Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Geoff D]

Anything VC-1 I've got worth keeping I've already burned to a BD-R which the Panny *can* play, this is from years of experience with Panasonic players and HD DVD rips!

[guile]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Anything VC-1 I've got worth keeping I've already burned to a BD-R which the Panny *can* play, this is from years of experience with Panasonic players and HD DVD rips!

Yeah, I have a TON of HD-DVD's in my closet, many of them ripped into my Synology server. I don't burn discs.

I probably still have about 200 HD-DVD's

[Kage]

Did Panasonic fixed the issues with the loud fan noise and loud disc drive spinning noise on their latest batches on the ub820?

[DJJez]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Gah. The Panny won't even play Dolby Digital Plus audio in a video file.

this is exactly why i use my oppo 203 for files lol

[elvis1608]

Does anybody know How accurate Dolby's DV-SDR conversion is? I have a non hdr sony vw500 projector and both the oppo 203 and ub420. The oppo has a weird bug with DV discs and non hdr displays. It forces DV output and you can't force hdr10 leaving you at the mercy of Dolbys hdr-sdr conversion. When I view a DV disc on the oppo the image does look brighter than on the ub420. This was definitely apparent on Superman but I don't know if that's correct?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by DJJez

this is exactly why i use my oppo 203 for files lol

Same here, I just thought I'd give it a try on the Panny

[curlyjive]

Is there any chance that the ub820 will get the extended display info screen in an update?

Does anyone with an LG 2018 series OLED use the 820 with the optimizer. I have been, with it set to OLED. Looks good to me, but I had read most of the benefit was for the older generation LG's.

In case any one else runs into this, I was having a hard time get 4K24 4:4:4 12 bit HDR to the OLED despite trying to force it. IT would either give me 4:2:2 or revert to SDR709. Turns out you must turn on 4K60 4:4:4 in the menu above in order to get 4:4:4. I ran into this because my 820 is used for both a projector and my OLED so I have to change a few settings for SDRBT2020 12 bit 4:2:2 and HDR BT2020 4:4:4 12 bit.

[guile]

Is it possible Plex could be added to the apps on this player via a firmware update?

[Purploros]

How do I output audio simultaneously from both the HDMI VIDEO OUT and OPTICAL/AUDIO OUT terminals?

[Mikke73]

I have recently noticed that on at least some Sony UHDs UB820's HDR Optimizer is increasing color saturation too much. For example in Groundhog Day at 7 mins 30 secs, the snow turns almost light blue, and it looks like I'm actually losing some dynamic range in the snowy parts of the image that aren't clipping even without HDR Optimizer. I've noticed similar thing in all three Ghostbusters UHDs also.
TV type is set as OLED, all the other settings (dynamic range, color settings etc) are left on default. On my TV dynamic contrast is off.
If I turn color saturation down on Panny, then it reduces color on other disks (tested with Inception).

Has anyone else noticed anything similar? My LG E7 has not been professionally calibrated, if that makes any difference. I was thinking that maybe my TV settings for dark room viewing are actually too dark, and Panny just thinks that those parts of the image are clipping when they are not?
In that case, calibration could fix this?

[Geoff D]

I've got my TV type set to Super High LCD but I also noticed the a similar thing on Ghostbusters 1 and 2 the other day, that when turning the Optimiser on it reduces the peak brightness in the highlights but it doesn't seem to recover any actual specular information, it just makes them dimmer. That's more of a grading quirk IMO, that the available highlight range has been pushed into >1500 nits so it 'pops' but doesn't actually resolve that amount of range, if that makes sense. Seems to be a fairly common trait across these Sony remasters of older movies.

As for Groundhog Day, I recall the snow having a blue tint on the UHD.

