Philips 42PF9630A HD Plasma - Page 54

My TV is wall mounted on the Omnimount U-3T. I doubt that anything other than a simple surge suppressor would fit behind the set, there's only about 2 inches clearance. Why does it have to be behind the TV?

I have the same wall mount as you. The TV has been wall-mounted for about 6 months. Up until now, I have been running the cord for the tv behind the wall down to the surge protector and outlet. Knowing that doing this is not "code" and potentially a fire hazard (also getting rats about it from others), I had an electrician install a receptacal behind the TV last week. I'd like the surge protector behind the TV so that it is not seen. I'd like to avoid seeing any wires hanging from the wall mounted TV. Please see this forum for pics of my set up.

Nice. I (and others on this forum) solved that problem by using a wall mounted PVC cable runway. You can get about a 5 foot section at Home Depot or Lowes for less than $15. It can be cut to the necessary length and painted or covered to match the wall. It makes a very neat appearance and helped soothe my wife's sensibilities.

As far as I know, running a power cable down the wall doesn't violate electrical code in most states. I know in my state romex is run in residential construction in bare walls with the only restrictions being that it must be secured to the studs, cross plumbing at right angles (as opposed to running with it), etc. An insulated, grounded, 120 electrical plug is just as safe as a piece of romex as long as your wife doesn't start nailing pictures into the wall in the vicinity of where you ran your cord *grin*. Seriously though... I have the same mount and if you don't want to use a surface mount channel and absolutely feel you want conduit, then I would recomment using flexible PVC conduit.

When I had my house built, instead of prewiring it, I pre-conduited it before sheetrock went up in every room on pretty much every wall with Carlon flex giving me attic access to pull cable anywhere in the house to anywhere in the house (specifically my media closet). They make connectors to connect the Carlon tubing and you can cut to length with a hacksaw. Use the electrical boxes w/o the backs to relieve cable strain (the carlon pipe connects to a connector that snaps to the top of the box). I use leviton structured media components for my faceplates and jacks (i.e. component rca push-in style). To keep from having to have a surge protector behind your plasma, just "jump" your power to your plasma. Run a strand of romex behind your tv through the 2nd conduit to give you a dedicated grounded outlet. Instead of tying it into your main power, actually plug it directly into your surge protector elsewhere in your house. Then plug your TV directly into the outlet hidden behind it. Use the omnimount snapon channel to dress the power cord and assorted video cabling to keep it out of the way of the tilt mechanism and out of sight. Remember depending on attic access/etc./you may have to cut a 1' x 2' section out of your wall in key areas to allow drill access in order to get your paddle bit or auger bit through studs or top plates. Sheetrock repair is simple expecially if you still have some paint on hand from the last time your den was painted.

Hi guys, first time posting on the thread. I just received my 50PF9830a this weekend, so far picture looks great.

Few questions:

1) I cannot get Closed captioning to work for my cable, I hooked it up to AV1 via component, and will get it hooked up to HDMI once I get the cable. But I just cannot get CC to work. I heard people can get CC to work on regular cable via coaxial, but I would like to get it to work via component or HDMI as well!

2) The TV was damaged few weeks ago when it first arrived and was repaired (and RE-arrived this weekend). However, I found out that there's no option to select Pixel Plus 2 from the menu. I started another thread asking whether I got scammed from the repairman and got an older panel for replacement, and people suggest maybe it's disabled in the system menu. How do I activate it again?

3) The picture looks great and HD looks great in general. But in HD programming, if i sit really close, I can see tiny green pixels here and there. (what's the name for that?) And also there's sometimes considerable digital noise (depending on signal i guess). How can I minimize those?

Thanks in advance!!

The menu on mine has never shown "pixel plus 2," only "pixel plus." Does yours show "pixel plus?"

yeah.. "Pixel Plus" only. What model is your TV, mlandau?

I also have a 32PF9996 in the bedroom, and that one shows Pixel Plus 2 alright. that's why I am confused.

I have 50PF9830a and I know that one has PP2.

Just a newbie question, is there any PQ difference between the 42PF9630A/37 and the 50PF9630A/37? Does it depend mostly on the viewing distance? What about the build quality?
Thanks you guys.

From what I know, PQ is the same. the only difference is really the size. depending on the viewing distance, if you sit too close to the TV, a 50 inch maybe too big to view comfortably. (basically you have to scan left and right to see the whole picture)

but normal living room size, i think 50 inch is just about right though 42 is good too

No, the only difference is the number of pixels displayed. The 50 inch needing more to cover the additional screen real estate .

