A good fit for LDs? Philips 32PW9546

ldmadao · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 10:43

I have a line on this beast of a 32" 100Hz TV, originally bought in 1999 with specs that read like the whitepaper for the starship Enterprise (not really, but that's what us ignorami are supposed to say).

My uneducated gut response is that this is a king among pre-LCD/Plasma displays but some of the bells and whistles sound a little counter-productive in terms of getting the warm natural glow of a CRT, which seems to be what many of the forum's connoisseurs hold up as the pinnacle of Laserdisc bliss.

For example the Product highlights (presented in glorious marketing speak):

Quote:

Real Flat Blackline S
Philips TV picture tube with invar mask gives less defor-mation and therefore can provide 80% more contrast than conventional picture tubes for brilliant colours andminimal reflections, even when viewing in daylight.
This Real Flat tube is from the the latest generation of tubes where the tube face is trully Flat.
The advantages of this
lie in appearance, wider viewing angle, and in bringing thepicture nearer to the front of the glass for less distortion.

100Hz Digital Scan
Conventional Televisions scan the picture at 50 times per second (50 Hertz).
This Frequency can be detected by the human eye in the form of a flickering picture.
100 Hertz sets scan the picture at 100 times per second eliminating the overall area flicker.

Digital Natural Motion
Philips 100hz technology produces the most stable pictures free from flickering.
In our top sets this is allied to Natural Motion which solves the problem of objects juddering or losing shape when they move fast across the screen.
Movements become smooth and natural.

Digital CrystalClear
A unique package of picture innovations including combfilter, scavem, and dynamic contrast adjustment giving natural colours, high contrast and high level of details.
In Digital Crystal Clear the contrast is assessed 50 times per second to optimise the picture further.

Full Active Control
The tv automatically analyses the incoming signal and adjust the key picture parameters of noise, sharpness,colour, contrast and format giving the best possible at all times.
In addition the tv has an ambient light sensorand adjusts the picture according to how much light is 0,34W Stand by in the room.

So, what do you think, is this the saviour of Laserdisc-kind or a heavy, clunky out of waranty "flatscreen" tv?

Link to manual (manualslib.com)

rein-o · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 14:16

How much is it???
How strong are you????

If its cheap and you are strong like ox then get it.

ldmadao · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 16:30

It's 500 NOK (think roughly $50, £50, €50 etc.) and I was able to rope a buddy into coming with me.

What could possibly go wrong?

Going for it!

signofzeta · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 17:20

That 100hz thing is weird. It’s going to make that display fairly unique and if that’s a good thing or a bad thing I don’t know. I don’t see any real reason why it wouldn’t be a great TV for LD unless it has a million hours on it. I assume it does NTSC? PAL LD is pretty much a waste of time unless you already have a collection from back in the day.

elahrairrah · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 17:30

56kg - surprising light for a sizable CRT!

Having tried two widescreen CRTs for LD, I don't care for them too much. Your mileage may vary, but if you can get it for a good price, it's worth checking out.

signofzeta · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 18:37

56kg for a 32” 4:3 is actually rather heavy. I have larger sets that are lighter for sure, even flat ones.

EDIT: I just looked it up and it is indeed wide. Weight is about what I’d expect then.

elahrairrah · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 19:09

well, I'm comparing the weights to WEGA CRTs. Those are the one's I've been dealing with mostly.

signofzeta · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 20:01

Yeah, wide Wega are like %50 heavier. They are also 34” though. The glass is probably 3” thick on the sides.

This looks like it’s probably about as close to the late Wega CRTs as Phillips probably ever got which is to say it’s probably really nice if it isn’t all worn out. It’s loaded with a lot of SD magic since that was the only thing out there.

My XBR960 is similar but a few years newer since Sony hung on to tubes for so long. Mine also has a high native res/scanrate and scales everything digitally to match it. LD, DVD, BR etc look amazing but with games things never look like they do on a true SD CRT. There may be lag and there will be a difference in the way motion is represented. Hopefully it won’t f-up the shadows in KOF for you.

I do have to wonder if it does NTSC though since that would seem to imply it needs a 120hz mode or a 60hz mode...right?

The best thing for totally SD gaming (Megadrive, SNES, Neo, whatever) is a totally SD system. Cheaper more low end TVs or PVMs if you can swing it. For PAL LD this should be great, but if it doesn’t do NTSC it seems like a hardcore LD guy wouldn’t be able to use it as a main screen.

elahrairrah · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 20:08

The product sheet that ldmadao linked to says that handles NTSC.

Attachment:

NTSC.gif [ 4.06 KiB | Viewed 3090 times ]

How exactly it does that with a 100 / 50Hz refresh rate is anyone's guess when NTSC is 60Hz.

Probably a bit of flicker in the image like when I would display a PAL DVD on my old CRT Computer monitor.

rein-o · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 20:33

ldmadao wrote:

It's 500 NOK (think roughly $50, £50, €50 etc.) and I was able to rope a buddy into coming with me.

What could possibly go wrong?

Going for it!

Video the loading, it could be on failarmy, been watching that for days now, great stuff.

signofzeta · Posted: 28 Jul 2020, 21:13

elahrairrah wrote:

The product sheet that ldmadao linked to says that handles NTSC.

Attachment:

NTSC.gif

How exactly it does that with a 100 / 50Hz refresh rate is anyone's guess when NTSC is 60Hz.

