Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[wxman2003]

I hope i didn't open up a bees nest with my post about setting display type to basic luminance for OLED. I can only speak for the E6, which I have, and HDR 10 tone mapping is horrible, and it seriously clips everything above 600 nits. It now looks more like DV on my tv when using HDR optimizer and basic luminance. That was one reason why i was forcing HDR10 to DV with my OPPO 203 before getting the 9000. It somewhat worked and eliminated the major clipping, but also caused black crush below 2%. Setting the 9000 to what I have seems to have fixed the problems on my E6 with HDR10 with no crush below 2%. The older LG models are just not very good with HDR10.

I also noticed when using the S&M UHD calibration disc, and setting brightness with the pluge pattern, I saw a significant rise in near black detail when turning HDR optimizer on. Blacks remained black, but the 2% bar became brighter.

Those with newer LG OLED's and other brands of OLED, may find different results. The 9000 is an impressive machine and I am finally happy with the HDR10 results using the HDR optimizer and basic luminance.

[GenPion]

Originally Posted by wxman2003

I hope i didn't open up a bees nest with my post about setting display type to basic luminance for OLED. I can only speak for the E6, which I have, and HDR 10 tone mapping is horrible, and it seriously clips everything above 600 nits. It now looks more like DV on my tv when using HDR optimizer and basic luminance. That was one reason why i was forcing HDR10 to DV with my OPPO 203 before getting the 9000. It somewhat worked and eliminated the major clipping, but also caused black crush below 2%. Setting the 9000 to what I have seems to have fixed the problems on my E6 with HDR10 with no crush below 2%. The older LG models are just not very good with HDR10.

I also noticed when using the S&M UHD calibration disc, and setting brightness with the pluge pattern, I saw a significant rise in near black detail when turning HDR optimizer on. Blacks remained black, but the 2% bar became brighter.

Those with newer LG OLED's and other brands of OLED, may find different results. The 9000 is an impressive machine and I am finally happy with the HDR10 results using the HDR optimizer and basic luminance.

I appreciate your findings as I have the same display (OLED65E6P). I’ll be using the same settings (still need to test them but your photos and observations are promising).

[wxman2003]

Originally Posted by GenPion

I appreciate your findings as I have the same display (OLED65E6P). I’ll be using the same settings (still need to test them but your photos and observations are promising).

I even tested it on the movie Lucy which is only 1000 nits. It looked better with it set to basic luminance too with HDR optimizer turned on, and also brought out more near black detail.

Setting display to basic luminance on the 9000 and not using HDR optimizer does not lower the peak luminance on the tv. When hitting the playback button it still shows the tv receiving 1000 or 4000 nits. Only when HDR optimizer is engaged does it lower input to 500 nits. So if you dont like the way it looks with HDR optimizer, turn it off, and you don't have to change display type in the player.

[jjlikesonions]

I'm trying to choose between the Panasonic DP-UB820 and the Sony UBP-X800M2. I'm buying from 220 electronics (I want region free). I chose these because they both have Dolby Vision. The Pany is $850 and the Sony is $400. I've read that some people have had issues with the Sony's connectivity or freezing up. Does anyone have any experience with this? I don't know if I can justify paying more than double for the Pany just because the Sony might have an issue. I could always return it within the year right?

[bnmdjm]

Originally Posted by wxman2003

I hope i didn't open up a bees nest with my post about setting display type to basic luminance for OLED. I can only speak for the E6, which I have, and HDR 10 tone mapping is horrible, and it seriously clips everything above 600 nits. It now looks more like DV on my tv when using HDR optimizer and basic luminance. That was one reason why i was forcing HDR10 to DV with my OPPO 203 before getting the 9000. It somewhat worked and eliminated the major clipping, but also caused black crush below 2%. Setting the 9000 to what I have seems to have fixed the problems on my E6 with HDR10 with no crush below 2%. The older LG models are just not very good with HDR10.

I also noticed when using the S&M UHD calibration disc, and setting brightness with the pluge pattern, I saw a significant rise in near black detail when turning HDR optimizer on. Blacks remained black, but the 2% bar became brighter.

