Samsung 4K UHD Blu-ray Player UBD-K8500

[vincentric]

Regarding the Sammy's in-movie picture mode I'd recommend sticking with either Standard or preferably User at 0 middle values for most accurate looking picture. Dynamic tends to induce more banding from what I've seen as well as boost color and contrast a little too much for my liking, while Movie tends to dull the natural sharpness of the image too much.

[HeatEquation]

Originally Posted by vincentric

Regarding the Sammy's in-movie picture mode I'd recommend sticking with either Standard or preferably User at 0 middle values for most accurate looking picture. Dynamic tends to induce more banding from what I've seen as well as boost color and contrast a little too much for my liking, while Movie tends to dull the natural sharpness of the image too much.

I think this only happens when you've got a sub 1000 nit display with below average tone mapping. Dynamic mode or User mode with color and contrast slightly bumped up introduced no banding and the colors didn't look unnatural on my display. Someone else with a Sony 930 (which also has 1000+ nits) said the same.

[vincentric]

Good to know. Yeah, on my sony lcd (x850c ~425 nits) and lg oled (c6 ~700 nits) dynamic looked noticeably worse to me, while User default or Standard looked best.

[vincentric]

Just to quickly add the Sony 850c's tone mapping of brighter highlights seems to clip at the same point as the LG in spite of it having lower nits the Neverland sun in Pan as one example looks almost exactly alike. Dolby Vision on the OLED looked supreme though I don't stream often, am looking forward to DV on disc.

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by Patsfan123

For the K8500 ONLY

Deep Color on
UHD: 12 bit 4:4:4
BD: 12 bit 4:4:4

Deep color off:
UHD: 10 bit 4:4:4
BD: 8 bit 4:4:4


You can't set 4:2:2 on the Samsung K8500 and RGB is broken.. it's always Full (PC levels) regardless of the Limited or Full setting, so be careful with that setting.

Is this also true for a SDR 4K T.V. set? On the European version of this player RGB is not broken, I've tried both and RGB Full boosts contrast and brightness up to a point that is almost impossible to get picture right on my set, RGB Limited gives standard video levels. This is how I have my Samsung player set as I've noticed it redenders less banding on my T.V. set. RGB can also output a 10 bit signal?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by waff

Trying to find an answer to this. Does 12 bit do anything on a 10 bit panel? This is all I found "...sending a 12-bit signal helps to allow processing (like white balance adjustments) to be enabled without adding banding...". True?

What the 12-bit conversion is doing is changing the amount of gradations from 1 billion to 68 billion, however it can't add anything that wasn't there already so you have to trust that it's doing the upconversion as seamlessly as possible. The TV then has to downsample it back down to 10-bit or even 8-bit depending on the panel, again which you hope is as seamless as possible.

Ideally you'd have a 10-bit output as per what's encoded on the UHD disc to remove these unnecessary steps, but some players appear to be physically incapable of outputting 10-bit video for whatever reasons. However, the banding problem that some folks have reported with 12-bit 4:4:4 4K24 output is not due to poor processing on behalf of the player, it's down to the TV's processing choking on the signal.

[HeatEquation]

I've actually never tried Deep Color on with the K8500 to see how 12 bit would look on my TV. Time to test it out when I get a chance. Can't imagine it looking any better than it already does, though.

[Geoff D]

Right, there's no reason why it should, seeing as all it's doing is upsampling the bit depth. You're already getting the proper 10-bit HDR WCG signal without having to engage Deep Colour, unlike the Sony, say.

[RockyIII]

Originally Posted by waff

Trying to find an answer to this. Does 12 bit do anything on a 10 bit panel? This is all I found "...sending a 12-bit signal helps to allow processing (like white balance adjustments) to be enabled without adding banding...". True?

Deep Color/On on this player will only make skin tones appear over saturated

[RockyIII]

Originally Posted by vincentric

Good to know. Yeah, on my sony lcd (x850c ~425 nits) and lg oled (c6 ~700 nits) dynamic looked noticeably worse to me, while User default or Standard looked best.

All Dynamic does is increase color and contrast without you doing that manually from your TV remote. Nothing special or fancy about. If you knew the exact color and contrast increase values you could re-create dynamic yourself by simply upping color and contrast from your TV

[RockyIII]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

What the 12-bit conversion is doing is changing the amount of gradations from 1 billion to 68 billion, however it can't add anything that wasn't there already so you have to trust that it's doing the upconversion as seamlessly as possible. The TV then has to downsample it back down to 10-bit or even 8-bit depending on the panel, again which you hope is as seamless as possible.

Ideally you'd have a 10-bit output as per what's encoded on the UHD disc to remove these unnecessary steps, but some players appear to be physically incapable of outputting 10-bit video for whatever reasons. However, the banding problem that some folks have reported with 12-bit 4:4:4 4K24 output is not due to poor processing on behalf of the player, it's down to the TV's processing choking on the signal.

Hence deep color off

[Leterface]

Originally Posted by RockyIII

Deep Color/On on this player will only make skin tones appear over saturated

I'm quite sure my KS8000 TV showed also banding issue with deep color switched on in the player.

[RockyIII]

Originally Posted by Leterface

I'm quite sure my KS8000 TV showed also banding issue with deep color switched on in the player.

I think deep color, since it is found even on older non-4K Samsung players, was just a gimmick created before the arrival of real 4k uhd physical media

[HeatEquation]

Originally Posted by RockyIII

I think deep color, since it is found even on older non-4K Samsung players, was just a gimmick created before the arrival of real 4k uhd physical media

The K8500 appears to be the only player that actually outputs 10 bit. The others usually only do either 8 bit (if you have Deep Color off) or 12 bit (with Deep Color on.)

We're lucky in that regard. Despite any complains with this player, picture quality is certainly not one of them.

[RockyIII]

Originally Posted by HeatEquation

The K8500 appears to be the only player that actually outputs 10 bit. The others usually only do either 8 bit (if you have Deep Color off) or 12 bit (with Deep Color on.)

We're lucky in that regard. Despite any complains with this player, picture quality is certainly not one of them.

So the UHD Panasonic and Oppo 203 do not output 10 bit?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J320A using Tapatalk

[HeatEquation]

Originally Posted by RockyIII

So the UHD Panasonic and Oppo 203 do not output 10 bit?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J320A using Tapatalk

I don't think the Panasonic does. I think the Oppo and Samsung are the only ones that do.

[GeneD5]

Originally Posted by HeatEquation

The K8500 appears to be the only player that actually outputs 10 bit. The others usually only do either 8 bit (if you have Deep Color off) or 12 bit (with Deep Color on.)

We're lucky in that regard. Despite any complains with this player, picture quality is certainly not one of them.

Zero complaints on picture quality here. I'm pretty sure the 12 bit discussion is moot because no displays support it.

[GeneD5]

Originally Posted by HeatEquation

I don't think the Panasonic does. I think the Oppo and Samsung are the only ones that do.

They all must output 10! That's part of the hdr standard / wide color gamut!

[HeatEquation]

Originally Posted by GeneD5

They all must output 10! That's part of the hdr standard / wide color gamut!

The others output either 8 or 12 bit, based on other settings. With 12 bit they still get the WCG (as long as the TV supports it.)

[GeneD5]

Originally Posted by HeatEquation

The others output either 8 or 12 bit, based on other settings. With 12 bit they still get the WCG (as long as the TV supports it.)

Other settings...I get what you're saying. It's so silly though that 12 is in the mix. I'm looking forward to the future when standards aren't so jacked up.