Philips OLED+ 934 4K TV Hands On Review & Comments

Anyone one tried mkv playback from USB? On two movies I've watched it resets back to the beginning after exactly an hour, I then have to fast-forward to one hour in to continue watching...the wife wasn't impressed! :thumbsdow
 
I updated yesterday too and noticed Atmos appearing in Netflix now. Actually sounds pretty good compared to my previous comments that I wasn't getting much effect from the height speakers. However, the first time I started watching an Atmos show (Another Life), the sound was crackling like crazy (like happened before). Restarting the show, Netflix, and even the TV did nothing to fix it. I even tried reconnecting the speaker cable. No idea what's going on there. Eventually it sorted itself out after I switched sources to FS4K and back again. Not sure if that was what fixed it, but I'll have to see how it goes today. I won't be happy if this happens each time.
My internal apps have developed a crackle in sound. A full power reboot fixes it, but it has come back a few times when the TV comes out of standby.
Ah, just saw you're getting it too! What a mess! Philips really have a lot to fix. Perhaps we should report this to them as well? I can't understand how they didn't pick any of this up during QA.

However, I can't say the same for the FS4K: there is no Atmos support on Netflix on it. This concerns me because it suggests, as well as the no 10bit issue, that the HDMI port is also not supporting Atmos. Is this specifically a FS4K issue or more general? FS4K is meant to support 10 bit and Atmos. Can anyone confirm they get Atmos via HDMI? (Shield, Apple TV, etc.? Direct to TV via its speaker, not via a receiver).

Unfortunately the update didn't restore my iPlayer app 😞 I messaged Philips about it again and I am waiting for a response, but at this point I imagine they'll just ask me to reset to factory settings to restore it, which will be a pain to lose all my settings (particularly my Kodi stuff). I wonder if there's an APK available? Not that I know of an easy way of getting an APK onto this TV right now. The browser part of the 'Downloader' app I use on FS4K doesn't work on on this.

Only spotted one difference since running the update - the BBC iPlayer app no longer opens!
Should I delete and reinstall iplayer or reset TV to original settings?
Do not uninstall the iPlayer app as you won't be able to reinstall it. I made that mistake and I can't get it back now. I suspect it's not even an app, but rather a shortcut, because I was still able to launch iPlayer via Freeview/Antenna when prompted.

Does your remote have the Freeview Play key as indicated in the manual for UK remotes ? Just been going through the manual and realising mine doesn’t ! Purchased from John Lewis
My remote has Netflix and Rakuten TV (ugh really?). I have no clue what Rakuten TV is and I have no desire to. Why it's a dedicated button I have no idea. I'd have preferred something like Prime Video, or maybe even iPlayer – maybe I'd be able to actually launch it then! 😂

I'm still tempted to get a Shield. Would love to hear some experience of a Shield with this TV.
 
Many thanks for the recommendations above.
After clearing cache and app storage, then powering down the TV, iPlayer is now working again
Thanks again.
 
Anyone one tried mkv playback from USB? On two movies I've watched it resets back to the beginning after exactly an hour, I then have to fast-forward to one hour in to continue watching...the wife wasn't impressed! :thumbsdow
See my post 57. I found it was random but probably more to do with file size (sometimes I got it too run a whole hd film if it was only thing on disc). Also winding back to point it stopped was not easy.
 
iPlayer also now working after clearing the cache and powering off. Thanks for the tip on this.
 
Well that was short lived. Watched one programme on iPlayer and had sound. Tried to watch a second one a bit this evening and no sound ! Had to use the workaround of pressing green again to enter iPlayer to get sound.

Has anybody else still experienced this ?

Also still get a dropout of signal when watching BBC1 on the built in Freeview still. Not happened on other channels so far.

Frustrating.
 
Many thanks for the recommendations above.
After clearing cache and app storage, then powering down the TV, iPlayer is now working again
Thanks again.

How do you clear the cache and app storage? Do you just do it for iPlayer or all apps?
 
iPlayer success was shorted lived, cleared cache, power off etc. Works for a while then fails to start from AndroidTV menu. Green button seams to work.

I've also got issues recording from DVB-T and DVB-S, Once a recording has started you can't leave the channel to use any other service e.g. Prime/IPlayer or other tuner even though it has 3 (1*DVB-T and 2*DVB-S).
 
I’m having a strange problem where the TV is restarting itself without any remote being touched, done in three or four times in the last 6 weeks.....the four coloured dots of the Android software then come up and then the TV returns to the feed it was showing (Virgin / Apple TV) !! Any ideas??
 
