct the over scan, but the PQ on my set was worse than my old standard def. I had bought the CC extended waranty and after three sevrice calls the PQ was unbearable, so I just returned it. :(

Shurik, I don't notice any ghosting images on my TV.. Keep me posted on the PS3 HDMI movies.

outatime2001, can you link to the service manual? I may have to resort to it if the Philips Tech won't fix it. Thanks.

Shurik, I don't notice any ghosting images on my TV.. Keep me posted on the PS3 HDMI movies.

outatime2001, can you link to the service manual? I may have to resort to it if the Philips Tech won't fix it. Thanks.

Well ok I pluged my HDMI back to check if I can watch BD DVDs! And yes I can view the BD DVDs with the HDMI imput on my Philips, but for some reason it didn't want to work from the beginning? When I tryed entering the disk the TV screen just went black and didn't show anything from the beginning! I tried doing the same thing a couple times and finally it started working!!! Now it works perfectly fine!

Well any new updates with your Philips?

Well ok I pluged my HDMI back to check if I can watch BD DVDs! And yes I can view the BD DVDs with the HDMI imput on my Philips, but for some reason it didn't want to work from the beginning? When I tryed entering the disk the TV screen just went black and didn't show anything from the beginning! I tried doing the same thing a couple times and finally it started working!!! Now it works perfectly fine!

Well any new updates with your Philips?

So you just played the movies a few times and it worked all of a sudden, or did you skip chapters? Did you try multiple movies?

I called Phillips and they had a local repair shop who I've dealt with in the past (that I didn't care for) call me on Thursday, left a message and I've called them back a few times with no answer. I'm going to call Phillips again to request help from another repair shop.

So you just played the movies a few times and it worked all of a sudden, or did you skip chapters? Did you try multiple movies?

I called Phillips and they had a local repair shop who I've dealt with in the past (that I didn't care for) call me on Thursday, left a message and I've called them back a few times with no answer. I'm going to call Phillips again to request help from another repair shop.
Yeah the BD DVD works now! I only have one BD DVD so that's the only one I can watch, but I'm prett sure it will play the rest perfectly fine! I didn't skip chapters to make it work! There's the thread I read yesterday about this same problem ppl come across when they try doing the same thing! Some TVs need to be set up in order to play BD DVDs with HDMI connection, but some don't have that problem! It's like the TV and the PS3 adopt together when HDMI is used! It'll eventually work of course!

One way I can tell for sure that my TV has overscannning issues is to use the THX Optimizer tools that comes on a bunch of different DVDs (I have it on the Who Framed Roger Rabbit DVD). Anyways, when I play it on my TV, I can't see the left border at all, the other borders are really close to the edge. i Ihink there's supposed to be a 1/2 inch leeway on each edge.
This only happens in HD CVI or HDMI modes. The regular analog or digital tuners are fine.

Sinister, so did the tech come in to do the work for the TV?

BTW if the overscan will be fixed on the HD modes, will the regular anolog underscan ow what? You see what I mean?

No he didn't fix the TV yet. I spoke with them and thy have to see when they can fit me in to the schedule.. Hopefully soon.

And I think they can fix the overscan on certain video inputs, I think if they change it on one, it won't change on all.

You know when I called them! I told them about this overscan issure that I have, and they were like "a what, what issue?" They didn't even know what an overscan is!
The last time the tech came in here he told me that it was the PS3s issue not the TVs! I showed him some HD channals with the overscan and he was like "ohhh and this is all up to the stations, how they'll deliver the channal stats." he told me sooo much BS that I was lost, he started to educate me on things that my brain couldn't even catch up to at that time when he was talking!
Well how did you explain to them about this issue?

I just told them on some inputs that the picture is larger than is should be, it bleeds over the edge of rthe screen so you can't see the edges.

If they try that with me (saying its the fault of the Xbox 360) well I will plug my XB into my monitor when I'm here and show them. Also I have an HDMI DVD player to show them that it's the fault of the TV, not devices.

You should get another tech to come and look at your issue and call Philips that it's not fixed, and request a tech to come from a differnt repair shop so you're sure to get a differnt person.

Ok thanks bro, I'll try calling them sometime soon again! Keep me updated as well!

Ok I called Philips for another tech service! They said they'll call me Friday for the apointment! I hope they'll send different tech this time, and fix this annoying problem!

Well any updates with your thing?

