Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Badas]

Originally Posted by South Park

I would love to invite you to my home and demonstrate There is much more to it than just resolution. A good HD stream gives you about 20 to 25 Mbps if you are lucky, UHD Blu-ray up to 144 Mbps - there is no comparison between those two formats. Listen to the sound, night and day difference if you have the equipment that can reproduce it, e.g. a soundbar will not show the difference.

I don’t think this needs to be discussed more since the difference is massive and a fact. Streaming is more convenient; I give you that, but this is the only advantage. Unfortunately, most people don’t care about quality much, this is why DVD still exists in 2022.

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

I have a 128" diagonal screen and a JVC Reference Series 4k HDR projector. Streaming often looks bad blown up that big. Banding and compression issues like macroblocking in the dark areas of the image are a real "highlight."

I'll take Blu-ray discs, especially well produced 4k Blu-ray discs, over streaming anyday. Then there is the audio...

I understand discs are better. I own a lot.
Original discussion started as someone asked will there be new players.
My gut says "hell no" Companies are going to focus elsewhere. Like streaming.

I use to have projection as well. We must understand we are niche and not focused on.
I'm of the opinion that the golden age of disc formats are well and truly over.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by Badas

I understand discs are better. I own a lot.
Original discussion started as someone asked will there be new players.
My gut says "hell no" Companies are going to focus elsewhere. Like streaming.

May 2023 may be a good time for a new UHD universal player.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

May 2023 may be a good time for a new UHD universal player.

Yes but are we talking about a good brand or some Chinese OPPO knock-off putting a drive and a tiny board into a great big case and charging almost a grand for the privilege?

[sapiendut]

The former, not the latter

[Mr. Thomsen]

That sounds intriguing!

What I am looking most for are good upscaling capabilities, since I still watch the odd DVD (mostly silent movies that are never going to get released in neither HD or UHD).

[Wormicide]

I wish Panny would just release the 450 in the US. I’d save some money and also get the correct working version of Dolby Vision according to a review I read of the player.

[George.P]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

The former, not the latter

So not Reavon then. Sounds interesting.

[PUsokrJosh305]

So, I recently noticed something with the HDR Optimizer on Dolby Vision Discs. For some reason, the Optimizer seems to over or under measure the HDR content, especially the MAXFALL. Like in No Time to Die, the disc has a MAXFALL of 902 Nits yet the Optimizer and Panny in HDR10 is outputting in 800 nits. Does the HDR Optimizer have trouble reading certain Dolby Vision discs? I know that the Optimizer outputs The Batman UHD properly in HDR10. But it's interesting that it doesn't do that with all Dolby Vision Discs.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by PUsokrJosh305

So, I recently noticed something with the HDR Optimizer on Dolby Vision Discs. For some reason, the Optimizer seems to over or under measure the HDR content, especially the MAXFALL. Like in No Time to Die, the disc has a MAXFALL of 902 Nits yet the Optimizer and Panny in HDR10 is outputting in 800 nits. Does the HDR Optimizer have trouble reading certain Dolby Vision discs? I know that the Optimizer outputs The Batman UHD properly in HDR10. But it's interesting that it doesn't do that with all Dolby Vision Discs.

Not sure I follow. You are aware that the Optimiser changes the MaxFALL as well as the MaxCLL, yes? So when it's on the 1000 nit (OLED or Medium/High LCD) modes then the Optimiser will cap MaxCLL at 1000 nit and MaxFALL at 800 nit IF the content exceeds those figures. So if you had a disc which had MaxCLL of 1245 nits and MaxFALL of 1000 nits then turning on the Optimiser would change those to 1000 and 800 respectively. But for MaxFALL under 800 nits then it will leave it unchanged whilst capping the MaxCLL to 1000 if it still exceeds 1000 nits.

Does that make sense?

Originally Posted by Wormicide

I wish Panny would just release the 450 in the US. I’d save some money and also get the correct working version of Dolby Vision according to a review I read of the player.

