expiredsupermanrob posted Mar 23, 2025 11:50 AM
Item 1 of 2
Item 1 of 2
expiredsupermanrob posted Mar 23, 2025 11:50 AM
Panasonic UB820 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player w/ HDR10+ & Dolby Vision
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$498
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The reason Panasonic players are highly regarded is the Optimizer & HCX chipset.
It's what separates them from everyone else imo.
You lose both of these on the 450.
I would give up DV before giving up either of those two.
The 820 has no useful features over the 450 if you have a decent TV. The optimizer and HCX chipset are 8 year old hardware that are long eclipsed.
A lot of stuff in the "home theater" world is just voodoo and people just want to spend more money because they want to feel like they're buying something "premium" for their setup. It's what drives people to buy AVRs that are 2-3x the cost of one that will work perfectly for their setup, etc. If that's what you're looking for, by all means waste the money on the 820.
It's kinda personally annoying to me as I've been getting into the hobby and the entire space is filled with people who are so confidently wrong giving the same chorus of recommendations and leading people to spend 2x on a player than they need to.
The only thing right now is the UB450 is hard to find as it feels like there was a big shipment late last year and that hasn't been replenished.
The 820 has no useful features over the 450 if you have a decent TV. The optimizer and HCX chipset are 8 year old hardware that are long eclipsed.
A lot of stuff in the "home theater" world is just voodoo and people just want to spend more money because they want to feel like they're buying something "premium" for their setup. It's what drives people to buy AVRs that are 2-3x the cost of one that will work perfectly for their setup, etc. If that's what you're looking for, by all means waste the money on the 820.
It silly to "convert" either player back down to a 1080p player.
Anyone would see a 4k player gives you better PQ than a BR player on an oled display.
DV is a wash on the same display there is no manipulation(built in).
With HDR, the Optimizer was better but of course the HDR metadata transfer varies from disc to disc.
What was your form of reference?
Maybe the reason nothing has been updated because nothing is broken/changed! 🤔
Especially since even current displays, the only change people talk about is higher brightness and they still can't take full advantage of static HDR let alone dynamic HDR, which every disc does not have! 🤷🏻 ♂️
Let me guess you have some $1k Atmos up firing speaker package that works perfectly for everyone and everything above is a waste also! 🙄
The 820 upscaling hardware is worse than those in any decent OLED TV these days. Period.
People are just finding excuses to spend more money on the 820 or want to feel like they didn't "waste money". If you bought the 820 before the 450 was available, you didn't waste money, that was your only option at the time. Buying an 820 now over the 450 is a waste (except if you absolutely need one right now as the 450 is OOS most places).
The 820 upscaling hardware is worse than those in any decent OLED TV these days. Period.
People are just finding excuses to spend more money on the 820 or want to feel like they didn't "waste money". If you bought the 820 before the 450 was available, you didn't waste money, that was your only option at the time. Buying an 820 now over the 450 is a waste (except if you absolutely need one right now as the 450 is OOS most places).
Another question, why should we convert this player or the 420 to a BR player if you are saying the display will upscale whatever is plugged into better anyways? 🤔
BTW the 450 has been out like 6 years now.
How has HDR changed in that time frame?
Maybe the reason they came out with the 450 were for the people that have Panasonic Oled displays, they support both DV and HDR10+ and are highly regarded.
Makes sense, why have the same chipset in your player and display! 🤔
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I've done it with 820/420 vs Sony(700,800), LG(UBK90) & game console(Xbox) even OPPO.
This topic always gets blown out of proportion.
In general, with dynamic HDR it's kinda a moot point.
Your displays processing has more to do with it.
Everything else(static HDR,BR,DVD) comes down to tone mapping & upscaling, there is no standard.
For most of these comparisons there were at least 5 of us, all 5 of us now own either the 820,420 or both(ie me).
Are they drastic differences, it depends but generally no not really.
You throw in the cost of the difference makes it exponentially more complicated!
Does the quality of the display matter, of course!
Especially when you consider this all starts with quality of the content(transfer) then quality of player, finally quality of display before we ever see it.
There are a lot of other factors to consider in that chain also!
Is screen calibration still a thing? Like I still have my Disney screen calibration DVD from 20 years ago.
Is screen calibration still a thing? Like I still have my Disney screen calibration DVD from 20 years ago.
There are a few, my preference when I used them was Spears & Munsil Ultra HD Benchmark.
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