Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Dave___B]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

On thing worth trying that may help with titles that look dim overall. Instead of trying to tweak settings for that title, push the HDR button that is just above and to the right of the arrow keys on the remote. There are a few different presets here that will brighten up the image overall without having to go and tweak a lot of settings. Just FYI.

Yes! Thats what I did, but with a personal setting basically.

There are 4 settings, each one is basically a preset of the Dynamic Range adjustment (sorry I don't know how they're exactly called in English)

Standard : 0
"Bright Room 1 ": +3
"Bright Room 2" : +8
"Very Bright Room" : +11

I set a personal preset of +5, which is more than enough brighten dim HDR titles. But I also use it for Ttiltes that don't have this problem, and with the HDR Optimizer, the experience is on par with the SDR watching experience, without blowing any highlight detail.

So that's my setting for now.
Can't wait for Dolby Vision : nothing to do !

[Dave___B]

[QUOTE=Geoff D;15362488]I'm not surprised at the bolded ^ because out of the box the Optimiser isn't designed to do anything with content that doesn't exceed the nits level that it's been set to in the TV selection menu, i.e. T2 and TLJ are virtually SDR masters inside HDR containers, they have very low peak brightness and little in the way of extended highlight detail. In other words: there's nothing for the Optimiser to correct whch is why you had to fiddle with it some more.

I see ! Thanks for clearing that up... Since the 820 doesn't support DV for now, i couldn't check for myself but, how come the Dolby Vision version of The Last Jedi doesn't seem to have this problem ? (according to Blu-Ray.com's review...)

[elwaylite]

Originally Posted by McGarnigal

Anyone else cringe at how much artificial grain netflix adds to luke cage and similar shows?

They do it intentionally with fake grain to give a more comic look.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Dave___B

I see ! Thanks for clearing that up... Since the 820 doesn't support DV for now, i couldn't check for myself but, how come the Dolby Vision version of The Last Jedi doesn't seem to have this problem ? (according to Blu-Ray.com's review...)

It's not the grading of the content that has the problem, it's the mapping of the content where the disconnect occurs. If something's supposed to look like SDR in HDR then even on a premium 10,000-nit display with all the colours of the the rainbow it'll still look like SDR, you dig? But we're not watching on 10K nit or even 4K nit TVs and so some tone mapping has to occur, the underlying fault with HDR10 is that most TVs are applying the same curve to the content but, quite simply, all movies look different.

A curve designed to compress a 1K nit or 4K nit container down into what the TV can handle takes into no account what the actual brightness of the content is, so while it *thinks* that TLJ has 1K nits according to the mastering metadata (HDR10 layer) and applies a map that crunches those 1K nits down, what it's doing is taking something that rates barely 100 or 200 nits peak and crunching it down so the brightness (or APL) can be badly hobbled depending on the TV. Someone in another thread mentioned how the DV version of TLJ was a revelation compared to the HDR10 on their TV because the HDR10 was so dark, and it's ENTIRELY down to the mapping.

The point, dear readers, of Dolby Vision is that it's using dynamic metadata generated from the source material to let the TV know what the optimal brightness should actually be in any given scene or shot, i.e. it's not applying one single tone curve to show the whole movie.....which is what the HDR Optimiser is still doing at its core, it's just allowing the user more options to fiddle with.

[Dave___B]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's not the grading of the content that has the problem, it's the mapping of the content where the disconnect occurs. If something's supposed to look like SDR in HDR then even on a premium 10,000-nit display with all the colours of the the rainbow it'll still look like SDR, you dig? But we're not watching on 10K nit or even 4K nit TVs and so some tone mapping has to occur, the underlying fault with HDR10 is that most TVs are applying the same curve to the content but, quite simply, all movies look different.

A curve designed to compress a 1K nit or 4K nit container down into what the TV can handle takes into no account what the actual brightness of the content is, so while it *thinks* that TLJ has 1K nits according to the mastering metadata (HDR10 layer) and applies a map that crunches those 1K nits down, what it's doing is taking something that rates barely 100 or 200 nits peak and crunching it down so the brightness (or APL) can be badly hobbled depending on the TV. Someone in another thread mentioned how the DV version of TLJ was a revelation compared to the HDR10 on their TV because the HDR10 was so dark, and it's ENTIRELY down to the mapping.

The point, dear readers, of Dolby Vision is that it's using dynamic metadata generated from the source material to let the TV know what the optimal brightness should actually be in any given scene or shot, i.e. it's not applying one single tone curve to show the whole movie.....which is what the HDR Optimiser is still doing at its core, it's just allowing the user more options to fiddle with.

Great ! Thanks for clearing that up.
The one thing I take out of all this mess is that I paid 30 bucks for T2 in UHD... What a disastrous release.
I did notice in fact that titles like The Matrix, Alien Covenant, Spiderman Homecoming, War Of the Planet of the Apes, Logan, or any Netflix HDR content, barely need tonemapping, because the highlights are already so bright.

In the Last Jedi, freaking explosions, starship engines or lightsabers look... transparent ! As if someone had brought down the opacity of 50%...

[dominica]

Originally Posted by DJR662

Yes, still a bright image but with more details in the highlights. It depends entirely on what movie though. For some it won't make a difference, for others it will.


From post #715 in this thread (for which you gave me a thank you ):
"

Thanks again for your info on the Z. I was checking to see if you had any new updats since you had more time and material to work with.

[curlyjive]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

I know and I told them that too! I'm not giving up on this. They tell me it's easy for them to implement 24p, but Netflix says no.

Thanks for looking into that. Drives me nuts on my hdr roku as well. I don't get why any provider would object to allowing native frame rate.

[COACH10810]

The 820 is a nice unit.....but still feels a tad "cheaper" than the UB900. Even the power cord is a tad less impressive.

I didn't spend a whole lot of time with it, but I did test the SDR 2020 and played a little with the HDR options.

The remote is too small for me, but the UB900 remote doesn't have the "HDR Settings" button on it.

You can toggle between different "HDR settings" and then adjust each one of those even more if you want.

The manual doesn't tell what each setting does, so I need to read up on those online....but it does sound like they are presets using the slider.

Have to agree with others in the fact that the SDR-HDR conversion is very nice and really hard to tell between my low lamp curve. The low lamp curve still wins out, but it isn't as close as I would have thought.

The other thing I am not sure about is what exactly the HDR Optimizer will do, when it is set to the "ON" position. I think what I need to do is watch a movie with it set to "on" and see if I notice it auto adjusting anything throughout the movie. It could have been in my head, but when I set the Optimizer to the "on" position while in low lamp mode and set the HDR setting to "natural", it seemed to give me something close to my high lamp curve...

So if you just leave it in the "ON" position and not adjust anything else, does it do anything at all?!?


It would be nice if Panasonic brought out an app, similar to what the 203 had, so you could easily switch between the settings. I would have liked to bounce back and forth between the HDR-SDR conversion and my low lamp HDR curve.

That is all for now. I plan on spending more time tomorrow with it.

Glad I didn't stick with the Oppo 203 and went with this.

[flipsyde2000]

Has anyone tried to pair the 820 with Alexa. I can't find the skill at all in the available skills on the alexa app. Robert, any thoughts on this?

http://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/...c/setupAA.html

[Spartan21]

Originally Posted by COACH10810

The 820 is a nice unit.....but still feels a tad "cheaper" than the UB900. Even the power cord is a tad less impressive.

I didn't spend a whole lot of time with it, but I did test the SDR 2020 and played a little with the HDR options.

The remote is too small for me, but the UB900 remote doesn't have the "HDR Settings" button on it.

You'll really like the Panasonic UB9000 when it comes out. It's really premium like the Oppo 203. The remote is also large and beautiful. The downside is the price. $1K.

[elwaylite]

Put the 820 thru the paces. Spears and Munsil, Masciolas hdr disc and a Netflix HDR movie, works great. Just left most everything to auto, cut off HDR+ and HLG, and set tv type to OLED. Under the options menu while disc is playing, I turned HDR Opt on and left everything else at 0.

[LordoftheRings]

Originally Posted by Spartan21

You'll really like the Panasonic UB9000 when it comes out. It's really premium like the Oppo 203. The remote is also large and beautiful. The downside is the price. $1K.

Yes but they'll have sales on big Holidays, 20-25% off, around there.

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by dominica

Thanks again for your info on the Z. I was checking to see if you had any new updats since you had more time and material to work with.

I haven't watched that many movies in my living room setup lately. And the weather has been so hot over here in most of Europe during the last couple of weeks. It's turning my living room into an oven, making it really uncomfortable just sitting there (no AC). Been watching movies solely in the bedroom lately where it's nice and dark and much cooler.

[Mobe1969]

Originally Posted by COACH10810

The 820 is a nice unit.....but still feels a tad "cheaper" than the UB900. Even the power cord is a tad less impressive.

I didn't spend a whole lot of time with it, but I did test the SDR 2020 and played a little with the HDR options.

The remote is too small for me, but the UB900 remote doesn't have the "HDR Settings" button on it.

You can toggle between different "HDR settings" and then adjust each one of those even more if you want.

