Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[donuthaters12]

If I decide to have the dynamic tone mapping of my C8 on along with my 820’s HDR Optimizer, would that be overkill? And if I have to choose one over the other, would it be the 820’s option be the better choice?

[ray0414]

Originally Posted by donuthaters12

If I decide to have the dynamic tone mapping of my C8 on along with my 820’s HDR Optimizer, would that be overkill? And if I have to choose one over the other, would it be the 820’s option be the better choice?

New video today by Vincent. He actually compares dynamic tone mapping on an LG oled to the hdr optimizer. Spoiler, he prefers the Panny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTw_...ature=youtu.be

[nick4Knight]

Still depends on titles, and display tech, and tone mapping... That example is a HDR10 title with 4000 nits of content in the mastering side of things, and put on an OLED display.

Very specific conditions not everyone has, as much as I respect his video most people already came to this conclusion generally it's better -- I'd prefer to see 5 different types of titles and judging whether Active HDR on the LG is better than HDR optimizer overall

[Robert Zohn]

I have tested Panasonic's UB820 and the UB9000 with several TVs and projectors and with many 4K HDR BD titles as well as streaming and Panasonic's HDR Optimizer produces a better overall image quality than any of the TVs and projectors I tested when compared any of the display device's tone mapping ability.

The advances of bringing down the peak luminance to a level your display can manage while preserving the PQ will always deliver a better HDR experience.

[Fendergopher]

The 820 seems like it's easily one of the best bang for the buck UHD players right now. Unless you own a projector I guess. The HDR optimizer looks great, will be interesting to see if Panasonic manage to make meaningful iterative improvements to it in the future.

[sapiendut]

Robert, please don’t forget about your findings for the JVC RS2000 with Panny 9000 combo preferred settings please. My 9000 and RS2000 currently are being used on tours separately so I never had the chance to play with them simultaneously.

[Robert Zohn]

Will do.

I'll also have a press release going out this afternoon with some additional news on this subject.

[avs commenter]

Kinda ironic that the best and more expensive player is better suited for a lower end TV

[dlbsyst]

Everybody says the tone mapping of the Z9D is really good. Has anyone compared it to the Panasonic's tone mapping?

[Robert Zohn]

Actually Panasonic's HDR Optimizer delivers the best HDR picture quality improvement for all projectors and all OLED TVs. OLED TVs are among the most expensive flat panel displays.

We've tested the UB820 and UB9000 with the highest peak luminance TVs and Panasonic's tone mapping is noticeably better that when we disabled the HDR Optimizer and enable the TV's dynamic tone mapping.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by dlbsyst

Everybody says the tone mapping of the Z9D is really good. Has anyone compared it to the Panasonic's tone mapping?

The ZD9 does what most Sony's do: clips the upper range of the content according to how much of the range the TV can natively handle. Preserves APL but can lose the brightest highlights. Discs that are mastered up to and including 1000 nits can be represented in their entirety (with no extra remapping) on a ZD9 which has been calibrated to follow the ST.2084 brightness curve correctly, but with stuff that hits 1000 nits and up then it can lose a bit of the upper end, getting progressively worse the brighter the content gets.

There aren't that many titles out there that consistently go higher than 1000 nits, but those that do can be nicely remapped by the Optimiser, even on the ZD9. Has the exact same benefit as what Vincent showed, that it manages to keep the correct brightness in the surrounding areas but only remaps the actual part of the image that's above whatever level the Optimiser has been set to. Very clever stuff, though the slight wisp of banding that it creates shows that Panny's processing is throttling the bit depth a wee bit (Smooth Gradation to Low on the TV counteracts this effect nicely).

[dlbsyst]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Actually Panasonic's HDR Optimizer delivers the best HDR picture quality improvement for all projectors and all OLED TVs. OLED TVs are among the most expensive flat panel displays.

We've tested the UB820 and UB9000 with the highest peak luminance TVs and Panasonic's tone mapping is noticeably better that when we disabled the HDR Optimizer and enable the TV's dynamic tone mapping.

Okay, thanks Robert. What difference did you observe when it comes to the Z9Ds tone mapping. Vincent mentions that the LGs OLED tone mapping is bringing the entire level down to the point of effecting black and midtones. The Panasonic is just tone mapping the bright tones. What does the Z9D do to the image when it tone maps high lumanance HDR?