Those with newer LG OLED's and other brands of OLED, may find different results. The 9000 is an impressive machine and I am finally happy with the HDR10 results using the HDR optimizer and basic luminance.

I appreciated your comparison, and decided to conduct a similar one on my B7a. I used Batman Returns (4000 nits) and compared the explosion scene at 1:55:34 between HDR Optimizer off, On (set to OLED - 1000 nits) and On (set to Basic Luminance - 500 nits). I definitely saw similar results, with more detail preserved in the sparks with the 500 nit setting.

HDR Optimizer Off


HDR Optimizer On (OLED - 1000 nits)


HDR Optimizer On (Basic Luminance - 500 nits)

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by jjlikesonions

I'm trying to choose between the Panasonic DP-UB820 and the Sony UBP-X800M2. I'm buying from 220 electronics (I want region free). I chose these because they both have Dolby Vision. The Pany is $850 and the Sony is $400. I've read that some people have had issues with the Sony's connectivity or freezing up. Does anyone have any experience with this? I don't know if I can justify paying more than double for the Pany just because the Sony might have an issue. I could always return it within the year right?

Both the Sony and Panasonic are flawless players for playing optical discs. Many people have used the Sony 4K Blu-ray players with absolutely no freezing when playing optical discs including 4K Blu-ray discs. The only advantage of the Sony UBP-X800M2 over the Panasonic is that the Sony plays SACD’s and DVD-Audio discs and the Sony is a cheaper player. However if you do not own or plan on purchasing SACD’s and DVD-Audio discs and are willing to pay more money the Panasonic DP-UB820 is a better player. The Panasonic DP-UB820 is the cheapest 4K Blu-ray player on the market that offers tone mapping and both the HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR feature. Sony does not have tone mapping, does not have HDR10+, and does not have the auto Dolby Vision HDR feature and Sony requires Dolby Vision HDR to manually be turned off or on.

Be careful with purchasing modified third party region selectable Blu-ray players that have a hardware modification soldered to the circuit board. Firmware updates are required for Blu-ray players to play the latest new releases with the latest encryption codes. If the manufactore of a Blu-ray player chooses too, they can write a firmware update that disables the third party region selectable hardware modification. So there is risks to buying modified Blu-ray players with the region selectable feature.

[EddieLarkin]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

If some titles have a really high average brightness then yeah, using the 500-nit mode may well dim it globally.

The 500 nit mode dims the image globally for all titles (with the exception of the few with very low average brightness, like Goodfellas), and raises black level.

Which is why I do not like using the basic luminance option with my E6.

Take a title like The Mummy (1999), which has peaks of 1000 nits. The 1000 OLED mode, not surprisingly, has no effect whatsoever on any part of the image.

The 500 nit mode however, does eek out a bit more highlight detail for sure. But for whatever reason, this mode causes the image to both dim all bright areas and jump up a few notches in black level. This happens no matter how bright or how dark the particular shot might be, and is true for every frame in the film.

Why it does this I don't know, because none of the other modes do, regardless of how high in nits the source is. The 1000 OLED mode for instance does not cause this dimming or black level change even on a Sony 10,000 nit title. The only thing that happens in this mode is the very brightest parts of the image are reduced slightly to bring back highlight detail, and no other part of the image is changed. As one would expect.

Whilst it is nice to retrieve the missing highlight info on 1000 nit titles, it's a huge trade off if you ask me. Bright scenes all become very flat and SDR looking, and dark scenes lose their depth and blacks lose their inkiness. It seems to me this mode has some sort of universal that alters all scenes on all titles no matter what the particular nit level of a particular scene.

The other modes seem more discerning.

You can see the effect in wxman2003's pictures. The Optimiser Off pic and the DV pic both show similar black levels. The Optimiser On pic has comparitively less pop, due to a flatter image. If DV is the ideal in this particular example, because it brings back missing highlight info whilst retaining proper brightness, then one has to choose one or the other on HDR10 only 1000 nit titles.

[wxman2003]

Originally Posted by EddieLarkin

The 500 nit mode dims the image globally for all titles (with the exception of the few with very low average brightness, like Goodfellas), and raises black level.

Which is why I do not like using the basic luminance option with my E6.

