Panasonic DMP-UB900 Ultra HD Player

[Geoff D]

Congrats! I love that the discs are the full retail versions too, none of this barebones shit like with the Samsung copy of The Martian (which will soon be superceded by the extended edition anyway: https://www.amazon.ca/Martian-Extend.../dp/B01E0I5W0K).

[Aston_Martin_DB5]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Congrats! I love that the discs are the full retail versions too, none of this barebones shit like with the Samsung copy of The Martian (which will soon be superceded by the extended edition anyway: https://www.amazon.ca/Martian-Extend.../dp/B01E0I5W0K).

Yh i have 2 copies of Mad max fury road now !

[RockyIII]

Originally Posted by pawel86ck

Another review that mention superb HDR-SDR conversion quality compard to samsung UHD player, nice

hdr-sdr conversion? what are you referring to exactly? Playing regular blurays on this device?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I577 using Tapatalk

[bruceames]

The review says basically no difference in UHD PQ between it and the Samsung (which makes sense because regular Blu-rays all have pretty much the same PQ unless it has an onboard enhancement processor like Darbee). That's actually a relief to know since it was mentioned a few times that the Samsung might have been applying DNR.

Also very interesting of course is the downconversion to SDR. Like Goeff says it can be tweaked to match the output capacity of the display. The default is 300 nits, and since the Samsung isn't adjustable, maybe its default is the same. If I had to guess what my 900A peak brightness is, then it would be around that range.

So, if the brightness range can be accurately downconverted, what about the colors? Maybe that's where I'd notice the real difference in SDR on the Panny? On the 900A they do look a little off. Would only those colors outside the rec 709 color space be different? (I think the 900A has a wider color gamut than that because you can play Mastered in 4K discs which have extended color range).

[Deciazulado]

The Samsung has adjustments. User: Contrast + Brightness. With contrast you can lower or raise the signal

[RockyIII]

so what are the ideal settings on both the player and tv for SDR conversion?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I577 using Tapatalk

[Deciazulado]

Well if you change settings on the tv then it changes on the player. But in general I guess in the pursuit of nitness, you would adjust on an LCD the TV backlight to the max, then the TVs contrast to the max (this means when you have the whitest object on an image or test pattern, you move the "contrast" (white level) up till it doesn't get brighter (meaning the LCD polarizer window is full open) (if you can go higher up in the control from there, you're just pushing lower levels to white). Now on the Player part, on a disc look for a highlight (like a source of light/brightest parts of the image above white objects), and you move the player's contrast setting up and down towards the setting that gives you the brightest highlights with your level of preferred clipping . What I'm hoping is the Panasonic has a more acceptable soft bending curve that tames or expands mostly the highlights to accommodate your tastes/your TV's output, that would be something more desirable

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

The review says basically no difference in UHD PQ between it and the Samsung (which makes sense because regular Blu-rays all have pretty much the same PQ unless it has an onboard enhancement processor like Darbee). That's actually a relief to know since it was mentioned a few times that the Samsung might have been applying DNR.

Also very interesting of course is the downconversion to SDR. Like Goeff says it can be tweaked to match the output capacity of the display. The default is 300 nits, and since the Samsung isn't adjustable, maybe its default is the same. If I had to guess what my 900A peak brightness is, then it would be around that range.

So, if the brightness range can be accurately downconverted, what about the colors? Maybe that's where I'd notice the real difference in SDR on the Panny? On the 900A they do look a little off. Would only those colors outside the rec 709 color space be different? (I think the 900A has a wider color gamut than that because you can play Mastered in 4K discs which have extended color range).

Sure, it follows that there may be more finesse in the colour transform too.

As for the TV it's got a much wider native gamut than 709, as does my 9005B, but the problem is thus: they can't recognise the wider gamut that these players are squirting out at 2020. If the signal was being mapped to xvYCC (which is what those Mi4K discs are mastered at and what those older Sony 4K TVs can accept) then we could take advantage of it, but there's so sign of the Panny being able to do that (nor would I expect it to, TBH) so a 709 input is the best it's gonna get.

When I get my Panny I'll check the colour bars/patterns on the Sony UHD discs with my colourimeter to see how accurate that part of the SDR 709 transform is.

