I wonder if I could ask the learned contributors to this thread for some advice/suggestions regarding the playback of Dolby Vision encoded blu-ray discs on my UB820 player please? I’m not sure if I’m missing something fundamental, or have my set-up incorrect somewhere, but my initial experiences watching a 4K blu-ray with Dolby Vision encoding has left me decidedly underwhelmed. I apologise for the length of this post in advance.
My UB820 player is connected to my Panasonic TX-50GX800B TV via an 18Gbit Amazon Basics cable to port HDMI3 on the TV. HDMI audio from the player is connected to my Yamaha YSP4100 sounder. When I installed the player it went through an auto-setup routine and detected my TV using VieraLink, and post-setup, all I had to do was to change the TV System Type from NTSC to PAL. Firmware is version 1.60, and I have applied the multi region DVD hack using a remote that I bought on eBay.
The current relevant 820 settings are as follows:
Video Format: Automatic
4K (50p/60p) Output: 4K (50p/60p) 4:4:4
24p Output: Automatic
HDMI (Video) Output Mode: Automatic
HDMI (Audio) Output Mode: Audio only
Dolby Vision Setting: On
HDR10+ Setting: On
Colour Mode: YcbCr (Automatic)
Deep Colour Output: Auto (12bit priority)
HDR/Colour Gamut Output: HDR/BT.2020 (Auto)
SDR/HDR Cons. (Network Service): On
HLG/PQ Conversion: Off
HDR TV Type: Middle or High Luminance …
HDCP Output Setting: Automatic
Contents Type Flag: Automatic
Audio Output: On
7.1 Auto Reformatting: Automatic
System TV Settings —> TV System: PAL
Not having any 4K BRs I bought a copy of the the film The Hitman’s Bodyguard (very entertaining, BTW), which has both HD and 4K BR discs. When my wife and I watched the film a couple of weeks ago we noted that Dolby Vision was detected, and using the TV’s default Dolby Vision Bright settings watched the film. Picture quality was appalling, with colours simply wrong. London buses looked crimson, rather than red, and Ryan Reynold’s face often looked orange in colour, rather than flesh-toned. As we were both new to the TV and the player, I decided to get more familiar with the kit before revisiting the issue. Having done so, I’m still none the wiser and remain totally unimpressed with what I’m seeing from media (accepting that I only have one 4K DV disc at present!).
Before checking out the 4K disc again, I watched the first 10 minutes or so of the HD disc in order to see how that looked by way of reference. The TV automatically selected the Cinema Viewing Mode, and overall, it was quite acceptable. I did turn-off picture processing options like Noise Reduction, Resolution Remaster, etc., but in any event they were all set to Min, as I recall. Then, using the 4K version of the disc I was confronted with the same over-saturated image as I saw the first time that I watched it. Switching to Dolby Vision Dark tamed things slightly, as did changing the Colour Temperature from Warm2 to Normal, but whatever I did the picture remained pretty much unwatchable and artificial. Then, as an experiment, I disabled Dolby Vision in the player and watched again. This time, much more acceptable, although the picture still didn’t look 100% right in certain scenes, such as the London skyline, using the TV’s HDR Cinema setting, things like flesh tones and the colour of the London buses looked pretty near normal. That result makes no sense to me. I thought that Dolby Vision was a superior solution to HDR. Now, it could be the disc, of course. Both the HD and 4K versions seem to have a bit of a blue tint when watched, at least to my eye.
What I find more confusing is that a couple of days ago we watched Breaking Bad: El Camino on Netflix, which is presented in Dolby Vision. Using the same Dolby Vision Bright settings as I’d used above, the picture looked pretty good, perhaps just a little oversaturated perhaps in places, but nothing to complain about. Now, I do appreciate that 4K streamed content suffers limitations compared to media, but had I got the same picture quality from watching the 4K disc as I had watching El Camino I would have been quite happy.
On the HDR front, we recently watched the third series of Goliath on Amazon Video, which is presented in 4K HDR. That looked absolutely fine. I can’t make out why media-based Dolby Vision, admittedly based on just one disc, looks rubbish. Am I expecting too much from the TV and player? Is it just this disc? Are there settings that I can adjust to improve things? Am I expecting too much from Dolby Vision enabled media? Is my TV just not really up to the job? Any thoughts or suggestions really would be appreciated. I don’t think that I have a faulty player. It’s a possibility of course, but it’s an odd fault if that is the case. Right now, HDR-based viewing for media seems to be a better bet.
One observation regarding the 820 settings. During my testing, I disabled the Dolby Vision setting without putting the player into standby afterwards. When I then tried to watch the 4K disc I got menus and audio, but no picture. My guess, and it’s only a guess, is that the settings are static and only loaded when the player is powered-up from standby.
TIA, Cheers, Clem