Take a title like The Mummy (1999), which has peaks of 1000 nits. The 1000 OLED mode, not surprisingly, has no effect whatsoever on any part of the image.

The 500 nit mode however, does eek out a bit more highlight detail for sure. But for whatever reason, this mode causes the image to both dim all bright areas and jump up a few notches in black level. This happens no matter how bright or how dark the particular shot might be, and is true for every frame in the film.

Why it does this I don't know, because none of the other modes do, regardless of how high in nits the source is. The 1000 OLED mode for instance does not cause this dimming or black level change even on a Sony 10,000 nit title. The only thing that happens in this mode is the very brightest parts of the image are reduced slightly to bring back highlight detail, and no other part of the image is changed. As one would expect.

Whilst it is nice to retrieve the missing highlight info on 1000 nit titles, it's a huge trade off if you ask me. Bright scenes all become very flat and SDR looking, and dark scenes lose their depth and blacks lose their inkiness. It seems to me this mode has some sort of universal that alters all scenes on all titles no matter what the particular nit level of a particular scene.

The other modes seem more discerning.

You can see the effect in wxman2003's pictures. The Optimiser Off pic and the DV pic both show similar black levels. The Optimiser On pic has comparitively less pop, due to a flatter image. If DV is the ideal in this particular example, because it brings back missing highlight info whilst retaining proper brightness, then one has to choose one or the other on HDR10 only 1000 nit titles.

With the E6 and HDR10, one needs to check what their brightness setting is. Default of 50 for HDR10 does major crushing. With the S&M UHD disc, and the HDR10 brightness pluge pattern, 52 or 53 is correct, and that does elevate the near blacks quite a bit and although letterbox bar remain black, you will notice some black scenes being grey. When I have brightness at 50, I barely see the 4% bar. Turning HDR optimizer on makes 2% visible. In my DV images, blacks are still clipped. Stacey Spears has a link in his disc thread that has a DV brightness pluge pattern. On the E6, DV still crushes around 1% with a brightness of 50. raising it to 51, causes letterbox bars to glow.

SO even though the images may look better, there is black crush going on with optimizer off and also DV.

Here is a link to Stacey's thread if you want to download the file and put it on usb. It does not work on the panny, but does on the Oppo 203.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=646

[jjlikesonions]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

Both the Sony and Panasonic are flawless players for playing optical discs. Many people have used the Sony 4K Blu-ray players with absolutely no freezing when playing optical discs including 4K Blu-ray discs. The only advantage of the Sony UBP-X800M2 over the Panasonic is that the Sony plays SACD’s and DVD-Audio discs and the Sony is a cheaper player. However if you do not own or plan on purchasing SACD’s and DVD-Audio discs and are willing to pay more money the Panasonic DP-UB820 is a better player. The Panasonic DP-UB820 is the cheapest 4K Blu-ray player on the market that offers tone mapping and both the HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR feature. Sony does not have tone mapping, does not have HDR10+, and does not have the auto Dolby Vision HDR feature and Sony requires Dolby Vision HDR to manually be turned off or on.

Be careful with purchasing modified third party region selectable Blu-ray players that have a hardware modification soldered to the circuit board. Firmware updates are required for Blu-ray players to play the latest new releases with the latest encryption codes. If the manufactore of a Blu-ray player chooses too, they can write a firmware update that disables the third party region selectable hardware modification. So there is risks to buying modified Blu-ray players with the region selectable feature.

This is all great information, thank you! Is there a simplified way to describe what tone mapping is? Is it a tool for HDR analysis, or does actually change/improve the image?

[evanft]

I have received and installed the Rattlebyte kit I mentioned earlier.

Install went smoothly. Points were somewhat small, but I was able to make it work with careful flux application and pre-tinning of the relevant areas. Took maybe a half hour. Installing the firmware went without a hitch. I can now play region B blu rays with a press of a button.

I wholeheartedly recommend buying the kit if you have a UB820 and the soldering skills required to install. A real no-brainer at $55 shipped.

[tama]

Originally Posted by EddieLarkin

The 500 nit mode dims the image globally for all titles (with the exception of the few with very low average brightness, like Goodfellas), and raises black level.

