Philips Modea PFL Series (1 Viewer)

This set was a bit of an impulse purchase when I was in Target last week. It’s an HDTV LCD for the kitchen, so it doesn’t need to be picture perfect, but nevertheless I’d like to have it close.

The first one was returned two days later (last Friday) because the image in all sources was stretched vertically. I noticed it on an OTA HD signal and verified it with the test patterns on VE/Avia. Last night was the first chance I had to setup the replacement and noticed that it too had the same issue.

A quick search of the ‘net got me the service menu code of 062596 [menu] or [info] or [Exit] or [View] - I’ve tried all the combinations, but that sequence doesn’t seem to work on this set. I did see a place to put a jumper on the back panel, but I was not about to try that blindly without the service manual in hand! I know it will only take a few minutes to adjust this in the service menu, and I have adjusted overscan dozens of times with other manufacture’s sets. Any ideas?

Normally I would purchase the service manual for these things, but right now I’m just evaluating whether or not it’s going to meet my needs and with the geometry distorted vertically, it’s a pretty hard thing to do!

The 2nd issue I have is with the “PC,” “HDMI,” “Side”, etc. inputs. I have the HD/SD OTA channels I want selected in the preferred list, but how do I deselect the “PC,” “HDMI,” “Side”, etc. inputs? Whenever you flip through the channels these inputs, and there are about 6-7 of them that aren’t going to have anything connected to them, appear at the end of the list.

Thanks for your help.


Tony

hi
Philips is making a great LCD panel
there is nothing wrong with the display, you need to take it out of zoom mode.
No idea on the input deselect, perhaps looking at the user manual would be beneficial.

Regards
Gregg

Thanks for the suggestions.

It doesn't appear to be in zoom mode - on a 16x9 HD picture I can cycle between "automatic" and "widescreen," with no change in vertical height or picture size and all the other format option are grayed out. On a 4x3 SD image I can cycle through several format options, some of them applying quite a bit of distortion to the picture in an attempt to "fill the screen", but even selecting "4x3" for a 4x3 picture the image is stretched vertically out of scale.

Unfortunately, the user manual is pretty sparse, and gives very little detail. I was hoping someone may have already been down this path and I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel.



Tony

then ensure that your OTA receiver and DVD player are set to 16x9 mode.

Thanks for the help - the OTA receiver is built-in, and the DVD player I can switch back and forth between the various output formats and see the difference. I'm pretty certain it's an issue with the TV itself.

After some fiddling around this morning I finally got into the service mode, but I didn't see anything related to picture size.

Below is the procedure and all the parameters - maybe someone will spot something that's out of place?

Philips PFL Series Service Mode

To enter the service menu:
Press [Menu], then the numbers 062596 followed by [Menu], the menu will disappear, but pressing [Menu] again will being it back up and you'll notice a label in the upper right-hand corner of "FAC" and an additional menu item called "Factory" on the bottom of the list.

Parameters accessible through service mode:

For anyone else with this set let me save you some time and relay what I have discovered:

For ~450 bucks I wasn't expecting much from this 19" screen, but was surprised because it's not a bad TV, in fact it has a pretty decent picture (aside from the stretch issue) and the ATSC tuner does a good job with a couple of fringe stations.

The audio is a bit thin and to compensate for this set the equalizer to 120Hz/10 - 500Hz/10 - 1.5kHz/4 - 5kHz/2 - 10Khz/2 - this will give a "fuller" sound without sacrificing any vocal or high range frequencies. If you need more audio volume, or to adjust audio level between the inputs, there are options in the service menu for this. On my set HD was noticeably lower than the SD broadcasts and AV1 was overly high.

A good starting point for picture adjustment is:
Contrast - 70 (it will actually go well above this without washing out the grayscale ramps, but at the cost of shorten the life of the backlight)
Brightness - 45 (blacks look really good and hold well throughout dark to light transitions)
Color - 40 (test patterns reveal almost no RGB error)
Sharpness - 2 (anything over this will put a ghost outline around edges)
Color Temperature - Warm (when compared to a D6500 light source this was the closest setting, but still a bit on the high side)
Tint - +4 (this will correct for a slight red push)
Noise Reduction - 0 (with it set above this point it tends to destroyed fine details)
Dynamic Contrast - Off (turning it on, even at "min," causes the screen to pulsate with changes in picture brightness)



Tony

A little update.

I was able to fix the stretched image problem... the format select button being in "Automatic" was the problem. Once I set it to "Widescreen" the picture got a little wider, without any change in height. The width was enough to eliminate the overly stretched vertically image. Why this matters I don't know, I thought "Automatic" would have selected the correct aspect ratio (16x9/4x3), and it always did or at least seem to find the correct one. As it is, it would seem that overscan on 16x9 images can be tweaked a bit, since this is an LCD, to reveal more a little more on all four sides.

Still have not found a workaround for all the unused inputs appearing in the channel list.


Tony

I just wanted to update this - the LCD panel is actually manufactured as 16x10, instead of 16x9 - this is what causes the vertically stretched images and there is no fix.


Tony