Last edited:
Noticed a few more things that are bugging me:
  1. No Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos in Prime Video
  2. Past few times I've tried iPlayer, it won't play anything (endless loading) until I restart the TV
  3. No 'Play Next' channel on the home screen, despite the option being there to turn it on
  4. No 'Prime Video' channel on the home screen
  5. Most of the buttons on the remote aren't sent via bluetooth, so you need line-of-sight for infrared
So I've bit the bullet and ordered an Nvidia Shield TV Pro. It's arriving tomorrow so I'll let everyone know how it goes, primarily:
  1. Does it actually send a 10 bit signal, unlike FS4K?
  2. Does the picture quality (particularly with Dolby Vision) match the native apps, unlike the FS4K?
If the latter is not the case, I'll have to get Philips involved because I would not expect inferior quality via HDMI. I don't know if this issue is prevalent, so I doubt it'll ever get fixed. In that case I may have to just immediately return the Shield and put up with the native experience on the TV. After how much this TV costs, I wouldn't expect any of these issues. I hope I don't end up regretting this purchase :(
 
Hi Domsy
Looking forward to read your test results.

Have the 8 bit problem with my ATV 4K.
Hope you take a look at HDR10 as well. I think they have an extra punch on the internal app but it is kind of subtle. I am using MrMc to play the files from an NFS share.

When it comes to Dolby Vision the colours are all wrong. I have no movie rips but used a test file with a very red rose with clear water drops. (Art of Essence (Dolby Vision).mp4)

The internal player plays it right but over HDMI the rose is pale pink with greenish water drops. The picture is still good though so before I watched it on internal player(from usb) I thought it was an artistic presentation of a rose in green waterdrops.

The green/pink thing is on on every DV test file I have tried (and then it is not looking artistic at all just wrong)
 
Last edited:
Hi Domsy
Looking forward to read your test results.

Have the 8 bit problem with my ATV 4K.
Hope you take a look at HDR10 as well. I think they have an extra punch on the internal app but it is kind of subtle. I am using MrMc to play the files from an NFS share.

When it comes to Dolby Vision the colours are all wrong. I have no movie rips but used a test file with a very red rose with clear water drops. (Art of Essence (Dolby Vision).mp4)

The internal player plays it right but over HDMI the rose is pale pink with greenish water drops. The picture is still good though so before I watched it on internal player(from usb) I thought it was an artistic presentation of a rose in green waterdrops.

The green/pink thing is on on every DV test file I have tried (and then it is not looking artistic at all just wrong)
I had submitted a support request about 8bit fs4k to Philips including some diagnostic info from a usb program they gave me. Never heard anything back, that was end of December.

It must be device specific as my youview box shows 10bit... Bit has no hdr content or mode
 
So I've been using the Shield for a while now and unfortunately I've not had as much luck as I was hoping.

I soon realised I made a stupid mistake regarding "No Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos in Prime Video" on the native TV app. It turns out there are only a couple of titles in Dolby Vision on Prime Video, Jack Ryan being one of them but only season 1. I had been looking at season 2 :facepalm: So Dolby Vision was already working on the native app. Unfortunately 95% of the HDR titles on Prime Video are HDR10+... And the Shield doesn't support HDR10+... If I had known this before, I probably wouldn't have bought the Shield. But that's my fault for not checking. This means I'll have to keep using the native app for Prime Video. As for Dolby Atmos... I'm not sure. I'm not seeing it mentioned anywhere in the UI on the native app or the shield; I'm only seeing 5.1.

Also annoyingly, there's no Play Next channel on the Shield either, so I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding that too. Nor Prime Video channel...

Also, one of my reasons was for brighter, better looking subtitles. Unfortunately this has been the worst experience. They are indeed white now instead of grey (dare I say actually too bright now? lol), but the moment I saw them on Netflix I immediately noticed they looked aliased/blurry compared to the native app, which is super sharp. I'm not sure what the cause of this is, as Nvidia and Netflix don't understand why. I suspect either Netflix are rendering them at a lower resolution, or the TV's picture processing is affecting them now they are part of the video itself (via HDMI instead of being rendered on a separate layer that the TV is aware of in the native apps). My example photos (make sure to view at 100%):
I wonder what subtitles look like in Netflix on something like Apple TV compared to the native app? If anyone could confirm, that'd be appreciated!

Unfortunately I've also had no luck with 10-bit. No matter what I try to watch, the 'device info' seems to state 8-bit, whether it's Dolby Vision on Netflix or HDR on Prime Video. Even some specific 10-bit content I tried via Plex is also saying 8-bit o_O I'll have to try Kodi when I get it set up.

