Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[sapiendut]

I usually set mine at 60% brightness. It’s too bright otherwise.

[Oscarilbo]

Has the issue with the Planet Eaeth II UHD disc been solved with any firmware or something? I mean that apparently the player didn’t recognize the HDR without a work arround

[Bammer26]

I got black bars on the sides of the image when I watched a dvd with the auto 4K setting on. But I switched it to 480i and I got full screen. Which is the right setting for dvd?

[Yasujiro Ozu]

I have an option currently to get the Sony X800M2 at a good price. My question to people here is: Is the Panasonic 820 that much better. I've read that the Sony has Dolby HDR issues when set in a certain configuration and some disk freezing as well.

[Fred Bang]

Originally Posted by Yasujiro Ozu

I have an option currently to get the Sony X800M2 at a good price. My question to people here is: Is the Panasonic 820 that much better. I've read that the Sony has Dolby HDR issues when set in a certain configuration and some disk freezing as well.

The biggest downside of the X2, or so I hear, is the fact that you always need to switch manually between Dolby Vision and HDR10 because the player doesn't detect the source from the disk. It's the main reason I went for the 820.

Now, the 820 also has a great "Optimizer" feature that makes HDR10 picture quality better.

Personnally I would pay more and get the 820. You'll be keeping that player a good 5-10 years. It's worth the few hundreds more.

[jack_of_america]

Ordered the Panasonic UB820, which will be arriving Thursday. I've been using an Xbox One X for the last few years, so I'm excited to see the difference in quality on the C8. First up is Seven Worlds, One Planet. Very curious about this HDR optimizer...

The tips on this thread are extremely helpful, many thanks to the community for being so informative.

Hope you are all doing well these days.

[wxman2003]

I decided to spring for the UB9000 and use it with my E6. Should be getting it from VE on friday. HDR10 does not look good with my OPPO 203 due to the poor TM, or lack of it on the E6. So this device should improve HDR10 on my tv. Another problem is with DV via the OPPO. The E6 clips the low end, and testing it via a usb file that Stacey Spears posted, everything below 1 to 1.5% is crushed. Raising brightness 1 click on my E6, does clear that up, but introduces less than perfect blacks. Is DV still wonky on the 9000?

[Robert Zohn]

Thank you wxman2003 and call me when you receive the UB9000 so I can help you to get it configured with your a/v system.

[Yasujiro Ozu]

Originally Posted by Fred Bang

The biggest downside of the X2, or so I hear, is the fact that you always need to switch manually between Dolby Vision and HDR10 because the player doesn't detect the source from the disk. It's the main reason I went for the 820.

Now, the 820 also has a great "Optimizer" feature that makes HDR10 picture quality better.

Personnally I would pay more and get the 820. You'll be keeping that player a good 5-10 years. It's worth the few hundreds more.

Thanks for the input. As it happened I missed out on the special deal with the Sony, 'last one' type of deal so it may end up being the 820 after all. I'll be getting the region free mod kit from Rattle-byte for it as well.

[Robert Zohn]

Sale ends this Saturday on the UB820. They go up to $499 this Sunday.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by wxman2003

I decided to spring for the UB9000 and use it with my E6. Should be getting it from VE on friday. HDR10 does not look good with my OPPO 203 due to the poor TM, or lack of it on the E6. So this device should improve HDR10 on my tv. Another problem is with DV via the OPPO. The E6 clips the low end, and testing it via a usb file that Stacey Spears posted, everything below 1 to 1.5% is crushed. Raising brightness 1 click on my E6, does clear that up, but introduces less than perfect blacks. Is DV still wonky on the 9000?

I wonder if the bolded was LG's ultimate solution for the infamous Dolby greybar problem on their TVs, or at least the 2016 series? I'm thinking that they just lowered black slightly because I could only fix it on my ZD9 by lowering black level one click to 49, which of course is going to clip black very slightly. Haven't checked Stacey's patterns to see how much it clips out, or if I have then it wasn't enough to bother me and wasn't generally visible in real world content.

[wxman2003]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I wonder if the bolded was LG's ultimate solution for the infamous Dolby greybar problem on their TVs, or at least the 2016 series? I'm thinking that they just lowered black slightly because I could only fix it on my ZD9 by lowering black level one click to 49, which of course is going to clip black very slightly. Haven't checked Stacey's patterns to see how much it clips out, or if I have then it wasn't enough to bother me and wasn't generally visible in real world content.

It is quite noticeable the difference in crush. When forcing the OPPO 203 to play back everything as HDR10 there is no black crush and the letterbox bars remain black. When it's played as DV, you can see the crush. Raising brightness 1 click produces nearly equal near blacks, but the letterbox bars begin to have a faint glow.

