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Think big
Go wide, say Philips
By Michael Jones
March 2001
Philips 36PW9525 36"/92cm widescreen television. $6999
"Bigger is better" is the approach taken by many TV buyers when it comes to home theatre viewing. And while that approach can be short sighted (picture quality is more important than sheer size, in my opinion) there's no doubt that a big picture can improve the movie watching experience.
The
Philips 36" would have to be one of the largest CRT television sets
available in New Zealand (CRT, or cathode ray tube, is the tube technology
behind almost all TVs available).
But there's a lot more to the Philips than just size. For a start, the Philips is a widescreen set, with its 16:9 screen ratio matching the shape of most movies far better than a conventional 4:3 TV. It also more closely matches the human eye's field of vision, which may be why I find widescreen sets so appealing.
The Philips 36" is a 100Hz television, that claims to reduce flicker on a TV screen. It also incorporates what Philips call "Digital Natural Motion", designed to reduce the juddering effect that can occur with quick movements on screen.
At a packing weight of 90kg (75kg without the packaging) you don't want to move this set around very much! Physically the set is big, being 927mm wide, 638mm high and 570mm deep. An optional stand looks great with the Philips 36" on top and in my opinion, should be purchased along with the set.
For
a TV of this size and bulk, the Philips 36" looks very attractive
in its silver/grey finish. The Philips has various speakers in the set
(which sound better than those found on most monitor-style TVs) and Dolby
Pro logic circuitry built in with surround speakers supplied. As I was
using the set as a monitor in an existing home theatre setup (I imagine
this to be the major use with this TV) I ignored the surround speakers
and built-in Dolby circuitry.
Around the back are three scart sockets for DVD and VCR connections, with additional composite and S-Video connectors on the side, for easy hookup of a camcorder or Playstation.
Performance
The first thing I did after unpacking the Philips was to put the settings
back to the factory defaults, as this is what you're likely to see when
buying a set.
The default settings were very bright, over-saturated with colours and over-sharpened. this is pretty much as I expected, as most manufacturers set their TVs up to "jump out" at you on the showroom floor.
I turned to the Avia setup DVD and ran a few calibration tests. The white level (altered by the contrast control) showed no blooming whatsoever - an excellent result. The black level (altered using the brightness control) allowed precise setting of the black, which allows shadow detail to emerge correctly. The sharpness was set way too high. Lowering it to almost its lowest setting improved the picture. The colour saturation and hue also required some alteration.
Checking the geometry of the Philips with the Avia test DVD showed near perfect results - this is excellent performance.
The before and after results were very worth while. Before was a good TV; the "after" showed an exceptional TV.
Watching movies with the calibrated Philips was a real treat. The large flat screen was the perfect canvas for movie viewing.
A great example was the thriller The Fan, a much under-rated movie starring Robert De Niro as the somewhat disturbed biggest fan of baseball player Wesley Snipes. I had a zone 1 copy.
This movie has an excellent picture, with lots of dark areas full of detail. While many TVs would lose the shadow detail (turning darker areas into black) the Philips brought out a wealth of detail. The colour balance of the Philips was great, showing off the fine cinematography in the movie.
This
is an excellent television, particularly suited to watching movies from
DVDs. The wide, flat screen makes movie watching a treat. yes, it's expensive.
But the Philips is worth it.
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