4K help needed -- looking at everything from Phillips to Samsung and BenQ

For what it's worth, I found setting brightness to 100% on the only monitor I've had PWM flicker with (BDM4065UC) to make no difference at all. I'm still waiting for a suitable monitor to replace my UP3214Q - I have to put up periodic 'no signal' and needing to reboot the PC as MST support is still pretty poor on both AMD and nvidia's side, but there really aren't any suitable SST alternatives. I've heard a rumour (from a Dell account manager) that Dell's new UP3216Q is still going to be MST on displayport too and need HDMI 2.0 to single-stream. Tempted to pick up a GTX980Ti and try that out, but don't really want to be confined to only using one GPU brand.

The BDM4065UC made me much more aware of panel quality as while I've found most modern monitors with IPS and VA panels to be pretty pleasant to use, the Philips was ghastly - a lot of TN monitors I've used are far better, certainly with better viewing angles, colour quality and response time.
I was tempted to try out the Samsung U32D97KQSR but I have reservations about PLS, and at more than double the price of the Philips, it's a very expensive risk to take.

NCX said:

Samsung and Vizio use VA panels and have lower input lag, but double the blur since they use PWM (example) which makes them completely pointless to buy for gaming to a rational person. 2x980 ti>new mobo & ram.

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NCX are you sure that Vizio M series native 120Hz(60' and up) tv's use PWM for brightness? I tried looking into this but non of the review sites make mention of it.
The native 120Hz vizio panels from what I have read have a mode to strobe in order to reduce ghosting and improve motion clarity at the cost of brightness.

Nightingale007 said:

NCX are you sure that Vizio M series native 120Hz(60' and up) tv's use PWM for brightness? I tried looking into this but non of the review sites make mention of it.

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It's easy to find out from Rtings ghosting pictures; displays which use PWM look clearer in the photo and suffer from double+ letter ghosting, but the eye sees (or doesn't see if one is in denial and/or ignorant) faint double image+ which judders (similar to bad back-light strobing) and blurs while non-PWM display motion looks naturally blurred and is not duplicated or tripled. It's possible that Vizio's suffer from PWM lottery, but the M series lacks 4:4:4, so I don't understand why one would choose a Vizio M for PC use.

Vizo M versus PWM Free Sony. PWM versus Non-PWM Test UFO Ghosting.

It seems that even though the Vizio M lacks chroma 4:4:4 (does 4:2:2) Text still is rendered razer sharp without any distortion.

example:

This is what "TRUE 4:2:2" looks like under high magnification and this is why everyone says that text is unreadable with 4:2:2.


This is what the Vizio M-series looks like if the video card is set to 4:4:4. There are no issues at all with reading text if the video card is set to 4:4:4.


With that being said, it seems maybe 2016 will be a better year. I really wanted to get the 40 inch native 120Hz JU7100 from Samsung. It check's 90% of the criteria of what I would consider a good all around TV/Monitor replacement(anything below 7100 is garbage) Priced @$1000 USD it does everything, minus DC Dimming & lack of display port.

Well it turns out in CANADA Samsung refuses to stock anything below 55 inch for models 7100 and up. So the only other alternative would be the Vizio with it's 18ms input lag, native 120hz panel with support for outputing 1080p@ 120Hz(which is very rare amongst TV's.

Only problem is I have to go 60' not the most ideal size for a monitor, deal with it being PWM and it's permanent 16.4 ms overshoot ghosting. However in real word use the overshoot does not look that bad at all as I have seen it in person.

what the M series looks like at deafult 60Hz 4K




Now with motion reduction by refreshing the screen via, strobing


What do you think, probably not ideal? I am to understand that the flicker from strobing is going to fatigue the eyes if used for an extended period of time. Just seems like one compromise after another. What I am not going to do anymore is spend serious money on overpriced PC monitors with a wide variance in QC.
Considering all that you get from modern day 4K panels it's insane what PC displays go for. I can buy a 120Hz, 5000:1, 60' 4K TV for $1300 cdn with proper 24p support and packed with features, where a PC monitor with poor contrast such as the BenQ BL3201PH @ 4K and 32' is 1200 cdn.

Both of those Vizio images show double image ghosting which is a joke considering that the cheapest BenQ, Dell and LG monitors are PWM free. The BenQ does not have poor contrast, in fact, if the brightness is not kept cranked, one can sit at a more "field of view filling" distance (especially if willing to use a bias light and no other lights to vastly increase the perceived black depth and make glow invisible; 60cm/2ft is fine) than the VA panels which suffer from contrast shift which is equivalent to IPS glow as well as colour shift and uneven colours.

NCX said:

Both of those Vizio images show double image ghosting which is a joke considering that the cheapest BenQ, Dell and LG monitors are PWM free. The BenQ does not have poor contrast, in fact, if the brightness is not kept cranked, one can sit at a more "field of view filling" distance (especially if willing to use a bias light and no other lights to vastly increase the perceived black depth and make glow invisible; 60cm/2ft is fine) than the VA panels which suffer from contrast shift which is equivalent to IPS glow as well as colour shift and uneven colours.

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Would the VA panel also include BDM4065UC?

Also, just checking, are you saying that, even despite the size difference, you can sit a distance where the apparent size of the 32" would be bigger than the apparent size of the 40" VA panel, due to the VA gamma shift forcing the user to sit back further?

chenw said:

Would the VA panel also include BDM4065UC?

Also, just checking, are you saying that, even despite the size difference, you can sit a distance where the apparent size of the 32" would be bigger than the apparent size of the 40" VA panel, due to the VA gamma shift forcing the user to sit back further?

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Yes to both questions, but only if one has bright room lighting and/or turns the brightness down and uses a bias light.

Great, thanks. I believe that cements my decision.

The BenQ Panel is about $20 more expensive than the Philips one over here, so it seems like comparatively, the BenQ is better value.

NCX said:

Both of those Vizio images show double image ghosting which is a joke considering that the cheapest BenQ, Dell and LG monitors are PWM free. The BenQ does not have poor contrast, in fact, if the brightness is not kept cranked, one can sit at a more "field of view filling" distance (especially if willing to use a bias light and no other lights to vastly increase the perceived black depth and make glow invisible; 60cm/2ft is fine) than the VA panels which suffer from contrast shift which is equivalent to IPS glow as well as colour shift and uneven colours.

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My bad, I posted the wrong image for motion smoothness. Fixed it now. As for the BenQ, I respectfully disagree to the matter of contrast. 3 days ago I had the opportunity to play with it @CC. It's contrast(limitation of IPS) is poor compared to the VA panels used in today's 4K TV's. It's a nice IPS panel and you were right it doesn't suffer from bad IPS glow, it is however overpriced and does not fulfill my requirements. I need a display technology that looks good for movies and can play games well enough.

So far it looks like I might have to wait for 2016, by then prices will fall down further and maybe by then Samsung and Vizio will move away from PWM brightness control. I know Sony TV's use DC dimming.

Nightingale007 said:

As for the BenQ, I respectfully disagree to the matter of contrast. 3 days ago I had the opportunity to play with it @CC. It's contrast(limitation of IPS) is poor compared to the VA panels used in today's 4K TV's.

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Viewing a monitor under poor store lighting conditions with the brightness cranked is not a good way to judge. None of the large 4K TV's can match the BenQ's gaming performance, only the highest end TV's offer similar preset colour accuracy and vibrancy, and the use of decent bias lighting (the light I recommend only costs 15$!) renders the contrast issue moot.