Sony UBP-X800 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Ben_UK]

Originally Posted by Cortiz

I've had Sony players for a very long time and one thing about Sony is that sometimes it will take them a long time to acknowledge a problem and fix it. They haven't release any firmware for this player since last September but i'm sure they will eventually release one and fix the freezing issue. They always comes through even though they take their sweet time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Except when they dropped support for the _90 range of Blu Ray players maybe a year after release, leaving the apps completely broken.

[gkolb]

Originally Posted by AltMagOnline

I'm not sure if this problem has already been resolved, but I thought it was worth signing up to the forum to help anyone finding themselves as frustrated as I was!

I've had the Sony UBP-X800 for about a month and I absolutely love it, but 4K UHD discs never really 'wowed' me - in fact, my regular Blu-rays often looked a lot more colourful.

Now, my television is a Sony Bravia KD55XE7003 which I've also had for about a month. It's not a top of the range 4K telly but it's still capable of producing a lovely image. 4K videos on the built-in YouTube app look gorgeous, for example.

Anyway, I realised last night that every time I stick in a 4K UHD disc, the television is switching over to a dedicated HDR mode. No problem, right? Wrong - because this mode is stripping the image of its colour! It's hard to describe; the image is still highly detailed, but everything looks slightly grey and washed out.

Further exacerbating the problem, pressing 'OPTIONS' on the main TV remote was opening the options for the UBP-X800 player itself, NOT the television. It was definitely a HDR content issue too, as turning HDR off completely via the player menu returned the colours to their usual brightness and colour (albeit without the loveliness of HDR, which the Sony Bravia KD55XE7003 is capable of).

I didn't want to watch all my 4K discs without HDR, so I spent about 3 hours fiddling and finally discovered that you can still access your Sony TV picture options when the UBP-X800 is powered on!

Simply press the small button (near the top on my remote) labelled SYNC MENU and you can then scroll down and select the television. From there, I went into picture settings and found that my TV had two default profiles when in HDR mode - Standard and Vivid. Standard was the one always coming on by default - oddly grey and washed out. I selected Vivid - a setting I would never use on the regular channels or my PlayStation 4 Pro - and voila! The colours now look the way they should. This setting has stuck too, so it switches to HDR Vivid whenever I play a 4K UHD (HDR) disc, but this doesn't impact the picture when playing regular Blu-rays (which already looked great).

The only other small change I made was to raise the contrast a bit on the player itself, but I can now say I am very pleased with the picture quality. Sorry for the long post, I just thought this might be helpful - and interesting - for people with the same problem! I have no idea why the default setting is so washed out, but HDR Vivid looks great - and of course you can always tinker with the picture settings further if you want a more tailored image. I will probably experiment more with the settings tonight.

I found John Archer's review for your display, he reported nice PQ for HD sources. When it comes to 4k UHD, he estimated the max nits to be 360 which is far below the approx 1000 that an LED tv should produce for adequate HDR10 viewing. He also says this tv doesn't have ANY local dimming during HDR so the entire scene will darken when a highlight is trying to be displayed in a frame or scene.

All of the issues you described with HDR playback in your post are consistent with the facts he gives in his review. Sorry to say it, Sony should not market this tv as HDR capable. If you are still in a return window, Archer mentioned the XE8000's are just a bit more, but they produce higher nits and better color processing for wide color gamut (WCG, Rec.2020).

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by Ben_UK

Except when they dropped support for the _90 range of Blu Ray players maybe a year after release, leaving the apps completely broken.

Its common for both Sony and Panasonic after 5 years to only release firmware updates to the Blu-ray players AACS encryption key database so that new releases play fine. I have a 8 year old Panasonic Blu-ray player that plays the latest 1080P Blu-ray releases. However on that 8 year old 2010 model Panasonic Blu-ray player they refuse to issue a firmware update to update the Netflix interface from 720P with 2.0 stereo to 1080P 5.1 surround sound. My point is several brands of Blu-ray players after a few years or several years no longer get support for the streaming apps. Even OPPO had this problem when working with Netflix years ago and their latest Blu-ray players starting at $549 do not offer any streaming features at all.


