Philips 17PF9936 17-Inch LCD Flat Panel HDTV-Ready TV

by Philips

Product Details

Product Manual [1.03mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 2.6 x 11.9 x 20.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 21 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B0000AAAFS
• Item model number: 17PF9936
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #194,375 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon Product Description

Amazon Product Description Delivering high performance with a depth of less than 3 inches, Philips' widescreen, HD-ready 17PF9936 is stylish enough and small enough to be used in any room of the house. The 17-inch TV offers high brightness (450 cd/m2) and high contrast (350:1), as well as an integrated TV tuner for cable or broadcast reception of all your favorite programs. Hook it up to an optional DTV receiver or progressive-scan DVD player and you'll enjoy vivid, detailed images from 1080i, 720p, and 480p sources, which render at up to 720p resolution on the set's native 1,024 x 768 screen. LCD technology allows screens to be thinner and televisions to be lighter and more energy-efficient than ever before. The result is television that not only fits on a wall, but fits in places conventional televisions cannot.

Philips' Dynamic Contrast technology optimizes the contrast of the picture by stretching the white, gray, and black levels.

The 17PF9936 comes outfitted with Digital Crystal Clear III technology, a suite of picture innovations including Dynamic Contrast and advanced, 10-bit processing. Further, the DCDi chip by Faroudja enhances resolution by eliminating the stair-step jagged edges often seen on progressive-scan displays. The 17PF9936's three-line digital comb filter further enhances resolution by removing blurred edges between colors and reducing dot crawl (tiny, moving dots of color along a sharp color separation in a vertical line, as in a depiction of a character's striped T-shirt).

A feature called Active Control continually adjusts picture settings at over 60 times per second for all inputs, correcting both sharpness and noise reduction. AutoChron automatically sets the right time of day and maintains it with digital precision through brownouts, power failures, and even Daylight Savings Time adjustments. AutoPicture lets you change--at the touch of a button--the picture settings (color, tint, contrast, etc.) for various types of programming, including sports, movies, multimedia (games), or weak signals. AutoSound allows you to select from three factory-set controls and a personal control that you set according to your preferences. The three factory-set controls (Voice, Music, and Theatre) let you enhance the particular program you are watching. Incredible Surround simulates enveloping surround sound from any two speakers, while the audio volume leveler (AVL) keeps the TV sound at an even level for a more consistent, comfortable sound.

Auto Color, one of the features of Active Control, measures the color content of the incoming signal and adjusts it to predefined ideal values.

Inputs include two component-video (one HD and one standard-definition), two S-video, and two composite-video connections, as well as a VGA computer input, which accepts signals up to XGA (1,280 x 768, from 60 to 75 Hz). A composite-video-based audio/video output facilitates hookup with a surround receiver or integrated amplifier.The supplied infrared remote control works your TV and other remote-controlled devices such as VCRs, DVD players, cable converters, and satellite receivers.

What's in the Box
TV, stand, remote control, remote batteries, and user's manual.

Product Description

17" LCD TV, HDTV, wide screen, 1280x768, 400:1 contrast, FM radio, DCDi Farouja chip, HD and VGA inputs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sleek and sexy, February 1, 2004

By 

Martin Howard (Santa Cruz, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philips 17PF9936 17-Inch LCD Flat Panel HDTV-Ready TV (Electronics)

I bought the Philips 17pf9936 because the slightly higher spec model (17pf9945) was no longer available. I use it for watching DVDs and as a game console screen (using the HDTV component video input) and as a computer monitor.

Overall, I'm happy with this TV. Picture quality is good, bright, and contrasty. My only complaint is that the backlighting seems strong -- blacks are never really 100% black, but always a little lighter. It's not very noticable, but once you do, it bugs you a bit.

As a computer monitor it is very good -- except I cannot figure out how to get it into WXGA mode (1280x768). Philips web site claimed it was possible, as does the spec sheet on Amazon, but the manual only lists 1024x768 (4:3), 1280x960 (4:3), or 1280x1024 (5:4) (which all work).

Three things keep me from giving it a full five star rating: Not having got it to work in WXGA mode yet, the not-quite-black-blacks, and the quality of the remote control, which feels cheap and is confusing.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars maybe a keeper?, January 24, 2004

By 

"bksak" (anchorage, AK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philips 17PF9936 17-Inch LCD Flat Panel HDTV-Ready TV (Electronics)

Just unboxed this set yesterday and hooked it up to our HD cable box. Now, the cable company only has HD programming on 2 channels. One of which is pretty much 24 hour playback of the 2002 SLC olympics (yawn). I had the same problems as the other reviewer in using the 800 number; getting non-sensical messages that they do not subscribe to something. Finally got through by calling their plasma folks. The positives for this TV are that the set is very compact and stylish, and the HD display is amazing. Normal brodcasts look fine. The negatives are that there are a LOT of cables to hook up; the P,Pr,Y connectors, R&L audio, power, and a 75ohm co-ax. I assumed the HD connectors would carry the other signals from the cable box when not in HD; not the case. The multi-cultural manuals are challenging, and poorly describe the features. Some features in the manual don't seem to exist at all on my set (e.g., DNR picture adjustment control). There are maybe hundreds of arcane features available to you, with little if any explanation of what they do. Finally, and most importantly, there is a quarter-sized area mid-screen that looks like a smudge. The pixles in this area glow dimmer than the rest. When viewing continuous backgrounds such as snow or green grass, this variant is very apparent and annoying. Enough so that I am returning the set to SEARS. BTW, this may be a good reason to buy this or any LCD TV at SEARS or COSCO, stores with no questions asked return policy. I called Philips and (after several calls) was told to send the set to an authorized dealer who would judge whether the pixle anomaly is outside of specs. In fact, Philips does not consider this to be a defect unless a certain minumum number of pixles fail. This in my opinon is unacceptable.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Flawed design and support, January 16, 2004

By 

Earl J. Mcgehee "earl49" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philips 17PF9936 17-Inch LCD Flat Panel HDTV-Ready TV (Electronics)

I am lowering my rating of this set. This is an HD set however when powered on it always wakes up in analog mode and you must manually switch it to HD mode. Customer service says that is by design and cannot be fixed.

Tried to resolve this via the web site - no help on line. Sent e-mail & two days later got e-mail response suggesting I call the 800 number. Called and went through the menu to get a recording that I had been routed to voice mail but "the person at 3901 does not subscribe to this system. Good bye."

I bought this to use in a home office. It sits next to my PC monitor with the analog computer output to the TV and the digital PC output to the PC monitor. This doubles my monitor real-estate when the TV is in PC mode. There is an adjustable size and position picture-in-picture function (not HDTV) in the PC mode so you can watch TV while using the TV as a PC monitor.

Good things: great picture, lots of adjustments, 1080i HDTV input, component video (DVD) input, 3 sets of AV inputs, analog VGA input from PC, sound is richer than expected with such small speakers, output for powered sub-wolfer, nice FM radio with 40 presets.

Bad things: height not adjustable, no wide screen PC vidio modes like 1600 x 1024 (max is 1280 x 1024), universal remote could be more universal, requires external FM antenna, non-standard remote usually cannot be learned by non-phillips universal remotes.