I've been thinking about trying one out, yeah.

[NeilZ]

Originally Posted by Wormicide

I wish Panny would just release the 450 in the US. I’d save some money and also get the correct working version of Dolby Vision according to a review I read of the player.

What's the advantage of the 450? I thought was just a cheaper alternative to the 820/9000.

[Geoff D]

It is a cheaper deck but it’s got a different processor, a MediaTek chip IIRC rather than Panny’s bespoke silicon. So no Optimiser, no metadata info screen, yet because it has a different chip it might play some DV discs betterer than the 820/9000 range does (as some people still have flickering brightness issues on those).

[MisterXDTV]

Originally Posted by Wormicide

I wish Panny would just release the 450 in the US. I’d save some money and also get the correct working version of Dolby Vision according to a review I read of the player.

Just buy a Sony X700 Player for the same money. Perfect DV playback

It's also a much better USB media player

[DaViD Boulet]

I currently have an Oppo 203 (and a JVC projector with built-in tone mapping). Does the Panasonic 9000 offer any picture quality advantages? Either with native 4K HDR content (maybe improved chroma upscaling etc.?) or with upscaling 1080P or DVD sources? I've found myself surprised quite a few times watching 4K Netflix content on my PS5 and how it often subjectively "looks better" to my eyes than many UHD discs (better color, more detailed, more natural/organic overall image quality) and so I'm wondering if my Oppo is really delivering the best image possible. (this weekend I plan to do some in-depth testing with playing UHD discs on the PS5 and also verify every variable at play).

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

I currently have an Oppo 203 (and a JVC projector with built-in tone mapping). Does the Panasonic 9000 offer any picture quality advantages? Either with native 4K HDR content (maybe improved chroma upscaling etc.?) or with upscaling 1080P or DVD sources? I've found myself surprised quite a few times watching 4K Netflix content on my PS5 and how it often subjectively "looks better" to my eyes than many UHD discs (better color, more detailed, more natural/organic overall image quality) and so I'm wondering if my Oppo is really delivering the best image possible. (this weekend I plan to do some in-depth testing with playing UHD discs on the PS5 and also verify every variable at play).

If streaming looks better that UHD from PS5 it's because the settings of the display are different between the two modes.

I imagine the Oppo is good. The Panasonic will send HDR10+ which your JVC supports.

-Brian

[HeavyHitter]

You really have to do a true A/B comparison with the same scene regarding Netflix vs UHD BD on Oppo. If there is still a Netflix improvement, my guess is something with settings.

Re: upscaling. I did do a comparison the other night with the 820 and my NP5. I looked at the Spears and Munsil 1080p BD disc and one of the 1080p AVS test patterns. I sent 1080p from the 820 and let the JVC upscale and then compared to letting the 820 upscale to 4K. The 820 upscaling to 4K was superior on chroma and luma patterns. Text might have been a hair sharper too. No difference really with that high freq ringing. I would need to do more testing to see if this is just how the 820 operates (optimized for 4K output vs 1080p) and/or it's just superior to the JVC upscaling. Either way, letting the 820 upscale to 4K with the JVC is superior in this case. I did leave all of the Panasonic settings to default.

[Wormicide]

Originally Posted by MisterXDTV

Just buy a Sony X700 Player for the same money. Perfect DV playback

It's also a much better USB media player

That’s a thought but I’d like something that doesn’t freeze up on 100gb discs

[pbz06]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

I currently have an Oppo 203 (and a JVC projector with built-in tone mapping). Does the Panasonic 9000 offer any picture quality advantages? Either with native 4K HDR content (maybe improved chroma upscaling etc.?) or with upscaling 1080P or DVD sources? I've found myself surprised quite a few times watching 4K Netflix content on my PS5 and how it often subjectively "looks better" to my eyes than many UHD discs (better color, more detailed, more natural/organic overall image quality) and so I'm wondering if my Oppo is really delivering the best image possible. (this weekend I plan to do some in-depth testing with playing UHD discs on the PS5 and also verify every variable at play).