Ok, Television Services the only place around here that agreed to come to the house and check out my TV's problem last time, called today and said something that made me REALY PISSED!!!! They said that "this overscan or whatever that is needs to be fixed at our place, we need to hook it up to the computer and run the TV through to see if it has an overscan or etc.!" I was speechless!!!! How hard is it to see if 3" of the image of all the sides is being cut off (overscaned)???? They've been here before, they saw it,.........aaaaaahhhhhhhhh are they freacking newbs or something, can't even come and calibrate this simple problem that many ppl can fix on their own? I mean you get into the service menu and change the #s! The only thing that kept me from doing it on my own, is I didn't want to void the warranty!
Ohhhh how tired and mad I'm from those "proffesional technicians" that can't fix and don't even know what that simple thing is!

OK, I'm on the mission for fixing this thing myself!

Is there any way to fix this overscan problem myself, without the OEM remote?

Is there any way to fix this overscan problem myself, without the OEM remote?
Without the remote no! You need to have a remote to adjust the screen! But how to adjust the screen properly is something I'm trying to get around myself! :(

Well, the technicians finaly came out here today and looked at the TV, and they said they could try to fix the geometry settings, but they can't fix it per input. In other words, if they fix it on the HDMI/CVI settings, then the regular over the air HD will be off.
I was under the impression that you could have specific geometry settings per input, but I guess not. Can someone clarify this before I call Philips back?

Well, the technicians finaly came out here today and looked at the TV, and they said they could try to fix the geometry settings, but they can't fix it per input. In other words, if they fix it on the HDMI/CVI settings, then the regular over the air HD will be off.
I was under the impression that you could have specific geometry settings per input, but I guess not. Can someone clarify this before I call Philips back?
That's what I thought! I was thinking about the same thing, if you fix it for the HDMI CVI imputs then the rest will underscan! BUT no no, the problem is that the rest of the channals are overscaned as well, did you not notice that? So
Sinistar, plus I've talked to some people who fixed this and they never mentioned anything about this, so call them up again and tell them to fix it, cause this problem is not only in the HDMI, CVI, but overall as well!

Well seems like I'm gonna fix this problem myself, cause my techs are complete stupid!

I'll try to get Philips to send a technician from another repair company and see what they say. But I'm only having problems with CVI and HDMI, nothing else. You are having problems with all inputs?

Let me know how you fix your problem yourself, so I can do the same.

I'll try to get Philips to send a technician from another repair company and see what they say. But I'm only having problems with CVI and HDMI, nothing else. You are having problems with all inputs?

Let me know how you fix your problem yourself, so I can do the same.

Hmmmm you don't have overscan with the other imputs??? You never notice that when you're watching a football or some kind of event with 16:9, I see that some info is behind the screen? You sure that your TV deosn't overscan there, because I can tell that my D-channals are overscaned as well! I can tell that some picture is out there on most of the channals, but on some channals it's hard to tell, it depends on what you're watching!
Well I managed to get Service Manual for 9110D model! I found a good person here who sent it to me through gmail! The serivce manual is quite big, 13MB!
Well if you have gmail I can upload it there and send it to you, or if you have any other ideas let me know!

Yeah I don't notice it in regular HDTV mode. It doesnt seem to overscan that much at all.
The ticker at the bottom of the news is OK, I don't watch too many sports so i don't notice it that much.
Let me know if you can correct your issues with the service manual you received in your gmail.
I want to make sure it works before I try to fix it myself. :)

Yeah I don't notice it in regular HDTV mode. It doesnt seem to overscan that much at all.
The ticker at the bottom of the news is OK, I don't watch too many sports so i don't notice it that much.
Let me know if you can correct your issues with the service manual you received in your gmail.
I want to make sure it works before I try to fix it myself. :)
OK I'll let you know!

Shurik, any luck on fixing your TV?

Shurik, any luck on fixing your TV?
I'm gonna try fixing it this week! Here we go...

OK, I hope you can fix it. :P

Ok the overscan is fixed, yahoooo it's looking very good right now, almost perfect. Well it wansn't really hard at all, it just takes some time to see what you need to change/mess with and what should be left alone. I'll explain everything in detail a little later.
I'll also post a picture of the before and after so it's visible how it's looking now. :) I just can't believe some TV techs didn't even know how to fix this simple thing.

Good thing you fixed yours. :)
I finally got the TV repair show that Philips recommended to fix my TV.. They said they fixed it and hopefully will deliver it back the next few days.. *crosses fingers*

Good thing you fixed yours. :)
I finally got the TV repair show that Philips recommended to fix my TV.. They said they fixed it and hopefully will deliver it back the next few days.. *crosses fingers*
ohhh good, so the techs picked your TV already and about to return it? Well even if they wouldn't fix it, it's pretty easy to fix it by yourself. All this time I was affraid to touch something in the service manual under geometry, but it's hard to mess up if you have written everything down.
Well Sinistar post some pics if possible when the TV returns, I want to see how good of a job those techs did.

