When I was looking for a TV, I had my eye on the Philips 32PFL5604 or 32PFL7404 (100Hz).

Our local Harense Smid sells both at reasonable prices:
Harense Smid page for 5604

Harense Smid page for 7404

That 7404 looks interesting! Are you still
planning on getting one?
If we buy two, there's room for negotiating. :-)

I have a Philips 42'' FullHD but only 50Hz.

Philips 42'' LCD TV 42PFL5604H.

It was very cheap! (4499 dkk (we do have 25% VAT) = 605 Euros / Its now 4.999dkk = 670 Euros)

and I have nothing to point to it, I do recommend the model to everyone and 2 colleagues have it and they say it's lovely !

[img]http://www.balexandre.com/temp/2010-01-17_1539.png[/img]

Find a TV repair shop (if there are any left) in your area.
First ask if your's can be repaired.
Then ask about their experience with which types are worst and which are best.
The TV repair shop is the front line of information.

Bruno, thats basically the big version of the 5604 that Yosh mentioned, right? Do you notice any difference between 50 and 100 Hz? I didn't know that that made any difference with LCD. [?]

Rich, as far as I know there's 1 (!) TV repair shop in our town....(~45.000 inhabitants) it's a shame... I'll give them a call just to check.

Check if your tv has dynamic lightning and disable that. Maybe it helps

Nope...no such feature. I think the backlight unit simply has broken down. There was a "sandstorm" in the screen for quite a while already (where one of the backlights was failing) and now the backlight overcompensates.
The screen looks okay-ish in a dim environment with a dark/dim scene on the screen, but as soon as there needs to be a bright spot all highlights are blown out.

Yosh, the 7404 is available as cheap as € 538 online.
See Kelkoo and Plasmadiscounter.

I just calculated the outer border of the 32" screen, and it's approx. 3.5 centimeters. Not that bad. [:)]

Here's a realistic view of that bezel in comparison to the screen surface:
[img]/uploaded/18/1/7e4debda-6166-4048-a5e3-13b5e650a3d1.jpg[/img]
That bezel a lot smaller, compared to my current 26" JVC:
[img]/uploaded/18/1/jvc-lt-26a61-3q.jpg[/img]

any particular reason you are getting LCD ? Plasma is still much better overall than lcd

Is that really so? Doesn't plasma suffer from fading? And, are there any 32 inch plasmas? I only spotted them for 40 inch and up....

Don't go to Plasma ... LCD offers better long term bet!

regarding 50Hz vs 100Hz it will always depend on how much time do u spend in front of the TV... if I play Wii for 3 hours, I do really need to rest my eyes, it's a big screen and 50Hz have some impact.

the 100Hz model (I think it's the 7xxx) was a lot in that time, I would have bought a SONY or a LG for the same price.

remember that by now there are 200Hz LCD's (SONY, LG, SAMSUNG) and they are fantastic, our eyes dont get tired that quick and bottom line, is how long will u pass in front of the TV.

Me and family = 10 hours a week. Witch is nothing, and for such, I didnt mind the 50Hz.

surely you are buying it to watch not keep for posterity.
LCD's are better at displaying static images, but that isn't what you have a TV for. If you watch a lot of movies then you should not even consider LCD, Plasma is far superior.

LG do Plasma's from 32inch and up

Regarding the 50Hz versus 100hz:

100Hz on a CRT indicated the refresh rate of the screen. 100Hz screen images went 'on an off' (refresh) twice often as 50Hz. This resulted in a more 'flicker free' image, so to speak. 100Hz really did stress your eyes less then 50Hz CRT.

However, an LCD screen by its very nature does not suffer the flickering like a CRT does. It is quite a technical story, but an LCD screen never flickers, not even at 50Hz (simple version of complex story: the image is redrawn, but it doesn't go 'black' in between images).

The 100Hz for LCD screens is a different technique which aims to prevent the 'jumping' of an object on the screen. This is particularly noticeable on very large LCD screens. In 100Hz, the TV's processor guesses what the images look like in the middle of each 50Hz image, and renders it as such. The result is less 'jumping' of objects, but it also causes artifacts as a negative side-effect. Half the images you see are fake, calculated images.

Calling this technology 100Hz is a smart marketing trick to make you believe it has the same effect as it did on CRT TVs.

I've done some reading regarding plasma vs LCD tonight, and what I understand from it is this:

• plasma has blacker blacks than LCD.
• plasma is capable of faster moving content (less ghosting etc), but the 100Hz (and nowadays even 400 Hz LCD technology solves that.
• LCD does not suffer from the burn-in issue plasma still suffers from
• Over 50 inch, plasma *for sure* is the way to go.
• On 32 inch, LCD is the best bang for buck - in fact, the plasma's that exist in that size are inferior compared to their bigger brothers, and LCD surely beats plasma in that size

As I will not go over the 32 inch barrier, for me LCD is the way to go.

