[pshome]

Hi Webmaster and viewrs, i did more testing, with BF1, a good game to test custom res and HDR.

This panel is strange with scaling, if you use panel size, the input lag is lower (as test by TFTCentral). If i change to 1:1, the low input lag option is off, i need to turn it on again. I would thought 1:1 is best for input lag, no scaling involved?

Why i need 1:1, is because of custom resolution. I tried 2160×1620, as earlier said, the bpc dropped to 8bpc. 1:1 gets the display to show correctly, panel size will squash the custom res image.

With this custom res, i can change ingame BF1 resolution to it. I need to however use borderless window mode first. Anyway at this ultrawide resolution, my first ingame experience, yes it is very immersive! I can see more to the sides, and 1620 height is just nice, this effectively make this monitor part time as a 35″ ultrawide gaming setup!

But, HDR is disabled when i use this res. I guess some where in firmware, it cannot recognise it, hence the 8bpc, i dont think W10 HDR can work with 8bpc? Granted letterbox HDR may not work well because of edge lighting, will look terrible, hence its disable?

Without HDR, i found there is lots of black crush! BF1 have many night maps, and i cant see anything. I left the monitor gamma on 2.2. With HDR, the dark areas are seeable!

BF1 is really good to test HDR and all though.

[PCM2]

“This panel is strange with scaling, if you use panel size, the input lag is lower (as test by TFTCentral).” And ourselves. Also note our comments and those of TFT Central that the ‘Low Input Lag’ option has no measureable effect on input lag. So are you suggesting you have actually measured or can feel a difference in input lag, or simply that the option is greyed out?

HDR does allow very dark shades to be mapped with greater precision and, importantly, coordinates the backlight dimming zone brightness levels so that they are appropriate. Thus improving subtle detailing in dark areas immensely. This is pointed out in our review. You’ll find that any monitor (even one entirely devoid of ‘black crush’) will present subtle details in dark scenes in a much less distinguishable way under SDR and ‘2.2’ gamma than under HDR. And HDR is only designed to be used on this monitor with specific resolutions, I’m afraid you’re out of luck if the setting isn’t working for you with a particular resolution.

[pshome]

Oh no i did not do input lag test, but based on tftcentral comments and the settings on the monitor.

I use DP connection, and in SDR mode, i can select scaling and low input lag. In HDR mode, both are grey out. I do find it weird, why there is such an option in first place, and its use seems to be flipped. Low input lag on with scaling? But Low input lag off without scaling (1:1). And tftcentral found 1:1 is worse?

There is a DPS mode under picture settings, which i didnt see in your video. Wonder is this the retail mode difference?

Further comments, i was running a pure black 4K video on youtube, trying to take a picture of the back light leakage and VA glow. In SDR mode, the leakage was white in color, in HDR mode, the leakage becomes purple! Strange, i wonder what they are doing with the led in HDR mode.

In terms of leakage, i noticed a dark circle in the middle while white light runs around it. Using a phone camera at F1.7 and 1/8 exposure. Did you notice the black circle. Strange enough, if i move my camera, the black circle moves.

I dont know, the glow photos turned out as bad as some IPS photos i seen, but in use, i certainly do not notice VA glow, while for IPS panels i do. Using a dark wallpaper.

I also tried looping the same youtube video on my oled phone, and boy was it dark! As good as this VA cr is, OLED just kills it in pure black!

[pshome]

This was what tftcentral found out, quite a big jump in input lag if i select 1:1

We measured the total display lag of 5.86ms. With approximately 3.95ms of that accounted for by pixel response times we had an estimated signal processing of just 1.91ms, which was basically nothing which was excellent news. This result was consistent whether you had the low input lag setting turned on or off in the OSD menu. This shouldn’t represent any problem for fast paced or competitive gaming.

