Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[ibanezjp]

Couple quick questions. Upgraded from the Sony x800m2 to the UB820. Man this thing is awesome! There are a few things I like better about the Sony but mostly like the Panny better.

1) What is “High Clarity Sound”

2) It seems this player upscales anything 1080 and under to 4k. On the Sony it would output BD’s and DVD’s at 1080p and the TV would do the upscaling. Any way to get the panny to automatically switch to 1080 for BD without manually setting it?

3) While the Panny is a vastly superior 4k player, the Sony did a really good job on BD and DVD’s. The auto mode for video settings really cleaned up noise and other artifacts to give a really clean picture that wasn’t over processed. Obviously the Panny has more options so I’m sure it can do the same just not sure how yet. What do people have their settings on for Noise reduction and sharpness adjustment on BD & DVD.
I found on another forum to put hi Luma at -1, mid luma -2, and chroma -4. That seemed to help. What does the chroma setting actually do? I also put block noise reduction at 2 and that helped. Any other settings I should check out?

Other thoughts:
Pros vs the Sony
DV auto switching is amazing!
DV just looks incredible on this player! While HDR10 looks similar on both, the Sony output Dolby vision way too dark and not enough color saturation.
I haven’t even dove into the Optimzer settings but to have the option is great!
I love how different disc types can have their own settings. For example I like the color a little higher on HDR but since it shares the color setting on TV with SDR then SDR color was too saturated. So now I just lower the color saturation on the Panny for BD’s and DVD’s. Problem solved!

Cons vs the Sony
The Sony fast forwards and skips chapters so quickly, the Panny really drags.
As previously mentioned the Sony does a great job on DVD and BD discs to the point where BD discs look very close to the 4k counterparts.
The Sony is better for playing media files. I had planned on selling the Sony but might keep both just to have another player for making comparisons.

[Geoff D]

You keep the noise reduction on? Ewwwwwwww

[ibanezjp]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

You keep the noise reduction on? Ewwwwwwww

So you just have everything set to off or 0? I just don’t like all the crud on standard DVD’s that comes through. BD looks pretty good but I definitely notice some artifacts that weren’t there on the Sony which is why I tried to get it looking similar. Care to share some ideal settings for this player? Thanks!

[Cortiz]

I've always kept all my Sony players on Direct mode for PQ as Auto does add some slight noise reduction. However, their newer players have the Bravia mode which as the name implies, only works with Sony Bravia TV's. For the Bravia mode to be engage though, the player is require to be on Auto for PQ. IMO, BD's and DVD's looks phenomenal with the Bravia mode engage which let the TV do the upscaling and all the processing. The picture looks clean and sharp (you can still see grain when it should be there) and although it's probably applying some form of DNR, I do not think it negatively impacts the PQ. Sony has done a good job with this upscaling method and I urge people with Bravia sets to give it a try and see what they think.

[ibanezjp]

Originally Posted by Cortiz

I've always kept all my Sony players on Direct mode for PQ as Auto does add some slight noise reduction. However, their newer players have the Bravia mode which as the name implies, only works with Sony Bravia TV's. For the Bravia mode to be engage though, the player is require to be on Auto for PQ. IMO, BD's and DVD's looks phenomenal with the Bravia mode engage which let the TV do the upscaling and all the processing. The picture looks clean and sharp (you can still see grain when it should be there) and although it's probably applying some form of DNR, I do not think it negatively impacts the PQ. Sony has done a good job with this upscaling method and I urge people with Bravia sets to give it a try and see what they think.

Exactly! I do have a Bravia (A8H) and keep Bravia mode on and that’s exactly how I would describe it with it applying some slight noise reduction but the picture looks great. I’m actually considering finding a way to have both players hooked up and use the Sony for BD & DVD and the Panny for 4k discs.

I am still curious though of the questions I asked about “High Clarity Audio” and if anyone else uses the noise reduction/sharpness adjustment on the Panny for BD or DVD, or maybe even if they do an adjustments for HDR10 discs as well. I know with DV the settings are disabled.

[chip75]

If I remember High Clarity Sound disables video output and processing when listening to high-quality audio.

[pbz06]

Originally Posted by chip75

If I remember High Clarity Sound disables video output and processing when listening to high-quality audio.

Yes, it has no effect on movie playback.

[teddyballgame]

Received my 820 yesterday and I am pleased with its picture quality, but the remote is killing me. If it's not the netflix button it's the home button. I'm constantly kicking myself out of the movie!

I was testing it a bit tonight with Mad Max FR (Vincent approved ) and it does bring back some of those highlights that were getting rolled off. My TV is the LG C9 so the tone mapping wasn't really atrocious to begin with, but APL stays higher with the 820 and I appreciate that.


Considering a 9000 remote off ebay to preserve what's left of my sanity though.

[J Nada]

Yes, the remote sucks so much. Ordered a replica 9000 remote from AliExpress, will let you know if it is any good when it arrives - was cheap as chips (AU$17 delivered), so I'm not too worried if it isn't. But the layout is so much better that I can't see it not being an improvement.

