Questions on Philips 51PP9910 51" projection HD TV (1 Viewer)

[James_Z]

I've decided to upgrade to a new TV. I was hoping someone can help me with a few of my questions since I don't know much about TV's...

First question I have is why is the price so low compared to other 51" sets with built in HD tuners? Second question is what exactly would I need to receive HD broadcasts? Right now I only have basic cable with no cable box and the cable plugged directly into the back of my TV.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I tried to include the lickm to view the specs of the TV but cant until I post 15 threads first. It can be found on the Walmart website for around $1500

 

[Mort Corey]

You'll need to contact your cable provider to see if they offer an HD STB (at an additional fee of course) if not, your only hope it OAR via antenna.

Is this the Phillips Lcos TV?

Mort

 

[James_Z]

no, its not Lcos...so, when a channel such as NBC or CBS broadcast a show in HD, i could not receive the signal with a basic cable ant.?

 

[James_Z]

also, can you give me your opinion on this TV?

 

[Mort Corey]

Well James, now I'm not so sure. It appears that this set has both an ATSC and QAM HD tuner, so, in theory, you should be able to receive HD programing over the air and through a direct cable connection (no STB) Whether it'll work that way in your home, with your cable company, is unknown....it should....but my guess is that the cable company is not going to give out HD programming for free (possibly they scamble the signal?)

This set does seem quite inexpensive (under $1800 directly from Philips...including delivery). I've never seen one in person....it's either a great buy or a dog

Mort

 

[WillMW]

Hello,
I bought this TV about 2 weeks ago and so far I am very satisfied. I get very nice HDTV pictures over the air from my local stations and pictures from my (non-HD) DirecTv system look great. Mine came with a small (non-universal) remote. That initially seemed a bit odd to me, but it works well and you don't have so many buttons to figure out. I have looked online for reviews and other information, but have found very little about the unit.

Now, I'll admit that I'm not an expert, but my wife and I looked at a lot of TVs before deciding on this one. We checked out Plasmas and decided that the technology was too new, and reliability too uncertain and for us, at least, the price was still too high. We looked at the newer (smaller, lighter) rear projection units like LCD & DLP and were very interested in these, but in the end we picked this unit for several reasons:
1. The price for what you get was, in our opinion, very good.
2. Built-in HD tuner
3. No need for additional stand or mounting.

One thing that is a bit of a disappointment, especially for my wife who has a bit of a hearing impairment is that we can't seem to get any closed captioning on AV inputs. It's there for both analog & digital over-the-air tv, but for our tivo unit (which we use a lot) we don't get CC. Not sure why. I plan to call Philips this week to see if there's something I'm missing.

All in all though, we're very happy with our choice at this point.

 

[James_Z]

Will -
Glad you like the TV as I'll probably buy it very soon. Id like to ask you a question if you dont mind....how many video inputs does it have (S video/composite/component) ?

 

[WillMW]

Well...let's see. On the back it has F connectors for both Antenna & Cable (which you can switch between via remote, ie. you can connect & use both of you have that option). I don't have cable, but I use some modulators to put some security cameras, vcr, etc. on cable channels so that works out well for me.

On the back it also has:
AV1=NTSC (480i) RCA Video/SVideo & Audio
AV2=NTSC (480i) RCA Video/SVideo & Audio
AV3=(Y,Pb,Pr or RGB)(480i,480p,720p,1080i) HV Sync & Audio
AV4=(Y,Pb,Pr or RGB)(480i,480p,720p,1080i) & Audio
AV5=HDMI & Audio

On the right side:
AVSide=RCA/SVideo & Audio

The manual says AVSide is "optimized" for video games, camcorders, etc. I'm not sure what they mean by "optimized" unless it's that you can get to the jacks from the side.

One other comment. I don't know if you've actually seen the unit at Walmart or just the online ad, but when we saw it at a Walmart near us, the picture was "good" but NOTHING like what we got on it from DVD & over-the-air HDTV when we got it home.

 

[John S]

I'm a way happy Philips large CRT RPTV owner myself.

 

[James_Z]

good, im definately picking up this TV...thanks for all the input