Just bizarre. I have watched thousands on mine (and yes I mean literally thousands, not figuratively) and I may get an occasional glitch on a few used Blu Rays I've bought, but of the few UHDs I've had an issue with I've done the washing in mild detergent trick. And all up I'm looking at maybe ten or so - and of those I've put them in the PC and would get the read issue on them also.
I could be forgetting something but I've yet to encounter a glitch when playing either BD or UHD on my 820. No skipping, no freezing, no lock ups, even with discs that have visible scratches.
I could be forgetting something but I've yet to encounter a glitch when playing either BD or UHD on my 820. No skipping, no freezing, no lock ups, even with discs that have visible scratches.
I've only had it happen twice---
Mission Impossible Fallout 4k.... and it never repeated the issue.
*61 blu ray--- and it did the same on other players.
This is an outstanding player--- I really love it!
Well My UB420 arrived safely from Amazon (with a shipping label just slapped on the bottom of the player box and left outside by the door advertising a free UHD player!).
I got it set up and I've tested the optimizer with a few discs. I'd like to hear what others think about my results. Maybe Geoff can explain what is happening with my tests.
So I started off with Aquaman. I set the player's TV HDR setting to "Basic" as supposedly my 2016 LG LCD TV is limited in HDR range (it's not premium certified). I then toggled between optimizer on and off. Off looked incredibly overblown throughout the many bright scenes in the film. Chapter 6 is a great example of an extremely bright scene. With it off, the TV was blowing out a good portion of the scene from shot to shot. So much bright white and tons of it was just all blown out. Toggling the optimizer to on instantly had a major effect, but I wouldn't call it an improvement. It immediately dialed the brightness down a ton. There was instantly a huge amount of hidden detail in the bright whites I could see, but it looked dim and lifeless, with no "pop" whatsoever. It was very dull and flat. Toggling back to off and it was instantly blown out again and tons of detail was washed out in bright blaring whites.
I then decided to set the player's TV HDR setting to "medium" instead of "Basic". I then replayed the scene, pausing on some shots. Again I toggled the optimizer on and off. Off looked the same as before of course, since there was no processing, but interestingly, with it on, now the image was a vast improvement. It still dialed down the intense whites, so I could make out a lot more detail in those bright areas, but it was a lot brighter than when it was set to "Basic", and there was still lots of "pop" in the image. There wasn't as much detail visible in those super-bright areas of chapter 6 as when it was set to "Basic", but it was still a huge improvement over the optimizer being disabled. Skipping around throughout the disc I saw the same improvements throughout. A shot late in the film by the ocean was striking - with the optimizer off, the TV was blowing out the waves to the point where it was mostly just white. With the optmizer on, instantly there was way more detail in the waves as they were dialed back. They were still nice and bright, but now I saw detail in the crashing waves. Clouds in the background that were blown out were now much more vivid in detail.
Dark areas were not affected in any way that I could see. Only bright areas were improved. It truly brought out the image in a way my TV previously couldn't display.
I then moved on to a few other titles. 2001 in "Basic" dialed the brightness back a bit in many of the shots of the Earth and ships early on, and even the white walls inside the station, but again, they were duller and lifeless. Not nearly as dramatic as Aquaman, but still dialed back a bit too much. It looked fine with it off. Setting the player back to "Medium" was interesting - there was no change whatsoever when toggling the optimizer on and off. The image was identical. So it only had an effect if the player was set to "basic" for TV HDR.
Other titles also had no effect when set to "Medium" - Peter Jackson's King Kong, Matrix Revolutions, Mortal Engines, Disney's Lion King (cgi remake), The Revenant - all looked identical (and fine) even on the brightest scenes, whether the optimizer was on or off. Pacific Rim had a somewhat mild but still noticeable effect when toggling on and off when TV HDR brightness was set to "Medium".
So the only two titles I tested that had any effect between on and off when the player was set to "Medium" was Aquaman, which was a gigantic improvement with optimizer on, and Pacific Rim, which was a much less dramatic but still noticeable improvement when set to on. All other tested titles had no effect.
So is this because Aquaman and Pacific Rim were mastered to a brighter peak nit, so the optimizer kicks in when the player is set to medium, thus improving the mapping to my TV? The other tiles were mastered to a lesser brightness so the optimizer isn't making any changes, thus the image is identical whether it's on or off? So what was happening when I tested Aquaman at "Basic"? Was it just crunching the HDR highlights down more than necessary for my TV? I thought "Basic" was what I would need to use but it seems with the title I've tested, it just makes the image look flat and dull. At "Medium", at worst it seems to have no effect if left on and at best can make a huge improvement over it being off. It sounds like leaving it on and keeping the setting on "Medium" is the way to go on my TV.
