First Time Owner Philips Television

FirstPhilipsUser

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Hi all,
Just wanted to share my findings regarding the first Philips television I've owned.
Previously I was a Panasonic purchaser, however, with the shift in the way we consume content from Digital Cable and/or DVD, I thought that I needed something that would allow me installation of apps on the television. My last television was a Panasonic HD 1080p that I enjoyed for 7 years...

So why Philips? Well, I got a real cheap deal--and please, refrain from pointing out that cheap deals will give you cheap quality ;-)
I purchased the 50PUS8555/10 for 449 Euro and the B8805/10 soundbar for a couple of dimes more...

Straight out of the box I fell in love with the ambilight, what a game changer that is. It optically creates for a relaxing watching experience and just immerses you into the content. The soundbar, once correctly set up, is a joy too as the atmos experience is just lovely... and all this out of 1 bar, no need for additional speakers. I have the subwoofer set at -5 bass as the punch is too much for my liking.

So far, so good...

But then comes app experience... aside from being curious about ambilight (and again, I doubt I will ever want to have a television going forward that doesn't have this) I also decided on a Philips unit as it is an android television, which means I don't need to be dependent on FireSticks or Apple TV or other gadgets attached to the television.
The unit is wired into my router, 600mb fibre, so that shouldn't be a problem.
And yet this is where things start getting less exceptional. The television came with Netflix, PrimeVideo pre-installed, as well as Rakuten which I am not using at all, so all I had to do was install the HBO app so that I can enjoy all the content at my disposal. Netflix and Prime both show up in the main menu and give me instant access to shows I've been watching, yet the HBO app for some odd reason never shows up (it does on the top bar, but not on the favorites below) which I can't figure... Anyway, that is not the end of the world.
What is more then annoying was my viewing experience for Prime and here is why... Crashes left and right. Most of the crashes always happen when content is HDR10+, sometimes it crashes as soon as the content loads and the HDR10+ notification shows on the bottom right of the screen, other times it will always crash the moment either the HDR10+ notification is still showing and I press the volume or the OK button on the remote control, or when I want to fast forward or rewind... Maddening. I went and purchased a new HDMI cable to ensure that this was not causing the problem; didn't fix it. I searched the internet and applied all the suggestions I found; unplugging the television, resetting television, updating firmware et al.
When the app wasn't crashing then the content in HDR10+ is pretty damn washed out and has a slight green hue to the overall image... this is not the Prime viewing experience I was expecting.
Netflix seems to work just fine, though 4K content needs slight adjustment... which means the problem lies with the app and/or the way the app works on my set.

So here's how I fixed the problem: I forced stopped the Prime app, reinstalled the factory version (which is one that, so it seems, will not stream content in HDR10+) and the viewing experience becomes instantly much better--kind of a waste of having a 4K unit... then again, the image is sharp as a razor blade, so I am not complaining. The color was still off though, Bosch and Goliath seem to prefer that humans have a weird hue to their skin tones... this problem I've been able to fix by calibrating the white balance in the following fashion: I set RGB to zero and then starting jumping up with increments of 5. Though I don't have the unit on right now, top of my head the Red and Green are both set at around 15, Blue is set at 75 and that has created for near perfect skin tones.

Anyway, from reading comments all over the web, it seems that the main culprit here is Philips for not creating a good firmware update to fix the Prime issue... though it seems they believe it is fine.

Anyway, for the moment I am more then happy with my viewing experience, even though finally figuring out how to properly set up the unit took a little longer then I wanted.
 

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