Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Wormicide]

Originally Posted by martinstraka8282

I thought the C9's, CX's, and even the C1's, are all still below 1000 nits by a fair margin. Isn't it around ~800 nits?

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Professionals like Teoh say to have the TVs dynamic tone mapping off when using the hdr optimizer.

[TravisTylerBlack]

I'll say this, the optimizer has been a huge life saver for me when it comes to reigning in many of those insanely bright transfers from Sony.

Labyrinth is a great example. Absolutely blinding on its own but once the optimizer is engaged highlight detail looks pretty much identical to the Dolby Vision itunes stream. Same with Spider-Man, Hook, and any number of otherwise eye searing disc.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by Wormicide

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Professionals like Teoh say to have the TVs dynamic tone mapping off when using the hdr optimizer.

If I’m doing it wrong, then tell me why having DTM “On” with the optimizer “On” for HDR10 content has allowed me to get a pretty close to what the Dolby Vision version of the same film?? Vincent Teoh is not the God of all technology. I like what he says most of the time but disagree with him on this matter.

Another thing too, Sony OLEDs have DTM automatically “On” and it can’t be shut off on some models. This tells me that having DTM “On” is actually a good thing!

[Badas]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Panasonic HDR Optimizer is not about tone mapping the content. Tone mapping will still be done by your TV.

Panasonic's HDR Optimizer has one function and that's to reformat the EOTF PQ curve to closely match your TV or projector's peak luminance capability, which makes it easy and possible for your TV to take over and perform the tone mapping.

The advantages are very easy to see in an a/b comparison by just selecting the HDR Optimizer on/off while watching any HDR content.

Panasonic's HDR Optimizer is most important for any projector or any OLED TV or LCD that does not have a peak luminance capability of more than 1,000 nits.

It's not about competition between Dolby Vision HDR and Panasonic's HDR Optimizer. Although they are in the same category of HDR the functions are completely separate and different.

Panasonic's HDR Optimizer is a very accurate application that follows the original EOTF, but with the PQ formatted to follow your display's dynamic tonal range. So for example when you select "OLED" display it starts the EOTF at 0 nits and maxes the peak luminance at 1,000 nits so your OLED TV can take over and beautifully display the full dynamic tonal range with the full color volume.

I understand most of what you are saying. Most.

A quick question:
If you turn DV off in your player (820 or 9000) what happens to the metadata?
Is it disregarded or does it get folded into the capability of your display (nit rating setting)?

[Robert Zohn]

^ All Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+ content is also mastered on the same disc or streaming service in the SMPTE standard, HDR10, which does not have frame-by-frame metadata.

[Waboman]

Originally Posted by pbz06

Yes to your first question. With it Off, the scenes that exceed OLED capabilities is obvious (i.e. colors and white get clipped). Of course this isn't common in general, since most movies stay within a more comfortable APL or peaks for the TV. If you have the S&M UHD disc, you can test it with 2000 and 4000 nit versions. The 4000 is an extreme torture test so perhaps try the 2000 first. The scene with the ocean waves crashing on the rocky beach is a good one...look at the water and the white bubbles. Several of the scenes have bright skies too, and of course the famous scene with the horses in the snow.

I do turn off DV for other reasons. Mostly because I've noticed random misc issues with near black posterization. Very rare, but since A9G uses a good DTM reading the histogram info and properly tracking EOTF nyway, it's very comparable to DV and closes gaps of any advantages DV may provide.

Since A90J is TV led Dolby vision and can also get much brighter, it likely is a toss-up. You can try HDR10 content and toggle on and off on the Optimizer. DV is likely better for you to use than on a9G.

Good info. Thanks. I don’t have the S&M disc. Should probably get it. I used the optimizer with my a9g too. But recently turned it off. Was wondering about doubling up on the tone mapping. Do you tweak your optimizer? Or leave it at standard and set the 9000 to oled?

[Badas]

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

^ All Dolby Vision HDR and HDR10+ content is also mastered on the same disc or streaming service in the SMPTE standard, HDR10, which does not have frame-by-frame metadata.

So is what you are saying is turning DV or HDR10+ off in the 820/9000 then disregarding the frame by frame metadata?

I appreciate your education and input by the way.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by martinstraka8282

I thought the C9's, CX's, and even the C1's, are all still below 1000 nits by a fair margin. Isn't it around ~800 nits?

I think you are getting confused. When someone says a TV hits a certain amount of nits, it means its highest luminance is that number of nits. Tone mapping is a whole different story. A TV can tone map HDR content that is higher than its own luminance. Some TVs do it better than others.

I personally think LG OLEDs do a great job tone mapping. But they still have trouble with the higher end content, which is why I have the HDR Optimizer set to the highest setting.

[pbz06]

Originally Posted by Waboman

Good info. Thanks. I don’t have the S&M disc. Should probably get it. I used the optimizer with my a9g too. But recently turned it off. Was wondering about doubling up on the tone mapping. Do you tweak your optimizer? Or leave it at standard and set the 9000 to oled?

I don't adjust any of the other settings (just enable it using the OLED setting). It's not really "doubling up", people get carried away with things sometimes. The HDR Optimizer is a simple static "reformat" tonemap...for lack of better term. It also adjusts the max mastering display luminance (i.e. 4000) to read what it actually is (say for example 600 nits). So the TVs that tonemap off that do better job. Geoff alluded to this earlier, and it's one of the reasons why people think Goodfellas is so dark...because the UHD is like a 70 nit movie within a 4000 nit container, so most people's TVs tonemap thinking it is a super bright movie.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by pbz06

I don't adjust any of the other settings (just enable it using the OLED setting). It's not really "doubling up", people get carried away with things sometimes. The HDR Optimizer is a simple static "reformat" tonemap...for lack of better term. It also adjusts the max mastering display luminance (i.e. 4000) to read what it actually is (say for example 600 nits). So the TVs that tonemap off that do better job. Geoff alluded to this earlier, and it's one of the reasons why people think Goodfellas is so dark...because the UHD is like a 70 nit movie within a 4000 nit container, so most people's TVs tonemap thinking it is a super bright movie.

It doesn’t adjust the max MDL to what the content actually is, it changes to whatever setting you’ve chosen in the TV type menu e.g. 500/1000/1500 nits. So while stuff that’s virtually SDR in an HDR container could benefit from the max MDL being lowered from 4000 to 1000, the TV’s internal mapping could still badly crush it as it’s still SDR inside a 1000-nit container. You could set it to 500 but then we’re back to fiddling with the Optimiser on a per-movie basis and not the set and forget application that other folks crave. That’s why the Optimiser is basically useless in such situations vs dynamic metadata, it’s geared around mapping the upper end of the signal, not the lower end.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by blakeyamc

It is my understanding that the optimizer just supplies a new static tone map to the display. For example, if a UHD had, mastered at 1000 nits in it's metadata, and you had the optimizer set at basic (500 nits), your display would get a static metadata tone map of max 500 nits, instead of 1000. Your display would still need to tone map that, if the display couldn't reach 500 nits (like a lot of cheap TVs and projectors) and provide a 2nd tone map of their own, to bring those 500 nits in at a level that the display can achieve, via it's internal DTM.

But that's the point: with DTM, you don't need a new static tone map provided to the display/projector. With the JVC DTM, to my understanding you customize how much gain and screen size you have into software and it applies the mapping on a frame by frame basis to handle whatever the incoming HDR signal is based on the inputs. The DTM takes into account the projector's peak luminance and customizes accordingly to what content it's receiving. In the link I provided, Kris Deering discusses how the 9000 works with the JVC, but also states he prefers JVC's "Frame Adapt HDR" over Panasonic's tone mapping.

[blakeyamc]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

But that's the point: with DTM, you don't need a new static tone map provided to the display/projector. With the JVC DTM, to my understanding you customize how much gain and screen size you have into software and it applies the mapping on a frame by frame basis to handle whatever the incoming HDR signal is based on the inputs. The DTM takes into account the projector's peak luminance and customizes accordingly to what content it's receiving. In the link I prove Kris discusses how the 9000 works with the JVC, but also states he prefers JVC's "Frame Adapt HDR" over Panasonic's tone mapping.

I suppose my point was, that the optimizer gives the display a better starting point, which makes it easier to tone map.

Or as Robert said...

Originally Posted by Robert Zohn

Panasonic's HDR Optimizer has one function and that's to reformat the EOTF PQ curve to closely match your TV or projector's peak luminance capability, which makes it easy and possible for your TV to take over and perform the tone mapping.

[MisterXDTV]

The HDR Optimizer also works when converting to SDR...

So I guess it not only reads the output setting (Display setting) but it is also able to read the MaxCLL metadata from the disc itself (if it has it).

So let's say you have a disc with:

- 4000 nits container
- 250 nits MaxCLL
- OLED Display setting

The Optimizer will do 4000->250-> PQ EOTF 1000->Display

[NeilZ]

I don't understand how anyone with a Panny player would disable the optimizer to be honest.

On the other hand though, I equally don't understand why anyone with a TV led Dolby Vision would disable Dolby Vision altogether.