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by teddyballgame

Debating whether to pick up the 420 for $200 or the 820 for $400. I'm really only buying this for the HDR optimizer so it seems maybe the 420 is the way to go? I also like the smaller footprint of the unit.

One thing I wasn't able to find, does the 820 have additional playback information available during presentation? Technical details?

Hope it's ok to ask about the little runt of the family in this thread

Well if you don't care about DV ( which the 420 doesn't include) The processing part is the same as the 820. Panasonics choice to include HDR10+ over the more popular Dolby Vision is a strange one.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by ibanezjp

So you just have everything set to off or 0? I just don’t like all the crud on standard DVD’s that comes through. BD looks pretty good but I definitely notice some artifacts that weren’t there on the Sony which is why I tried to get it looking similar. Care to share some ideal settings for this player? Thanks!

That's because the Sony player is running baked-in noise reduction on sub-4K sources in the Auto picture quality setting, if you set it to Direct I dare say you'd see those same 'artefacts' because that mode defeats the noise reduction.

And yes, I have everything to 0 or off in the Panasonic except for Chroma Sharpness which is at -1, it only makes a fraction of a difference to the chroma ringing (on a test pattern at that) but I do it anyway.

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

DV is not some magic piece of tech that does all these things that HDR10 can't. I'll say it again: they both use the exact same transfer function (PQ a.k.a. ST.2084) which renders out a 10,000-nit container in BT.2020 colour space. Exact. Same. EOTF. Dolby is 12-bit at source while HDR10 is obviously not, but this notion that viewing 12-bit DV on a 12-bit display will be some amazingly transformative experience vs what we have now is totally wide of the mark.

I mean, I actually agree that we're still not seeing HDR at its fullest on most TVs because they don't do the full amount of range, colour volume, or both, but that's got very little to do with bit depth per se and everything to do with the great contrast but restricted luminance of OLED and the bright luminance but poorer contrast of LCD. Let's get TVs that can actually do 4000 nits peak and 100% volume of P3 with 1,000,000:1 contrast and then you'll see HDR at its best, if they're 12-bit then so much the better but even if they're not then as long as the processing is being oversampled (Sony's internals run at 14-bit on their higher end sets) then we're not going to be missing out on much.

Technically there's no such thing as "Dolby Vision grading" at source because you don't grade in "Dolby" or "HDR10", you grade in the PQ EOTF at whatever bit depth (usually 12-bit minimum if dealing with a new 16-bit scan or RAW files) using whatever pro grading suite you'd like and all the usual grading tools therein (Baselight, Mistika, Resolve etc). If you want a 'Dolby Vision' pass then you load the finished grade into the Dolby suite and run the automated analysis software, this generates a metadata pass for whatever downgraded version you'd prefer (usually starting at 100-nit SDR 709).

You then watch the 'downgraded' version using this dynamic metadata to output the SDR transform on the fly to a separate SDR client monitor, and using the Dolby trim controls (up to 21 different knobs to twizzle in the latest profile) you adjust the downgraded image to best represent your creative decisions in that space, this adjusts the metadata accordingly. Once that's done then that's your 'Dolby Vision' pass completed, so despite all the marketing double-speak and half-truths this entire system is basically not much more than adding dynamic metadata to an extant HDR grade.

To that end, if you've got a TV that's already got excellent tone mapping, or has enough range that it can afford to show the EOTF 'as is' and just clip past a certain point, then you're already breezing past one of DV's main benefits. My TV does the latter, it can go out to about 1500 nits of brightness before it clips and about 1000 nits of colour, so essentially I'm seeing 75% (1000 nits) of the PQ curve in "1:1" quality with no mapping needed, with diminishing returns after that. So on pretty much every UHD disc that Universal, Paramount, Disnee and Fox have made I have no need for dynamic tone mapping at all, it's the gear from Warners and Sony that's mastered out to well beyond 1000 nits (even for average brightness, which is insane) where I need some manual intervention, be it the Panasonic HDR Optimiser or the dynamic powah of Dobly.

So yes, despite my withering assessment of DV I do still default to it wherever possible just to make sure that the mapping is being taken care of on the more 'extreme' HDR grades, and I can't be bothered to keep turning it on and off so I just leave it on for stuff mastered to 1000 nits anyway. But more than all of that I continue to use DV because of the entirely unexpected benefits, like the ability of a FEL encode to actually correct for poor compression in the base layer and to generally provide cleaner gradations of colour than the HDR10 encode, even though the display is still 'only' 10-bit (which is the neat thing about oversampling). Not that HDR10 grades are all posterised pieces of shit, no no no, but DV just has the defter touch....which circles back around to my point at the top about 12-bit display not being some game changer for Dobly: it'll be a further refinement, not a revolution. The real HDR revolution will be in the TV tech on a general level.