Thank you Boxdata and Casey for the replies.

There are tons of information on this thread. I just want to thank everyone for sharing your knowledge and experiences.

I think I'll probably get the 50PF9630A/37. I want to mount the tv on the outside wall but underneath the dry wall is the concrete wall (no studs). Here are the next questions, it seems like the Omnimount U3-T is a good choice, can I use this mount on my concrete wall? What is the best way to install it?

The installation kit comes with Lag Bolts and instructions for mounting on masonry. If not sure of the strength of the masonry, I'd get professional advice.

Comments, anyone?

EDIT- The bolts are 3/8", 3 1/2 " long.

I believe you can use any mount (almost) on any wall... the question is what kind of screws / bolts you use.

if you have to ask the question, i would recommend getting it professionally install. Last time I drilled on concrete.. it took me HOURS to drill a few holes...

make sure you get a hammer drill / masonry bits. people may tell you regular drill is fine, but trust me. get a hammer drill.

Anyways, anyone has comment about my questions above??

Closed captioning on HDMI / component input?
Menu shows pixel plus but not pixel plus 2??>

boxtata....... I have the 50" version of this set, and my menu says pixel plus. But according to the specs, it has pixel plus 2. Can't help you with closed captioning because I don't use it.

I have a Philips 42PF9630A/37 with the firmware version BX23U-1.1.0.0_01461 installed. There appears to be a bug in this version. When I power up the TV, the ACTIVE MODE is always reset to MAXIMUM regardless of any earlier setting (MEDIUM, MINIMUM, NONE, etc) previously input to this menu. Has anyone else noticed this? In addition, if the TV always sets the ACTIVE MODE to the MAXIMUM setting, is it then best to set all the other video settings to 50% and let the ACTIVE MODE adjust the picture?

Hey guys,

Considering this Plasma among about 4 others. This has impressive features and good PQ from what I've seen. The one thing that seems to be missing is a "whitewash" or white screen mode for helping rid/prevent image retention. I looked through the manual and can't find a reference. Does anyone know if this has something to get rid of retention or if they have talked about a firmware update for it?

I was never a fan of the whitewash feature of other plasma displays. Whitewashing a plasma can potentially diminish the brightness life of your panel. I always question the whitewashing of a plasma if only to quickly eliminate image retention which is itself just a temporary problem. Additionally, whitewashing does not fix burn in problems.

[quote=jnorlund]Hey guys,

Considering this Plasma among about 4 others. This has impressive features and good PQ from what I've seen. The one thing that seems to be missing is a "whitewash" or white screen mode for helping rid/prevent image retention. I looked through the manual and can't find a reference. Does anyone know if this has something to get rid of retention or if they have talked about a firmware update for it?[/QUOTE

You wont find any Whitewash references. What Philips did incorporate is an Anti aging circuit to help prevent image retention. However nothing takes the place of doing a proper burnin of the unit.

I got my 42pf9630a last week and have the hd-a1 connected to it thru HDMI. All HD-DVD movies play fine (incredible picture), but playing sd movies thru hdmi does not work most of the time. I think it might be a handshake issue, I would have to stop the disc and hit play again a couple times before I get a picture.

Anyone else experiencing this problem?

My hd cable box is plugged in via HDMI. Recently when i first turn on the tv the picture comes up for maybe 3 seconds then the tv goes black and has a thin green horizontal line that jumps around. As you all know philips tech support reads right out of the faq so they are no help. This only happens in hdmi. Has anyone experienced this problem?

Thanks
John

i hear you man! i had this same problem with my previous 42pf9630a plasma. the one i just exchanged it for (about 6 hours ago) had the hdmi blackout solved, but now the blackout occurs on component from my satelite box. and when it does pass a couple of seconds of picture, the audio cuts out, and the sucker blacks out again.

i don't bother calling tech support since they don't know how to fix it, and just recommend a service center to check it out. looks like i'm going to follow my friend's advice and stay away from philips from now on. at least in regards to plasma's and lcd's. i really wished this set could work since the pq is great. but what good is a great pq, if you can only see it for a couple minutes at the most, before you have to unplug and replug over and over.

i'm sure there are many others with flawless sets, but there are also many with problems. and to me, the cheaper price is not worth the headache of repackaging and returning, then crossing your fingers hoping it will work.....then if it does, crossing your fingers again hoping that it won't screw up later down the line.....even if you do have a great return policy from c0stc0, who wants to spend have their day doing squats by returning and exchanging this set. i sure as heck don't.