[pawel86ck]

Guys, in the "trustedreviews" they mention, that this panasonic has some chroma upscaling, that upscales 4:2:0 to 4:4:4, and because of that picture quality on UHD discs are much better compared to samsung UHD player. But how it's possible to see 4:4:4 benefits on current UHD HDTV's that display 4:2:2 in most modes?? In my HDTV in order to enable 4:4:4 I have to switch my tv into "PC mode", and only then I can see 4:4:4 chroma, but then most options in regards to motion are disabled. I hope someone can explain that to me, because maybe these UHD HDTV can can indeed display 4:4:4 in useful way

[Geoff D]

The Samsung upscales to 4:4:4 chroma by default. It's a lot of hot air IMO, as the chroma upsampling takes place at SOME stage in the chain, be it in the player or in the display, usually there's nothing in it and I prefer to have as little additional processing applied to the picture at the player end as possible.

If one MUST have it, and the player's doing the upsampling correctly (and, if using Deep Colour, upping the bit depth correctly) then it shouldn't be adding anything of note, only letting the original 4:2:0 10-bit signal be converted as transparently as possible.

[pawel86ck]

GeoffD@ but my concern is, if that reviewer mention (from "trustedreviews"), that picture quality on this panasonic is better compared to samsung UHD player because of chroma upsampling, than based on that I would suppose that all new UHDTV's can display 4:4:4 without problems. So if this panasonic player indeed outputs sharper picture compared to samsung, but most HDTV's cant accepts 4:4:4 outside PC mode, than why he see improvement in picture quality because of this chroma upscaling (if HDTV will not display upscaled chroma)?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by pawel86ck

GeoffD@ but my concern is, if that reviewer mention (from "trustedreviews"), that picture quality on this panasonic is better compared to samsung UHD player because of chroma upsampling, than based on that I would suppose that all new UHDTV's can display 4:4:4 without problems. So if this panasonic player indeed outputs sharper picture compared to samsung, so it must be not because of just chroma upscaling, but something more.

Yes, it follows that there may be some other special sauce in there. BUT....the AVF forums reviewers said that they could discern practically no difference in the standard operational output (HDR, upscaling etc) of the Samsung and the Panasonic, it's only the adjustable SDR conversion of the latter that's the biggest differentiator.

[dvdmike]

Audiophile player? not without universal disc support AVS!

[dvdmike]

To be fair, the Samsung is barely optimised for human use, that thread is pages of complaints

[Crimsoncleaver]

My Panasonic is going to be with me in an hour.

From all that I've read, these settings should give me the optimum picture on UHD Blu-rays:

HDMI 2 = port that I will connect the Panasonic UHD player to

1. Enable xv colour on the HDMI 2 = expanded colour
2. Set the brightness and contrast to Max on HDMI 2 = mimics HDR mode on TVs
3. Set the HDR to SDR conversion to 400 nits (I believe that is the nits of the 79X900B)
4. Set 4K 50/60p to 4:2:2 on Panasonic - as TV is limited to that, but this won't affect films anyway

All that should mean better colour than normal Blu-Ray (plus the obvious extra resolution)?

[geoffc]

Originally Posted by Crimsoncleaver

My Panasonic is going to be with me in an hour.

From all that I've read, these settings should give me the optimum picture on UHD Blu-rays:

HDMI 2 = port that I will connect the Panasonic UHD player to

1. Enable xv colour on the HDMI 2 = expanded colour
2. Set the brightness and contrast to Max on HDMI 2 = mimics HDR mode on TVs
3. Set the HDR to SDR conversion to 400 nits (I believe that is the nits of the 79X900B)
4. Set 4K 50/60p to 4:2:2 on Panasonic - as TV is limited to that, but this won't affect films anyway

All that should mean better colour than normal Blu-Ray (plus the obvious extra resolution)?

I found the HDR to SDR conversion needed some trial and error to get the best from it - I set my backlight to max and then set the HDR to SDR control (on the player 'Picture Settings') to -5

Also I set dynamic contrast to medium and black tone to darker - this is on my Samsung HU8500 - its as though the picture from the player needs a bit more room to play with!

