Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Nelson10]

? SDR.2200
Does SDR BT2020 has the same luminance levels as HDR BT2020? Or do we set the max level for SDR.2020 to the REC709 between 14 to 16 FL.

[gates70]

Originally Posted by agoofykindasuperman

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...

Thanks for the tip!

[cjake]

Originally Posted by Nelson10

Thank you for that info. It makes sense. I guess I will make a profile on my RS500 that includes SDR.2020 with 2.4 gamma. I will have to select it manually on the remote. I am also using the Vertex with my JVC RS500 that is set up to switch my custom curves automatically.

Thanks

You can have the Vertex automatically switch to your SDR BT2020 picture mode as well. I do.

[Nelson10]

What setting do you have set up on The Vertex GUI to switch to SDR.2020?

[cjake]

Originally Posted by Nelson10

What setting do you have set up on The Vertex GUI to switch to SDR.2020?

The third macro on the MACRO AUTO tab of the Windows GUI is SDR-BT2020

I have this macro send a command to my RS500 to switch to JVC User Mode User 4.

I have renamed User 4 to SDR BT2020. It has the BT.2020 color profile and Gamma 2.4 configured.

[Nelson10]

Thanks.Great! that is exactly how I have it set up with user mode 2. It won’t switch because the signal stays in HDR. When I set the conversion HDR to SDR on the Oppo it works perfectly.

[Nelson10]

So I finally figured out what the issue was regarding the SDR.2020.
I decided to connect the 9000 to my Sony OLED and it worked perfectly. SDR and HDR signals came through as they should. So I disconnected the Panasonic with confidence that it was fine. I rechecked all the connections to my projector. When it hit me maybe it’s the Vertex and it was. I was two firmwares behind as soon as I updated the firmware It was good to go.

NOT A PANASONIC ISSUE...
A USER ERROR...

[Geoff D]

I decided to send my 820 back and grab the 420, seeing as the Optimisation capabilities are the same and I don't particularly need a second Dolby Vision player, a front display or analogue outs. The 420 is a plastic piece of shit, same small form factor as the UB390 which I've also got, but when I ran it through the same HDR calibration runs as the 820 it produced identical results so I'm happy with that.

Something I did find strange was the 480i DVD playback, as out of the box this player is FAR better than the 820 (and indeed the 390 and 700 and 900 before that). It's on the latest 1.47 firmware, as was the 820, and yet 480i doesn't look poorly deinterlaced crap. The torture tests like the Jaggies pattern and Hockey clip on the Spears & Munsil 2nd ed DVD look great, as does actual content like Archer S7. A test pattern I didn't mention before is the ICP 60i chroma upsampling, on the 820 the diagonal lines looked all wavy and 'scalloped', but on the 420 they look much cleaner and straighter.

One curious thing is that if the playback is paused it seems to lose the 'lock' on the deinterlacing and goes back to looking like crap, but a chapter skip forward or back restores the proper look. And I gotta say, with a little dab on the sharpening controls (turning it down, not up) to remove the mild ringing on Archer then it damned near looked like HD.

The one outlier here is that I have not done the 'handset heck' to enable multi-region DVD playback as I did with all my previous Panny UHD decks (me being in Region 2 Britainland but still having a few hundred R1 DVDs), and now I'm wondering whether enabling that is what borked the 480i playback in the first place on all those other machines? It's quite a delicious irony: the one thing that will enable Region 1 DVD playback may be the exact same thing that ruins the 480i deinterlacing, thereby rendering it useless for R1 playback either way. (Archer S7 is the NTSC US DVD but it's region free, hence me being able to play it on the unmodded 420.)

[nachoju95]

Hello, sorry for bothering, I have the Sony WH-1000XM2 headphones, but I need to be able to connect it to my Panasonic UB820 that has no output for the Jack 3.5. Does anyone know a way (and what has worked) to be able to connect without losing quality? Thanks!


PD: sorry for my english jajajaja

[jwort93]

Originally Posted by nachoju95

Hello, sorry for bothering, I have the Sony WH-1000XM2 headphones, but I need to be able to connect it to my Panasonic UB820 that has no output for the Jack 3.5. Does anyone know a way (and what has worked) to be able to connect without losing quality? Thanks!


PD: sorry for my english jajajaja

The UB820 doesn't have a built in amplifier, so you'll need a headphone amplifier that can connect to either the stereo analog audio or digital optical audio outputs on the back of the player.