Also remember how those techs told you that this had to be done per unit/mode? Well I only changed everything in the analog mode, cause that's the only place where you can change settings, and now it's looking good everywhere; game mode, DVD mode, digital channels, etc. Seems like that overscan was the same per unit, cause it's only possible to access these stettings only in the analog mode. And once you change it there it will effect the rest of the units the way it should, cause it overscans the same everywhere around.

Here are some comparison pics.

before
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a22/shurik355/DSC02155.jpg

after
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a22/shurik355/DSC03048.jpg

before
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a22/shurik355/DSC02153.jpg

after
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a22/shurik355/DSC03056.jpg

Cool thanks for the pics.. :)

If they don't fix mine, then can you post a full step by step how you fixed it so I can fix it myself? :P

Cool thanks for the pics.. :)

If they don't fix mine, then can you post a full step by step how you fixed it so I can fix it myself? :P
Yes I'll gladly help if you'll need any help. :)

How do you fix it?! Please teach me! I just got the TV today(the $260+ deal). It overscan too.

Can you also send me the service manual? Thanks!

I have a similar problem with a Philps 32PW9520, in my case it seems to be a slight underscan issue in the right edge of the picture. The set is way past the warranty period. The service mode tells it has been used 6700 hours, no errors have been recorded. Visually the picture is great apart from this issue.

Like previous posters, I'm taking the warning that is presented when entering service mode very seriously. I'm certainly not one of those "authorized service personnel" for which this mode was intended and quite frankly I have only some foggy ideas what some of those parameters mean. If there only was a simple horizontal alignment like the vertical alignment that is accessible in user mode... no such luck.

Since it should be the same parameters involved here, it would be much appreciated if you could share this information. If I was forced to guess it would be "H Shift" and "H Amplitude" but I'd hate to screw up this fine machine by guessing wrong. Also, I have no idea if there are any potential risks when doing this particular adjustment - who knows, maybe the issue could be caused by an aging component that is about to blow if given some more juice or something... :)

Thanks in advance for any input!

If anyone would like to give some useful input here I would be very thankful.

Presumably, it doesn't matter very much which particular Philips model you know of, only that it reasonably modern. It is the meaning of the different parameters that would be useful to know here, for people like me to replicate the successful adjustments boasted about in this thread.

What service menu parameters are involved?

Please...

If anyone would like to give some useful input here I would be very thankful.

Presumably, it doesn't matter very much which particular Philips model you know of, only that it reasonably modern. It is the meaning of the different parameters that would be useful to know here, for people like me to replicate the successful adjustments boasted about in this thread.

What service menu parameters are involved?

Please...
Well the ones that were the most involved in fixing overscan on our set were: Vertical Shift (VSH), and East West Width (EWW, since there weren't Horizontal shift for some reason). I also tweaked some other ones to perfect the image to how it should've been.
I don't know maybe your service menu is a bit different from ours, since you have LCD, but who knows!
There aren't really potential risks by getting into the service menu, you just have to know what you can touch and what you can not. I only changed my geometry, nothing more, and that seems to be the easiest thing to change/fix. Everything else I wouldn't touch unless you know what you're doing.
BTW if you're changing something, make sure you're writing down the stock/OE information before changing.

Thanks a lot, Shurik! I feel more confident now. This set is a CRT by the way, a couple of years old. I'll give it a try after having taken notes of the original values.

The only thing that could be problematic, potentially, would be if the picture becomes screwed up so bad that I cannot read the display for adjusting it back to where it was. Is there a fool-proof way of resetting the parameters in that case? I noticed there was a menu item for storing the values and if they are not stored it seems logical that you should be able to perform a "rollback" somehow.

Thanks a lot, Shurik! I feel more confident now. This set is a CRT by the way, a couple of years old. I'll give it a try after having taken notes of the original values.

The only thing that could be problematic, potentially, would be if the picture becomes screwed up so bad that I cannot read the display for adjusting it back to where it was. Is there a fool-proof way of resetting the parameters in that case? I noticed there was a menu item for storing the values and if they are not stored it seems logical that you should be able to perform a "rollback" somehow.
If the picture becomes srewed up just change the values back to the OE numbers and you'll bring everything back to how it was. (the menu options don't change visually only picture does) There's no reset option, well at least on our/this set, and if we want to store the data we just power off the TV and it's all set. Since yours is a bit older you might have a little different options that we do.

