Why unsupported subtitles left me disappointed with my Philips 43PUS 4K Android TV

by TommyPT_

Hello everyone,

So I am "building" a new house and even though I don't watch all that much TV (my wife's department) I thought about investing in a good TV panel with some gimmicks to it for less than 700€ for some Netflix, DVDs and BluRays. Researched the market and ended up buying the Philips 43PUS6551/12 4K Android TV on a stock off for 650€ (supposedly 2016 top of range model).

TV is great for my "Netflix and chill" sessions with a great ambience provided by the Amblilights, 4K and HDR. Images look very sharp, buttery smooth (like the people were almost getting out of the TV and entering the room).

However yesterday I had the brilliant idea of watching a movie I had on my NAS and to my surprise the default Philips Android TV app couldnt either find the NAS via IP nor could it play a movie with a .sub subtitles. I went on and installed VLC on the Android TV. It was able to play the movie from the network and from the USB disk (I tried both you'll understand why in a sec) but the image quality really sucked. For starters the image is always very bright, there is no HDR at all making my eyes sore after 10 minutes of watching. Then there's a quite noticeable lag on the video reproduction so it is not as smooth as the Philips multimedia/Netflix app. If I put the same video (via USB) on the Philips multimedia app everything runs smoothly without that excessive brightness albeit without subtitles so I guess the source is not exactly the problem.

Tried youtube and althought the image looks sharp brightness was also very strong. Same happned with a 1080P Apple TV 4 and Nintendo WiiU, looks as if HDR is not happening there as well.

Am I doing something wrong? I thought I could really have the same type of quality (huh "gimmicks") overall the inputs and that the image processing would be done rasterizing everything put up on the panel and not from a support of an app. Cable Box from the ISP even though is not as good as Netflix (not 4k, only 1080p on a few channels) I didn't notice that excessive brightness that make my eyes sore (or probably just some whitepoint).

Now I am kinda disappointed with the thing because I feel like I am not getting the most of it. Has anyone experienced something like this? Looks as though as I am stuck to two apps to rely on excellent quality...

ShadeezBack

On a side note, while you have the walls open, are you stringing enough Cat7 and coaxial cable?

kurmudgeon

Subs need to be in UTF-8, being that Android is Linux-based. My setup is similar to what you're trying to do. You can use media servers like Plex, but I just use a file browser to browse my NAS shares on my LAN, then open the video in MX Player Pro, which supports everything and has fantastic subtitle support. My NAS is already doing enough as it is, I didn't want a media server on it as well, which is why I take this approach.

The file browser I use is a really old version of ES File Explorer. It navigates network file shares perfectly. Here's a link to the modified version I use that doesn't sync with Google Play and won't ever update:

Modified ES File Explorer

The reason for not ever updating it is because the newer versions are full of bloatware. This version works great on Android TV and can be used with a remote control just fine.

If you install MX Player Pro , you'll need to install a custom codec pack to get better AC3 and DTS audio support. You can find that on the xda Developer website . Download the codec pack zip file (from the Google Drive link), copy it to your TV. Then open MX Player Pro, go to Settings -> Decoder -> Custom codec. Point it to the zip file you copied to your TV. Then after restarting MX Player Pro, you'll be ready to go.

This is how I do it, not the most convenient to set up, but it works great once it is. VLC just doesn't hold a candle to the file format support or subtitle support that MX Player Pro has on Android; hopefully it will one day. I use VLC on PC and would like to use it on Android too, but I've never been happy with the app on Android yet. VLC is great at navigating a LAN though, but has less options as a player than MX does.

Another app you can try out is Archos . It's also a great video app and you can get codecs for it on Google Play

Hope this helps you out!

anddilolz

Try .srt subtitles with UTF-8 encoding. I use Plex to direct play movies from my PC with my 2016 49PUS, works fine up to 1080p. Also have you tried altering the tv modes like ”movie” ”natural” etc from settings to your liking?

alaninsitges

Yeah, that TV is a POS (I have the 65 inch version). There have been a number of firmware updates, each of which have made it even more unstable and crashy, but maybe one of them will improve your subtitles problem. I remember some mentions about that subject in the forums .

I seem to remember that all your picture settings are done on an app-by-app basis in the Android TV version that's built-in, so go back and verify that it hasn't switched to "vivid" or some other picture mode when you use that app. I bought a Shield TV and just use the Philips as a monitor now, life is much less frustrating.

hunter_finn

I can recommend that you install kodi mediacenter for the network file shares. at least it works fine for my setup as it detects the subtitles automatically long as the movie and subtitle have same filename. However it also supports automatic subtitle download feature and most of the time it is wise enough to find right version of the subtitles in the first try, but sometimes it takes few tries before you find the right version.

However after using both my Philips 55PUS7272 since black Friday and having been using shield tv 2017 since it come out. I can say that Philips is nowhere near as fast as the shield is.

However if I had never been using shield before, I would most likely be happy with the Philips too. except philips video playback seems to be extremely unstable with the built-in YouTube app.

Out of nowhere youtube app would freeze mid playback, audio would play but video would have top half of the video stuck on the screen while the bottom half is completely green.

That crash goes deeper than just the youtube app, because once I had that issue I went to the settings and completely cleared youtube app and even restored the old version of it.

Yet the screen had the same exact frame stuck in the screen while bottom half remained green, and also other apps like Amazon prime video had that exact same frame and the green screen image instead of the video that I tried to watch.

At least that issue can be resolved by restarting the tv, but on the shield I have not seen anything like that.