UHD Blu Ray with ability to turn HDR OFF.

ssbib

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Hello everyone, I hope everyone is doing well. I think it is is time I invest in a 4K Blu Ray player. I have plenty of 4K discs that have bought alongside regular Blu Ray in my steelbook collection and so I think I might buy one.

The issue I have is that my TV does not display HDR very well and it simply seems to make the imperfections in the LCD screen stand out more especially the uneven blacks. Therefore I am looking for a player that has the option to turn HDR off, as there is no option to do this in the TV itself.

Anyone got any recommendations? Thanks.
 
Hello everyone, I hope everyone is doing well. I think it is is time I invest in a 4K Blu Ray player. I have plenty of 4K discs that have bought alongside regular Blu Ray in my steelbook collection and so I think I might buy one.

The issue I have is that my TV does not display HDR very well and it simply seems to make the imperfections in the LCD screen stand out more especially the uneven blacks. Therefore I am looking for a player that has the option to turn HDR off, as there is no option to do this in the TV itself.

Anyone got any recommendations? Thanks.
Panasonic and Sony players can do this, perhaps others. Panasonic has the best controls and can do a good HDR-->SDR BT2020 conversion which may be useful for you as you would still get the UHD colour space just without HDR.
 
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See my updated post above re HDR to SDR conversion. Not sure if the bottom of the range Panasonic players have this but the still fairly cheap UB420 does AFAIK. The Panasonics allow you to choose to output HDR, HDR-->SDR BT2020 or HDR-->SDR BT709. In a decending order of quality that's HDR top and SDR BT709 bottom.

Poor HDR to SDR conversion could even make your picture worse so I'd say go for a Panasonic model. They also have an HDR Optimiser feature which can help to improve display of HDR discs if you wanted to still give them a go in HDR. Panasonic players also have a lot of picture playback controls which can help to tweak the output even more.

UB420 is £119 from Currys but not available for delivery and is in store only. You might have trouble finding a local store with stock of it. Unfortunately the UB420 was a Currys exclusive model although the Panasonic ebay store sells refurbished ones now and again.
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-and-home-entertainment/dvd-blu-ray-and-home-cinema/blu-ray-and-dvd-players/panasonic-ub420-smart-4k-ultra-hd-blu-ray-dvd-player-10179417-pdt.html

Apart from that there is the considerably more expensive UB820 but it's probably overkill for your purposes. It can be picked up cheaper occasionally in deals.
 
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See my updated post above re HDR to SDR conversion. Not sure if the bottom of the range Panasonic players have this but the still fairly cheap UB420 does AFAIK. The Panasonics allow you to choose to output HDR, HDR-->SDR BT2020 or HDR-->SDR BT709. In a decending order of quality that's HDR top and SDR BT709 bottom.

Poor HDR to SDR conversion could even make your picture worse so I'd say go for a Panasonic model. They also have an HDR Optimiser feature which can help to improve display of HDR discs if you wanted to still give them a go in HDR. Panasonic players also have a lot of picture playback controls which can help to tweak the output even more.

UB420 is £119 from Currys but not available for delivery and is in store only. You might have trouble finding a local store with stock of it. Unfortunately the UB420 was a Currys exclusive model although the Panasonic ebay store sells refurbished ones now and again.
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-and-home-entertainment/dvd-blu-ray-and-home-cinema/blu-ray-and-dvd-players/panasonic-ub420-smart-4k-ultra-hd-blu-ray-dvd-player-10179417-pdt.html

Apart from that there is the considerably more expensive UB820 but it's probably overkill for your purposes. It can be picked up cheaper occasionally in deals.
Cheers for that. I’ll have a look at that one and some other Panasonic models. Are all
Of them that came out after the UB420 likely to have this feature?

Also when you say HDR conversion will my TV still detect an HDR signal? I want to use the regular TV settings and not the HDR ones. When using the HDR settings the blacks look really bad. It’s as if I cranks the backlight up to MAX, even when I adjust them and lower them, and so the blacks look very poor which is why I want it turned off.
 
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The x00 (UB400, UB700, UB900) models have HDR-->SDR conversion but this was much improved with the x20 models which also added the HDR Optimiser(UB420, UB820) and multi choice (2020 or 709) HDr to SDr conversion. I'm not sure if the bottom of the range UB320 has the HDR to SDR conversion feature of the higher models but fairly sure it doesn't have the Optimiser.

There is an upcoming UB450 due but the specs so far don't show it having the Optimiser but it will likely have the multi choice HDR to SDR conversion. Price wise though it's seems to be coming in at close to the UB820. If having to choose between the two I'd plump for the 820 even if it costs more.

If you're not in a hurry to buy, ebay fairly frequently do 10% to 20% off codes which can be used at Hughes Direct ebay store. There was a 20% one last week which reduced the UB820 price from £289 to £231.20. Expect another within a month or so but could just be at 15% or 10%.

Sony models (X700/X800) also do HDR to SDR conversion but AFAIK not as well as the Panasonic models and only to SDR BT709 (could be wrong, but unlike Panasonic you can't change the target SDR colour space wanted in the settings).
 