One good thing I can say though is the picture quality of Dolby Vision content definitely seems to look much better than the FS4K! I haven't checked side-by-side with photos, but I'm not unhappy with the picture, which is good at least. I might check for certain with my camera later.

I also like that I can have a proper screen saver now (Aerial Dream, which basically replicates Apple TV's, is really nice!). And all the buttons being bluetooth on the remote is really nice as well (even volume, because it works via HDMI-CEC!).

It's also really nice that the Shield can be configured to turn on and off with the TV, regardless of which you turn on first. This is especially useful as I have set the Shield to sleep after an hour of inactivity, which means it turns the TV off also. (I did have to turn off the 'Switch off timer' in Eco settings of the TV by setting it to 0 to prevent it turning itself off if I hadn't touched its remote in hours.)

The AI upscaler for HD content also works surprisingly well. I can see a big difference with it on vs off.

So overall... A little benefit but also with some drawbacks. I'm not totally convinced I'll keep the Shield yet... Unless I can find some extra uses for it beyond just replacing the TV content.

When it comes to Dolby Vision the colours are all wrong. I have no movie rips but used a test file with a very red rose with clear water drops. (Art of Essence (Dolby Vision).mp4)

The internal player plays it right but over HDMI the rose is pale pink with greenish water drops. The picture is still good though so before I watched it on internal player(from usb) I thought it was an artistic presentation of a rose in green waterdrops.

The green/pink thing is on on every DV test file I have tried (and then it is not looking artistic at all just wrong)
That sounds strange! You're probably already aware, but have you definitely checked your picture settings? I ask because they are specific to each device and output type. Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, HD, etc. all have different settings you need to configure. I noticed the default Dolby Vision profile looked terrible to me.
 
Hi has anyone connected a powered subwoofer to this TV yet? I just bought a powered subwoofer(Roth Oli kh30) and connect it with a qed 3.5mm jack(to TV subwoofer pre out) RCA cable to the subwoofer. But I get a loud constant hum from the subwoofer, TV sound still coming out from the BW soundbar. However, when I plug it into the headphone jack on the TV, the subwoofer works but it's annoying that I have to constantly adjust the headphone volume on the TV depending on what I'm watching.
I'm thinking it could be the cable but then it doesn't make sense that there's no hum when plugged in the headphone jack.
I tried contacting Philips but a lady was on the line who had no clue what I was on about or the product they sell! I also contacted richer sounds and a staff of theirs said I needed an av receiver and have never heard of a subwoofer pre out on a TV. But I was under the impression I could just get a powered subwoofer and not need an av receiver for it to work.
Any help on this would be great!
 
I have the 65" 934, but I'm not using a subwoofer with it yet.
Have you gone into the advanced sound settings to enable subwoofer out?
This is copied straight from the online user manual:

Subwoofer out  Settings > Sound > Advanced > Subwoofer out. Select On/Off to enable/disable Subwoofer output.
 
No worries i think I got it solved. Guy from richer sounds just emailed back to say the subwoofer pre out connection is a phono connection and not a 3.5mm jack. I asked about this previously on this post and someone on here said it was a 3.5mm jack. I'm on my way to richer sounds now to get a phono cable, hopefully it will work when I get back.
 
Good news! Just got my phone RCA to RCA cable and all is good, everything working as it should. A sub makes a massive difference to this TV. So much more depth to music and anything I watch now. The BW "sound bar" already produces nice and clear sounds, definitely recommend a sub to knit it together. No need for a separate receiver and less clutter was what I wanted and now got.
I was a bit worried I would still need to manually adjust the bass volume behind the sub but I can confirm the bass adjust along with the volume on the TV. Very happy with my simple setup now.
 
I must mention it's not going to rumble your whole house but just a nice extra body to the sound. The limited sound settings doesn't give you much to configure. I've found setting the equalizer 100hz to 8 and 300hz to 8 gives it slightly better bass and depth. My subwoofer is brand new so it'll need some breaking in before I can really max it out. But so far I'm happy with it.
 
I must mention it's not going to rumble your whole house but just a nice extra body to the sound. The limited sound settings doesn't give you much to configure. I've found setting the equalizer 100hz to 8 and 300hz to 8 gives it slightly better bass and depth. My subwoofer is brand new so it'll need some breaking in before I can really max it out. But so far I'm happy with it.
Thanks you very much...,do you think SVS sb-2000 pro will match the B&W soundbar? Pretty large livingroom, glad it worked out for you. ; )
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom