Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[jibucha]

seems

that 'many' do not know that the display/player manufactures(s) have 'final say' (adjustment - 'after Dolby does it's best work') - which i find 'unacceptable' yet 'understandable' or manufactures would not support Dolby Vision (at all)

• further, i disagree that the picture quality intent of Dolby Vision is so confusing to determine (whatever the display/player) - (any inconsistencies are of the respective product manufacturer, not Dolby - (to further clarify, still, the Dolby Vision of any product, is an 'co-operative effort of both the manufacture and Dolby, 'regardless the outcome' - 'neither ignores the other', irrespective of their 'possible differences' )
• after all, the basic goal of Dolby Vision is 'consistent' content presentation, not the 'well-known' intent of manufacturers to 'intentionally differentiate their respective products', for whatever reason - fortunately though, some manufacturers try to do what we expect, providing an accurate picture)
• further, i disagree that the 'inconsistency of Dolby Vision performance is due to Dolby (simply illogical and without merit)
• further, whether darker/lighter (picture), determination of the 'intended grading/mastering, by the content provider' - 'should be rather easy to judge' if you have any idea of what 'natural/realistic' means (especially Dolby Vision itself)

Originally Posted by sapiendut

When I had my Oppo 205, the Oppo DV looks sliiiightly darker than Panasonic’s. But nobody can actually claim which one is correct as the DV on both machines were developed by Dolby, not by Oppo or Panasonic.

[Mobe1969]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Why would anyone own a UB820 or UB9000 and not use Panasonic's priority HDR Optimizer?

Dolby does not permit any change to their file so when you have Panasonic's UB820 or UB9000 you would always want to use the SMPTE HDR10.

Some of the advantages UB820 and UB9000 have with the HDR Optimizer properly configured and enabled are an infinite amount of custom tone curves that perfectly follow the EOTF PQ curve and even more importantly are tone mapped to your TV or projectors peak luminance capability.

If that's not enough, because only Panasonic's UB820 and UB9000 also knows your display's minimum luminance level as well as the peak luminance so it knows where to start the tone mapping. Just one example is OLED TV owners where the HDR Optimizer knows you have an OLED so it starts the tone mapping at 0 luminance so you get all of the dynamic range of your HDR content beautifully and completely displayed on your specific TV or projector.

Dolby Vision does not know your displays MLL or peak luminance, only Panasonic's exclusive HDR Optimizer knows how to create the most accurate frame by frame metadata to best match your TV or projector.

It seem like the whole UHD / HDR era has been mishandled on all sides from day one. And unlike last generation, it is falling to the players to try handle stuff on the video side rather than more or less just acting as transports.

Robert - if you are in contact with Panasonic dev anymore, would it be possible for you to ask if they can make the subtitle settings stick, or have defaults, like the Oppo does. At the moment, it doesn't even stick on disk resume.

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Dolby Vision does not know your displays MLL or peak luminance

What MLL has to do with anything? It's decided at the mastering level if the movie has true blacks or not. Movie with true blacks might be watched on poor LCD and movie without true blacks can be watched on OLED.

Peak luminance: isn't that THE point of Dolby Vision? To map movie accurately depending on TV's capability? Since I remember ot was advertised being exactly this: dynamic metadata with scene by scene, even frame by frame, tone mapping. So what now, it was a lie and Panasonic is the only company that knows how to map HDR?

As for Optimiser itself, it all sounds good but for most movies it doesn't work. (Of course I'm talking only about ON/OFF and not the rest more advanced options which I don't want to change)
On my OLED, with OLED set as TV type in UB820 options, it works only for movies with highlights waaay above 1000 nits: Batman v Superman, Mad Max: Fury Road, Starship Troopers, Man of Steel. It also works in some shots of Blade Runner, Wonder Woman or Interstellar.

When it comes to Dolby Vision, Black Panther for example looks superior to both HDR10 presentation without and with dynamic tone mapping on my OLED.

[rickardl]

Originally Posted by Mobe1969

Robert - if you are in contact with Panasonic dev anymore, would it be possible for you to ask if they can make the subtitle settings stick, or have defaults, like the Oppo does. At the moment, it doesn't even stick on disk resume.

And maybe a size option also? Most have large displays these days and there is no need for giant sized subtitles.

[Agent Kay]

So what is the cheapest Panafonics model with the tone mapping feature?

