Official Polaroid FLM-2632 LCD Thread

I just got this TV a few days ago and have done a little bit of viewing on this thing.

It came well packaged with component cables, composit cable, and rca audio cables. Remote, batteries, base, and even a screw driver and screws to assemble the base onto it.

The picture quality is very good on this thing. Of course it took some tweeking to get it right, but I got the black level at a decent spot I can live with. With the right settings, the color looks very natural. I did notice some minor color banding in some sources, like Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures on PBS.

The contrast and sharpness was set really high out of the box. By reducing the sharpness to the minimum level, it improved the picture and the text stayed crisp.

1080i looks pretty good on this TV. I am also impressed with the 720p from FOX and my Xbox (XBMC). I have some custom near high def encodings I've made that looked exceptionally well on the TV. Despite the fact these encodings were only 960x720 animorphic encodings of 1080i TV shows, it looked just as good as the 1080i shows. I really enjoy the 1366x768 resolution of this TV.

The digital tuner seems pretty good. It doesn't seem to support QAM although I didn't expect it to. Turning channels is pretty fast. A small antenna laying behind the TV picked up most of the local channels (all within 7 miles). It seems to pick up the PSIP information pretty well. I like how it displays what is coming on and provides a nice guide. However the guide only shows info about a single channel at a time.

The analog tuner is very nice also. The cable channels came in very clear and the deinterlacing isn't too bad. Although I did see jittery artifacts on TNT. Switching and scanning channels was blazing fast. Obviously, all the ntsc channels seemed blurry compared to atsc.

The picture in picture (PIP) and picture and picture (side by side) is a nice feature but not sure how practical it can be (football season?).

Switching inputs is cumbersome. Instead of just using a single button to toggle through the inputs, you must bring up an input menu, then use the arrows to select the imput, and finally push enter. That takes way to long. It is almost quicker to swap using PIP.

The sound is absolutely horrendous and was pretty much unbearable to me. I ended up hooking some old yamaha computer speakers to the headphone jack. It sounded much better, but not great even though I know those yamaha speakers can have better sound. Since the headphone jack was on the side of the TV, I had to place the speaker either in front of the jack or behind the jack.

This TV has a noticable buzz to it. The TV is near a major traffic area in the house so you must walk past it to get anywhere. Any time you walk past it, the buzzing noise is noticably loud. In front of the TV, this buzz can be heard as well. However, we did have to turn the HVAC off and mute the TV to hear it from about 8 feet away.

I will attempt to live with the buzzing noise for a while but I intend to return this TV as the buzzing sound and the sound quality will most likely be an issue for me. I found this TV at Circuit City and bought it in store. The saleskid really tried to push the extended warrenty on me and forced me to say no multiple times.

I hooked my PC up to this thing using VGA cable. I let my dad have my DVI-HDMI cable so I didn't have one. It took me a few hours using powerstrip to get the TV to sync at 1366x768 using a Radeon 9200. However, it appers that it is actually sending 1360x768 because a small area just righ of the center of the screen is a bit blurry. The rest, 80 percent of the screen is perfect 1:1 pixel mapping. I watched some HD content and a DVD through the VGA port and quality was quite high depsite not having 100% perfect 1:1 pixel mapping. It appears without using a digital cable and a nVidia card, it would be hard to get 100% pixel mapping.

I'm still disappointed with the buzzing, as I can hear it even with 7 hard drives whirling away near it.

check out the flm 3232 thread. it seems that some buzz and some don 't. mine buzzes a bit when i turn it on, but it stops after about 4 seconds. very strange.

I just got my 2632 from circuit city last week. I am having trouble with my DVI-HDMI connection at resolutions of 1360x768 and 1368x768. The picture quality isn't bad, but there are hanging pixels everywhere which are especially noticeable when looking at pictures. I tried using Powerstrip, but I was unable to find timings for this TV.

Here are my (important) computer specs:
Athlon 3800+ Dual Core
ATI x850 Graphics Card with DVI to HDMI cable
Windows XP

My questions for other 2632 owners are:

1. How do you connect your PC to the television?

2. If you use Powerstrip, what are your settings?

3. Has anyone tried the ATI dongle? (DVI to component converter)

P.S. My TV only buzzes when i turn it on and off. I guess I got lucky.

Does anyone knows if the Polaroid FLM-2632 is wall mountable? Is it VESA compliance? Thanks

Yes, it's wall mountable.

I am currently using my VGA out on my ATI 9600 Pro but was going to try a DVI to HDMI cable from Monoprice. I also wanted to play aroundwith Powerstrip. The VGA connection is pretty solid but the text is just barely off. Enough to be noticable but not too annoying. I got an Acoustic Research cable from BB just to try out the DVI to HDMI and it sucked hard. There was a ton of noise.

A general question: What's the point of using component cable adapter if you have a VGA out on your card? The same RGB info should be carried on the VGA connection, right? Good luck. Ryan

Whoops, I just became a little more educated and realized you cannot use the DVI to HDMI connection as it carries different info than the TV needs. I'm going to try the ATI adapter route and I'll let you know of the results. ** Ryan

Don't buy the component dongle...it won't work, i tried. Now i have a worthless adapter! agh. I talked to another member in the forum who advised 1:1 pixel mapping can only be achieved with the VGA cable.

I'm running my DVI-HDMI cable at a resolution of 1280x720. I set the aspect ratio to full/wide and it works pretty well. This is the best I can get my computer display to work. VGA doesn't look sharp to me.

