Philips 2021 OLED TV Owners' Thread (706, 806&856, 956)

Yeah, I found older reports of this problem in this thread too, so not FW related.
I don't know why, but it always falls back to another AI setting, it won't stick to "Monitor". Even changing input and coming back to HDMI2 changes AI style to something other than "Monitor". I'll try to report this to Philips.

The problem is that I can't choose any other preset as this gives me weird grey spots on my Windows HTPC. They disappear with "Monitor" preset.

Monitor preset:
IMG_20220525_171319__01.jpg


Any other preset:
IMG_20220525_171258__01.jpg
 
Yeah, I found older reports of this problem in this thread too, so not FW related.
I don't know why, but it always falls back to another AI setting, it won't stick to "Monitor". Even changing input and coming back to HDMI2 changes AI style to something other than "Monitor". I'll try to report this to Philips.

The problem is that I can't choose any other preset as this gives me weird grey spots on my Windows HTPC. They disappear with "Monitor" preset.

Monitor preset:
View attachment 1701372

Any other preset:
View attachment 1701373
Looks like the (logo) burn-in protection, you should be able to deactivate that if you want.
 
Yeah, I found older reports of this problem in this thread too, so not FW related.
I don't know why, but it always falls back to another AI setting, it won't stick to "Monitor". Even changing input and coming back to HDMI2 changes AI style to something other than "Monitor". I'll try to report this to Philips.

The problem is that I can't choose any other preset as this gives me weird grey spots on my Windows HTPC. They disappear with "Monitor" preset.

Monitor preset:
View attachment 1701372

Any other preset:
View attachment 1701373
I have just tried this on my oled936 and can confirm the issue is present here. Turn on monitor mode, turn the tv off and then back on (exact same hdmi input) and mode is back on filmmaker.
 
I have just tried this on my oled936 and can confirm the issue is present here. Turn on monitor mode, turn the tv off and then back on (exact same hdmi input) and mode is back on filmmaker.
Even just changing to another input and returning loses the preset. I'll report it to Philips ASAP! Tnx for confirming!

Btw: @mwasil mentioned this exact problem in Nov last year in this post: here
 
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Ok, someone on Reddit made me very happy!
(Seems that @Hallonz was also right... Sorry!)

u/Teetseremoonia told me I had to disable:
- general settings - advanced - oled screen settings - local image protection - off

This does indeed make the strange grey zones disappear in every AI Picture Style. Therefor I don't need (HDR) "Monitor" mode anymore (as this was the only mode without the weird and ugly greyish zones).

A possible explanation might be that "Monitor" mode disables image protection.
Philips support escalated my ticket of the not saving Monitor preset to the dev. team. I'll keep you updated with their answer, but it's not necessary anymore for me!

I'm now using Filmmaker Mode and image looks great!

@BenLED en @mwasil fix found!
 
@sammyke007 If I use film maker mode my vertical resolution will be halfed (or less), making the image stretched (and losing information). Local Image protection is off.
 
I know it also happens in hdr, but is way less of a problem there with brightness at 53/54.

Try out my settings, I do not notice the postorisation at all anymore in SDR with fast motion clarity at max and a bump in brightness. 👍
I decided to give it a try, probably spent a couple of hours actively setting everything up and watching test clips as well as my calibration disk back and forth, I did try BFI before but not at max since it affected brightness a lot. I tried with max BFI and yes I cannot say that I notice the harsh transitions anymore, however the overall picture quality suffers.

Getting back some black level detail by raising brightness to 56-60 does work, to an extent. It still crushes detail far more than is acceptable to me and no brightness level (even tried 80 just because) will get that back. Test pictures, black level pluge patterns, look ok but real world material is visibly worse. And the brighter portions of the picture, like skin tones, seem too bright as well as colors looking washed out. Maybe it’s possible to adjust the 20pt and CMS with professional equipment but I don’t have those available.

I then switched back to my default setting, which is basically very close to the calibrated settings shared in this thread, and to conclude I prefer my own settings that give a more (color) accurate picture with more dark detail even if I can see some mild posterization. To mitigate these defects I try and keep the bitrate high and use the ATV as my main source. I thank you for your input, it does indeed work to surpress the posterization and near black issues but I could not live with the IMO degraded picture quality.
 
I decided to give it a try, probably spent a couple of hours actively setting everything up and watching test clips as well as my calibration disk back and forth, I did try BFI before but not at max since it affected brightness a lot. I tried with max BFI and yes I cannot say that I notice the harsh transitions anymore, however the overall picture quality suffers.

Getting back some black level detail by raising brightness to 56-60 does work, to an extent. It still crushes detail far more than is acceptable to me and no brightness level (even tried 80 just because) will get that back. Test pictures, black level pluge patterns, look ok but real world material is visibly worse. And the brighter portions of the picture, like skin tones, seem too bright as well as colors looking washed out. Maybe it’s possible to adjust the 20pt and CMS with professional equipment but I don’t have those available.

