[s1blyx]

Sorry for hijacking the topic, but I have a question for PCM2 🙂
Did you by any chance ever try to connect the PS4 to AD27QD or new Viewsonic? As far as I see, the AD27QD has some good scaling options, but I never tried them on FI27Q while I had it. Especially the one where it emulates the 4K screens so the console would actually downscale the resolution instead of upscaling.

Does the new Viewsonic has the same functionalities or just the basic one to display 1920×1080. In the review, you’ve said it has some basic scaling functionalities, but I see no mention of internal upscaling as on the Gigabyte one.

[PCM2]

Correct. We explore this in the “Interpolation and upscaling” section of the written reviews. Included for the XG270QG and AD27QD. There’s no need to use a PS4 or other console to test such functionality, you can do so on a PC. As a G-SYNC model the scaling capability of the ViewSonic is very basic, it wasn’t a coincidence that no ‘4K’ upscaling was mentioned – it isn’t supported.

[sunnymo]

hi PCM2, i know u are currently reviewing CG32UQ, but I’m so eager to know its local dimming system before ur full review comes out. What’s the number of local dimming zones and the alignment? Is it able to enable local dimming on SDR mode? If the test of this part is done, could u tell me? Much appreciate.

[PCM2]

I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until the review is published, like everyone else. Supporters of the website are sometimes entitled to little snippets of information, anything else I’ll share publically on Twitter if I feel it’s appropriate.

[sunnymo]

alright, I’ll be waiting…

[sunnymo]

hi Adam, is there any random flickering issue on CG32UQ? I’m playing Death Stranding on my ps4pro recently under HDR(4K, yuv422, HDR). I encountered randomly flickering(entire screen, not part of it) during gameplay, it occurred subtle, not often, but I can notice it. it’s like a black frame inserted and very fast. I use the HDMI cable out of the box, I don’t know whether is the problem of the cable. I’m not sure if this happens under SDR, I’ll keep on testing it.

[PCM2]

Yes, I noticed some flickering. Search the review for the term “flickering”. If it’s only for some parts of the screen it’s that responsiveness-related issue that’s mentioned in the review. Common to VA models, more noticeable under HDR (especially on this and similar models it seems).

[sunnymo]

i have read the review of CG32UQ, but this is not the case in the review. the black flickering is not some parts of the screen, it’s like refreshing the whole screen, it is random and only for a millisecond(very very fast), like video reset. this is curious, i hope it is the problem of HDMI cable, the user manual doesn’t indicate whether the HDMI cable supports HDMI2.0(18Gbps) or not, but i’m sure PS4Pro under 4K HDR uses the full bandwidth of HDMI2.0.

[PCM2]

Sorry, it’s early in the morning. I misread what you said in your initial post: “entire screen, not part of it”. I did observe some flickering and what appeared to be the entire screen turning off very briefly, but I only recall seeing that on my Nvidia GPU. At certain refresh rate ranges near or crossing the VRR floor of operation as noted in the review. I don’t remember seeing that on my AMD GPU, but admittedly I spent a lot longer with my Nvidia GPU vs. my comparably weak AMD GPU. Especially when using HDR. But this is with DP on a PC, it’s not a bandwidth issue causing it in that case.

[sunnymo]

it’s ok, it’s the afternoon in my country right now, thanks for answering my question. just like you said, ‘entire screen turning off very briefly’, it’s like that. But on PS4pro, a game console doesn’t support FreeSync, it’s weird. i doubt if it’s the bug of the hardware. i hope it’s the problem of the cable for not stable at the full bandwidth of HDMI2.0, i’m gonna do more tests when i back home tonight, i really like this monitor.

[PCM2]

I’m glad you’re liking the monitor, aside from that issue. Does sound like it could be a cable issue, as you say no VRR technology is being used on the PS4 Pro.

[sunnymo]

hi Adam, I did some tests last night with the CG32UQ on my PS4 Pro. I switched another HDMI cable which also supports 4K@60fps HDR, but the flickering still happens, I consider this is a bug of this monitor under HDR, but I don’t know whether this is just for my unit. I captured a video which shows how it looks like. After the game started, the monitor switches to HDR mode causing a black screen, this is ok, and after that, there comes another flickering(two times) at 00:14 of video, this is it. If it only appears at the beginning of HDR, it doesn’t matter, but it occasionally appears during gameplay, this makes me feel unpleasant. This video can be captured by change, it doesn’t appear every time when switching to HDR mode. This is not such a problem under SDR mode as far as I know. any idea about this?