Does this make any sense? Have others in here had the same experience with the optimizer? I'm guessing it will give much different results depending on what TV you have. Mine is the LG UH8500. The question I have is why my TV maps out Aquaman so badly? With optimizer disabled it's unbelievable how blown out the highlights are. The optimizer works wonders with this title on my set.
Also, the bright red power LED drives me nuts as I see it the entire time I'm watching. I don't suppose there's a way to turn that off in the settings? I didn't see any option. The x700 was a nice dim green that I barely noticed. This red is piercing.
Also, the bright red power LED drives me nuts as I see it the entire time I'm watching. I don't suppose there's a way to turn that off in the settings? I didn't see any option. The x700 was a nice dim green that I barely noticed. This red is piercing.
I'll quote this instead of the other one, but I'm replying to the HDR questions: yes, with the Optimiser set to Medium then anything mastered to 1000 nits (be it MaxCLL or mastering display) will literally not be affected by it. Every other title there you mentioned has 1000-nit metadata or below, whereas Aquaman is like ~3200 nits MaxCLL and Specific Rim is ~2400 nits.
In case people don't know, the Optimiser levels are as follows:
Basic = 500 nits
Medium/High = 1000 nits
OLED = 1000 nits
Super High = 1500 nits
So with those 1000+ nit titles and Optimiser set to Basic (500 nits) then it will visibly reduce the brightness of the highlights. With it set to Medium (1000 nits) or higher it will not touch the image. But while the 420 has the Optimiser it doesn't have the metadata info screen of the 820 so you won't know for sure what movie has what metadata. BUT general rule is that Paramount, Fox, Disnee and Universal stick to 1000 nit masterings with Warners and Sony being the ones that regularly exceed 1000 nits (though the Matrices and 2001 are 1000 nits or below). Lionsgate tend to mix it up.
Aquaman looks as nuked as it does on your TV because it's what I would call "fake HDR", not the YouTube superstar definition of fake HDR as being glorified SDR but of taking range that's basically in the SDR domain and pumping it with thousands of nits of brightness. It "pops" but it kills the midrange when tone mapping because the TV thinks it's doing the right thing by preserving most of the mids and clipping the highlights - the trouble is that because the midrange has been artificially pushed into thousands of nits that the TV clips it, thinking it's highlights.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sapiendut
No freezes/glitch except once but it turned out the disc had some kind of dried glue.
I tell a lie, I did have one disc glitch on the 820...but this disc had a literal dent in it (it got bashed up in the post) and I thought I'd try it just to see how the player reacted. The OPPO froze up completely when it got to the trouble spot while the 820 chugged on it for a few seconds then resumed playing. Deffo better error correction on the 820.
Also, the bright red power LED drives me nuts as I see it the entire time I'm watching. I don't suppose there's a way to turn that off in the settings? I didn't see any option. The x700 was a nice dim green that I barely noticed. This red is piercing.
What LED? The 820,or 9000? I've a 9000 and had a 900 ( the predecessor of the 820, without the optimizer) and didn't have it. Maybe on the 900 I'd put some black electricians tape over it. I can't recall
I do have that High Clarity Audio on that switches off the display during playback.
Big thanks for the explanation, Geoff. So it sounds like Aquaman is a bit of an oddity due to how the metadata was artificially bumped up, throwing the TV off. I was wondering why the TV was handling it so poorly.
I'm happy leaving optimizer on Medium and the sliders on default (0). Rtings claims my TV only hits around 500-550 nits max, but their reviews are not always gospel. The fact that with optimizer on "basic" even titles like 2001 are dialed back a bit too much tells me it's limiting the nits a bit too much for my TV at basic, leaving the image looking a bit flat and dull. So I'm wondering if my TV does a bit better than Rting's claim of 500-550. I don't think it hits close to 1000, but I'm guessing it might be a bit higher than Rtings claim. I could mess with the sliders in Basic I guess but it seems better to just leave it at medium in my case.
It's a shame the 420 doesn't have the metadata info screen. It has the processor so why leave the info screen out I wonder? I'd appreciate being able to check that info screen. I'll be giving my player it's first full test this weekend with the Back to the Future series. Are there many titles out there like Aquaman that artificially bump the metadata up so high?
What LED? The 820,or 9000? I've a 9000 and had a 900 ( the predecessor of the 820, without the optimizer) and didn't have it. Maybe on the 900 I'd put some black electricians tape over it. I can't recall
I do have that High Clarity Audio on that switches off the display during playback.
Mine is the 420. It has a very bright red power LED right in the front, but no front display. I can't believe electronics companies still use these bright LEDs for power indicators. My new PC monitor thankfully has a very restrained power LED so it doesn't bother me in the least.