Sometimes people are forced to spend $99.99 and buy a Roku Ultra or other external streaming device to get the latest streaming apps.

Originally Posted by gkolb

I found John Archer's review for your display, he reported nice PQ for HD sources. When it comes to 4k UHD, he estimated the max nits to be 360 which is far below the approx 1000 that an LED tv should produce for adequate HDR10 viewing. He also says this tv doesn't have ANY local dimming during HDR so the entire scene will darken when a highlight is trying to be displayed in a frame or scene.

All of the issues you described with HDR playback in your post are consistent with the facts he gives in his review. Sorry to say it, Sony should not market this tv as HDR capable. If you are still in a return window, Archer mentioned the XE8000's are just a bit more, but they produce higher nits and better color processing for wide color gamut (WCG, Rec.2020).

Thanks for replying! I totally understand where you’re coming from; it was actually the John Archer review - along with the equally detailed, yet more positive overall review on trustedreviews.com - that made me bite the bullet on this particular television set at what I believe was an excellent price point.

I’m not really talking about the HDR on the telly itself though - which I actually think looks very good considering the lowish nits, for what it’s worth.

Rather, I’m talking about the default HDR picture setting on said television when paired with the UBP-X800. The PlayStation 4 Pro automatically switches to game mode (and HDR for games that support it) and looks great with beautiful, vibrant colours. Regular Blu-rays played either on the console or the X800 also look great.

The auto HDR picture setting when playing a 4K disc with HDR on the UBP-X800 is bloody awful - incredibly washed out and devoid of colour. Switching to HDR Vivid completely solves this issue. Black levels are suddenly very strong, neon signs glow beautifully in Blade Runner and the corridors of the spaceship in Passengers light up with impressive clarity. It may not be a thousand nits, but it looks infinitely better than the default HDR picture setting to the point where I don’t have a clue why it’s the default in the first place!

[Geoff D]

Guys, w/ref to the issue of forced noise reduction on Sony players being discussed here I thought I'd check the X800 and lo and behold, if you have the Options--Video Setting set to Auto when the player is upscaling <4K content (BD, DVD, whatever) to 4K then it applies some pretty heavy noise reduction. The other picture modes are fine, and it doesn't affect actual 4K content playback at all, but if you want your upscaling to be unmolested then take it off of Auto, if you haven't done so already. Direct is your best bet.

[Realist01]

So what video settings should be used?

4k instead of auto and is general consensus to leave auto2 on for upscale of dvds and blu rays?

[reewinder]

Originally Posted by Realist01

So what video settings should be used?

4k instead of auto and is general consensus to leave auto2 on for upscale of dvds and blu rays?

I leave it on direct setting and let my TV do any of the upscaling. I would test each one out and see what looks better on your set. I think most people have said their TV's handle upscaling better than the player does.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Realist01

So what video settings should be used?

4k instead of auto and is general consensus to leave auto2 on for upscale of dvds and blu rays?

In my post I'm not talking about the actual set-up menu where you select the output resolution or upscaling setting (which is useless anyway), just the Video Settings menu that appears when you press Options during playback.

[Snikt]

Originally Posted by Realist01

So what video settings should be used?

4k instead of auto and is general consensus to leave auto2 on for upscale of dvds and blu rays?

This is just me and the case for my set-up.

When playing Blu-rays with auto1 or auto2, I noticed i was actually losing detail in my Blu-rays. It almost looked smeary and blurry (and yes, my setting in video settings is on "direct").

So I actually turned off the 4K upscaling. This allows my TV to do the upscaling and the Blu-rays & DVDs look BEAUTIFUL now .

They play at 1080p resolution, but look even better than before. Of course, the 4K Blu-rays look great too.

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by reewinder

I leave it on direct setting and let my TV do any of the upscaling. I would test each one out and see what looks better on your set. I think most people have said their TV's handle upscaling better than the player does.

Coupled with a Samsung T.V. set it is indeed the case.