[PCM2]

I’m not sure about this. I did observe flickering, but only really at/near the floor of operation for Adaptive-Sync. The monitor is running at 60Hz without Adaptive-Sync as you’re using a PS4 Pro (I assume ‘FreeSync’ is disabled in the OSD – although in theory this shouldn’t make a difference). Other than trying different HDMI ports on the monitor and changing the status of “CEC” in the OSD (in case this is a weird handshake issue) I’m not sure what else you can do.

I’ll check with my ASUS contacts to see if they’re aware of the issue and have any remedy, or can shed some light. A fault with your unit is a possibility, although it’s difficult to say and it could be a broader issue with early units. If it’s widespread and people start noticing it I’m sure it will be reported elsewhere.

[sunnymo]

thanks for the help. i captured another video that will demonstrate the problem more accurately. i disabled CEC as u said, but this won’t help. i started the game and do nothing with the controller, just let it be there. the flickering appears at 03:02 of the video. i don’t if this is a handshake issue, but the game has run for 2 minutes already. i really hope ASUS can help
to solve this issue.

Edit 04/12/2019: I did more tests and captured a video on the CG32UQ monitor HDR flicking issue, this time I tried to toggle HDR and SDR. as a result of the fact when switching to HDR, there is flickering after the black screen, but when switching to SDR(HDR off), everything is fine(no flickering) after the black screen. I tried 1080p HDR, yuv420 HDR, yuv422 HDR, the result is the same. So the flickering only appears when HDR is on, this should have nothing to do with the HDMI cable, i also tried on my Sony X930d TV, there is no flickering at all when switching to HDR.

[harryvok]

DO NOT get the Philips 436M6VBPAB. It DOES NOT work with HDR on games consoles.

I’ve tried it on my Xbox One X and PS4 Pro and it is horrible and washed out. Seems to be an issue with HDMI black levels which this monitor has no options to adjust. I’ve searched forums/reddit and other people are having the same problem. I have a 32 inch LG 4K HDR monitor that has an option for adjusting black levels (set to LOW) and it looks really good, dark blacks and nice deep colours. Its not a very bright screen so whites are just ok.

I read a lot of reviews on this monitor before i purchased it and all of them said it would be good for console gaming on HDR. Even the review at PC Monitors suggested the 436M6VBPAB would be good for HDR on consoles, but after re-reading the reviews after i got the monitor, i don’t believe any of these reviews i read actually tested the consoles, just PCs. They looked at the specs as assumed it would be good for consoles.

I have tried every setting available on both the consoles and the monitor and HDR does not work properly on the monitor with PS4 or Xbox One.

Very disappointed with my purchase of the 436M6VBPAB as HDR doesn’t work with consoles.

[PCM2]

Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention and the attention of others reading this thread.

I assume you’ve tried the ‘Normal’ HDR setting (not the ‘HDR 1000’ setting) and are observing these issues?

If this is the case, I will shortly amend the 436M6VBPAB review to make sure it’s clear that the issue we were experiencing via HDMI on our PC (Nvidia GPU) also applies to games consoles. This is very disappointing, it’s certainly marketed as a console gaming monitor and I’m quite surprised that the HDMI issues transferred over to console usage. I thought they were specific to the Nvidia HDMI implementation, at least that was my belief at the time of review. This was reinforced by user feedback I received at the time from console gamers, who seemed quite happy with the HDR performance. Others have complained about similar issues to what you’re experiencing. I’ve had a lot more experience reviewing HDR monitors since the Philips and haven’t come across any which show the odd discrepancy between DP and HDMI implementations.

I’m not aware of any setting on the games console you could change to correct this, nor a setting on the monitor. HDR is designed to coordinate very closely between the GPU/system and monitor and keep to strict standards. So something like the clear gamma, backlight control or colour signal issues that seem to be occurring over HDMI on this one really shouldn’t happen. I’m sorry again you had this experience and that the review suggested it should be fine for games console usage. I’ll make sure to rectify this as I mentioned earlier. I’ll also consider stripping it of its recommended badge. It was only by a hair that it was awarded that in the first place and it was mainly due to its very pleasing HDR performance (PC usage, DP, ‘Normal’ HDR setting). But given the heavy marketing for HDR-capable games consoles I need to give that further thought.