I then switched back to my default setting, which is basically very close to the calibrated settings shared in this thread, and to conclude I prefer my own settings that give a more (color) accurate picture with more dark detail even if I can see some mild posterization. To mitigate these defects I try and keep the bitrate high and use the ATV as my main source. I thank you for your input, it does indeed work to surpress the posterization and near black issues but I could not live with the IMO degraded picture quality.
Can you maybe share a clip on YouTube or something you think look worse with these settings? Maybe I should not go look for problems since I like the PQ now, but I am curious
 
Can you maybe share a clip on YouTube or something you think look worse with these settings? Maybe I should not go look for problems since I like the PQ now, but I am curious
Sure, hopefully you will not be as picky as me, if you are - don’t blame me afterwards ;), Two quick examples: Netflix Invisible Man about 8 min in the movie where she escapes from the house, there is a shot of a staircase. The color of the wood on the staircase changes to a much darker color with a lot of extra red in it. However, most of the ”macroblock/posterization” is eliminated. The AVSHD709 test pattern with color steps; for me the color blue gets visibly way too bright and the steps ”float” into each other in the higher levels. This is with BFI max and brightness 60, color is warm with only 8-9 clicks of blue added to the WP. All other processing off. Changing back to brightness 50 and BFI off eliminates the issue. Changing brightness below 60 with BFI max clips blacks, so I believe you have found a good level there.

I have more examples, but I am pressed for time at the moment and hopefully no one else will see what I see then it’s only a problem on my side. :)
 
I don't think it's sensible to use The Invisible Man on netflix to confirm or calibrate anything. It's a really low quality encode that has severe 'posterisation' across any screen I've tried it on (OLED and LCD). So if you're trying to tweak settings to overcome posterisation there, I feel you're really compensating for the unusually limited content rather than getting an accurate general image, and would probably end up smoothing out a lot of actual detail in higher quality content.
 
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I don't think it's sensible to use The Invisible Man on netflix to confirm or calibrate anything. It's a really low quality encode that has severe 'posterisation' across any screen I've tried it on (OLED and LCD). So if you're trying to tweak settings to overcome posterisation there, I feel you're really compensating for the unusually limited content rather than getting an accurate general image, and would probably end up smoothing out a lot of actual detail in higher quality content.
I agree with the addition that what we are doing is not ”calibrating” rather tweaking. The oled706 ,just as all Tvs with the mediatek 9950/9970A chipset, is bad at rendering near blacks, just google it. What we are trying to do is find some way to tweak the settings so that the effects are mitigated. Here The Invisible Man serves a purpose, it is low bitrate and bad quality, the tweak with setting BFI to max and raising brightness to 60 clears up the picture. Of course the effect will carry over to other titles as well, or the other built in apps.

I have many more examples, not only SDR but HDR has this issue as well (all about the bitrate, mastering and quantity of near black scenes). You can see the effect in HDR titles such as Shang Chi via the built in disney+ app (end fightning scene with the wall of souls), the beginning scene of Eternals or the death on the nile when they are inside the crypt. You just have to look for it and it’s there. The posterization/gradiation of colors is even more easy to spot - just start the disney+ app , look at the splash screen/disney logo and compare the built in app with say the same app on a ATV 4k….I could go on and on…the point is not if it’s there or not, just if it bothers you and whether you can live with or try to find a way around it.

For that I concluded that in my testing of this particular BFI tweak I found that while it does mitigate the near black posterization it also affects picture quality, which incidently can be seen in the Invisible man as well, but more obvious in skin tones or test patterns to which I also referred an example in my post above. And that is the point I think you were trying to make as well :).
 
For the people who are interested :)
I made some photos of the different screens:
View attachment 1691037
View attachment 1691038
These above screens where accessible to do these steps:
1. In the TV go to a HDMI source
2. Type in: 06 25 96
3. Press: the round MIDDLE button (OK button)

View attachment 1691039

View attachment 1691040
This one seems interesting, you can copy all settings to a USB stick it seems.
View attachment 1691041
These settings could be interesting too, the 'OLED IMAGESHIFT' for example, but also the 'OLED LOCALBOOST' and 'OLED HDR'. And the 'OLED CMO' what does that do?
View attachment 1691043

And here is the 'OLED protection' setting, don't know what is exactly does.

I have changed nothing just only looked around.
How did you access te last 4 screens (blue, info numbered from 0 to 86). I can access the service menu (06 25 96) but do not find these there.
 
The 806 with better CPU does not have this issue?

The 706 and 806 have the exact same chipset and picture processor. The 9x6 series has a dual chip picture processor and supposedly suffers less from this issue.