[Nelson10]

? SDR.2020 setting on the Panasonic 9000
It is my understanding when SDR.2020 is selected on the Panasonic the default nits when Dynamic Range Coversion Adj is set to 0 and the HDR Optimzer is on it is 350 Nits.
Is this Correct?
Even though the 9000 has two options:
Basic Luminance Projector it is 350 Nits
High Luminance. Projector it is 500 Nits

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I decided to send my 820 back and grab the 420, seeing as the Optimisation capabilities are the same and I don't particularly need a second Dolby Vision player, a front display or analogue outs. The 420 is a plastic piece of shit, same small form factor as the UB390 which I've also got, but when I ran it through the same HDR calibration runs as the 820 it produced identical results so I'm happy with that.

Do you have Netflix, Geoff D? I can't seem to get HDR to show up with my player. I'm sure it was working with A Series of Unfortunate Events the other day, as I was playing with the Optimizer, but now all I get is 4K Ultra HD and Atmos badges.

[Geoff D]

No sir, I do not. And I told you before, call me Geoff.

[cjake]

Originally Posted by Nelson10

? SDR.2020 setting on the Panasonic 9000
It is my understanding when SDR.2020 is selected on the Panasonic the default nits when Dynamic Range Coversion Adj is set to 0 and the HDR Optimzer is on it is 350 Nits.
Is this Correct?
Even though the 9000 has two options:
Basic Luminance Projector it is 350 Nits
High Luminance. Projector it is 500 Nits

No, the HDR Display Type (Basic Luminance Projector / High Luminance Projector) is not used in SDR/BT2020 output mode. The Display Type is only used in HDR output mode with the Optimizer turned ON to determine a tone mapping target.

In SDR/BT2020 mode, the HDR Optimizer uses the MaxDML and MaxCLL metadata values to determine a tone mapping target. If there is no metadata, the Optimizer uses a default 1000 nit tone map. The Optimizer's Dynamic Range Conversion Adj. slider will default to 350 nits. Adjusting the slider will increase brightness or increase contrast, perhaps by changes in the curve, but does not affect the tone mapping target; that is determined from the metadata values.

[Clark Burk]

Originally Posted by Nelson10

? SDR.2200
Does SDR BT2020 has the same luminance levels as HDR BT2020? Or do we set the max level for SDR.2020 to the REC709 between 14 to 16 FL.

With HDR material such as UHD blurays you want to maximize your dynamic range. Go for the max nit level you can get and try to keep your black level as low as possible. SDR2020 is not Rec709. Aim for a higher lumen level to take advantage of the greater dynamic range.

[MEB]

Originally Posted by elwaylite

If you have it paused waiting on something, just walk by and hit the status or playback info button every now and then to keep it alive.

This works. I paused a film (Groundhog Day) and set a timer for 15 minutes. At 15 minutes on pause I hit the INFO button three times (which cycles through the two info screens and then back to info being off). Sure enough, the player did NOT go into standby at 20 minutes since I paused it. At 25 minutes since the original pause, I hit INFO three times again and waited 20 minutes. Right at 20 minutes since the last INFO button press the player went into standby mode.

My routine will mostly be to try to queue up the film no more than 18 minutes before we'll be watching it. But sometimes people are late so knowing the INFO button press trick will help me (if I can remember to use it).

Thanks for the suggestion, much appreciated!

Mark

[chip75]

Originally Posted by chip75

Do you have Netflix, Geoff D? I can't seem to get HDR to show up with my player. I'm sure it was working with A Series of Unfortunate Events the other day, as I was playing with the Optimizer, but now all I get is 4K Ultra HD and Atmos badges.

Has anyone got any insight to this? all the settings are Auto, but no HDR logo appears, I can force HDR with the SDR to HDR conversion, but HDR's logo still doesn't appear (on Netflix's App).

[Clark Burk]

Originally Posted by chip75

Has anyone got any insight to this? all the settings are Auto, but no HDR logo appears, I can force HDR with the SDR to HDR conversion, but HDR's logo still doesn't appear (on Netflix's App).

Seems to be a problem with Netflix lately. I don’t use it as I’m a ATV4k user but I’ve heard you must have the 820 setup to deliver HDR. Must be in HDR/BT2020 mode. If not that’s your problem. Make sure it’s set to deliver 4k/60p. Other than that I’m not sure.

[eddievanhalen]

The Panasonic UHD BD players can upconvert SDR to HDR? My Samsung TV can, it's called HDR+ (nothing to do with HDR10+) but there's not much difference between HDR+ and straight SDR. HDR+ just ups contrast, increases both contrast and luminance on specular highlits a bit and lowers contrast on darker areas which sometimes crushes blacks. It doesn't seem to do any improvement on color which is a pity, I've played a couple of BD's with mild banding and banding is still there untouched. Does the Panasonic players really improves picture SDR when converted to HDR?

[grodd]

New Firmware update today 1.51

Stability of system
Playability of Blu-ray Disc™