[Mikke73]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I've got my TV type set to Super High LCD but I also noticed the a similar thing on Ghostbusters 1 and 2 the other day, that when turning the Optimiser on it reduces the peak brightness in the highlights but it doesn't seem to recover any actual specular information, it just makes them dimmer. That's more of a grading quirk IMO, that the available highlight range has been pushed into >1500 nits so it 'pops' but doesn't actually resolve that amount of range, if that makes sense. Seems to be a fairly common trait across these Sony remasters of older movies.

As for Groundhog Day, I recall the snow having a blue tint on the UHD.

Yeah, now that you mention it I recall Raimi's Spider-Man movies having this too.
But thanks, at least I know now that it's not the Panny acting up. Still, I think that in this case leaving HDR Optimizer off might be the better option, at least for me.

[Mikke73]

Originally Posted by Mikke73

Yeah, now that you mention it I recall Raimi's Spider-Man movies having this too.
But thanks, at least I know now that it's not the Panny acting up. Still, I think that in this case leaving HDR Optimizer off might be the better option, at least for me.

"And there was much rejoicing!". Found these settings from earlier in this thread, and seems that they more or less fixed this "thing" with Sony releases.

Maybe I would have figured this out sooner or later myself, but it saved me a lot of time to have a starting point that worked almost perfectly without any further tinkering.

So, thanks to Geoff for confirming it really is something with these releases, and Dave for providing the settings

Originally Posted by Dave___B

For LG 2017 OLED users with this player, here are my final settings with most of the titles (hopefully I won't touch these again...)

Dynamic Contrast on the TV is set to "OFF"

On the UB820

HDR Optimizer : On
Dynamic Range Adjustment : +6
Brightness : 0
Tone Curve White : +2
Tone Curve Black : -3

[zubinh]

I have a LG C8 OLED. Is the consensus to leave the optimizer on OLED? or something else?

Lovin the UB820 by the way, it has been rock solid, I don't miss my Opp 203 one bit (especially after making a profit of $200 when I sold it....

[curlyjive]

Originally Posted by zubinh

I have a LG C8 OLED. Is the consensus to leave the optimizer on OLED? or something else?

Lovin the UB820 by the way, it has been rock solid, I don't miss my Opp 203 one bit (especially after making a profit of $200 when I sold it....

Have a C8 as well...interested to hear as well.

[gates70]

Does anyone that lives in Canada tell me where they bought their 820? Seems hard to find.

[Bond84]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

that when turning the Optimiser on it reduces the peak brightness in the highlights but it doesn't seem to recover any actual specular information, it just makes them dimmer.

I'm glad someone else has noticed this. I was afraid it was another OLED issue.

[agoofykindasuperman]

Originally Posted by gates70

Does anyone that lives in Canada tell me where they bought their 820? Seems hard to find.

Tell me about it.

I live in Ontario. Ordered an 820 at Visions in Whitby on November 22nd... I'm still waiting for it to arrive.

Can't complain though. I bought it for $375 + HST, and due to the delay, the manager has offered me a $50 refund if I want to keep waiting. Said he would have his shipment in by the end of this month. Here's hoping!

As for you to find one, keep checking Amazon and Best Buy. There's a 3rd party seller that usually has them for sale. But tends to sell out quickly.

If it's worth anything, the manager of Visions says his Panasonic rep told him a shipment of the players are expected at the end of this month/beginning of next so just keep an eye out...

[curlyjive]

Originally Posted by Bond84

I'm glad someone else has noticed this. I was afraid it was another OLED issue.

This is highly content dependent.

[Geoff D]

Yes, it's more to do with the grading than the Optimiser itself, which is only doing what it's been told to do: compress the highlights starting at x amount of nits. What the Optimiser doesn't know, can't know, is whether this content that hits >1000/1500 nits actually has highlight information within that range or whether it's something that's simply been graded to look a lot brighter than it otherwise would do. Unfortunately this isn't something that we can simply detect in the source content, you gotta play it by ear (eye?) as to whether the Optimiser is actually required. Still, keeping this advice in mind for Sony discs (or if not all discs, then their 4K 35mm remasters at least) can't hurt.