I currently have a UB9000 and a PS5, and previously had an Oppo 203 (sold). This is on a 77 Sony A9G so my observations and opinions may not be applicable to a projector. Talking big picture picture quality, the Panny and Oppo are 1a and 1b. The Panny has slightly better chroma upsampling and a hair sharper upscaling (and more ringing?). Features like the HDR Optimizer come in handy as a tool to play around with, and from what I hear their HDR to SDR conversion is top notch. Apparently it does suck with DVD deinterlacing, but I haven't watched a DVD in over a decade.

However, I much preferred Oppo's UI look and feel, and also some minor video settings that allow you to send 4:2:2 10-bit for example.

Either way, unless you have them side by side and are pixel peeping, it's a wash and both are in the upper tier.

With the PS5, I'm likely going to get heat for this but I also found it to be top notch and just about equal quality. Most people online are sensationalistic and just copy paste "omg the panny is so much better, not even close" and ironically enough either they don't own a PS5 nor tested it with S&M or test patterns. Its only shortcoming is no dolby vision support really. Unless I'm looking at the test patterns wrong, the chroma looks just as good as anything I've seen (flipping my TV setting between Custom which rolls off chroma anyway, and Graphics which maintains 4:4:4). When people get a new player like an 820, they expect to see massive differences and I'm sure they convince themselves they see it, the same way new speaker cables seem to magically make an audio signal more punchy/airy/dynamic/forward/walnuty lol. Nope.

In a blind test just watching a movie in motion, I'm convinced almost nobody except Geoff would be able to tell a difference from normal seating distance especially.

With that said, I do understand and believe the Panasonic is the best of the best (overall), just saying I see it more in the margins and I wouldn't push someone into FOMO territory to make them feel they need to "upgrade" if they are already happy with a PS5.

[Geoff D]

Dude, without scrutinising test patterns I highly doubt I could tell any of the major marques apart for BD and UHD playback, and that includes the consoles (though didn't the Xbox have an issue with 23.98 output at 24 or something like that?). As you say, it's when people are like "OMG this player DESTROYS my [whatever], there's so much more colour and detail!" that I can't help but roll dem eyes.

For DVD playback then I do think that the Panny 820/9000 line is demonstrably worse than any MediaTek-enabled equivalents, but hey, we keep getting trolled, uh, I mean, told that no-one watches DVD so that doesn't matter.

[mkozlows]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

For DVD playback then I do think that the Panny 820/9000 line is demonstrably worse than any MediaTek-enabled equivalents, but hey, we keep getting trolled, uh, I mean, told that no-one watches DVD so that doesn't matter.

Googling around for a minute tells me that the "best" DVD player is some Sony thing. It costs $39. I would request that everyone who is upset about the Panasonic's DVD playback pretend to themselves that it costs $539 instead of $500, and that it comes with a high-quality bespoke dedicated outboard playback unit, a level of dedication to the DVD format that blows away the competition.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Dude, without scrutinising test patterns I highly doubt I could tell any of the major marques apart for BD and UHD playback, and that includes the consoles (though didn't the Xbox have an issue with 23.98 output at 24 or something like that?). As you say, it's when people are like "OMG this player DESTROYS my [whatever], there's so much more colour and detail!" that I can't help but roll dem eyes.

For DVD playback then I do think that the Panny 820/9000 line is demonstrably worse than any MediaTek-enabled equivalents, but hey, we keep getting trolled, uh, I mean, told that no-one watches DVD so that doesn't matter.

Yup. Because of this stupidity I still have my Sony 590, Sony 790, and Oppo 105D for DVD playback. I no longer have too many DVDs but I still want to be able to watch my DVD concerts and music videos in the best possible way.