[conankun]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Well, that was stupid question, but by comparing Panny/Oppo with players from Sony and LG we could at least have some clue about it

It was reported Sony darkens the picture.....

Originally Posted by Geoff D

...they're swallowing the line that DV is completely infallible ...

Sad to read this but you may be right unfortunately......

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by Agent Kay

So what is the cheapest Panafonics model with the tone mapping feature?

In North America is 820. Outside NA is the 420.

[Agent Kay]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

In North America is 820. Outside NA is the 420.

Cool, will look for a deal when the 420 goes on one again.
I love my first gen one, but could use a player in the bedroom and the extra feature may come in handy on my main set.

[Robert Zohn]

Originally Posted by nick4Knight

Wait, you are advocating for a Panasonic UB820 user to disregard DV on disc playback and use the HDR optimizer on the HDR10 base layer?

You point out OLED having a leg up with this method (if I'm reading correctly) and that is going to be my display... so I'm oh so curious.

Yes, with the UB820 or UB9000 you would want to have the HDR Optimizer set-up properly to your display type, e.g OLED, basic luminance projector, etc and also turn on the HDR Optimizer in the HDR setting button, by holding down the HDR Setting button until the HDR Optimizer on/off sub menu appears.

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

What MLL has to do with anything? It's decided at the mastering level if the movie has true blacks or not. Movie with true blacks might be watched on poor LCD and movie without true blacks can be watched on OLED.

Peak luminance: isn't that THE point of Dolby Vision? To map movie accurately depending on TV's capability? Since I remember ot was advertised being exactly this: dynamic metadata with scene by scene, even frame by frame, tone mapping. So what now, it was a lie and Panasonic is the only company that knows how to map HDR?

As for Optimiser itself, it all sounds good but for most movies it doesn't work. (Of course I'm talking only about ON/OFF and not the rest more advanced options which I don't want to change)
On my OLED, with OLED set as TV type in UB820 options, it works only for movies with highlights waaay above 1000 nits: Batman v Superman, Mad Max: Fury Road, Starship Troopers, Man of Steel. It also works in some shots of Blade Runner, Wonder Woman or Interstellar.

When it comes to Dolby Vision, Black Panther for example looks superior to both HDR10 presentation without and with dynamic tone mapping on my OLED.

When Panasonic's HDR Optimizer is configured properly for your display type it knows the minimum and peak luminance that your display is capable to deliver. So when it rebuilds the EOTF PQ curve it looks at the minimum and maximum luminance values in the content and starts with the lowest luminance that it reads in the metadata and uses that value to start the frame by frame HDR metadata.

Since everyone has been focused on the peak luminance abilities of the HDR Optimizer I wanted to explain one more of the important exclusive features the the HDR Optimizer does that helps it deliver HDR content specifically optimized to your display's capability while maintaining the content creator's intent. I used the example of an OLED TV as it makes it easy to understand this additional benefit of Panasonic UB820s and UB9000s.

In reply to your comment about Dolby Vision's HDR metadata I am sorry to report that it does not tone map the content. All current tone mapping can only be done in your display's processing (unless you have an external Lumagen or build a few of your own custom tone curves and are proactive in selecting them as needed)

Dolby Vision does report frame by frame metadata on the content's minimum and peak luminance, but that's all it does and it's your TV or projector that has to do it's best to take the information and apply it to the best of its ability.

[nachoju95]

Originally Posted by rickardl

And maybe a size option also? Most have large displays these days and there is no need for giant sized subtitles.

And maybe an option to add external subtitles? It would be an excellent feature for the player.

[Robert Zohn]

For all of the great discussions in this thread, I just wanted to say thank you, and to anyone that I replied to, I appreciate the excellent questions, of which I wanted to reply as quickly and briefly as possible so here's my personal thanks!

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

When Panasonic's HDR Optimizer is configured properly for your display type it knows the minimum and peak luminance that your display is capable to deliver. So when it rebuilds the EOTF PQ curve it looks at the minimum and maximum luminance values in the content and starts with the lowest luminance that it reads in the metadata and uses that value to start the frame by frame HDR metadata.

But it doesn't rebuild entire EOTF PQ curve, not from 0 That's the case, it works only from specific level set by me in the menu, in this case: OLED, which is - correct me if I'm wrong - about 1000 nits.

