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Thought I'd pass this on before its gone....

The Phillips 17PF9946/37B packs most of the features you could want in a panel. Easy to strip, no FCC's.
I've used it in my projector for two months, now. I hardly use my HTPC anymore. I use an upscaling HDMI DVD player and an X-BOX at 1080i- Sweet!

17", 16:9, 1280x768, 400:1, 16ms, Analog TV tuner, Progressive Scan, HD up to 1080i.

Inputs: S-VIDEO. (2) Composite, Component (nonprogressive), VGA- used for both PC and Component HD(progressive, 480p, 720p, 1080i), HDMI- used for both PC digital ( with DVI adapter) and HDMI.

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Full Specs./Manual Here

The downside is, the model is discontinued. It originally sold for around $899. A few new units are available on the web at ~$639.

Referb units, ( like mine ) are sometimes available at Philips Outlet for ~$389 and Ebay at Philips-Certified-Auctions for ~$389 they go fast, so snag one while you can.

Any idea about the Magnovox 17" LCD tv's listed on that same site? They seem to have similar specs (which are very hard to find), except the contrast ratio is higher and they have built in dvd players. In fact one of them had a 600:1 and the others 500:1. Do you or anyone know if they are stripable?

Do you have any pics of the LCD strip and/or PJ to share? Do you know if your LCD's color depth is 6-bit (16.2mm colors) or 8-bit (16.7mm colors)? Seems like a real reasonable price for a 17" WS. Thanks!

Sure, I’ll post a few pics,

I can’t find anything in the spec’s as to what the color depth is.

I am rebuilding my old pro lens setup into a new Hass style enclosure, I will plog it then.


Ive tried a gamut of video processors,

A HTPC running MCE 2005 with:

ATI 9600XT All-in-Blunder Video/TV tuner card. Picture Quality Rating: (2 out of 10 )
Comment: video software is always quirky.

Hauppage WinTV-PVR-150 TV tuner card. (4 out of 10)
Much better than the ATI, but at 1280x768 the picture is fuzzy.

Avermedia AVerTVHD MCE A180 HDTV tuner card. (9 out of 10)
Setup in MCE was a breeze, no complaints.


VGA Tuners:

V-Stream LCD TV Box (1 out of 10)
Video had a lot of noise in it, got worse the longer it was on.

Avermedia TV Box 9 (7 out of 10)
Best for TV, HTPC was best for movies.


This TV’s inputs will take every thing I’ve thrown at it and blows the rest away at TV and movies.
I guess it stands to reason that while it can function as a PC monitor, it was designed as a TV.

Time to have a garage sale.

Antiglare Removal

this is a 26" lcd not a 17"

Back inputs.Click to view attachment

Back Removed.

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LCD Panel.

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Hey man,

Been looking at the phillips 17 inch for a while. Was waiting for some type of review on it before going forward. I just took the plunge and ordered one from the outlet. Hopefully I will have some great HD results with it and the pro kit. Time will tell.

Any chance we could see some pics of the PJ and results using the phillips. Would be greatly appreciated.

All Done.

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Great, just make shure it's the 17PF9946/37B, not the 17PF8946/37B (it dosen't have HDMI).
Also understand that neither have a HDTV tuner.

My old PJ is pretty ugly, but it get's the job done, never nailed anything down while waiting on the lens issues to get resolved, they are now. THANKS BRAIN !!!

Will try to post some result pics over the weekend.

Yep all ready for HD

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Your Products & Services:
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17 in Widescreen Flat TV
Model # : 17PF9946/37B

Did you notice/consider the 17PF9945/99 with the DCDi video processor by Faroudja? Is this feature worth the extra $30+? Response time is 25ms which indicates that it is employs 24-bit "true color" (although not explicitly stated in the specs).

I just ordered one.... I hope it turns out nice. I just got my pro lens kit and ll light kit. This will be my second build. My first on was featured on hackaday.

Which one? 17PF9946/37B or 17PF9945/99? Are you doing a folded design?

its the one with HDMI I don't plan on doing a folded design... But I haven't given much thought to the build yet. I am just getting the parts together right now. I don't mind much if the projector is big, as I will probably be mounting it up on thge celing

glad to know theres a monitor out there with hdmi inputs. Supposedly that will be the only cable for high def content on the PS3. Don't have hdmi, can't play high def.

Do you get any backlight bleeds in dark scenes?

I'm not shure what a backlight bleed is, but if you're asking if the black's are black in dark a scene, they are.

do you have any more picts frmo the strip? and I would love to see what your screen shots look like with the screen. I was pissed that phillips didn't have the powercable and it was kinda a shotty job paking the thing. If I wasn't taking it all apart I would have been dissipointed with the rather cheap feeling plastic case. Good thing the guts look to be very promising.


Brad

I'm sorry to hear they left out the power cord.

I'm stripping a second 17PF9946 for a friend.

I bought the first from Philips Auctions, it came complete with all the cords and was packed well. The second was purchased from Philips Outlet like you say, the packaging was crap and the instructions were xeroxed, but it works.

The strip was pretty straight forward-

1-Remove all the screws (5), ( torx #10 ) in the base mounting bracket.

2-Remove (3) screws along the bottom, on the top pull off the vent cover exposing (3) more screws.

3-There are tabs around the edges, but the back should now pop off.

4-Remove the (2) screws just above the speakers on the circuit board base plate.