When you play a disc and the 'cannot play' message pops up you press stop and top menu button a few times to circumvent the lock. Someone please correct if I got this wrong. I have yet to try a region A disc on my 820. Doesn't work with all discs though.
By the way, I read the last Page on the HDR optimizer with interest. Good stuff.
Mine is the 420. It has a very bright red power LED right in the front, but no front display. I can't believe electronics companies still use these bright LEDs for power indicators. My new PC monitor thankfully has a very restrained power LED so it doesn't bother me in the least.
Hmm. Have you tried that High Clarity audio setting, or doesn't that model have it?
After a couple of weeks with the Panasonic UB 9000, and more than a few rounds of A/B comparisons with the Oppo 203, I am holding on to the Panasonic. It kinda feels like I am cheating on my wife, as I have had an Oppo in my system for about 14 yrs, but the decision made a lot of sense to me when all is said and done.
[Show spoiler]I let the 9000 break in for about 50 hrs before I did any comparisons, and used the same Shunyata power cord and Transparent HDMI for both of them to make it an even playing field.
Once I got the 9000 dialed in (nits, bit rate, up sampling etc...) I matched those settings with the Oppo to make it as close to even as I could.
First impressions of the 9000 were very positive, as I ordered it from Robert at Value Electronics on a Monday afternoon, and it showed up Wednesday afternoon double boxed. This sucker is the heaviest Blu-ray player I have grabbed a hold of weighing in close to 17 lbs. Front panel looks great and the tray is very quiet. It screams high end.
The remote however felt a bit cheap though, and has to have a button pressed for it to light up compared to the Oppo that illuminates when moved. Menu is counter intuitive at times, as some key features like the HDR optimizer are somewhat hidden. Start up time is slower than the Oppo as you have to wait for a bit after powering up to hit eject vs the Oppo where you can pop a disc in right away.
There are so many options to tweak the 9000, as it really built for the enthusiast. If you are someone who wants to unbox, hook it up, and hit play, you will not be getting the most out of your investment, as it is within those tweaks where it separates itself from others. That and the fact that this thing is designed and built to be the flagship player. I won’t get into all of the design enhancements, frankly because there are a a lot, but you can read about some of them in the review link at the bottom of this post.
I started with a few couple of 4K discs (Mad Max Fury Road, Shallows, and Lucy) to see how the HDR Optimizer benefited things. Fortunately, the feature is a toggle in the menu once you get there, so you can see immediately the difference. What I found was that there definitely is a benefit within crazy bright aspects of the image like the sun, a spotlight, or fire. There was more control and details within those images using the Optimizer, but with my projector and lens setup, I didn’t see as much of a difference as some of the videos available comparing the two players as they were usually using OLED panels. With the Optimizer on, there was no degradation to the rest of the picture, so I kept it on.
Once dialed in, it was pretty close between the two players in my system, but the edge went to the 9000 with 4K content as it was slightly better to my eyes with color accuracy and detail. The Oppo dug a bit deeper with blacks, but the 9000 had more detail within the blacks. My projector already can do blacks pretty well, so I ended up preferring seeing more detail.
When I popped in a Blu-ray, the differences became more apparent as this is where some of those enhancements with the 9000 really shined. For content, I chose Crawl, Season 4 of The Expanse, and season 5 of Bates Motel. The processing capabilities, chroma sampling, and tone mapping in the 9000 are outstanding. It automatically up converts to 4K, and proved more effective than my projector in handling those duties. Frankly, the images I were seeing looked as good if not better than a fair amount of 4K content. Edge detail, image clarity, and color accuracy were simply better with the Panasonic.
All of these comparisons were done with audio muted, but I was still curious about audio output, as I was not expecting to hear a difference since I use the HDMI output, and most of the audio enhancements I read about were within its DACs and capabilities within its analog outputs. There was however an option which I never saw talked about, and that was the capability to tell the player where you wanted its audio signal to go instead of sending it everywhere. Made sense to me, so I selected HDMI only. I played the first 5 minutes of an episode in the last season of Bates Motel as I am almost at the end (You are right Steedeel, Vera Farmiga is amazing in it). I started with the Oppo, and then switched out to the 9000 and played the same 5 minutes. For those who have not seen the show, there is a pretty potent bass note in the theme song towards the beginning, and the 5.1 mix is solid. The Panasonic had more control of the bass note without sacrificing any dynamics, and I noticed more details within those 5 minutes. So I went back to the Oppo again to make sure there was no placebo effect, and played the same 5 minutes. The bass note was not as focused, and I did not hear the same amount of clarity within the 5 minutes. Switched back to the 9000 and everything came back. Now I know from reading about the design and separation of components within the Panasonic, that there was a lot of marketing speak about the audio, but I was not expecting to hear it so quickly. It was at that point that my decision was made. Next disc I popped in was season 4 of The Expanse, which continues to be amongst the best looking and sounding tv shows out there. I watched two episodes on the 9000 and swore I was watching a 4K disc so much I even switched modes and settings on my projector to the ones I use for 4K content and just left it there. The mix has always been a great one to upmix, but I was now able to pin point voices coming from above using Auro’s upmixer. I switched back to the Oppo just to see what it would do with the same scene, and the voices were not quite as localized. That is when I started to box up the Oppo, as I have always been more of an audio guy, and trusted my ears to be the judge and jury in most matters.