Which is why I do not like using the basic luminance option with my E6.

Take a title like The Mummy (1999), which has peaks of 1000 nits. The 1000 OLED mode, not surprisingly, has no effect whatsoever on any part of the image.

The 500 nit mode however, does eek out a bit more highlight detail for sure. But for whatever reason, this mode causes the image to both dim all bright areas and jump up a few notches in black level. This happens no matter how bright or how dark the particular shot might be, and is true for every frame in the film.

Why it does this I don't know, because none of the other modes do, regardless of how high in nits the source is. The 1000 OLED mode for instance does not cause this dimming or black level change even on a Sony 10,000 nit title. The only thing that happens in this mode is the very brightest parts of the image are reduced slightly to bring back highlight detail, and no other part of the image is changed. As one would expect.

Whilst it is nice to retrieve the missing highlight info on 1000 nit titles, it's a huge trade off if you ask me. Bright scenes all become very flat and SDR looking, and dark scenes lose their depth and blacks lose their inkiness. It seems to me this mode has some sort of universal that alters all scenes on all titles no matter what the particular nit level of a particular scene.

The other modes seem more discerning.

You can see the effect in wxman2003's pictures. The Optimiser Off pic and the DV pic both show similar black levels. The Optimiser On pic has comparitively less pop, due to a flatter image. If DV is the ideal in this particular example, because it brings back missing highlight info whilst retaining proper brightness, then one has to choose one or the other on HDR10 only 1000 nit titles.

Very informative. I wonder if basic luminance isn't a function really meant for HDR considering 1000 nits was the agreed upon minimum standard.

Seeing how if I use the OLED luminance of 1000 on say a Sony title the image actually gets brighter in a sense that the LG tone mapping isn't bringing everything down to obtain those high nit areas.

Opposite using the Basic luminance off 500 dims the image globally as you and Geoff stated to obtain that bit of tail end of specular highlights.

Everyone I'm no expert in this lol just talking out loud so any knowledgeable member feel free to correct me in any of my ramblings

[wxman2003]

On the E6, according to RTINGS, real scene peak HDR brightness is around 625 nits, 2% window 650 nits, but by the time you get to a 25% window it drops to around 400 nits. On a C9 it's 726, 855 and 530 nits respectively. So you can see the C9 is significantly brighter than than the E6. Setting the Panny to basic luminance on the C9 would not make much sense. It would be much better to set it to OLED. And of course, now that I am 4 years into ownership of the E6, I'm sure my peak HDR brightness has dropped over time due to aging.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by EddieLarkin

The 500 nit mode dims the image globally for all titles (with the exception of the few with very low average brightness, like Goodfellas), and raises black level.

Which is why I do not like using the basic luminance option with my E6.

Take a title like The Mummy (1999), which has peaks of 1000 nits. The 1000 OLED mode, not surprisingly, has no effect whatsoever on any part of the image.

The 500 nit mode however, does eek out a bit more highlight detail for sure. But for whatever reason, this mode causes the image to both dim all bright areas and jump up a few notches in black level. This happens no matter how bright or how dark the particular shot might be, and is true for every frame in the film.

Why it does this I don't know, because none of the other modes do, regardless of how high in nits the source is. The 1000 OLED mode for instance does not cause this dimming or black level change even on a Sony 10,000 nit title. The only thing that happens in this mode is the very brightest parts of the image are reduced slightly to bring back highlight detail, and no other part of the image is changed. As one would expect.

Whilst it is nice to retrieve the missing highlight info on 1000 nit titles, it's a huge trade off if you ask me. Bright scenes all become very flat and SDR looking, and dark scenes lose their depth and blacks lose their inkiness. It seems to me this mode has some sort of universal that alters all scenes on all titles no matter what the particular nit level of a particular scene.

The other modes seem more discerning.

You can see the effect in wxman2003's pictures. The Optimiser Off pic and the DV pic both show similar black levels. The Optimiser On pic has comparitively less pop, due to a flatter image. If DV is the ideal in this particular example, because it brings back missing highlight info whilst retaining proper brightness, then one has to choose one or the other on HDR10 only 1000 nit titles.

