The official Philips BDM4065UC thread

I realise they're not quite the same, but this wasn't an issue in the slightest on my old Dell 2407FPW which I believe was S-PVA. There's sluggish pixel transactions though and then there's blindingly obvious ghosting. The response times on the IPS displays I've used before the current UP3214Q, specifically the 3008WFP and 3007WFP are far from 'best in class' yet I never saw anything like the level of ghosting with either of those that I did on the Philips - I wasn't looking for it, but I couldn't not notice it...
 
samuelmorris said:
I realise they're not quite the same, but this wasn't an issue in the slightest on my old Dell 2407FPW which I believe was S-PVA. There's sluggish pixel transactions though and then there's blindingly obvious ghosting. The response times on the IPS displays I've used before the current UP3214Q, specifically the 3008WFP and 3007WFP are far from 'best in class' yet I never saw anything like the level of ghosting with either of those that I did on the Philips - I wasn't looking for it, but I couldn't not notice it...
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It's strange, because I am usually very picky about such details as ghosting, but I just don't find it a problem on this monitor.

With smart response to anything other than off, yes, I can see it, but with it off, not a problem.

First va panel I tried was the 32 inch Samsung, and that was a smeary mess to me. This I don't even have an issue with a game like advanced warfare.

Yes, there is blur, but nothing majorly worse than any screen I have tried before. Though my experience is limited to 60hz screens.

Hoping for a 40 inch 4k, 120hz, freesync/gsync screen. That is about the only thing I think I would upgrade to.
 
I've never used anything like GSync or 120Hz as I never wanted to be tied down to the compromise - although I'm sure I'd love 120Hz I wouldn't want it to compromise on what else I primarily focus on with displays, i.e. decent panels like IPS, and high resolution. My experience therefore is only with 60Hz displays, and the Philips is by far the most latent monitor I've ever used and I've seen quite a few over the years including cheap laptops, none of them ghost like it does - I'm not even really sure it's a panel issue as why would the colour distortion trails still be there on a static image and be pixel perfect to the shape of the window they trail away from? I wonder if the controller actually driving the display is no good on these things. The fact that the blur sometimes appears pixelated suggests that might be where the issue lies - either way, two entirely different PCs and displayport cables yielded the exact same result.
 
How recently did you get yours?

Just wondering if they changed something to meet demand that's making recent ones not as good as early ones?

I do get the colour distortion thing, but I kind of have to go looking for it.

As for blur looking pixelated... I can only assume you have a duff monitor? Or as above, maybe they changed something?
 
Same, the colour distortion only usually applies to moving images, but occasionally I can get it to show up with static ones, there doesn't seem to be an obvious pattern to it like I'd expect there to be if it was a panel defect.
Mine was in the batch that arrived on 27th March, delivered on the 30th.
 
samuelmorris said:
I've never used anything like GSync or 120Hz as I never wanted to be tied down to the compromise - although I'm sure I'd love 120Hz I wouldn't want it to compromise on what else I primarily focus on with displays, i.e. decent panels like IPS, and high resolution. My experience therefore is only with 60Hz displays, and the Philips is by far the most latent monitor I've ever used and I've seen quite a few over the years including cheap laptops, none of them ghost like it does - I'm not even really sure it's a panel issue as why would the colour distortion trails still be there on a static image and be pixel perfect to the shape of the window they trail away from? I wonder if the controller actually driving the display is no good on these things. The fact that the blur sometimes appears pixelated suggests that might be where the issue lies - either way, two entirely different PCs and displayport cables yielded the exact same result.
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First question - is your model from OcUK?

Because, I absolutely do not see this - my Philips is perfect, and I bought from OcUK. No ghosting, no trails, no refresh rate issues, no imperfections - it is a fine monitor, and I would notice issues in a heartbeat.

I only read this thread now because I'd like to see other people happy with their purchase having taken my "omg I love it" comments on board. And it saddens me when I see people with what appear to be hardware defects, when I know this isn't what I'd expect from such a great monitor.