I understand completely that this was not a perfect blind test conducted, and that there might be those who question my findings because I don’t have screen shots or graphs to support any conclusions. All I can report on is what I saw and heard, which is good enough for me, and I believe good enough to share even though I am not a professional reviewer.
That night, I rewatched MI Fallout on 4K, and can honestly say that my room has never sounded better and more precise. The video in the movie is murky intentionally, but the 9000 did not have any hiccups with it. The helicopter scene towards the end is when everything popped within all its HDR glory, and my jaw dropped even further.
Even with its menu quirks, average remote, loss of SACD / DVD-A, and slower boot up, the Panasonic won me over within my setup. The Oppo is an amazing player, and I still love what it can do. The fact that they are selling for what they are on the secondary market is a testament to their legacy and reputation, and I have thoroughly enjoyed them being in my system over the years.
Thanks for another great review. I will have to get one along with the other items that you have recommended. You do realize how much money you are costing me, don't you?
Mine is the 420. It has a very bright red power LED right in the front, but no front display. I can't believe electronics companies still use these bright LEDs for power indicators. My new PC monitor thankfully has a very restrained power LED so it doesn't bother me in the least.
My player is downstairs, but I think part of the front that pops down when a disc is inserted is transparent, so covering the section where the light is should be straight forward, or you can just put some Blu Tack on the LED itself. I'd do the former if you still want to see the LED when the tray opens.
Big thanks for the explanation, Geoff. So it sounds like Aquaman is a bit of an oddity due to how the metadata was artificially bumped up, throwing the TV off. I was wondering why the TV was handling it so poorly.
I'm happy leaving optimizer on Medium and the sliders on default (0). Rtings claims my TV only hits around 500-550 nits max, but their reviews are not always gospel. The fact that with optimizer on "basic" even titles like 2001 are dialed back a bit too much tells me it's limiting the nits a bit too much for my TV at basic, leaving the image looking a bit flat and dull. So I'm wondering if my TV does a bit better than Rting's claim of 500-550. I don't think it hits close to 1000, but I'm guessing it might be a bit higher than Rtings claim. I could mess with the sliders in Basic I guess but it seems better to just leave it at medium in my case.
It's a shame the 420 doesn't have the metadata info screen. It has the processor so why leave the info screen out I wonder? I'd appreciate being able to check that info screen. I'll be giving my player it's first full test this weekend with the Back to the Future series. Are there many titles out there like Aquaman that artificially bump the metadata up so high?
Just FYI it's not the metadata that's the issue on Aquaman, the metadata is simply relaying how it's been mastered: not a lot of range but a ****ton of superficial brightness. The Meg is another example, and even Specific Rim to an extent (compare the shots of skies back and forth between the UHD (no Optimiser) and the Blu, see what you think).
Nits aren't the same thing as what the tone mapping on the TV is showing you though, which is why it's not crapping out with well mastered 1000-nit stuff. There's a tangible lack of that sort of information on places like rtings, they just tell you the bald facts of what the brightness is and not how the actual tone mapping adjusts to whatever content it's been given.
What I mean is that although the TV can't physically get brighter than that ~500 nit peak, its tone mapping is clearly handling 1000-nit stuff quite well by preserving most of that midrange and then compressing the highlights, so you still get a good hit of brightness without it clipping the range to buggery. In other words, if the TV was JUST clipping at the 500-nit mark then a lot of your discs would end up looking like Aquaman does.
I've used them all throughout the house on various devices where I don't want LEDs in my face.
That reminds me that I have a set of dimmer stickers very similar to these. They work well if I combine a few on top of each other but if the LED is sticking out too far from the surface they don't stick well. I don't love sticking them onto my new player. But then again they just fall off after a while anyways so I doubt it will leave any residue. I might try it because this light is way too bright. It's big too. The x700's green light is tiny.
Hmm. Have you tried that High Clarity audio setting, or doesn't that model have it?
I think I remember seeing that setting. Does that setting have any drawbacks regarding playback of discs? I thought that was just for playing audio discs?
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Linear Mode
