Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Aquaman is quite "fake" HDR in my opinion, not the Teoh definition of "fake HDR" (SDR levels in HDR container) but the opposite, that it's not got much more range than SDR yet it's been graded with many thousands of nits of brightness. Very colourful, lots of "pop", but fake AF.

So when the Optimiser applies its tone mapping it thinks it's compressing ~3200 nits of range but there's a fraction of that actually in there, so it ends up collapsing the range rather than preserving it.

This is definitely a problem title. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I can either leave it off and the TV blows the hell out of the highlights, or I can use the optimizer and it brings it back down, bringing back some (not all) of the highlight detail. Of course that's set at medium (1000 nit) even though my set can't hit that high. On standard/500 nit the image is dull and flat. They really borked that disc. It's exactly what they shouldn't be doing with HDR.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Oscarilbo

Thank you guys. And yeah, that’s exactly what I noticed. With the optimizer off it look pretty good, good color and contrast, but turning it ON the most brighter scenes became very dull, less color and contrast yet no gain in detail at all in highlights, just the exact same amount of detail but duller.

I guess Aquaman is kind of an oddity between 4K HDR discs, then. Are there any other 4K discs in the same situation as this one?

This is just more proof of how different HDR can be from TV to TV, model to model. It's just the opposite for me. The optimizer is a vast improvement for Aquaman on my set. It's dull and flat with it on if I set it to 500 nit, but it's a huge improvement if I set it to medium/1000. Without it the highlights are way overblown, losing a ton of detail.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by mar3o

This is just more proof of how different HDR can be from TV to TV, model to model. It's just the opposite for me. The optimizer is a vast improvement for Aquaman on my set. It's dull and flat with it on if I set it to 500 nit, but it's a huge improvement if I set it to medium/1000. Without it the highlights are way overblown, losing a ton of detail.

Bear in mind that Oscar's watching in SDR conversion so that's an even more extreme tone map being applied in his case, i.e. way less than 500 nits so it's dulling the image down further.

[Nocheduro]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Bear in mind that Oscar's watching in SDR conversion so that's an even more extreme tone map being applied in his case, i.e. way less than 500 nits so it's dulling the image down further.

Are there certain movies where it is just better to watch the standard blu ray? I think you’ve mentioned Skyfall as an example.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Nocheduro

Are there certain movies where it is just better to watch the standard blu ray? I think you’ve mentioned Skyfall as an example.

Even then I can tolerate it. As I kept saying, it's Deakins so it doesn't look like shit, I just don't like what they did to the black level. But something that makes black crush like that more tolerable is if I reduce the contrast on the TV, it makes the lack of smooth near-black transitions less glaring. With all the UHDs I've moaned about the there are very few that were so badly mangled I couldn't tolerate them. The chief offenders are T2, Bourne Identity, Expandables 1 and Straight Outta Compton.

[morris_schaffer]

Well, I confirm the region A criterion of Silence of the lambs works on my UB820 doing the stop + top menu trick. Awesome. What's weird is that under audio settings, the 2.0 setting is greyed out. Or does that mean it's the standard setting? And I can only click on the 5.1 if I want to choose that one?

[Nocheduro]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Even then I can tolerate it.

Lawrence of Arabia too? From your review if that one it sounds like the standard blu hides a lot of the restoration work that Sony’s extreme HDR grade brings out.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by morris_schaffer

Well, I confirm the region A criterion of Silence of the lambs works on my UB820 doing the stop + top menu trick. Awesome. What's weird is that under audio settings, the 2.0 setting is greyed out. Or does that mean it's the standard setting? And I can only click on the 5.1 if I want to choose that one?

Greyed out with the player or the pop-up menu? some discs only allow changing through the menu itself, it was quite common in the DVD era.

[morris_schaffer]

Originally Posted by chip75

Greyed out with the player or the pop-up menu? some discs only allow changing through the menu itself, it was quite common in the DVD era.

The disc is playing, the menu appears like you see below, I go to audio options and then 2.0 is greyed out. I can only select commentary and 5.1. So perhaps 2.0 is the standard option.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by morris_schaffer

The disc is playing, the menu appears like you see below, I go to audio options and then 2.0 is greyed out. I can only select commentary and 5.1. So perhaps 2.0 is the standard option.

I'd assume that 2.0 is the track currently playing (and the original audio), if you switch to 5.1, that should grey out and you should be able to select 2.0.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Nocheduro

Lawrence of Arabia too? From your review if that one it sounds like the standard blu hides a lot of the restoration work that Sony’s extreme HDR grade brings out.

I said at the end of the review that "it's still one of the finest catalogue releases you're ever likely to see" so I'm not going back to the Blu, but I came up with some special sauce settings to make it zing a bit more (because we know it's had some high frequency rolloff) and reduce some of the digital bleh: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...1#post17828931

[Nocheduro]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I said at the end of the review that "it's still one of the finest catalogue releases you're ever likely to see" so I'm not going back to the Blu

I guess my eyes glossed over this sentence.

[gnicks]

Originally Posted by chip75

I'd assume that 2.0 is the track currently playing (and the original audio), if you switch to 5.1, that should grey out and you should be able to select 2.0.

This is correct. On Criterion discs, the grayed out option is the one currently selected.

And yes, the default on SotL is the original 2.0 track.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Bear in mind that Oscar's watching in SDR conversion so that's an even more extreme tone map being applied in his case, i.e. way less than 500 nits so it's dulling the image down further.

Ah yes, I missed that.

[Gretiem]

Just pulled the trigger on the UB9000 from value electronics.

[Robert Zohn]

Thank you! ^^ Shipping today for delivery to your home tomorrow!

[lilboyblu]

Ordered up a sale priced 820 yesterday. Keeping my Oppo-203 in addition for all of the features that the Panasonic doesn't have, but really want to see this HDR Optimizer for myself.

[ronboster]

Originally Posted by Gretiem

Just pulled the trigger on the UB9000 from value electronics.

It's hard to top VE for customer service. They set the standard.

[morris_schaffer]

Originally Posted by pbz06

If you have everything routed through your AVR, it should have an auto lip sync feature. I believe it's a spec for HDMI 2.0a/b (although perhaps not required).

If there is no auto lip sync feature, your AVR should alternatively allow you to set input dependent manual adjustments. If not, you can also set it within the Panasonic player but you would need a test tone or easy scene to adjust.

My tv had An audio sync option which was off. That did it.

[bnmdjm]

Originally Posted by newtbludger

Just tried to watch my 4K disc of Dunkirk and around the 12 minute mark the image began to get garbled and started to freeze. I'm pretty sure it's the disc as it does it in the exact same spot every time but I just thought I'd mention it here in case any other panny owners experienced this.

I just had a similar issue around the 6:08 time with the UHD of Dunkirk. I cleaned the disc several times and it always froze at exactly the same spot in the 820. Strangely, the UHD disc plays fine in my PS5.