[Member-425016]

Thanks for your input Robert Zohn. The HDR Optimizer is what makes aged player light years ahead of the competition (including my Oppo which I ended up selling).

I understand it is Dolby Vision or the highway for some, but I don't have the luxury of watching every film in a pitch dark room. Watching films during the sun drenched daylight with the ambient light trying to obliterate your hope for a halfway decent viewing of whatever....the optimizer is your best friend in the world.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Filmfan73

Thanks for your input Robert Zohn. The HDR Optimizer is what makes aged player light years ahead of the competition (including my Oppo which I ended up selling).

I understand it is Dolby Vision or the highway for some, but I don't have the luxury of watching every film in a pitch dark room. Watching films during the sun drenched daylight with the ambient light trying to obliterate your hope for a halfway decent viewing of whatever....the optimizer is your best friend in the world.

That’s as may be but you can’t shirley be using just the Optimiser on/off to watch this stuff in the daytime?

Dolby came up with their own solution for juicing the shit out of the brightness for daytime DV viewing called Dolby IQ, but you must have a TV that actually has this feature of coursh! That kinda feeds into the next point:

Originally Posted by NeilZ

I don't understand how anyone with a Panny player would disable the optimizer to be honest.

On the other hand though, I equally don't understand why anyone with a TV led Dolby Vision would disable Dolby Vision altogether.

The better the display’s HDR/WCG capabilities and internal mapping the less need it has for any kind of external intervention, period. (Bright-assed rooms notwithstanding.) With a TV that can display 1000-nit content in 1:1 fashion (maxing out at 1200 nits for colour and 1800 nits for brightness) and has Dolby Vision to take care of the rest I’ve not had to resort to using the Optimiser in recent memory.

Originally Posted by MisterXDTV

The HDR Optimizer also works when converting to SDR...

So I guess it not only reads the output setting (Display setting) but it is also able to read the MaxCLL metadata from the disc itself (if it has it).

So let's say you have a disc with:

- 4000 nits container
- 250 nits MaxCLL
- OLED Display setting

The Optimizer will do 4000->250-> PQ EOTF 1000->Display

AFAIK the Optimiser reads the MaxCLL first and if not available will default to the max MDL. So that’s the utterly mad thing about using it with a UHD like Goodfeathers (MaxCLL 247 nits): if watching in HDR then it doesn’t matter what your Optimiser setting is e.g. 350/500/1000/1500, it literally won’t adjust the image at all. I’m not kidding: it doesn’t touch it.

BUT as it’s changing the metadata to read as 247 for the max MDL rather than 4000 (!) then that could greatly assist the tone mapping that’s being done *inside* whatever TV, because it won’t think it’s dealing with a 4000-nit image any more (some TVs still seem to rely on max MDL only, probably because not all discs have MaxCLL).

[Oscarilbo]

Hi guys.
First of all I love my player. Love the picture quality and HDR rendering. Yet at the same time its so frustrating because it seems it doesn’t like certain discs. For example, Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace… After the first minutes it keeps pixalating and skipping. I exchanged it for a new one and same thing happened. Then with my Indiana Jones Collection same exact is happining with The Last Crusade. I should mention I cleaned those discs in many ways and it did nothing. Now,It doesn’t happen with every disc but it happens.

Thing is, I tried those discs on my Sony X700 and they played perfectly fine, so… I came to the concluson it couldn’t be the discs but the player. Should I exchange the Indiana Jones set for a new one? the problem seems to be only with Last Crusade

I also some times wonder if I buy the same player again, would it give the same issue?

Thanks for your orientation in advance guys!

[panasonicst60]

I have not encountered any problems with any disc so far. I've had the very first batch from Value Electronics. I recently disabled DV as the my C8 HDR10 performs better. I have none of the disc motioned by Geoff D to test. Any disc with HDR10 problem that anyone is aware of?

[Scorsese]

Originally Posted by panasonicst60

I have not encountered any problems with any disc so far. I've had the very first batch from Value Electronics. I recently disabled DV as the my C8 HDR10 performs better. I have none of the disc motioned by Geoff D to test. Any disc with HDR10 problem that anyone is aware of?

I had problems with Black Hawk Down (theatrical cut) and Bad Boys 1 on my 820 on a C9 OLED recently. Both are in HDR10.

[Oscarilbo]

Sorry guys. I think I should have mentioned Its more of an orientation I’m asking for ���� My player is the UB420, not the 820 or the 9000. Yet I really thought at least in playability quality it was the same as its step up brothers, but I see that many of you really have nothing to complain about in the playback department.

Maybe I should get a 820 too? What benefits would I get compared to the 420 since I’m using it on a projector so really no need for Dolby Vision?