If you have calibrated for 1080p then it will need some adjustments here and there.

I'm just debating whether to get a new TV - possibly the Samsung KS9000 - did look at the new Sony but build seemed poor and the sides of the panel ran really hot so would favour the Samsung - HDR looked spectacular.

Enjoy your new player!

[Crimsoncleaver]

Originally Posted by geoffc

I found the HDR to SDR conversion needed some trial and error to get the best from it - I set my backlight to max and then set the HDR to SDR control (on the player 'Picture Settings') to -5

Also I set dynamic contrast to medium and black tone to darker - this is on my Samsung HU8500 - its as though the picture from the player needs a bit more room to play with!

If you have calibrated for 1080p then it will need some adjustments here and there.

I'm just debating whether to get a new TV - possibly the Samsung KS9000 - did look at the new Sony but build seemed poor and the sides of the panel ran really hot so would favour the Samsung - HDR looked spectacular.

Enjoy your new player!

Thanks for the tips, will have a play.

Noticed though that Playback info is stating the HDMI is at 4:4:4/8bit
Shouldn't it be 4:4:4/10bit?

[geoffc]

Have you tried adjusting the settings

p29 of the manual - think that allows colour space adjustments

Like I said I think the Samsung KS9000 is the one to beat for HDR (from what I've seen so far) although the new LG OLED's (at a price!) might be even better.

[MiC. UHD]

Ok so I have a stupid question.

Now my tv can accept HDR but it peaks at about 600 nits. Now from what I gather, the HDR to SDR conversion on the Panasonic is only a benefit for televisions that cannot accept native HDR, thereby allowing them to manually adjust the nit output of the player to "match" the tv, if for example it can't hit 1,000 nits. Now my question is if I were to pick up the Panasonic player, is my best bet leaving the settings alone? Also aside from build quality and the HDR-SDR conversion, is there anything else that makes this player better than Samsung's when it comes to UHD? Any word on U.S. release?

[Crimsoncleaver]

Originally Posted by geoffc

Have you tried adjusting the settings

p29 of the manual - think that allows colour space adjustments

Like I said I think the Samsung KS9000 is the one to beat for HDR (from what I've seen so far) although the new LG OLED's (at a price!) might be even better.

Great, thanks, now getting SDR/BT.2020 YCbCr4:2:2/12bit instead of
SDR/709 YCbCr4:2:0/8bit

This was by setting in Home > Setup > Player Settings > HDMI > Advanced Settings:
Colour Mode: YCbCr (Automatic)

Previously had it at YCbCr 4:4:4 which was forcing 8bit.

So far my findings with the player are (by pausing each movie on the UHD at same point as my Sony BdpS480 and switching HDMI inputs on my 79X900B):

Better colour, seems a lot more natural than my Blu-Ray's using same TV picture settings. Reds were more accurately red, and just more range, especially in green foliage.

Kingsman and Life of Pi - colour was different and within motion, detail is more perceptible, but when paused, detail barely seems different. SFX seem to stand out

Mad Max - more colour, detail only slightly better when still, but in motion, more perceptible. SFX seem to stand out

San Andreas - more colour range and more detail paused or not paused. Special effects look poor compared to real footage though.


I thought this seemed odd, how Kingsman and Life of Pi didn't seem to have much more detail. I know Sony up scaling is supposed to be good, but can't be THAT good. Then I checked out the digital intemperates and SFX were rendered at for these movies.

For all SFX is 2K which might be why they're "shown" up more.

San Andreas seems to be:
Shot at 3.8k
SFX 2k
DI 4K

Mad Max:
2.8k
2K
4K

Life of Pi and Kingsman
2.8k
2K
2K

So now I get why people are annoyed with the releases.

However, the colour and detail gain in motion is a big hit for me.

It's almost like the difference between 720p and 1080p on my 79 inch. But the colour enhances it more as does the detail gain in motion, which seems to give more depth.. Hard to describe, but the image feels more natural, rather than artificially enhanced (guess up scaling can only do so much).

I am however viewing this in my extremely bright living room on a sunny day. Perhaps tonight's viewing will further make the 4K look better.