Goodness...where to start on all the questions...

Umm...in the menu system it shows up as Pixel Plus (not PP2) on the 9630 (50") and it's big brother. Regardless they all use Pixel Plus 2. Only difference is you have a swivel base, an ethernet port for playing media remotely, and ambilight 2 (which the 9630 can technically have since it does have 2 inverters and it can be activated via the service menu). Maybe after my unit is old and out of warranty I may try swapping the small signal board out for the other one to see if I can add an ethernet port and mp4 playback to my 9630 .

The green speckles are digital artifacts from noise reduction, sharpness, screen expansion, digital contrast, etc., etc., etc. When you are the proper distance away from the set you won't see them and trust me turning on all the image enhancement features really does help out on low-def and poor signals. Some of my off-the-air cable channels almost look like digital cable (low quality) with the enhancements on, but this isn't surprising as my high-end JVC S-VHS uses similar digital noise reduction techniques to give dvd-like quality from VHS and SVHS sources. As for proper settings for everything, you should probably get your set calibrated by a pro or at least use Avia, but I can tell you the Philips defaults are WAAAAYYYY too hot. It defaults to 86 on the contrast, I run mine in the low 50's. The brightness defaults to 44 (I think) which is way to dark (can't see stuff in shadows playing HALO). Again I think around low 50's. The darker you can stand it, the less chance of burn in especially during the first 200 hours or so.

Whitewash is useless. Image retention on this set (so far) is practically nil. I say this after having had an LG 50" first and returning it after having "no signal" ghosts all over the screen (I have pictures) from the screen saver it has. It had serious image retention. Sure I'll have the VERY faint 1" lines on the left and right side of the screen from my PS2 (because PS2 underscans most games) after a night of gaming, but it's gone after 5-10 minutes of normal TV watching. Again...keep the contrast down and you won't have burn in. Worst case...if you HAVE to whitewash, take an NTSC white image and save it as a jpeg on a memory card and then display it using the memory card viewer for 30 minutes to an hour. Poor man's whitewash. Personally I don't think you'll ever need it on this set.

For those keeping up with firmware, there have been a couple more releases. The site shows the same firmware date, but if your read the readme you'll see they incremented the firmware revision, added some stuff, and the new date was 5/15/06. They enabled RRT5 which is no surprise since it's mandated. No EPG still. Gemstar TVGuide is still gone.

I got my first black screen of death. Got it playing PS2 through component cables (in 480i mode). My set is only 3 weeks old by the way. This is a firmware problem. My set had barely been on maybe 30 minutes...nothing special. We were playing a game and the screen went black...no sound, no picture. I thought the PS2 crashed and reset it...but it was the TV. Remote wouldn't do anything...TV wouldn't power on or off...waited for maybe 1-2 minutes and the TV rebooted by itself. Considering all the problems everyone is having...the fact that it's across the board (with units using various PDP screens or ambilight assemblies or power supplies), the only thing in common is the CineOS firmware. I seriously think there is a memory leak or bug or something in the firmware OS that is causing the TV to "crash" and reboot causing the black screen. I'm running the last firmware with the TV guide by the way. Oh...speaking of bugs...anyone hooked up the external digital audio cable yet? When my screen is in standby, it cycles through the channels so I hear the audio from the channels changing through my stereo if I leave it on through the optical out...wierd eh? I haven't tried it with the latest firmware so I suspect it has something to do with the Gemstar guide updating channel information.

I wonder why the Philips people took out the Gemstar guide in the latest firmware incarnations. I wonder why they bothered to add USB2 to the set only to play pictures and mp3 when the firmware is capable of playing back mp4 and other video formats over ethernet (on the high-end unit). It would have been nice if I could plug in my 2.5" HD and play hi-def DIVX clips through the USB2 port. Also, since Philips decided to nuke the firewire ports it would be nice if they would put in generic drivers for USB to firewire adapters or USB to ethernet adapters (yeah...I'm dreaming...) or even an official Philips upgrade part to play network video on the 9630 units. The Toshiba units have an external PVR firewire drive that allows you to timeshift HDTV content. It would have been nice if Philips...since they already bothered to put a USB2 port with ATA drivers...had put a simple HDTV timeshifting system in there to simply store the off-the-air ASTC data (no need to reencode)... I guess what I'm saying is this TV has such a great PQ, the ambilight is really nice, and the price is very competitive....with a little thought in firmware design this set could have been ball-crushing

Does your 42PF9630A have the latest firmware update from Philips? You might try updating/upgrading the firmware to the latest version and see if that helps.

http://www.usasupport.philips.com/pr...ByModelNo=true

In addition, did you try powering off both TV and component-connected device and then power them up (TV first). That might help too.