I have seen some videos comparing the 203 and the 9000 with DV. Vincent's video did show that DV on the 9000 actually made the near blacks brighter, with no crush, and I wonder if DV on the 9000 will be better than the 203 with less black crush on my E6. I have a screen capture from Vincent's comparison. If you look at the bottom of the image, you can see more near black detail on the 9000 compared to the OPPO 203 in the buildings. Of course, there is also clipping on the high end with the 9000. So better near black detail at the expense of high end clipping.

[nachoju95]

Hi.
I am about to get some 4K titles with DV (The Shining, Aquaman, Jaws, Saving Private Ryan). And I wanted to know, what configuration do you recommend. I have the UB820 with the LG B7, and if it is better to watch the movies with DV or with the HDR Optimizer. Anyone who tried some of those movies, noticed which setting looks best? Is it better with DV?
Did any make a comparison with a movie?

Thanks

[DisplayCalNoob]

Originally Posted by wxman2003

It is quite noticeable the difference in crush. When forcing the OPPO 203 to play back everything as HDR10 there is no black crush and the letterbox bars remain black. When it's played as DV, you can see the crush. Raising brightness 1 click produces nearly equal near blacks, but the letterbox bars begin to have a faint glow.

I have seen some videos comparing the 203 and the 9000 with DV. Vincent's video did show that DV on the 9000 actually made the near blacks brighter, with no crush, and I wonder if DV on the 9000 will be better than the 203 with less black crush on my E6. I have a screen capture from Vincent's comparison. If you look at the bottom of the image, you can see more near black detail on the 9000 compared to the OPPO 203 in the buildings. Of course, there is also clipping on the high end with the 9000. So better near black detail at the expense of high end clipping.

Switching the player to RGB for DV content would of fix that.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by wxman2003

It is quite noticeable the difference in crush. When forcing the OPPO 203 to play back everything as HDR10 there is no black crush and the letterbox bars remain black. When it's played as DV, you can see the crush. Raising brightness 1 click produces nearly equal near blacks, but the letterbox bars begin to have a faint glow.

I have seen some videos comparing the 203 and the 9000 with DV. Vincent's video did show that DV on the 9000 actually made the near blacks brighter, with no crush, and I wonder if DV on the 9000 will be better than the 203 with less black crush on my E6. I have a screen capture from Vincent's comparison. If you look at the bottom of the image, you can see more near black detail on the 9000 compared to the OPPO 203 in the buildings. Of course, there is also clipping on the high end with the 9000. So better near black detail at the expense of high end clipping.

Without wanting to sound like a complete cock, it's a fool's game to judge shadow detail from a photograph or video as it's one of the hardest things to capture in any kind of accurate way, especially if side by side because the exposure is naturally going to be 'set' for the brighter part of the image. The UB9000's clipped highlights are brighter in that comparison so it's skewing the exposure of the lower end, thus affecting the dimmer - but not crushed - OPPO image. 1.5% of crushed black is tiny, it will of course affect it but doesn't totally nuke the shadow detail like that.

I actually did my own comparison a while back between the OPPO and the Panny 820 (which has the same video processing guts as the 9000, the big boy just has a few extra tweaks in firmware) using that same shot from F8 and, using the exact same TV settings between inputs, saw no difference in black level at all. Even the highlight clipping was gone in the Panny, it was still a fraction brighter than the OPPO but it wasn't as blown out as that. Bear in mind this is using the low latency mode into a Sony ZD9.

[bnmdjm]

Originally Posted by nachoju95

Hi.
I am about to get some 4K titles with DV (The Shining, Aquaman, Jaws, Saving Private Ryan). And I wanted to know, what configuration do you recommend. I have the UB820 with the LG B7, and if it is better to watch the movies with DV or with the HDR Optimizer. Anyone who tried some of those movies, noticed which setting looks best? Is it better with DV?
Did any make a comparison with a movie?

Thanks

There was a whole discussion on this just a few pages back. That said, I've had the 820 with a B7 for 6 months or so and I still can't decide. My brain says DV is better, but every time I do a comparison my eyes clearly tell me HDR10 w/ the Optimizer looks better. Part of me wonders if my DV settings are wrong but I'm using the technicolor expert DV settings so I don't see how they can be.

[Bammer26]

What resolution setting should I have this player set to for dvd playback? 480i or 4K auto?

[sapiendut]

I force everything to 4K

[Bammer26]

Ok I was just wondering because when I watched blades of glory dvd with it set to auto I got black bars on the sides of my tv than I switched it to 480i and got full screen. Wanted to know which one was the correct setting

[sapiendut]

The most correct is to set it to 480i but I’m too lazy to switch things around all the time. Besides I only watch concert and music videos only on DVD. (I just gave away about 1,000 movies on DVD yesterday)