Since nobody responded to your post , I will. What you say makes perfect sense. I don't understand all the technical stuff but what your saying feels right. I think people get to caught up in the marketing propaganda which gets in your head and your brain says I got to have DV. Atmos and DTS X is the same thing. The problem I have with HDR is there is still no standard and it's hard to calibrate something with no standard . Then there's Samsung and their HDR10+ which to me is the same as DV to the eye. Just a marketing tool to sell there TV'S Maybe a scope of some kind that measures audio may say they are different but to the eye is the same. This marketing thing has always been this way, the hype is always better then the product itself. When you buy a Atmos setup for the home at some level you think your getting the sound you hear in a theater with Atmos even if you know that's not true. Anybody that understands object based audio knows in a theater all the objects are separate thus all the speakers in a theater, but in a home the 4K discs are mixed for the home and so maybe 4separate objects are mixed into 1 object so you have a dumb down version of the sound track. It can be effective but not like the theater. In fairness I will say that it also depends on how the movie is mixed by the directors input. If you for example play the Atmos demo disc it will blow you away just how good a 7.1.4 or 5.1.4 can sound, yet in reality movies are not mixed like a demo disc. To me like a action movie there is so many things going on at the same time it's very hard to hear all those things. Sure,you feel like your in a bubble but to my ears the separation is horrible sometimes. It almost sounds mono more then multi-channels. Any just my 2 cents, nothing more.

[PissedOffPeoN]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

That's because the Sony player is running baked-in noise reduction on sub-4K sources in the Auto picture quality setting, if you set it to Direct I dare say you'd see those same 'artefacts' because that mode defeats the noise reduction.

And yes, I have everything to 0 or off in the Panasonic except for Chroma Sharpness which is at -1, it only makes a fraction of a difference to the chroma ringing (on a test pattern at that) but I do it anyway.

You didnt change anything in he HDR settings?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by PissedOffPeoN

You didnt change anything in he HDR settings?

Only to turn the Optimiser on or off as needed, I don't touch anything else in the HDR settings.

[cappyj]

Originally Posted by teddyballgame

Received my 820 yesterday and I am pleased with its picture quality, but the remote is killing me. If it's not the netflix button it's the home button. I'm constantly kicking myself out of the movie!

I was testing it a bit tonight with Mad Max FR (Vincent approved ) and it does bring back some of those highlights that were getting rolled off. My TV is the LG C9 so the tone mapping wasn't really atrocious to begin with, but APL stays higher with the 820 and I appreciate that.


Considering a 9000 remote off ebay to preserve what's left of my sanity though.

Buy it off eBay and don’t look back. I bought one originally for the backlight and subtitle button. But realized how much better the button placement was. $15-$17 too if I remember. Best money spent. Do be aware though that the eBay ones are older (I think?) and so they don’t have the direct HDR button. Shouldn’t be a big deal since you can get to that menu under picture settings anyway.

[PissedOffPeoN]

Ebay ones expensive, where the 15-17 buck ones at?

[cgpublic]

Originally Posted by PissedOffPeoN

Ebay ones expensive, where the 15-17 buck ones at?

Expensive is what I was thinking when I purchased a real 9000 remote for $30, but take it from me, it's been worth every penny to toss the original 820 remote into the drawer of unneeded things.

[cgpublic]

Originally Posted by ibanezjp

I had planned on selling the Sony but might keep both just to have another player for making comparisons.

I'm a fan of having two players on tap. Since the intro of UHD, I've had an Xbox One paired with the Sony 6500, then the Xbox paired with the original Sony X800 (picked it up for $150), followed by the X800 paired with the LG UBK90 (and BF item at $100 and adding DV to my mix), followed by jettisoning the unstable, make that unusable, X800 for the Panny 820, with my latest set-up putting the LG on ice and picking up a region-free Sony 3700.

While the Panny trick has worked wonders for Region B discs using the remote sequence, there's no question that one of the 820 weaknesses is 480i upscaling and processing. While the latest Sony 3700 FW eliminated the Direct option and replaced it with Standard, to my eyes whatever processing that is taking place to upscale DVDs to 1080p is far superior to the Panasonic.

If I had a wish list for the Panasonic FW update/next gen, first allow a Direct (zero processing mode) option, and second, provide a default DVD playback mode and user-defined options ala Blu-ray playback.

Personally, I would keep the X800, or sell it (unless you use it to play SACDs) and pickup a cheap (non-4k upscaling) Sony if DVD playback is important and/or frequent.

[pbz06]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Only to turn the Optimiser on or off as needed, I don't touch anything else in the HDR settings.

And do you disable Reality Creation and Smooth Gradation right?

[Carlos2992]

Originally Posted by cappyj

Buy it off eBay and don’t look back. I bought one originally for the backlight and subtitle button. But realized how much better the button placement was. $15-$17 too if I remember. Best money spent. Do be aware though that the eBay ones are older (I think?) and so they don’t have the direct HDR button. Shouldn’t be a big deal since you can get to that menu under picture settings anyway.

Hello, sorry to ask but just to be sure, so then to replace the remote of the UB820, I should look for one with a " Direct HDR " button ?, it is named that way on the remote?

There are some available with a button called " High Clarity " is it the same?