The manual doesn't tell what each setting does, so I need to read up on those online....but it does sound like they are presets using the slider.

Have to agree with others in the fact that the SDR-HDR conversion is very nice and really hard to tell between my low lamp curve. The low lamp curve still wins out, but it isn't as close as I would have thought.

The other thing I am not sure about is what exactly the HDR Optimizer will do, when it is set to the "ON" position. I think what I need to do is watch a movie with it set to "on" and see if I notice it auto adjusting anything throughout the movie. It could have been in my head, but when I set the Optimizer to the "on" position while in low lamp mode and set the HDR setting to "natural", it seemed to give me something close to my high lamp curve...

So if you just leave it in the "ON" position and not adjust anything else, does it do anything at all?!?


It would be nice if Panasonic brought out an app, similar to what the 203 had, so you could easily switch between the settings. I would have liked to bounce back and forth between the HDR-SDR conversion and my low lamp HDR curve.

That is all for now. I plan on spending more time tomorrow with it.

Glad I didn't stick with the Oppo 203 and went with this.

From the photos Robert posted, the 9000 has a very similar remote to the 900, larger, backlight, etc. Just some different buttons.

[McGarnigal]

Originally Posted by elwaylite

They do it intentionally with fake grain to give a more comic look.

I've noticed it in GLOW as well though

[elwaylite]

Yeah, its crazy, Walking Dead does the same. I think its the same tactic for that 70's feel lol.

[xfileed916]

Originally Posted by elwaylite

Yeah, its crazy, Walking Dead does the same. I think its the same tactic for that 70's feel lol.

I do believe for Walking Dead that is natural grain from filming on Super 16mm film. Netflix definitely adds fake grain to the digitally captured footage though.

[elwaylite]

Maybe it is, it just seemed almost intentionally added at times. I'm not a camera buff though.

One thing I can say, I am much more fond of film grain on UHD Blu-ray, it just looks so good.

[Robert Zohn]

Originally Posted by flipsyde2000

Has anyone tried to pair the 820 with Alexa. I can't find the skill at all in the available skills on the alexa app. Robert, any thoughts on this?

http://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/...c/setupAA.html

Panasonic will have the Alexa Skills app ready by the end of September or sooner.

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by COACH10810

The 820 is a nice unit.....but still feels a tad "cheaper" than the UB900. Even the power cord is a tad less impressive.

I didn't spend a whole lot of time with it, but I did test the SDR 2020 and played a little with the HDR options.

The remote is too small for me, but the UB900 remote doesn't have the "HDR Settings" button on it.

You can toggle between different "HDR settings" and then adjust each one of those even more if you want.

The manual doesn't tell what each setting does, so I need to read up on those online....but it does sound like they are presets using the slider.

Have to agree with others in the fact that the SDR-HDR conversion is very nice and really hard to tell between my low lamp curve. The low lamp curve still wins out, but it isn't as close as I would have thought.

The other thing I am not sure about is what exactly the HDR Optimizer will do, when it is set to the "ON" position. I think what I need to do is watch a movie with it set to "on" and see if I notice it auto adjusting anything throughout the movie. It could have been in my head, but when I set the Optimizer to the "on" position while in low lamp mode and set the HDR setting to "natural", it seemed to give me something close to my high lamp curve...

So if you just leave it in the "ON" position and not adjust anything else, does it do anything at all?!?


It would be nice if Panasonic brought out an app, similar to what the 203 had, so you could easily switch between the settings. I would have liked to bounce back and forth between the HDR-SDR conversion and my low lamp HDR curve.

That is all for now. I plan on spending more time tomorrow with it.

Glad I didn't stick with the Oppo 203 and went with this.

If you are using the SDR2020 mode of the UB820 with your projector, it defaults to a 1000 nit based tone map. If you turn HDR Optimizer to ON, it changes the tone map based on the MaxCLL or MaxDML (if MaxCLL if not provided). If you leave the dynamic range slider to 0, it is assuming a 350 nit display, so think of this as your multiplier. I personally recommend a multiplier of between 4 and 6 for projector use, so if you know your peak white in nits, times it by that number and adjust the slider. The brightest setting in the slider is for 100 nits, so you'll have to figure out where you are as I'm not sure what each tick represents.

More often than not I would recommend you leave the Optimizer ON. This should provide the best results for most titles. The one exception that is EASY to see is Sicario as it reports a MaxCLL of 0 and MaxDML of 4000. If the tone map is done to 4000 it looks very dingy. Since the true MaxCLL is 1200, the default 1000 nit map is the better compromise. You can see the DRASTIC difference in the opening shot in the desert looking at the neighborhood and mountains in the background if you toggle between Off and On in the Optimizer.