Hope this info helps.

Boxtata - Ooops!!!! Guess I should check the USA specs before commenting...Looks like they removed the ethernet from the USA version of the 50PF9830A (doh!) since it's not mentioned in the manual as being available as a source in the AV menu. Even bigger question though...what firmware revision are you running???? The Gemstar TVGuide was a feature of the 9830 (which you have right?). Did the latest firmware update remove it from your set, too? If not, can you post your feature codes either off the back of your TV or from the service menu. (Actually post them anyway if you don't mind...I'm curious what feature codes a 9830 has compared to a 9630). If they didn't remove Gemstar from the firmware, I'm curious how they turned it off on all sets except the 9830. If they removed it from all sets including the 9830, why didn't they post a note on their website warning 9830 users that the update would remove the guide? In case you don't have it, type in from your remote 123654. When the CSM menu pops up, use the down key on the paddle to go to page 3. Copy the numbers from line 28 and 29 (Options 1 and Options 2) down and post it to the forum. Thanks.

The ACTIVE MODE issue now appears to be fixed with firmware version BX23U-1.2.0.0_01471 by Philips.

BTW, has anyone else notice any PQ improvement with all these firmware updates?

Thanks.

Well, i just pulled the trigger and bought this plasma from costco online.
My first plasma, first HDTV, actually first tv that wasnt a hand me down.

Cant freaking wait!!!
Now i've got to figure out where its going to go...

yeah price has dropped like every week and sometimes daily from online merchants and Best Buy recently dropped from the already half decent 2500 to $2000.

I knew this was going to happen because the new version is coming out in July. But didn't want to wait anymore and the timing and price was right for me plus even BB says while supplies last so they are definately getting rid of all supply of this model.

now may be the peak time as the price may not drop much more but supply will just start to run out.

I got a good price that still holds up luckily.

so latest firmware though same version # has some minor updates on 5/15/06 from the 4/19/06 version?

yeah even though on the site it still says 4/19/06. The one I have from before which I though was still the newest is
BX23U-1.1.0.0_01461
and has a readme dated/modified 4/5/06

when you dl the new one it is BX23U-1.2.0.0_01471
so definately a new version and again though on site it still says 4/19/06 the readme is dated/modified 5/15/06
Following improvements are made:
Channel map changes of the OOB channel table are reflected in the TV's channel map
Robustness improvement to support streams which have wrongly set Audio Only bit
Solution for sudden audio drop
Audio improvement to avoid click in sound in case of high input signal
Make RRT5 functionality user controllable
Data only channel are filtered out after installation
Give priority to SCTE21 above SCTE 20 compliant captions to prevent duplicate characters in the CC text
Improvement of CC processing on scrambled HD channels

which is all over the previous version so its fairly significant and I wonder why on the site it doesnt' give a you version # until you actually dl it to let you know its new and rather just has the same 4/19/06 date as the last one leaving you to think there hasn't been an update.

Sorry was out for a while. yes, i have the 9830, but I never bother to use the gemstar thing. I remember I did press that button when I first got my TV, but nothing comes out....

I actually connect my STB via HDMI, would the TV guide thingy work this way??

I still didn't get my CC working, though I guess I can get CC from the STB itself.

The network Lan huh, hmmmm I think the connection jack might still be there. How does it work. Can anyone clarify if the LAN thing works in USA? Did philips disable it? or it works but it's just undocumented?

I have bunch of divx in my home network that i would LOVE to play it on my plasma. Anyone else have other ways to do that ? (besides buying a media center PC)
I guess at the minimum i can connect my laptop to the TV via s-video and minijack to RCA sound... but it's just not as graceful.

Anyways, I will check out my TV guide tonite, and I will go to the service menu and post the service code "thingie" tonight.

Thanks, you guys are great help!