[Elbie]

Sony sending me a replacement since they have no idea why my player keeps going to a blue screen and freezing after about 10 mins. They kept asking me if there is an auto shut off option in the settings and I say no and they say there should be. Lol

[y2jman]

I think I discovered that if I put a dvd or bluray in if it stops to freeze I should wait until get to the main menu it will stop then I don't have to unplug bluray player

[JohnnyFontane]

returned this player twice to amazon. first one wouldnt stream wwe network or hulu in hd, and it'd take a long time to respond to the remote. second one streamed in hd most of the time, but sometimes would make streamed videos look like 3d without glasses, and it wouldn't open apps when i clicked on them. yes, i can get a roku or something but if streaming doesnt even work properly, i wonder what else wont work properly/consistently.

[y2jman]

Speaking of wwe network i still can't seem to permanently turn off sub title close caption
Because its always on have to turn off subtitle remote control
If i watched wwe network on my 4k lg smart tv no subtitles are not turned on

[JohnnyFontane]

Originally Posted by y2jman

Speaking of wwe network i still can't seem to permanently turn off sub title close caption
Because its always on have to turn off subtitle remote control
If i watched wwe network on my 4k lg smart tv no subtitles are not turned on

i couldnt figure it out either, but one thing i liked about the player is that subtitle button. other players ive had require more effort.

[Elbie]

Originally Posted by y2jman

Speaking of wwe network i still can't seem to permanently turn off sub title close caption
Because its always on have to turn off subtitle remote control
If i watched wwe network on my 4k lg smart tv no subtitles are not turned on

This isn't going to be helpful but mine was doing the same thing. I ended up turning it off somehow. I haven't used it on the player in probably a year but I do remember having that problem.

[Realist01]

Originally Posted by Snikt

This is just me and the case for my set-up.

When playing Blu-rays with auto1 or auto2, I noticed i was actually losing detail in my Blu-rays. It almost looked smeary and blurry (and yes, my setting in video settings is on "direct").

So I actually turned off the 4K upscaling. This allows my TV to do the upscaling and the Blu-rays & DVDs look BEAUTIFUL now .


They play at 1080p resolution, but look even better than before. Of course, the 4K Blu-rays look great too.

Ill have to try this out. I have a vizio m series from 2016. Love the TV but im sure tvs like samsung and lg do better at upscaling. I liked vizio for the price but still has great picture. Thanks for the info guys!

BTW Should I leave my output settings on auto or 4K? This is in the main setting menu.

[Realist01]

Does anyone have issues with netflix app? When i use it on my roku it work flawless but not so much on the x800. The reason i have tried netflix on the x800 is because my tv only has one input for hdr and i use that for the x800 and i use the standard 4k input fir the roku premiere plus

[y2jman]

Originally Posted by Elbie

This isn't going to be helpful but mine was doing the same thing. I ended up turning it off somehow. I haven't used it on the player in probably a year but I do remember having that problem.

if you can figure how turn it off please let me know

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Guys, w/ref to the issue of forced noise reduction on Sony players being discussed here I thought I'd check the X800 and lo and behold, if you have the Options--Video Setting set to Auto when the player is upscaling <4K content (BD, DVD, whatever) to 4K then it applies some pretty heavy noise reduction. The other picture modes are fine, and it doesn't affect actual 4K content playback at all, but if you want your upscaling to be unmolested then take it off of Auto, if you haven't done so already. Direct is your best bet.

Just tried this with the player set to 1080p output (no upscaling) and the same applies: if you leave the Options--Video Settings selection on Auto then it will apply the noise reduction. Always put this setting on Direct for the most unmolested results. This is from the in-player options menu and not the main set-up menu.

A few other settings that I've double-checked. The 4K Upscale setting in the main setup menu has no effect whatsoever if your Output Video Resolution is set to anything other than Auto. If the output resolution is fixed to 4K for example then even when I turn the specific 4K upscale setting off, the player will still upscale all sub-4K content regardless.

The 4K upscale settings do the following when output resolution is set to Auto and connected to a Sony TV (manual p.20 states that "If your Sony equipment is not detected when [Auto1] is selected, the setting will have the same effect as [Auto2] setting"):

Auto 1: lets 1080p content through at native resolution without scaling, upscales sub-1080p to 1080p. Plays 4K content in 4K.

Auto 2: upscales all sub-4K content to 4K. Plays 4K content in 4K.

Off: see Auto 1