Philips 47PFL7422D

Summary: The image quality is extrememly good. Out of the box it's set to auto detect what ever you hook to it and everything just works. You can fine tune color, high contrast, and several other setting, and it remembers the settings for each input source (including each TV channel).

My Sony DVD player has Component video & coax digital audio (all 4 are RCA jacks) and this TV has inputs for them. Setting the DVD player to Progressive Scan does imporove the picture and the TV automatically detects the difference (480i vs 480p) and takes about 1 second (with the screen blank) to switch between them (that might be the DVD player taking 1 second).

The USB port accepts USB Card Readers, and you can view pictures on screen. It's only a USB 1.1 port, so images do take a while to load, but if you're just letting it play on the slide show mode, it's fast enough. Zooming in to the pictures (from my 5 MegaPixel Canon Camera) really shows off the full detail of this display.

The audio quality is loud enough, but deep base turned up loud begins to vibrate and sound awful, and it's only 2 speakers, so there's a limit to how "spatial" you can feel. We might add a 5.1 surround system this Christmas (since very few movies include good 5.1, and almost non include 6.1 or 7.1 {5 speakers give you 4 corners and a center, the ".1" is the subwoofer} and 7.1 isn't much more compelling then 5.1, even in a good setup, just fills a larger space better ).

I plan to connect my MacBook (white) to it in the next couple weeks. This will require the "MiniDVI" to "DVI" adapter from Apple, and a "DVI" to "HDMI" cable, which can also be purchased from the Apple.com Store site. Each about $20.

I bought this HDTV from Costco for $1699 in early Aug 2007. Sitting about 20 feet away at the dinner table is still close enough to enjoy this 47" HDTV. It's about the size of a 38" Full Screen TV (4:3) only wider (16:9).

Wm