Weird it does that @ 500, as the brief for the Optimiser was to preserve average brightness up to and including the limit of whatever mode it's set to and just map whatever goes above that preset level (500/1000/1500). Many HDR grades won't get close to having a 500 nit average brightness level.

I've used the 500 setting before when seeing what the Optimiser does with poorly encoded 1000-nit titles (to see if I can 'hide' the awful compression in the much reduced brightness of the 500-nit highlights) and IIRC it does nothing to the blacks or the average brightness on the ZD9, it just maps the highlights that go above 500. I wonder if the different metadata that the player outputs in the Optimiser is causing the OLEDs to apply a different tone map? (ZD9 ignores brightness metadata)

[GenPion]

With all this discussion on settings, has anyone tried the middle luminance setting on the Panasonic? Perhaps there is a middle ground between basic and oled setting for the optimizer?

[wxman2003]

Originally Posted by GenPion

With all this discussion on settings, has anyone tried the middle luminance setting on the Panasonic? Perhaps there is a middle ground between basic and oled setting for the optimizer?

Middle is 1000 nits, which is the same as OLED. This device needs a 750 nit setting.

[tama]

Originally Posted by GenPion

With all this discussion on settings, has anyone tried the middle luminance setting on the Panasonic? Perhaps there is a middle ground between basic and oled setting for the optimizer?

Same as OLED option. 1000 nits. Tried it and it does nothing on my OLED.

Picked The Greatest Showman to try out the Basic luminance. Didn't notice any raised blacks. Also now that I watched an entire presentation and playing around with it here and there I realized that my stating a global dimming is inaccurate. Some portions are unaffected and in some small cases there was no decernable difference. Brought back some minor detail such as in the flames.

Personally I'll keep playing around with it but I do prefer using the Basic luminance for now.

[GenPion]

Originally Posted by tama

Same as OLED option. 1000 nits. Tried it and it does nothing on my OLED.

Picked The Greatest Showman to try out the Basic luminance. Didn't notice any raised blacks. Also now that I watched an entire presentation and playing around with it here and there I realized that my stating a global dimming is inaccurate. Some portions are unaffected and in some small cases there was no decernable difference. Brought back some minor detail such as in the flames.

Personally I'll keep playing around with it but I do prefer using the Basic luminance for now.

Thanks. I’ll probably end up using the same setting. On the E6P, I do see issues with shadow detail for black levels using only the tv processing. I’ll experiment.

[GenPion]

Originally Posted by wxman2003

I even tested it on the movie Lucy which is only 1000 nits. It looked better with it set to basic luminance too with HDR optimizer turned on, and also brought out more near black detail.

Setting display to basic luminance on the 9000 and not using HDR optimizer does not lower the peak luminance on the tv. When hitting the playback button it still shows the tv receiving 1000 or 4000 nits. Only when HDR optimizer is engaged does it lower input to 500 nits. So if you dont like the way it looks with HDR optimizer, turn it off, and you don't have to change display type in the player.

Out of curiosity, do you think it’s better to leave the HDR optimizer on basic luminance for all titles with the OLED65E6P or should some be switched off? Considering your suggestions about setting it to basic luminance with hdr optimizer off.

[Disciple of Vedder]

I finally bit the bullet today and bought the UB820 from Best Buy. I'm currently using both first gen Sony and LG 4K players with my LG B7 OLED. I've always been pleased with them for the most part, but after reading so many reviews saying my discs could look even better with this player, I decided to take a chance. I'm certainly a little overwhelmed at all of the different options, though. Is there a consensus on the best settings to use with the B7?

[wxman2003]

Originally Posted by GenPion

Out of curiosity, do you think it’s better to leave the HDR optimizer on basic luminance for all titles with the OLED65E6P or should some be switched off? Considering your suggestions about setting it to basic luminance with hdr optimizer off.

If you set HDR optimizer off, it wont use basic luminance. If the movie is 4000 nits, the tv will get 4000 nits. If set to OLED, and HDR optimizer, the tv will get 1000 nits. If set to basic, the tv will get 500 nits max. So if you turn off HDR optimizer, it does not matter what panel setting you use, as it will be ignored.