This very low result was obtained when the aspect ratio control was set to just fill the screen (screen size, 43″), but we did notice some additional lag was added if you switch to either the ‘aspect’ or ‘1:1’ modes. This increased from total of 5.86ms to around 36ms if you use either of those scaling modes with the low input lag setting off, or to around 24 – 27ms if you enabled the low input lag mode.

[PCM2]

Aha, got it. It’s a shame that 1:1 imparts such a penalty.

I can’t say I did notice any dark circle and can’t see any such thing in the image I took which quite accurately shows what the eye sees when observing the monitor. I’m not sure why you’re talking about what your phone is picking up with clearly ramped up sensitivity and exposure. You seem to be over-analysing things and looking for problems. Just use the monitor and enjoy it – and if you don’t notice things with your eyes, they aren’t issues worth worrying about.

The backlight bleed could appear different in HDR mode simply because the brightness is lower? Have you tried comparing with very low brightness in SDR mode?

As for the ‘DPS Mode’, I’m not sure what that even is? It could be something that was lacking in the pre-production sample, certainly. Dynamic Power Saving perhaps?

[pshome]

Yes dynamic power saving sound plausible. But it is always greyed out in HDR or SDR mode. Maybe something to do with non-DP input, will philips have an answer?

I keep forgetting to post this about W10 HDR on/off. When i turned it on, ok no problems. But when i switched it off, the monitor becomes stuck at max brightness or very high brightness, ie. becomes unusable! I had to restart my PC, every time. Did you encounter this and on other HDR monitors like PG27 too? Not sure if my monitor is buggy?

[PCM2]

I didn’t observe this, although I very rarely used the Windows 10 toggle as most of the HDR content I viewed (games) controlled this correctly itself and didn’t need the feature to be activated in Windows. Are you sure you need to restrart your PC rather than turning the monitor off then on again (or cycling input sources so it connects and re-connects)?

[pshome]

Nope i have to restart, tried as you have mentioned. 🙁

You know what webmaster, you are right about the DPS, i upped the brightness OSD to 50 and it DPS is ungrey and i can select it.

For any readers interested, i took a photos of the subpixel problem, just snooping.

I found it can display white, no problem, all the BGR pixels are lit as you see.

When i play 4K youtube (sony camp), the pixels at first look like RGB, but you realises it is more a pentile, with BGR rows move/lit 2 pixels ahead, causing the checker boarding.

Here (incredible turkey) you can see the transition between full white(BGR all lit) and pentile(fake RGB) all in the same scene.
I dont know why Philips made the firmware like this, full white takes a lot more energy AFAIK, and this runs it full subpixels. Any thing else it drops to pentile lighting. 🙁

[PCM2]

Yes, the subpixel behaviour is very strange. The issue is related to the TPV panel that is used or the assistive electronics. I don’t think it’s something you can simply correct with firmware, it’s somewhat more hard-coded than that. Why TPV created the panel in this way is anyone’s guess. I have my own theory that it could speed up the pixel transition speed, because this model was strangely fast for a VA panel. I simply don’t believe this is some oversight on TPV/Philips part, it’s done this way for a reason.

[pshome]

Yes it could be that, i read about some panels inserting a black dot between RGB subpixel to improve response times. This panel simulates a black dot by not lighting up adjacent subpixels..

That said, it is frustrating we could have a real budget monster if only TPV lit all subpixels as normal. I tested some more and the 436M6 can display black text on white/off-white in full BGR clarity.

Anything with other colors and the pentile dithering takes over. It is not even on different sources or scenes, it happens on same scene, like when im typing this. The white forums bg and text looks as good as any monitor. But the blue buttons have the damn dots. Makes no sense? This monitor is strangely perfect for your word docs or sql text processing!

Hopefully more readers join in and pressure Philips for a response.

[docace911]

OK, thanks to all here (yes I used the links) picked up a 436M6VBPAB ($750 USA) to be used for both productivity (office 365, lots of powerpoint) and gaming (HDR/SDR).

Paired with Gtx 1080

Asrock USB C motherboard -> USB C works great. Powers the other ports. Headphone jack has zero noise which is welcome.

First impressions were awesome. I am looking for this dithering and other issues but can’t get past the incredible native contrast and pop to colors. Text looks great with truetype enabled. My face is 27-35 inches from screen (this is USA, only use metrics at work 😉 so maybe that helps. The pics on pcmonitors really scared me but I digress.

However one of my dimming zones worked for about 10 minutes. So in left/center bottom I now have a massive splotch. Will have to do an exchange. A shame as the initial blue uniformity was freaking incredible.

Gysync appears to be working fine also.

Overclocked it to 70hz without frame skipping (took pictures with the testing, no judder)

Biggest problem is that I can’t get NVIDIA custom resolutions to work with HDR

So with ANYTHING but . the standard 60hz, NVIDIA drops back to RGB 8 bit. Others have seen this on NVIDIA cards, others claim it is a monitor issue – simply not sure.

Will update with a better review, overclocking results if I ever get a good panel ;(

[PCM2]

Hi doace911,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I may combine this with another thread and may do the same with other “mini-reviews” that pop up, but it depends how much interest there is in the individual thread.

A few things:

– You mentioned in another thread that you secured an open box product for $450, yet now state you paid $750. What happened to the open box product, or did you change your mind? If you have bought an open box, you need to be clear about it when you start talking about faults – other readers need to know this.

– As per the other thread, you’re very unlikely to be able to overclock this much at all without frame skipping. I haven’t seen any conclusive proof of users being able to do so. If you’re going into this with the expectation of having a good overclock from this, prepare to be disappointed. Or perhaps you’ll be able to do some testing to demonstrate a sucessful overclock on your new unit – which users (and I) will very much appreciate.

– I’m glad you don’t find the dithering bothersome. The images need to be shown as to avoid skirting around the issue, but I did clearly state that many users will find it fine from a reasonable viewing distance. For the metrically-inclined you’re sitting ~70-90cm from the screen which I consider a decent viewing distance for this size of screen and similar to how I would sit.

[docace911]

1. Oh the “open box”. Screen was actually cracked as “like new”. Sent that back, so amazon took $50 off new one (price matched microcenter) so $799-$50

2. Box was perfect. Like I said the initial blue philips screen was fine. After 1 hour the backlight blew out on 1/32

3. I took photos at slow ISO of the frame skipping test. I will do the same on the new monitor. I wonder if the 2 models (a and b) use same panel? For example, my instructions show I have a dvi port (I don’t) and layout of ports is different from the instructions

4. I have not tested past 70hz. Someone on hardocp got it to 80hz before frame skip. Hopefully that did not blow up my backlight 😉

5. Any good gsync test to see if working well? That old demo I can’t find.

6. The whole overclocking loosing hdr is a real shame. I think this is nvidia not the monitor – if I under lock I loose hdr also . It’s like the drivers only allow 10bit rgb or 4:4:2 if the preset frequencies

7. When you tested it you said you used DP. I am also. Did you do rgb 10bit, or 4:4:4 or 4.4:2 for hdr?

[PCM2]

Sounds like you got a good deal then! Well, aside from the whole backlight zone blowout issue. That makes sense, hopefully your replacement is in good working order and doesn’t exhibit any dodgy uniformity issues or other such horrors.

The G-SYNC Pendulum demo is still available and still the best way to see if ‘G-SYNC Compatible Mode’ is doing its thing. Or in-game testing – it should be clear if it is working or not, although the Pendulum demo is neater.

HDR was tested with everything set to default in the graphics driver. So set automatically, which I believe is 10-bit RGB. Certainly wasn’t 4:4:2 because text rendition was fine on the desktop (aside from the subpixel-related issues). It’s actually quite common for monitors to properly support HDR only at listed frequencies, it’s not unique to this model. So are you saying you were able to run at 70Hz without frame skipping? If so that’s an improvement over my unit which only went up to 65Hz at 3840 x 2160 without frame skipping IIRC.

[docace911]

For those who care :

Finally got a new panel. Delta E is 1.39 and fantastic uniformity

This one though starts to drop.frames past 64hz at 4k and 70hz at 2560.

Motion is fantastic at 60hz and HDR. Agree with review “standard” HDR is fantastic

“Smart uniformity” is fantastic that was not in your review. Solid backgrounds are perfect

Quick question: what is the interaction of response time vs refresh rate and motion resolution? Meaning, it’s amazing how good this looks at 60hz with the super fast panel.

So would a 120hz panel have better motion resolution if it had a more typical 2x panel response?

Since this is so lovely debating if waiting for the acer is worth ir

[PCM2]

Excellent, really glad to see such positive feedback from your new unit. And to see “Smart Uniformity” actually working as it should!

The pixel response requirements are indeed increased as refresh rate increases. This model offers pixel responses that are fast enough for a nice 60Hz performance, but there would be more pronounced weaknesses at 120Hz. They wouldn’t be extreme, though. You’d notice more of that ‘powdery’ trailing and some extended trailing, but it seems that this model is free from the really weak pixel responses that many VA models have. If the ASUS XG438Q or Acer CG437K can come near this level of pixel responsiveness then they’re going to be very interesting monitors indeed and pretty capable at ~120Hz. If they can exceed this level of pixel responsiveness without introducing extreme overshoot, they’re going to be very capable.

[PCM2]

I hope you’re still enjoying the monitor and are finding the imperfections easy enough to ignore. Some other users have ordered it recently and I’m hoping they might provide some feedback on the forum as well, to encourage others to try it. The 436M6VBPAB is definitely one of those monitors people need to see for themselves.

Edit: I received your donation – your support is appreciated. 🙂

[docace911]

The more I use this the more it’s pretty amazing. I guess at my seating distance I don’t see the pixel structure and VA wash out at the edges.

RTINGS recommended 1 for brightness which seems low – I like your 15 🙂

[docace911]

According to RTINGs and user, he was able to use CRU to make a custom driver to enable

65hz HDR
Freesync/Gsync 20hz-65.

Going to try to get this to work, will post detailed instructions after testing it.

[PerDegaton]

Hi Everyone!

I have recently bought a Philips 436M6VBPAB monitor partly because the recommendation of this site’s review of it.
So I thought I should share my experiences with it.
I think it’s a great monitor, I like it very much. Fantastic colours and deep blacks for an LCD and great contrast.
I use it mainly for single player gaming, it is perfect for that (I prefer a larger, more immersive screen with great image quality instead of smaller, higher Hz panels).

Yes, the static dithering issue is there, absolutely the biggest flaw of the monitor in my opinion, and at first it really bothered me, but I usually sit far enough from it to be noticable, and after a few days it haven’t been an issue for me even when I sit closer e.g. for web browsing.

There was one problem however, a week after I bought it I noticed two subpixel errors near the centre of the screen. Luckily I purchased it with 20 days of pixel-error warranty, so I had it replaced with a brand new one.

The new one doesn’t have any pixel errors (yet), but it has two around palm-sized brighter blotches on it, where the backlight is brighter when the screen is dark and it really irks me.
I don’t know what is this called, maybe this is clouding, but I thought that is a problem with IPS panels. (Of course this happens when local dimming is turned off.)

So this really bothers me now and I kinda wish I hadn’t replaced the previous one, that one had almost perfect uniformity (for a big LCD), no blotches or clouding or anything and the pixel errors weren’t that much noticeable. The VA washout at the edges were still there but I can live with that, it doesn’t bother me.
I don’t think this is cause for warranty replacement, and it’s true that during normal use it isn’t even noticable but I am contemplating calling the store and begging my previous unit with the pixel error back 😀 Advices appreciated 🙂

Apart from this (which is just probably my bad luck) I think this is an amazing monitor and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone, who knows what he needs and he needs a big panel, with fantastic colours, contrast and great HDR.

[Author]

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