My experience is that a high quality external HDMI source for streaming (such as ATV 4K) rather than built in apps cures the vast majority of the issue anyway.
 
with the invisible man test, I think the gamma tracks a little low anyway so if you raise the gamma slightly you should only need to raise the brightness by 3 or 4 (i.e 54 max) which should mitigate any loss in detail
 
... And that is the point I think you were trying to make as well :).

Yes I think we generally agree on all the substantial points! I mentioned above somewhere that it would be great if a firmware update could improve near black handling a bit, not disputing it's a weakness of the TV (although on balance one I think I can live with, given how infrequently it's noticeably bad vs the generally strong picture quality, and most other OLEDs having similar issues). In response to Djdjdj, I'm pretty sure all the Philips OLEDs will have this issue (and most other brands too), as they mostly come from a combination of the processor that most of them share and an inherent property of all the LG oled panels (until this year with QD-OLED every company was using these LG panels) for the last few years where the initial jump from full black to 'barely grey' is a bit too pronounced unless other tricks are used.

You definitely have to pick your poison with tweaking settings to your preference (and just choosing a TV, given they all have their own weaknesses). For me definitely not worth trying to overcompensate content that just has an inherently low image quality, quite possibly at the expense of bringing down accuracy and detail on higher quality material (and maybe without even realising). Was interested in your UHD HDR examples as it's extremely rare for me to spot the issues there - can't see anything stood out to me in the first few minutes of Eternals, will try the others later. I haven't tried that many test patterns but I also very rare for me to see colour banding unless the scene is very dark. I also wouldn't put too much stock in the internal app splash screens - is it just the internal apps having a lower footprint to save memory? Some of the actual content on there (e.g. intro to 'Star Wars Visions') has what looks like the same splash screen, but very smooth gradation. My appraisal so far is that internal Disney+ and netflix apps actually perform very well with UHD content, but amazon prime not up to par. Not sure if ATV does better here?
Note also I have the 48" so it's going to be less apparent than if you're on bigger screens - may be a factor.

Anyway, I think we actually reached the same conclusion that we prefer a lighter tweak for most purposes rather than fudging high brightness + BFI to force just 'The Invisible Man' on netflix to look as good as possible!
 
You definitely have to pick your poison with tweaking settings to your preference (and just choosing a TV, given they all have their own weaknesses). For me definitely not worth trying to overcompensate content that just has an inherently low image quality, quite possibly at the expense of bringing down accuracy and detail on higher quality material (and maybe without even realising). Was interested in your UHD HDR examples as it's extremely rare for me to spot the issues there - can't see anything stood out to me in the first few minutes of Eternals, will try the others later.

Anyway, I think we actually reached the same conclusion that we prefer a lighter tweak for most purposes rather than fudging high brightness + BFI to force just 'The Invisible Man' on netflix to look as good as possible!
Couldn’t have said it better myself - definately a case of picking your poison and I am overall happy with the PQ of the 706. It is very color accurate out of the box, the warm WP needs a small addition of blue then it is close to perfect. Just as you I just wished TPVision could release a FW to improve near black handling, however I don’t think it’s entirely up to them as it seems to be a mediatek issue, other TVs that use the same chipset have the same issue as pointed out earlier in this thread with a link to Vincent Teoh explaining it in more detail.

I was considering to post screenshots of the mentioned content, but maybe it’s better not to lead others down this rabbit hole. If you don’t see it, or if it simply doesn’t bother you, leave it alone. ;)
 
Haha yes, the torture of being a bit of a perfectionist! I'm still in the return window so continuing to go a bit out of my way to find stuff, but have had the TV for about a month now and already at the stage where I forget about the niggles and enjoy it for daily use until a particularly bad example of something comes along.

Curiously have not yet seen any notable banding or near black artefacts/flashing on TV content (I'm using the built in freeview). I guess the worst offenders are actually quite rare when you're not going seeking them, rather than there being any differences in image encoding or processing. But anyway, doing a good job with 50hz broadcast TV was one of the main considerations for picking the Philips so happy that part has turned out so well!
 
Hi.
So anyone who has a problem with eARC popping/clicking sound in tv apps. Solution is to tunr off all the exctra processing, such as dynamic range compressor, in AVR. Worked in my Sony str-dn1080
 
Hi All,

Could i get some help/advice please - i'm sure i could find the info within this thread but at 69 pages long i'm going to be lazy and hope you won't mind !

I'm moving house, new place has bigger living room so my current 55oled803 (which i love) could be replaced with a 65 inch screen, and potentially that would be the 65oled806.

I have looked at reviews and (some) comments on here but want a few things clarified if possible -

1) Does the 806 have full Ambilight along the bottom ? i will 100% be wall mounting and i think i read somewhere that the 856 only has partial Ambilight along bottom due to different stand mount ?

