Philips 30PW8402/37 30" HD-Ready TV with RealFlat Screen

by Philips

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 140 pounds
• Shipping: This item can only be shipped to the 48 contiguous states. We regret it cannot be shipped to APO/FPO, Hawaii, Alaska, or Puerto Rico.
• ASIN: B0002F86K4
• Item model number: 30PW8402/37
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #387,700 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

If you're used to watching letterboxed widescreen movies on a standard 4:3 aspect-ratio TV, wait 'til you see your favorites on a set that uses all of its available screen space for widescreen video. Philips' 30PW8402 30-inch RealFlat television has a 16:9 aspect ratio, so your widescreen DVD movies and HDTV television programming (from a DTV receiver, sold separately) will match their original dimensions. The 30PW8402's RealFlat tube provides reflection- and distortion-free pictures for maximum viewing comfort, while the DAF (Dynamic Astigmatic Focus) CRT gun ensures reliably excellent quality.

The set offers numerous image enhancements. Crystal Clear III encompasses velocity-scan modulation and a 2D Y/C digital comb filter, which improves quality of incoming interlaced video signals 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).

Velocity-scan modulation improves the definition at picture edges, creating sharper images by slowing the CRT (cathode-ray tube) beam's horizontal scanning during demanding work--say, when rendering transitions from light to dark parts of an image--and speeding it up when scanning easily rendered sections, like broad dark areas.

EyeFidelity (480p/1050i) brings interlaced sources like VCRs and non-progressive-scanning DVD players into the digital realm, giving you a choice between different line doubling and scanning techniques, progressive or interlaced, to reduce motion artifacts like jagged edges and stair stepping. A feature called Active Control 2 continuously analyzes incoming signals and optimizes picture color, sharpness, contrast, and digital noise reduction 60 times per second.

HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) is a lossless, uncompressed, all-digital audio/video interface to link the set with any audio/video source (such as a set-top box, DVD player, or AV receiver). HDMI supports standard-definition (SD), enhanced definition (ED), or high-definition (HD) video, plus multi-channel digital audio--all using a single cable. It transmits all ATSC HDTV standards and supports up to 8-channel digital audio, with bandwidth to spare to accommodate future enhancements and requirements.

Five audio/video connections accommodate composite-video, S-video, and high-definition component-video (480p/1080i), with one set of composite-video-based AV inputs for feeding a DVR, VCR, or surround receiver. A set of side AV inputs (composite- and S-video) simplify spontaneous hookups with camcorders, gaming consoles, and other devices.

The set pumps 10 watts RMS per channel into its twin speakers. If you're not using a surround speaker system at home, the set's Virtual Dolby Surround will simulate surround sound from any 2 speakers. A .125-inch headphone jack lets you listen in private.

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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended-Gorgeous video, October 2, 2004

By 

Kurt Winter - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philips 30PW8402/37 30" HD-Ready TV with RealFlat Screen (Electronics)

Plasma dims with use, DLP needs a new $400 bulb after 2000 hours, LCD doesn't do motion well and can develop stuck pixels, so tube seems best, especially for darker darks and lighter whites. This Philips 30 inch HDTV widescreen tube seems absolutley perfect. Looked at darker Sony sets and brighter Samsung and picked Philips for the beautiful image on the screen. From 6 feet away or even closer, there are no visible scan lines, just a perfectly dazling beautiful image. I've worked on this HDTV purchase for what seems like 35 years and I'm very happy with this Philips HDTV. It's overwhelming.

Specs talk of 1051i resolution with no mention of 720p which confused me, but turned out to be no problem.

Specs talk of "Eye Fidelity" feature which does not seem to be on any onscreen menu or switch on the back. The 34 inch sat next to it at BEST BUY but didn't look anywhere near as good particulary with motion, which confused me, since I couldn't find Eye Fidelity as a user control item. The 34 inch may have been stuck on progressive and the 30 inch stuck on interlaced - but I never found any controls.

Five stars if I could just figure out if the $130 DVI-HDMI cable helped. Component cables with RCA connectors seemed to work just fine, although channel changing seems faster with the non-compressed HDMI connection. My Samsung SIR-T351 tuner will pump out 1080i on either DVI or component outputs, but does the Philips accept 1080i on component inputs is the question. Wish I had some sort of test video, that told me whether I was watching 1080i or 720p. The screen is so enormously impressive, it overwhelms.

Occasionaly sold for $750 on sale, and worth twice that much, particularly for the viewing angle. Projection TVs looked like the old laptop computers when we all asked "is it on?".

My old indoor small plastic Jensen TV-920 settop amplified antennae works perfectly for 16 over-the-air digital channels in Tucson, except the audio is interupted occasionally when an individual stands between the transmission towers and the antennae. Video no problem. Digital audio not as steady. Total confusion asking questions in the stores.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars bad strange horizontal line flickering, January 1, 2005

By 

P. David - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philips 30PW8402/37 30" HD-Ready TV with RealFlat Screen (Electronics)

I am currently on my 2nd of these sets, and it is going to be returned shortly into the new year. My first one had strange problems with corner discoloration similar to what occurs when you get a speaker too near a picture tube. This problem would occur after the set had been on for a little while, but got quite annoying. Turning off the set and back on again would degauss the screen, and temporarily fix the problem for a short time. Then the corners would get discolored again. Seemed to be random about which corner did it, too.

Then watching a few different movies on the set I noticed a strange set of blue, red, and green horizontal lines flickering across the screen. This was through the s-video input from my computer, but would also occur during regular television. It seemed to happen consistently on the same scenes in different movies, and was highly annoying overall.

Which is a shame because the set is really nice overall. The design is great, the remote nice, the features full, and a great picture when there arent distracting lines across the video, and greatly discolored corners...

I usually buy sony for televisions, and thought that I could trust philips to produce good electronics, but I am sorely disappointed here after having 2 of these sets.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thing before you buy this product, November 2, 2004

By 

A. GUPTA (sunnyvale, ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philips 30PW8402/37 30" HD-Ready TV with RealFlat Screen (Electronics)

Pros : Excellent picture quality, excellent contrast, great sound and weighs 8kgs less than sony 30 inches widescreen HDTV. Very easy to install and plenty of ports both on the sides and the back for your dvd/vcr/cable box etc. connections.

Cons : In the widescreen mode, small amount of picture cuts from both the left and right sides. I verified this by freezing a frame on my dvd and switching between widescreen and 4:3 mode. While in the 4:3 mode, the black bars on the sides are not perfectly straight. In the 4:3 mode if you switch on the tv captions, the tv automatically switches to widescreen mode which is really annoying. This problem does not happen with DVDs in 4:3 mode.

My conclusion is that this tv is much cheaper than other entry level HDTVs so if you can live with the negative points I listted above then it is a great tv.