Not sure where to post this but it seems that this TV can accept 1080p via component cables even though the panel is only 1366x768 native. On my Xbox 360, there's a substantial difference between passing either 720p/1080i signal in that at 1080p the aspect ratio doesn't need changing. Pixel mapping appears to be 1:1. Text on the dashboard is smooth and WMV HD trailers at 1080p really look 1080p (although I don't have a native 1080p set to test this observation against). Running that same 1080p trailer in 720p results in minor details getting lost. Games (most significantly Gears of War) appear to benefit from upscaling.

Anyway, I have two questions. Is this a fluke? And, if my Xbox 360 can pass a 1080p signal through component (through VGA it will not work), is it possible to get my computer to pass a similar signal (Powerstrip or otherwise?)? I have an ATI X700 Pro AGP card and have the HDTV (component) dongle. Currently I'm hooked up using a DVI-HDMI adapter and running at 1280x720@60Hz.

Thanks to whomever can shed some light on this.

If you send the LCD a 1280x720p signal (either over VGA or DVI) does it use 1:1 pixel-mapping, albeit with small black margin on all sides? or does it stretch it to it's native resolution? Is there a menu option to toggle it?

Similarly, if you connect it to a computer, what resolution does the computer detect -- 1360x768 ? And if you just use the detected resolution (no Powerstrip!) does the LCD use 1:1 ?

Is there any difference between the FLM-2632 and the FLM-2634B besides the front colors? I'm getting one of them for the motor home. Haven't decided if I'll get a DVD player or just use the s-video from the laptop

Anyone hear anything on how common speaker failure is on the FLM 3732/B 37" LCD? I'm using external speakers, but it was disconcerting having no sound from the left side speakers.

Has anyone figured out the proper timing settings yet? I've got the thing working 1360x768 (TV claims 1366x768).

Looks great, just have blurry text in spots.

I set my FLM2632 to turn on using the timer. Somehow, the timer can only turn the TV on to regular air/cable channel instead of HDTV channel. My TV has no reception at all with regular TV. Has anyone try this to see if the TV is made that way? The timer function can be accessed in the menu under set up/timer

Question: I have the 26" FLM-2634B and I can't get the tv audio to route into my receiver. I have my VCR and DVD player going video IN to the tv and I have the audio routed directly from my VCR and DVD to my receiver. I have the RCA audio out on the tv routed to my receiver, but the audio only comes through the tv and isn't played by my stereo system. Is there a way that I have to disable the audio on the tv? I can't find a menu option for this and the manual doesn't say anything about it, either. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Does anyone else out there who owns this set have the problem that it doesn't properly map PSIP and show program guide for some channels. When I first bought my set last fall, it was not mapping one local station. Then it seemed to lose others with each new scan. Eventually, I contact Polaroid and they ended up replacing the set with a new one. The new one does not map several channels properly either.

Is this a design flaw with this set or a software issue that is known?

OK. I apologize if this is a dead thread, but I have one of these sets, and have decided to mount it on the wall, now that I've moved into a new house.
I believe I've heard of some folks finding Peerless brand mounts that fit this set, but I've been looking at some of the mounts on monoprice, and the price is much more attractive for one of their swivel-mounts.
I'm dead certain that the mounting holes are not VESA compliant. I seem to remember something along the lines of 423 mm (don't have my notes in front of me, at work right now).
I'm still kind of waiting for Howard from Monoprice to email me back re: this issue and compatibility.
Just want to know how many other folks out there have run into similar issues, and where they got their mounts.
Thanks.
Mike

OK, again working with a dead thread, but I know a couple of people were just as curious about this as I was.
the FLM 2632 actually IS VESA compliant, but at 400x200 according to Polaroid.com.
Sure enough, I bought a monoprice tilting mount for this sucker and it works out just fine. Can't see it from around the back of the screen or anything.
I'm very happy with the results.
I hope this helps other people.
Mike

Somewhat like Carltonrice (#18) I never could get PSIP info on Portland, OR ch 2 KATU (ABC) which is physically broadcast (OTA) on RF 43. The picture & sound are great, tuned at RF43, but it should map to 2.1. A Sharp TV in the house on the same antenna gets KATU PSIP info fine so I suspect this receiver/decoder is persnickety or won't reset once bad info was once entered. I have tried unplugging the antenna, rescan to -0- stations in memory, unplug electricity for several minutes, then replug in everything and rescan but KATU still shows up as RF43.
I've repeated this periodically to exorcise this gremlin. When I did it last week I also lost ch 8 KGW (NBC) to it's physical location RF46.1 & RF46.2 Polaroid tech support has never even heard of PSIP or physical/virtual channels and were clueless and of no help. I first reported this under warranty and they refused to authorize warranty repair, claiming it wasn't a problem! Anyone have any success cleaning out the memory on this set? I found the factory setup by holding vol+ and ch+ on the set; there is a "clear all" spot but I am afraid to press it until I know just what is cleared under "clear all". Any one out there know what "Clear All" does on this set? Thanks

In case anyone else is looking for a replayTV code for this TV, 0019 worked for me.

Well,
My thoughts on the FLM Series units. Are that the audio from the speakers on the unit is
awful cheap flat. If I had to discribe the sound would be Alarm clock speakers. Also that the sound output from the tv is sent out after being processed by the audio on the TV which in turn is useless and flat sounding no matter what.
As for the PSIP remapping not happening on this one or maybe half and half. I don't think that really matters on it anyway. Oh the video does look ok for a low end unit. Maybe looks a little better after adjusting it with a Calibration dvd. Nice that it does remember the User Settings per input on the TV. Other than the flat audio processing from the tv and the off chance of the NTSC Turner dying on it and making the tv ring/buzz. I would say its ok for its class.