2) I will be using the tv for watching films & tv shows (90% of them through my Zapitti Neo) and football (usually in Ultra HD using Sky Q &/or BT Sports app). The 803 is good, but not top notch with the movement in football. Can i get some opinions on the 806 with fast moving football ?

3) Once upon a time i came across a list for some pretty accurate settings (possibly on this site) that made my 803 much better (i did tweek them slightly to suit my room) but in general they were a huge help and my film watching experience greatly improved (i'm very much with Tom Cruise regarding how films 'should' look!). I've read bits suggesting the 806 is pretty fiddly regarding ideal picture settings so has anyone given a rough 'settings guide' to follow that was well received by other owners ??

4) I'm sure i read that there were some initial firmware bugs with the 806, can someone just confirm that they've all be sorted via updates ? note: if i recall they may have been to do with the eArc stuff, which wouldn't be a problem as i use and AVR and at present the Zapitti/Blu Ray player/Firestick all connect to AVR - i also use the Firesticks Netflix and Prime apps to view those platforms as i felt they were better that tv's inbuilt apps....but that may be different on newer 806 ???

5) I really can't afford anything more expensive than an 806 (which has been much reduced in past few weeks), and i definitely want to stay with Philips and Ambilight, but it's not really essential i change my tv, so any advice/thoughts in general on the 806 as a choice ? Obviously the extra size is a bonus but picture wise is it a big step up from the 803 ? it does seem to be markedly improved reading some reviews but what are your thoughts ???

Thanks in advance for any input.
 
Hi All,

Could i get some help/advice please - i'm sure i could find the info within this thread but at 69 pages long i'm going to be lazy and hope you won't mind !

I'm moving house, new place has bigger living room so my current 55oled803 (which i love) could be replaced with a 65 inch screen, and potentially that would be the 65oled806.

I have looked at reviews and (some) comments on here but want a few things clarified if possible -

1) Does the 806 have full Ambilight along the bottom ? i will 100% be wall mounting and i think i read somewhere that the 856 only has partial Ambilight along bottom due to different stand mount ?

2) I will be using the tv for watching films & tv shows (90% of them through my Zapitti Neo) and football (usually in Ultra HD using Sky Q &/or BT Sports app). The 803 is good, but not top notch with the movement in football. Can i get some opinions on the 806 with fast moving football ?

3) Once upon a time i came across a list for some pretty accurate settings (possibly on this site) that made my 803 much better (i did tweek them slightly to suit my room) but in general they were a huge help and my film watching experience greatly improved (i'm very much with Tom Cruise regarding how films 'should' look!). I've read bits suggesting the 806 is pretty fiddly regarding ideal picture settings so has anyone given a rough 'settings guide' to follow that was well received by other owners ??

4) I'm sure i read that there were some initial firmware bugs with the 806, can someone just confirm that they've all be sorted via updates ? note: if i recall they may have been to do with the eArc stuff, which wouldn't be a problem as i use and AVR and at present the Zapitti/Blu Ray player/Firestick all connect to AVR - i also use the Firesticks Netflix and Prime apps to view those platforms as i felt they were better that tv's inbuilt apps....but that may be different on newer 806 ???

5) I really can't afford anything more expensive than an 806 (which has been much reduced in past few weeks), and i definitely want to stay with Philips and Ambilight, but it's not really essential i change my tv, so any advice/thoughts in general on the 806 as a choice ? Obviously the extra size is a bonus but picture wise is it a big step up from the 803 ? it does seem to be markedly improved reading some reviews but what are your thoughts ???

Thanks in advance for any input.
1) yes 4 sides ambilight
2) I had 55" 803 too, football was always good, smooth camera movement
3) yes, if you read @pro100gamer post number #1439
4) read last 10 pages, there are some issue with this TV
5) I bought the 65" 706, and no, it wasn't a big step from my previous TV in terms of image quality except the size.
Anyway we have some added value:
  • VRR
  • 120 Hz refresh
  • Dolby Vision
  • HDMI 2.1
  • faster menu

Audio, even if we have more power, I prefer the old one, generally more clear.
 
Since the last android 11 update I have an issue when watching TV via app NLZIET (Dutch app for watching TV) I have a black flickering. Sometimes 4x in a minutes. Its drives me crazy.
I don't have this problem when watching Netflix or Disney+.
Does anyone know a solution? Thanks.
 
Just my two cents here.
Since I bought the TV about a month ago, I've had many times where the sound would go on and off when watching built-in apps. Sometimes just a couple of times at the beginning, sometimes it would not stop doing it.
The sound is transferred via HDMI/ARC to my Yamaha RX-A860 that does the decoding.
If I switched to stereo or used the built-in speakers, it would never do that.
I tried the latest firmware I could find on this forum last week but no luck.
I tried other stuff, but long story short : I replaced my +/-5m hdmi cable for a shorter one two days ago and I'm not having that issue at all anymore.
 

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