I am very suspicious of dodgy models sold from other retailers (I am thinking "the rainforest" and their various european "merchants"). My gut feeling says that those wanting to save £30-40 are in fact getting lower grade products as a result.
 
caff said:
Because, I absolutely do not see this - my Philips is perfect, and I bought from OcUK. No ghosting, no trails, no refresh rate issues, no imperfections - it is a fine monitor, and I would notice issues in a heartbeat.
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try this, open this site http://www.topcashback.co.uk/SnapAndSave/Offers then look at the black apple app store logo while moving the window up and down, i think u will see ghosting, if not then a lot of people would have faulty ones.
 
gareth170 said:
try this, open this site http://www.topcashback.co.uk/SnapAndSave/Offers then look at the black apple app store logo while moving the window up and down, i think u will see ghosting, if not then a lot of people would have faulty ones.
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I get ghosting on that logo with my Philips but it is an extreme example. I don't notice any ghosting at all in games when running full screen. I also am able to use multiple windows perfectly without any perceptible ghosting.

Incidentally I get some ghosting on that logo with my AOC 1440p IPS. It also happens with a HP LP2465 IPS monitor at work. Though both are better than the Philips 40".
 
Thinking about it more, I have noticed ghosting - but only on transition from black to white. It was when I had a background that had black rings on it, and if I dragged a window with white background over I could see the ghosting.

But apart from that, it has not bothered me. I was honestly worried about it in Elite Dangerous, with the black of space and stars and hud/window outlines moving across that, but it has not exhibited any problems there, thankfully.

Still, probably my favourite monitor to date.

As much as I have loved IPS screens, the glow is just meh!
 
caff said:
First question - is your model from OcUK?

Because, I absolutely do not see this - my Philips is perfect, and I bought from OcUK. No ghosting, no trails, no refresh rate issues, no imperfections - it is a fine monitor, and I would notice issues in a heartbeat.

I only read this thread now because I'd like to see other people happy with their purchase having taken my "omg I love it" comments on board. And it saddens me when I see people with what appear to be hardware defects, when I know this isn't what I'd expect from such a great monitor.

I am very suspicious of dodgy models sold from other retailers (I am thinking "the rainforest" and their various european "merchants"). My gut feeling says that those wanting to save £30-40 are in fact getting lower grade products as a result.
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Yes, mine is from OcUK and appears in no way modified (though the packaging does differ slightly to a review I found) - as much as I wanted to like the display, I can't honestly pretend anything other than it's the worst LCD I've ever owned. Standing a few feet away from it with a static image playing it looks superb - but when you actually sit down in front of it and start using it, it's just bad. I do really use a 4K display for the desktop real-estate more than for gaming so I was already a bit disappointed that ghosting was a major issue at the desktop - when I found that both Left 4 Dead 2 and Trackmania 2 were less enjoyable to play with it as well due to the ghosting, that's when I brought the Dell back.

Now that MST is back already in less than a week I've had a display driver crash on the GTX970 as nvidia cards still aren't really that stable with MST, but still miles better than the 290X that preceded it. As infuriating as this is though, overall I think putting up with it is still less of a nuisance than dealing with a poor quality image every day...

As for IPS glow vs VA viewing angles - each to their own. When I'm looking directly at an IPS screen the image is perfect, it only glows if I stand up. With VA I have viewing angle issues even sitting down and if I stand up I can't even see certain colours of text at all unless I sit down again, at least that's certainly true of the Philips (but is of many VA TVs as well I've found) - it's slightly better than my TN Samsung and laptop screen but not by much. I didn't really realise just how close VA panels were to TN until I bought it, but the viewing angles were a minor issue compared to the ghosting really...
 
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i find the viewing angles on this monitor to be very good tbh, much better than a TN panel

edit: i just tried Left 4 Dead 2 and i seen no ghosting.

@samuelmorris it's clear u don't want the monitor so instead of moan about it and finding reasons, just send it back mate, no monitor is 100% perfect, if u want a monitor with 100% no ghosting etc u will need to pay a lot more.
 
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I most noticed it when shooting in a dark part of a map - e.g. the subway tunnels in No Mercy, the muzzle flash from the gun leaves a pixelated trail on the screen - kind of like what you'd expect if you were recording the gameplay and didn't set the video bitrate high enough.
As for the viewing angles, I find them fairly similar to the better TN panels out there - different behaviour, but same sort of extent. With a TN screen if I stand up it all goes black and I can't read text. With the Philips if I stood up the colours became too washed out to read any text, it was almost all white.