[Geoff D]

PS

And when set to the correct ST.2084 curve on the TV (cinema pro, contrast 86, brightness 50, gamma 0) I've found that the "Super High" luminance mode on the Optimiser is still losing some highlight detail on the ZD9, despite test patterns showing that the TV can just about squeak its way towards resolving 1500 nits of highlight information. So I've set the player's Optimiser to "Middle or High" instead.

[dlbsyst]

Thanks Geoff for that detailed explanation. Unfortunately I will have to rely on the tone mapping of the Z9D for much of my 4k HDR viewing because much of it is through my Nvidia Shield.

[dlbsyst]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

PS

And when set to the correct ST.2084 curve on the TV (cinema pro, contrast 86, brightness 50, gamma 0) I've found that the "Super High" luminance mode on the Optimiser is still losing some highlight detail on the ZD9, despite test patterns showing that the TV can just about squeak its way towards resolving 1500 nits of highlight information. So I've set the player's Optimiser to "Middle or High" instead.

I've been wondering about that myself. Thanks for sharing your findings.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by dlbsyst

Thanks Geoff for that detailed explanation. Unfortunately I will have to rely on the tone mapping of the Z9D for much of my 4k HDR viewing because much of it is through my Nvidia Shield.

The TV will still give you excellent results for the vast majority of HDR stuff you watch, but you might find that stuff from Warners and Sony can occasionally burn out the highlights as they're the ones who master at >1000 nits. In the past I've made do with an alternate viewing mode where I've reduced contrast to bring back the missing highlight detail, up to about 4000 nits worth, but this reduces brightness by about a third - though it's not especially damaging when you're 1) watching in a completely dark room and B) have a light cannon of a TV anyway.

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

The TV will still give you excellent results for the vast majority of HDR stuff you watch, but you might find that stuff from Warners and Sony can occasionally burn out the highlights as they're the ones who master at >1000 nits. In the past I've made do with an alternate viewing mode where I've reduced contrast to bring back the missing highlight detail, up to about 4000 nits worth, but this reduces brightness by about a third - though it's not especially damaging when you're 1) watching in a completely dark room and B) have a light cannon of a TV anyway.

I remember when I just had the 820, I tested this with Fury Road among other titles. During the sandstorm scene, I paused the disc at the exact moment when lightning struck. I then compared how the picture looked with Pro + Optimizer set to Super High, and your 4000 nits mode (Custom I believe) with the Optimizer set to off. Small details in bright highlights were "brought back" in both modes (when compared to using Pro without the Optimizer), but as you stated the 4000 nits mode loses some brightness. Though I must say I thought the amount of those details that could be seen again was not really a huge difference. I might try this out again but with the Optimizer set to Middle or High as you suggested.

Lately I've been using the 820 solely with my projector and I use the X800 whenever I watch 4K on the TV. Can't be bothered anymore switching between the projector and TV mode for the Optimizer on the 820 everytime.

[Geoff D]

The amount of stuff that's brought back depends on the grading for sure, as we know not every scene is going to have 4000 nits worth of information, which makes that '4000 nit' mode of mine a bit of overkill because it's dimming the image just to get what might amount to a few seconds worth of >1000 nit highlights (and is basically what Vincent was highlighting with the dynamic tone mapping of the LG, that although it was bringing back the highlight detail it was also noticeably affecting APL). I haven't watched anything in that '4000 nit' mode for ages, can't even remember the last time I used it.

Then there's the slightly naughty way that Sony have graded a lot of their HDR catalogue stuff e.g. they boost the brightness incredibly high but the actual image only contains a few hundred or a thousand nits of actual visible highlight detail, if that make sense? If you turn on the Optimiser it can drastically dim the highlights but not actually reveal any more specular detail, though in itself has an advantageous effect as I see it: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...n#post16142220

[Bigbro]

Ok 1 thing that is totally unclear to me: why make a disc reaching 4000 nits when there is no or other display that is capable of showing it. The best LCD screens go up to 2000 nits. Now we are busy how to manipulate the picture to see to it that the image is not getting too dark.

[dlbsyst]

Originally Posted by Bigbro

Ok 1 thing that is totally unclear to me: why make a disc reaching 4000 nits when there is no or other display that is capable of showing it. The best LCD screens go up to 2000 nits. Now we are busy how to manipulate the picture to see to it that the image is not getting too dark.

Maybe they are trying to make these future compatible.? I agree with you though. Seems kind of silly. Maybe it's so they can sell more tone mapping players like the Panasonic.