PG32UCDP: Gamma curve still not fixed with MCM106

[MA77HIAS]

Hi.

First of all, thanks for providing MCM106 with some valuable fixes, that's very much appreciated!

Unfortunately, the problem with the gamma curve (a kink in the lower half) is still not fixed, resulting in banding and black crush which is very distracting/annoying when watching media (movies, ...) on this device.

I had previously reported my findings with MCM103 in this post which never received any reaction and was eventually locked for no reason. 😞

In general: The gamma curve has a kink in the lower half which other reviewers also noticed and commented on (see XDA Developers and TFT Central ). This causes severe banding in the lower gray tones and is also noticable with other colors like cyan, for example. When watching media, in scenes with darker grayer tones, you see banding and in general it looks false and catches the eye. Hard to describe. For example, when a shadow hits a face, the tone of the face changes wrongly... it looks fake / wrong.

You can easily verify this by using the EIZO Monitor test and choosing the gradient test. If you switch through the colors (especially white), you will see severe banding in the lower half for some. This is more pronounced with the SRGB color space (when using Racing) or with SRGB Cal mode. But in general, it is present in all modes and in SDR and HDR.

This was a problem with the LG model as well that shares the same panel but they fixed it quickly with a firmware update, so it is fixable.

To make a long story short: This is is a great device but the gamma curve kink really dampens the overall great performance. It would be really appreciated and great if one more firmware update could be released with a fix for this issue.

Thanks a lot in advance!
Matthias

[MA77HIAS]

@Aureliannn_ROG Sorry to bother you again. I just wanted to add one more thing to avoid any further confusion and to keep your backend team on the right track: With the two devices I had (and that's pretty much the same I guess for the other posters who complained), you don't need to have a darkroom environment to see the banding. Watching any show / movie in a normally lit room with the monitor set to a normal brightness level (36, for example), will very clearly show the banding in any affected scenes (like shadows in a face or on the skin or dark beards on the face, walls, ...). I hope that is of any use. Thanks again!

[Aureliannn_ROG]

Hi @MA77HIAS ,

thank you for your response. You don’t necessarily need to provide a YouTube video. 

Since you mentioned that the issue is clearly visible while watching Dark Matter or Game of Thrones, would you be able to provide a photo of the issue as it appears on your screen?

If a photo taken with your phone does not clearly capture the issue, you might try recording a video instead (preferably in MP4 format). 

In addition to our internal testing, we need to review how the issue appears in your actual environment. Therefore, please try to capture a video or photo of the issue as it occurs so we can further investigate. We appreciate your cooperation. 

Thank you.

[MA77HIAS]

@Aureliannn_ROG The photo @deusXex provided pretty much shows what I am seeing. But I tried my best to capture one of  the worst moments in two videos (both from Dark Matter). If you can let me know where I can privately send a Google Drive shared link to, so your engineering team can download the two videos, I will be more than happy to do so. I can't (and won't) upload those videos publicy since the material is obviously copyrighted.

Also, the videos are in 4k and HDR. Still, the quality of those videos is not great, I have to emphasize that. But the banding of the shadows (as astonishing as it might be) on the arms and the faces are pretty much what I see in real life. Watching it on a Pixel 9 Pro XL, for example, shows none of those issues in the video and  they look how they should look, obviously.

I hope you can provide me with a private channel to share those videos, so I haven't spent the last hour trying to capture this for nothing.

Thanks again for everything,
Matthias

[Aureliannn_ROG]

Hi @MA77HIAS ,

Thank you for your reply.

We have sent you a private message with further assistance. Please take a moment to review the message.

If you have any questions after reviewing the private message, or if you need any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you.

[deusXex]

This is from XG27AQDMG, there could be some differences, but the issue is pretty much the same on both monitors, so it should be visible here. This can be replicated with SDR, Uniform Brightness @ 25% and Refresh Rate 60, 120 or 144Hz on XG27AQDMG. On pg32ucdp the required brightness settings might differ.