[harryvok]

Thanks for the response.

I have tried every combination of settings i could find between the consoles and the monitor, including the ‘normal’ HDR setting. Everything i’ve been able to find regarding washed out HDR after calibration etc generally seems to come back to how your device interprets HDMI black levels, which this monitor has no setting for. I believe the majority of HDR televisions do have this setting (sometimes called different things) and the LG 32″ 4K HDR monitor i was using before this also had a setting for HDMI black levels, which made it look quite good.

I rang Philips direct with this problem and literally got told ‘well, this monitor isn’t really made for consoles’, even though like you said, it appears to be marketed towards them. Unfortunately where i purchased this monitor from, it was on clearance, so i can’t return it. Luckily the brightness and colours still look quite good with HDR turned off, but i specifically bought it for the HDR properties (i wanted to watch my Xbox 4k blurays on it in HDR too).

[PCM2]

We’ve revoked the ‘recommended monitor badge’ and higlighted these issues in the review. I certainly won’t be recommending it to console users who are after a good HDR experience. And given how the product is positioned and marketed, that’s a shame.

[fun145]

Hi PCM2, first of all, sorry to bothering you again, but the more time i had for thinking, and more research i made, i got a feeling there is no good monitor out there for console+pc gaming and pc work at all.
Seeing you remove recommend badge for much better hdr monitor philips 436M6VBPAB a bigger brother of 326M6VJRMB (43 inch version has fald, more zones, vesa hdr1000 cert.) i am afraid that 326M6VJRMB might got same issues as 436M6VBPAB although it has different display cell as well as backlight solution. If those issues that were mentioned few comments above are common to many units (one or few production batches) the 436M6VBPAB is then useless. It is terrible for pc usage (very bad for working with text, even browsing web from desk distance would be bad experience) and useless ‘normal’ HDR mode for consoles makes this ‘monitor’ basically a television for watching movies with (hopefully working hdr) blu-ray player/home cinema system.

If 326M6VJRMB has similar issues with consoles (suggested by full-screen flickering with Nvidia GPU on its review as well as with review of Asus CG32UQ and few comments about it) and poor dark hdr scenes (due to low dimming zones count without FALD, edge lit only) then i start to question whether hdr is worth it on Monitors.
Also the worse black-crush (gamma shift) along with viewing angels starts to make me to hestitate a lot.

I was interested in hdr mainly because of few games that are PS4 exclusives and support HDR on it to some extent (hopefully better support of hdr than on pc) along with few pc games supporting hdr well. And that’s it. I never thought about hdr in context of movies and series in any form whether it is blu-ray format or streaming service like netflix or amazon or even youtube videos as an example.
Now if we take out hdr exeprience (including dropping interest in consoles overall) from usage, more logical step would be to get Phillips 328E1CA, but i saw some issues there as well. Lack of hdr at that model would make me feel i am not getting the whole experience that UHD has to offer (higher resolution should improve image clarity by increasing level of details which i think should improve overall picture quality, what does hdr do as well).

Also lack of (even too cut) sRGB mode would made me feel sad as well as lower contrast (which i could use heavily in the evening at the dark room to lower my eye fatigue – reason i am interested in va) and menu navigation via multiple buttons (instead of joistick-button) as well as internal adapter (ac/dc transformator) solution.
I am completely torn between those two models and their disadvantages (lacks of feature support).

So while i stated many of my opinions above, i myself am still confused and in doubt and i kind of yearn for help to make ‘good’ decision, which i paradoxically kind of know that nobody can give me until i take a risk and try to get one and try it out.
So if reading this bothers anyone, i am really sorry about it.

Best regard,
fun145

[PCM2]

No monitor is perfect and it’s easy to pick flaws with any screen on the market. Picking out negatives rather than focusing on the positives is an easy way to get completely disillusioned with everything. You then end up in a state of analysis paralysis, unable to make a decision. Instead, you need to home in on what you want from the experience and what is most important to you. All monitors have their positive attributes as well. If a decent (but not perfect) HDR experience is what you’re after, and it sounds like it is, that’s what the 31.5″ VESA DisplayHDR 600 options you’ve mentioned deliver. The issues that the 43″ model have are unique to that model and were raised in the review – they perform very differently under HDR when using DP vs. HDMI. That doesn’t apply to the 31.5″ models, it would certainly have been mentioned on those reviews of HDMI was somehow inferior to DP under HDR.

[Author]

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