It doesn't change black levels, it doesn't change APL, so how can you say minimum luminance matters? Matters how? At the very beginning of Batman v Superman, when Warner and other logos appears, elevated blacks are still elevated with Optimiser enabled.

Like I already said, and I repeat it, in most movies it doesn't work even in scenes where LG's Dynamic Tone Mapping actually brings highlight details. For example in second Kingsman, in shot's like this one https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/scree...961&position=7 glass bricks and reflections are overblown.
Enabling Optimiser does exactly nothing but Dynamic Tone Mapping not only changes APL of that shot and makes it little bit darker, but also brings back overblown glass bricks and details in reflections. Why LG's Dynamic Tone Mapping "knows" that there are clipped highlights, but Optimiser doesn't?

In reply to your comment about Dolby Vision's HDR metadata I am sorry to report that it does not tone map the content. All current tone mapping can only be done in your display's processing (unless you have an external Lumagen or build a few of your own custom tone curves and are proactive in selecting them as needed)

Maybe what I wrote wasn't clear enough, but of course I know it's my TVs job to take Dolby Vision's metadata and do the mapping

[LordoftheRings]

If the job of the 4K BR player is to pass an accurate Dolby Vision data to the TV and the TV to interpolate it from its video chip computational processing, then all 4K BR players supporting Dolby Vision are not passing the data equally. It was quite clear in one of Theo' s technical videos.

[cgpublic]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Why LG's Dynamic Tone Mapping "knows" that there are clipped highlights, but Optimiser doesn't?

That's what I'm trying to wrap my head around re: Panasonic's approach, and the reason behind the benefit for TVs with their own DTM/processing, as noted below, because it doesn't make sense that an external processor would be better positioned to apply tone-mapping as opposed to the TV, unless of course, it's an oversight/flaw for the TV approach/processing.

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

When Panasonic's HDR Optimizer is configured properly for your display type it knows the minimum and peak luminance that your display is capable to deliver.

Thanks for the explanation, but now I'm a bit more curious/confused than ever!

So, I'm sorry if this question is a bit simplistic, but how is the minimum and peak luminance determined by Panasonic, i.e., a fixed assumption based on a pre-determined setting, e.g., OLED, or by some other method?

With so many minimum and peak luminance variations within product lines and manufacture dates for a specific setting, e.g., OLED, is one to assume that these variations are unimportant, e.g., the difference between a B8 and a C8, or a B6 and a C9?

Would not the manufacturer, given the relationship between the a specific panel, model and software, be in a better position to determine how to tone map the content than an external source that treats all panels and software as the same?

I guess my question here is what is the difference between the process of the HDR Optimizer in comparison to the tone mapping conducted by the TV, e.g., LG, and how is that difference visible to the user? When someone cites 'superior,' is it a subjective interpretation or is it measurable?

The other aspect of this explanation that is baffling is why does DV content appear superior to HDR10 content that applies LG DTM, at least on my C8?

Somehow, Panasonic has determined that player-specific processing is a superior approach to both title-specific Dolby Vision mastering and TV-specific tone-mapping, which is a bit of a surprise since as noted in my opening sentence, the setting is no more than an assumption based on a very broad type, e.g., all OLEDs.

I'm really not sure how their approach, i.e., player-specific processing, is going to play out as improved/12-bit panels are introduced and exponential improvements are made in TV processors and related software.

It all seems counter-intuitive.

[jibucha]

simple

• that's the point of Dolby Vision (superior picture quality)
• remember :: HDR10 is 'only a part' of Dolby Vision, which is a 'comprehensive' end-to-end solution of 'many aspects' of which HDR10 is 'one'
• over the years of evolution/research by Dolby, it is Dolby Vision that 'fully represents' HDR
• it's a shame :: that the industry (in the beginning) did not 'universally support' Dolby Vision, and still they do not
• it should be clear now (and in the beginning) that having Dolby Vision as the 'only' HDR, would have benefited everyone (consumers/industry)

Originally Posted by cgpublic

The other aspect of this explanation that is baffling is why does DV content appear superior to HDR10 content that applies LG DTM, at least on my C8?

[Mobe1969]

Originally Posted by rickardl

And maybe a size option also? Most have large displays these days and there is no need for giant sized subtitles.

I know! I'm so sick of studios still mastering subtitles as though the target is a 12" crt 2ith 15% overscan.