5-Remove the (1) screw holding down the s-video/control button circuit board. There is a smaller board below it, release one of the tabs and the small board should pull up.

6-Unhook the (4) connectors going to the backlight and the (1) speaker connector.

7-From the bottom, lift and tilt the circuit board base plate, look under the base plate toward the top you should see the LVDS connector going into the panel, gently pull the connector straight out from the panel.

8-you should now be able to remove circuit board base plate and set it aside. The panel should now lift out ( no screws ).

9-On the panel, Where the LVDS connector plugged in, remove the (3) (Philips) screws and lift and tilt the circuit board cover forward.

10-With the panel standing on end, the display side facing you, starting at the center of the bottom edge of the panel, (opposite the circuit board cover) gently lift and release the tabs around the edges of the frame on the display side, when you get the bottom and sides of the frame loose, hold the display against the backlight and tilt the frame out from the top, the frame should release along with the circuit board cover.

Showing the panel connector.


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Hey all,

I got this tv in last week and have been very impressed with the hi def playback. My xbox 360 looks simply amazing, actually better than my roomates CRT HDtv. Regular TV feed looks, well, like regular tv feed looks on LCDs, interlaced and crappy. I havent tested the HDTV receiver on it yet because I need to get a DVI - HDMI cable. Dvds played on the xbox 360 look good. Not really steller but not bad by any means. Some settings tweaking will help this. I also want to compare Xbox 360 dvd playback vs. a standalone dvd player.

Overall a great tv, and since a few of us have it, well get to see some different PJ results using different boxes.

I will be stripping mine once my PS bulb kit comes in and I start my design. Check out my plog in a week or so to see some progress on my PJ.

just wondering are all of you guys with this LCD using the pro lens? What are the focal distances you are using for the build? Also are you guys going split or unslpit? I have pretty much everything I need to build.. I just need to plan the box.

on a side note my dreamcasts powercable worked in my LCD so I was able to play with it. So far it looks amazing. I have a HDTV tuner, but I need that HDMI adaptor cable. not cheap either.

Ok, I'll post some result pic's.....

Understand that I shifted my frensels and reflector around after I recieved the new pro lens and the alignments are far from optimal. As soon as I finish building a new enclosure ( hopfully 50lbs lighter ) this things firewood.

I took these pictures in about an hour. didn't have time to mess with camera settings, angles, etc.

Craig

oh yeah... do you have any measurements on the LCD size? That would be most helpful to me and anyone else with this. I will probably do a detailed strip with pictures when I decide to go at it.

Old Proj. with old Pro lens.

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Catalyst Display info.

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Reg TV

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Recorded HDTV (avermedia 180A HTPC)


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Another shot

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Dvd at 480P

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Same at 720P

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and 1080i

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LOTR at 1080i

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LOTR dark scene at 1080i


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the outside of the frame is ~15 3/4" wide x 10 1/8" tall.

I purchased cables/adapters to meet most of my input needs at Monoprice

The LCD panel is an LG Philips LC171W03 (A4) (k5).

The Philips panel site is here

Found the Panel data sheet with demensions here

wow great info!! Thanks a lot wooz.

does your tv let you do high def over the component cable?? say your xbox or hdtv tuner? because I'm not getting anything over that. I may have to go buy an hdmi cable to test it :/

I had the same prob and called technical support. Well, its not a problem its just how the tv is. Component wont take HD signal. The VGA and HDMI will though so go get urself an adapter. You wont be dissapointed. My 360 looks amazing on this tv.

I just got back from picking up an DVI to HDMI cable. My laptop looks amazing on this thing. My tv didn't come with much of anything so the guy is sending me a vga to component adaptor for playing my xbox and dvd's etc. I want to upgrade to an upconverting dvd player some time soon too

yahoo




http://homepage.mac.com/bradoconnor/PROJEC...JECT/index.html

The component video inputs on the back of the tv do not support an HD signal, but the VGA connector does accept component HD with an adapter. Like this.

The TV is darn confusing, as to what inputs take what signals and where to select the input on the remote.

I'll try to explain:

S-video- /on the remote is "back".
Standard component (non-progessive)- / on the remote is "CVI".
HD component via the VGA input (480p,720p,1080i)-/on the remote is "HD-A".
VGA- /on the remote is "PC-A".
DVI Via The HDMI input- /on the remote is "PC-D".
HDMI (480p,720p,1080i)- /on the remote is "HD-D".

i think I am confused, how are you able to watch 1080i if the resolution is 1280 by 768? are you just saying it downscales 1080i?

That’s a good question. From what I've heard and read, the best you can do with 1280x768 is 720p, but that's on a computer monitor.
I haven't found anything in the Philips docs that does a good job explaining how the 1080i works.

I do know, that on the HTPC, the Catalyst control center reports in the TV display properties as having a maximum reported resolution of 1920x1080 and a maximum refresh rate of 85 Hz.

When playing a movie through the up scaling DVD player there is a difference in the detail between 720p and 1080i, I also notice a big change on the Xbox.

If the resolution is 1280x768, then 1080i/p will be downscaled (1080 basically measn the resolution is 1920x1080). If the set does not have a native resolution of 1920x1080 or above, then any 1080 signal will ne downconverted.

so what does wxga mean? i get all the letters mixed up

Here you go foamcows, this shows it all.
http://www.answers.com/topic/video-graphics-array
And here's a list that includes the extreme resolutions.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/howmanydots/