Brilliant! There was no need to worry really, piece of cake just like you said Shurik! Went into the Geometry section and noted the values for the normal picture format and the also the values for the three other picture formats (4:3, SW [stretched-wide?], 100 Hz line-doubling) as they are overriding a subset of the normal parameters. Changes in the "Geo-normal" section affects picture properties also in the other picture modes which means all modes must be adjusted.

The only parameter that seemed like a bad thing to mess with was V Slope: I increased the value from 44 to 45 => the picture was cut in half and there was also a weird sound like from the line generator circuit in really old and shabby sets. I got a little nervous since it didn't respond immediately when I set it back to where it was, but after like 10 seconds the picture snapped back to normal and the weird sound disappeared. Maybe this is a parameter that is to be maximized and that it was at its optimal setting already, who knows.

Apart from that little mishap, the rest of the parameters seems pretty safe. They are also self-explanatory what they do judging from visual results of changes. It is of course very helpful if you have a test-picture with a suitable pattern but this time I had to settle with normal tv-programming. I'll make some final fine-tuning late some night when they broadcast a test picture, it seems to be very possible to achieve perfect geometry since all relevant aspects of the picture can be adjusted so easily.

I'm extremely satisfied with the results. Also corrected vertical overscan which was much larger than I thought. Actually, I ended up adjusting most parameters in the geometry section, thrilled to see how just about every little "beauty-flaw" I had learned to accept and live with could be corrected in seconds!

One thing puzzled me, though. After the adjustment was finished and I stored the values by choosing this option in the service menu, I shut off the set with the remote to leave the service mode. When starting the set again there was a black rectangle in the picture, like an empty text strip. It was on all inputs. The black strip disappeared after I had disconnected it from mains for a minute or so, all parameter changes were retained when it was turned on again.

Although this set is a Philips PW9520 it should be pretty evident that much of these geometric adjustments work in the same way across different models.

Thanks for all help and inspiration!

Hi, would you guys help me please!! I am having the same problem with my ps3, the picture shurik posted with the ps store is the same as my tv shows it.. Would you tell me please how to get into the service manual, or could you send it to me!! I WOULD REALLY REALLY APPRECIATE IT A LOT!!!!!! THANK YOU

Hi, would you guys help me please!! I am having the same problem with my ps3, the picture shurik posted with the ps store is the same as my tv shows it.. Would you tell me please how to get into the service manual, or could you send it to me!! I WOULD REALLY REALLY APPRECIATE IT A LOT!!!!!! THANK YOU
Kracker sorry I didn't respond right away, don't really hang out here that often. well send me your gmail adress and I'll try sending the service manual to you.
If you need any help, you can just PM me, that would be much quicker for me to respond.

Hi everyone. :) Sinistar: Your overscanning problem is by no means unique. In many ways, the tech guy was quite right. Virtually ALL TVs overscan - but it is generally not so obvious when watching broadcast TV, because all shows are shot with overscan in mind, so the cameraman shoots everything within a 'safe region' to ensure that important parts of the picture don't fall into the overscan area around the edge (i.e. off the edge of your TV screen).
The reason overscan was originally introduced into TVs, was because early TVs suffered a 'ballooning' effect as the brightness of the picture fluctuated. Imagine a picture drawn on the side of an inflated balloon that can magically get brighter and darker. As it gets brighter, the balloon fills up with air, stretching the picture. As it gets darker, the balloon deflates, shrinking the picture. Overscanning was introduced to prevent the picture from shrinking to smaller than the TV screen, and revealing often a distorted picture edge, as this would be perceived by the viewer as a technical fault (although personally, like you, I would rather it shrank too small, rather than be losing bits off the sides).
Overscan is still used today on the vast majority of TVs (HD and standard res) to remain consistent with those early shows, and modern shows are still to this day shot with overscan in mind.
So, when the technician said there's nothing wrong with your TV, essentially he was right, as the overscan is completely intended.
The overscan would not likely be different for each input. It's a central setting that would affect anything going into it. As well as being able to change the overscan in service mode, you can also get DVD players that have an UNDERscan setting, to offset the TV's overscan. But the only real solution is to get into your TV's service mode, and adjust it (or have a tech guy do it for you - but since it's not a 'fault', I doubt it would be adjusted for free under warranty - but you never know).
I'm looking into how to do this for my TV now, as I do find the overscan annoying too.
Good luck to you. :)

(And I just realised this thread is about 2 years old - d'oh!)

I got that Tv how do i fix it

NVM i got it