• LCD screens can suffer from dead pixels
• 'burn in' IS possible on LCD screens

It depends what plasma you buy, Panasonics have anti burn technology and as long as you look after your plasma for the first 100hrs or so (don't use high contrast/brightness) then you are unlikely to get burn in, burn in is more likely if you use it as a computer/game screen rather than as a TV.

There is not that much difference in price, a 32" LCD is between 300-450 GBP and a 32" Plasma is between 350 and 500 GBP.

Panasonic also do a range of 32" Plasmas.

The burn-in prevention and screensavers do not prevent the burn-in channellogos, on channels that maintain a static, never moving, logo somewhere on the screen.
In the Netherlands, almost ALL channels have a static, never moving logo....

I'll certainly check out the plasmas this weekend when I go out browsing the shops. [:)]

most channel logos we get here are transparent and transparent logos will not cause burn in, however non transparent logos will cause burn in on an LCD screen too, just not as quickly. If you find you continually watch the same channel and it has a non transparent logo, there are special dvd's(or watch a movie) that you can get which you can play overnight and it will fix the burn in (unless of course you have the same logo on your screen for days on end with no break).

just because the image remains say after viewing for many hours that is not necesarily burn in, it may just be image retention which is a temporary phenomenom and will dissapear after a short time if you play another moving image for a while.

Our previous Plasma (LG 42") we had for just over 5 years, it was used both as a TV screen and a PC screen, we never had even a glimmer of burn in. The only reason we changed it a couple of months ago was to get a Full HD compatible one, we now have a Panasonic P42S10 the picture is simply stunning

Everybody like plasma screens:
[img]http://q.oxle.com/pub/720/animalplanet.jpg[/img]

Haha, your cat looks as if he/she will attack the bear any minute, judging from the position of those ears.

Humbug.... I had my mind set on the Philips 8404 and Philips 7404 already, but today i'm reading a lot about image delay. In other words: because of all the 'high tech' image quality improvement software in these TVs (100Hz, Pixel Plus HD etc) which is performed by a relatively slow chip in the TV, the image is rendered a lot slower than on old TVs.
This means that the sound is quicker than the image if you have your digital tuner hooked up directly to your amp.
The only solution is to connect all input devices only to the TV and not to the amp.
However, my tuner and DVD recorder only have Scart + S/Pdif (optical and coaxial) while these Philips TV's have NO S/Pdif input.....
This means that I have no way of getting Dolby Digital/DTS on my DVDs or on any TV channel.... [oO]
grmbl

Hmmm, that sucks. Never heard any of those complaints anywhere. Are you sure its a real issue?

I'll check it in the store, before I buy one.

I wouldn't have expected that to be a problem with a make like philips, I know it can be an issue on some models. It may have settings so that you can delay the sound output, you may even be able to do it on your amp.

Well, that's the thing: my amp hasn't got that function, and even if it did, the delay is depending on the type of content watched as it seems. They have defined a 'lipsync feature' as a part of the HDMI standard as of version 1.3 which handles the delay negotiation, so I've read. My DVD recorder and my Humax 9200 however do not have HDMI outputs....bummer.

But perhaps you can switch those features off on the Philips....or go for the 5604 which has a lot less features.

It's an awfull shame if you have to disable those features, simply because the DSP in these TV's is soooooo freaking slow. [:'(]
Why don't they spend 5 euro more on decent DSP circuitry, which prevents this whole delay?!

mumbles something about profit maximization versus quality......

there are external devices that you can get to plug between your amp and tv that allow you to adjust delay, not sure how much they cost though

Well, I've decided to go for it and just purchased the Philips 32PFL8404H.
32" Full HD, ambilight, etc.
[img]/uploaded/18/1/Philips_42PFL8404H_Full_HD_LCD_TV_100_Hz-855959636.jpg.gif[/img]
http://www.consumer.philips.co../..h_12/prd/gb/

I've seen it in action, and man it is SLICK! The bezel is the slimmest bezel I've seen in any 32 inch TV.
Regarding the sound delay: I'm hooking up the Humax the normal way (SCART to TV and toslink to the amp), and if it really is a problem I'll just stop using the toslink for a while.
Most (>99%) channels are still broadcasting in stereo, and even if they broadcast Dolby Digital, it's 2 channel stereo....[oO]
If I really want to have digital synced audio, I've already found a solution: a scart->component converter combined with a component + toslink -> HDMI converter.
So Humax : Scart + Toslink
Scart becomes Component
Component + Toslink becomes HDMI.
Total price: 74,- euro. [:-/]

Regarding the DVD player: I won't be using that much since I'm owning the PlayOn! HD Mini since a week, and that thing plays everything including BluRay and DVD ISO's. [:-/]

Great choice! Philips is always a good choice :-)

Anyway, why did you decide to go for the 8404 instead of the 7404? What is the difference between the two?