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The x00 (UB400, UB700, UB900) models have HDR-->SDR conversion but this was much improved with the x20 models which also added the HDR Optimiser(UB420, UB820) and multi choice (2020 or 709) HDr to SDr conversion. I'm not sure if the bottom of the range UB320 has the HDR to SDR conversion feature of the higher models but fairly sure it doesn't have the Optimiser.

There is an upcoming UB450 due but the specs so far don't show it having the Optimiser but it will likely have the multi choice HDR to SDR conversion. Price wise though it's seems to be coming in at close to the UB820. If having to choose between the two I'd plump for the 820 even if it costs more.

If you're not in a hurry to buy, ebay fairly frequently do 10% to 20% off codes which can be used at Hughes Direct ebay store. There was a 20% one last week which reduced the UB820 price from £289 to £231.20. Expect another within a month or so but could just be at 15% or 10%.

Sony models (X700/X800) also do HDR to SDR conversion but AFAIK not as well as the Panasonic models and only to SDR BT709 (could be wrong, but unlike Panasonic you can't change the target SDR colour space wanted in the settings).

I think I am liking the sound of the 820. I’m not in a rush, was actually thinking of asking for some of it as a birthday present in July, and I noticed the amazon listing for this has it as multi region for DVD, which would be good for me also. Do you know if the 420 was multiregion??
 
Any Panasonic player can be set multi region for DVD by a remote hack. They're not multi region for DVD out of the box though AFAIK.
 
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Any Panasonic player can be set multi region for DVD by a remote hack. They're not multi region for DVD out of the box though AFAIK.
Ah gotcha, nice one thanks. I might go for the 420 then and try and find the hack.
 
Hmm that’s a bit of a bummer. As I said I’m not looking at getting one immediately...I was going to wait until July. Thanks for that though.
 
Might have to leave it at the moment as cash poor right now. I’ve done some overtime over the weekend though so might be able to get it at the end of the month if they still have stock. Where is the best way of getting the region codes for this, do you know?
 
Hmm, looks complicated. Is it a simple process to change the region and can it be set to multi or do I have to change back and forth each time I want to change a region disc?
 
That’s ideal, thanks for that. Hopefully Curry’s still have stock after I get paid at the end of the month.
 
Can anyone recommend another player with the ability to turn off HDR and also go region free with the DVDs??
 
Sorry to necro-bump, but if my projector has the ability to switch HDR off, do I need to worry about the player's abilities as far as HDR->SDR conversion go?

I've been watching UHD in SDR (because HDR is useless on projectors anyway and I won't bother calibrating for it anyway, plus it has to run in high lamp mode as well to do HDR) from the (old) Apple TV 4K, and it's been working really well. I didn't think that playing UHD Blu-rays in SDR would be an issue.
 
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Sorry to necro-bump, but if my projector has the ability to switch HDR off, do I need to worry about the player's abilities as far as HDR->SDR conversion go?

I've been watching UHD in SDR (because HDR is useless on projectors anyway and I won't bother calibrating for it anyway, plus it has to run in high lamp mode as well to do HDR) from the (old) Apple TV 4K, and it's been working really well. I didn't think that player UHD Blu-rays in SDR would be an issue.
Yes, because the player has to properly convert a HDR picture to SDR. Get it wrong and picture doesn't look good. Some players are reputed to be better than others when doing the conversion.
 
Thanks. I sure hope the Sony UBP-X700 I ordered does a good job. Otherwise, this whole 4K disc thing might be useless to me.
 
Thanks. I sure hope the Sony UBP-X700 I ordered does a good job. Otherwise, this whole 4K disc thing might be useless to me.
If your PJ can do HDR it can likely use the UHD Wide Colour Gamut (WCG) BT.2020 colour space. Some Panasonic players have an option to output SDR in this wide gamut colour space (SDR/BT.2020) to suitable displays. I've seen folks mention doing that on their PJs specifically to avoid using high lamp mode. This can give better results than having to convert the BT.2020 colourspace to a BT.709 colour space (used by standard blu-rays).

Unfortunately AFAIK the X700 can't do this (at least I've never seen a settings option to use this on my X700 or my X800M2).
 
I don't think I can calibrate for BT.2020, so that won't be an option.
 
If your PJ can do HDR it can likely use the UHD Wide Colour Gamut (WCG) BT.2020 colour space. Some Panasonic players have an option to output SDR in this wide gamut colour space (SDR/BT.2020) to suitable displays. I've seen folks mention doing that on their PJs specifically to avoid using high lamp mode. This can give better results than having to convert the BT.2020 colourspace to a BT.709 colour space (used by standard blu-rays).

Unfortunately AFAIK the X700 can't do this (at least I've never seen a settings option to use this on my X700 or my X800M2).
You give good advice but it's all good and well for a device to be able to convert from HDR to SDR BT2020 as long as the display can show a good percentage of the BT2020 colourspace. What percentage of the BT2020 colourspace does a display have to be able to produce for it to be better than using Rec709 instead?
 

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