Indeed, I intend to do so - me posting is more of a sanity check tbh that I'm not going mad with these issues. The fact that other people see the colour trails makes me think it's not just something I'm seeing because I expect to see it. I think being a Dell Ultrasharp user for 8 years has spoiled me :D
 
u have to remember it's a £600-700 4k monitor at 40" so that's at the very low end of 40" monitors, 32" 4k monitors start at around £700.

if/when other brands come out with 40" 4k monitors you'll see prices of £1000+
 
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@samuelmorris

Could you try setting the monitor to full brightness and seeing if this 'pixelated trail' goes away? It sounds as if you're observing PWM artifacts which are brought out in a more obvious way by exaggerated (smeary) trailing.
 
I did, and both the PWM effect (which seems separate to the ghosting) and the ghosting itself were just as visible.
gareth: That's my thinking too, but the only reason I took issue with that was that reviews both from other users and professional critics suggested it was comparable to high-end offerings. Then again, I have to remember there are people out there that swear by Acer and Benq products :D
 
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samuelmorris said:
I did, and both the PWM effect (which seems separate to the ghosting) and the ghosting itself were just as visible.
gareth: That's my thinking too, but the only reason I took issue with that was that reviews both from other users and professional critics suggested it was comparable to high-end offerings. Then again, I have to remember there are people out there that swear by Acer and Benq products :D
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According to the TFT Central review, there are some noticeably sluggish pixel responses when transitioning from black to white (18ms = a sort of smeary trail). I also suspect that if you consider shades just off from that (for example black to nearly white) that there may be some transitions that are even slower. When you have highly contrasting shades like this that are undergoing sluggish pixel transitions, the result is often fairly obvious 'ghosting'. The dark shade by its very nature contrasts strongly with the light shade and so does the resulting trail.

I'm not entirely sure what you are observing when you mention a 'pixelated trail', but that's what I assumed was down to PWM. I will be assessing the motion performance of the monitor closely as I review it over the coming weeks. I know that the unit I received is not faulty, so what I see here will be representative of a 'normal sample'. Which yours may or may not be.
 
18ms doesn't really seem too high compared to the black-white times of the old Ultrasharps I used to use though, which I think were around 14-16ms. The difference between them and the Philips is night and day, it's a problem I've never observed before and it's impossible to miss here, so I'd have thought the difference has to be more than that.

PWM flicker I'm interpreting as the odd sensation I get when changing which part of the screen I'm looking at, and 'seeing' the vertical refresh as individual lines - I'm told that's PWM yet the UP3214Q refreshes at the same frequency and I don't see it there.

I haven't touched on image persistence in this complaint either, which is similarly annoying!
 
PWM gives you multiple instances of the trails, as you noted it 'split the ghosting up'. I wouldn't expect things to look quite as severe as you describe for an 18ms transition either, although the strong contrast and size of this screen could certainly make it stand out more. Do you observe this most strongly on black to white, or slightly different shades?
 
Contrasts certainly - but lined up - say for example I had a program on screen displaying a rectangle coloured completely black #000000 occupying 500x100 pixels and dragged that around - a trail would be left in place that was exactly that shape - there would not be a single pixel of overspill - so the trail itself looked square, rather than fuzzy and rounded - which I suppose makes sense now that I think of it, there is no overspill to adjacent pixels, but a pixel that has never displayed the black would not show any when the rectangle passes above it.

The colour distortion on static images I have seen but found it very difficult to replicate, it didn't seem at all consistent - there was a time though when I was able to leave an image on the screen and see one of these trails going all the way up to the edge of the screen vertically, without any moving image whatsoever. That's the sort of thing that makes go 'this can't be right, can it?'

Another thing - on my Dell I can move windows with fine text vertically at a relatively slow pace (perhaps 200 pixels/sec max) and still read the text - the point at which I can no longer focus on it, it's just generally blurred, which is fine. If I slow down, I can immediately see it again. On the Philips, moving text vertically at almost any speed renders it illegible, and rather than blurry I can see horizontal lines flickering through. To read the text again I practically have to leave the window stationary. Horizontal text movements are not easy to discern on either screen, but the same observation about instant blur and horizontal lines applies.
 
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