Probably a bit of flicker in the image like when I would display a PAL DVD on my old CRT Computer monitor.

Or it’s possible that it only does progressive scan in PAL and drops down to 60 for NTSC mode. That would be cool. If it’s not that then it would have to be some kind of live conversion...which likely sucks.

deadlegion · Posted: 29 Jul 2020, 02:11

If it's 100/50Hz it won't do 120Hz, at least in my experience these euro type sets don't normally do that.
If it supports NTSC it will do 60Hz. Nearly all of these kind of sets would have scart so it should have RGB support.

signofzeta wrote:

That 100hz thing is weird. It’s going to make that display fairly unique and if that’s a good thing or a bad thing I don’t know. I don’t see any real reason why it wouldn’t be a great TV for LD unless it has a million hours on it. I assume it does NTSC? PAL LD is pretty much a waste of time unless you already have a collection from back in the day.

It isn't unique at all. You just don't see PAL sets much in NA simple as that.
I saw 100Hz sets for years over here but ours didn't usually have scart (unless they were euro type sets, eg Loewe Grundig Philips etc). Non-euro sets that are 100Hz just have a lot of the same inputs you see on NA equivalent type sets.
Some 100Hz sets can do 60Hz but some might not iirc, I remember many years ago seeing 100/50Hz or 50Hz only sets being labelled as such in stores.

ldmadao · Posted: 29 Jul 2020, 06:13

rein-o wrote:

ldmadao wrote:

What could possibly go wrong?

Video the loading, it could be on failarmy, been watching that for days now, great stuff.

I didn't have the presence of mind to arrange for filming but needless to say the failarmy was called into service this day.

An heroic effort getting TV and the mount/shelf-thingy up the stairs, followed by a mad-cap dismantling of the mount so it would fit with the TV into my mums Mini was ultimately overshadowed by the fact that I didn't bring a blanket, a duvet or something to adequately shield the precious screen from some nasty scratches during transport.

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Current status is TV resting on the sofa, mount/shelves resting in a heap on my floor.
Will try to reassemble it in the coming days.

I'm going to have to look into methods of smoothing out those scratches.

Still had a pleasant road trip with my pal, so I suppose it's all good.

deadlegion · Posted: 29 Jul 2020, 07:14

Looks like the screen is heavily marked. Was it already like that or did you transport it without taking into account the weight being mostly at the front? Or even worse, transport face down?

ldmadao · Posted: 29 Jul 2020, 07:21

deadlegion wrote:

Looks like the screen is heavily marked. Was it already like that or did you transport it without taking into account the weight being mostly at the front? Or even worse, transport face down?

Yeah, this was all me, see above.

All exuberance; poor execution :S

deadlegion · Posted: 29 Jul 2020, 07:47

ldmadao wrote:

deadlegion wrote:

Looks like the screen is heavily marked. Was it already like that or did you transport it without taking into account the weight being mostly at the front? Or even worse, transport face down?

Yeah, this was all me, see above.

All exuberance; poor execution :S

Have a very close look at the glass and see if most of the damage is the anti-glare film (or whatever it's called). You can remove the film from crt's like that, it's a trick a lot of people do so they can lower brightness to extended tube life but also handy if there are some screen marks.
Of course once the film is removed reflections from lights and daylight will be more of an issue. Use a light behind the tv and you won't notice.

signofzeta · Posted: 29 Jul 2020, 07:50

How depressing.

ldmadao · Posted: 29 Jul 2020, 08:18

deadlegion wrote:

Have a very close look at the glass and see if most of the damage is the anti-glare film (or whatever it's called). You can remove the film from crt's like that, it's a trick a lot of people do so they can lower brightness to extended tube life but also handy if there are some screen marks.
Of course once the film is removed reflections from lights and daylight will be more of an issue. Use a light behind the tv and you won't notice.

Nothing to lose now, so I might as well give that a try.

There were some solutions involving cloth and light cleaning fluids but things can't possibly be that easy.

signofzeta wrote:

How depressing.

Sorry

deadlegion · Posted: 29 Jul 2020, 08:36

ldmadao wrote:

deadlegion wrote:

Have a very close look at the glass and see if most of the damage is the anti-glare film (or whatever it's called). You can remove the film from crt's like that, it's a trick a lot of people do so they can lower brightness to extended tube life but also handy if there are some screen marks.
Of course once the film is removed reflections from lights and daylight will be more of an issue. Use a light behind the tv and you won't notice.

Nothing to lose now, so I might as well give that a try.

There were some solutions involving cloth and light cleaning fluids but things can't possibly be that easy.

If you're going to try it make sure you spend some time reading up about how it's done (written guides and maybe some youtube vids). I think some people have done it just from the front of the tv by cutting around the edge (idk for sure though), but I think it's highly recommended to open it up to get past the front bezel part of the case for starters.

Model specific guide probably isn't necessary unless you need help opening the case, but crt's have always been fairly easy to deal with in my experience (monitors or tv's).

ldmadao · Posted: 29 Jul 2020, 08:50

deadlegion wrote:

Model specific guide probably isn't necessary unless you need help opening the case, but crt's have always been fairly easy to deal with in my experience (monitors or tv's).

My bias towards high-end, fancy-pants sets like the current one in question is that things are done in the name of elegance that make them less repairable by commoners but I will do my reading and proceed with cautious optimism.

A good fit for LDs? Philips 32PW9546

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