[LordoftheRings]

Originally Posted by jibucha

simple

• that's the point of Dolby Vision (superior picture quality)
• remember :: HDR10 is 'only a part' of Dolby Vision, which is a 'comprehensive' end-to-end solution of 'many aspects' of which HDR10 is 'one'
• over the years of evolution/research by Dolby, it is Dolby Vision that 'fully represents' HDR
• it's a shame :: that the industry (in the beginning) did not 'universally support' Dolby Vision, and still they do not
• it should be clear now (and in the beginning) that having Dolby Vision as the 'only' HDR, would have benefited everyone (consumers/industry)

I thought it was Dolby Vision ... part of HDR?

It doesn't really matter, the new Panasonic players with the Optimizer have beneficial advantages for many viewers. They should be everywhere available and for less.

That's my opinion of course.

[WutDaFunk]

Originally Posted by cgpublic

That's what I'm trying to wrap my head around re: Panasonic's approach, and the reason behind the benefit for TVs with their own DTM/processing, as noted below, because it doesn't make sense that an external processor would be better positioned to apply tone-mapping as opposed to the TV, unless of course, it's an oversight/flaw for the TV approach/processing.

Thanks for the explanation, but now I'm a bit more curious/confused than ever!

So, I'm sorry if this question is a bit simplistic, but how is the minimum and peak luminance determined by Panasonic, i.e., a fixed assumption based on a pre-determined setting, e.g., OLED, or by some other method?

With so many minimum and peak luminance variations within product lines and manufacture dates for a specific setting, e.g., OLED, is one to assume that these variations are unimportant, e.g., the difference between a B8 and a C8, or a B6 and a C9?

Would not the manufacturer, given the relationship between the a specific panel, model and software, be in a better position to determine how to tone map the content than an external source that treats all panels and software as the same?

I guess my question here is what is the difference between the process of the HDR Optimizer in comparison to the tone mapping conducted by the TV, e.g., LG, and how is that difference visible to the user? When someone cites 'superior,' is it a subjective interpretation or is it measurable?

The other aspect of this explanation that is baffling is why does DV content appear superior to HDR10 content that applies LG DTM, at least on my C8?

Somehow, Panasonic has determined that player-specific processing is a superior approach to both title-specific Dolby Vision mastering and TV-specific tone-mapping, which is a bit of a surprise since as noted in my opening sentence, the setting is no more than an assumption based on a very broad type, e.g., all OLEDs.

I'm really not sure how their approach, i.e., player-specific processing, is going to play out as improved/12-bit panels are introduced and exponential improvements are made in TV processors and related software.

It all seems counter-intuitive.

I have the C8 as well. Would you recommend using the LG DTM for discs with 1000 nit mastering, when the Optimizer isn't doing anything? I have been keeping the DTM off since I got the UB820 but I'm not sure if I'm missing out when the Optimizer is off.

[trekky76]

For sure having an option to use a specific font with a smaller size would be on top of my list for an improvement. That is how great this player really is.

[Robert Zohn]

Panasonic's HDR Optimizer does rebuild the entire HDR EOTF PQ. It helps low APL content show all of the dynamic range so the images don't look as flat. This improvement in the low APL image is most apparent with projectors that are connect to the UB9000 set to Basic Luminance 350 Nit max tone mapping peak.

The example I used for OLED TV owners is correct as since only Panasonic's HDR Optimizer uses it's knowledge of your TV characteristics and then it reads the content's metadata to know how to rebuild the EOTF PQ curve and take advantage of all of the dynamic range that your specific display can deliver.

So just for example, using a modern OLED TV that is capable of producing perfect black and go up to 840 Nits the HDR Optimizer will start the PQ at the exact reported MLL and perfectly rebuild the HDR PQ curve up to 1,000 Nits. In many cases the MLL meta data is 0 Nits.

Now if you have a bright LCD/LED TV that may be able to reach down to maybe .04 Nit MLL (assuming no bright object is also in the dimming zone) and go up to 1,300 Nits peak and the metadata reports .02 Nit MLL and 1,800 Nits peak the HDR Optimizer will raise the black floor to your display's capability of .04 Nits and start building the EOTF PQ from .04 Nits to a max of 1,500 Nits so your TV's processor can take over to complete the final tone mapping.

Regarding logos showing elevated blacks, please consider that the actual HDR PQ does not typically start until the movie starts. Much if not all of the previews, opening logos and menus are in SDR.