People that have a 4K player can still play 4K/UHD on their non-4K display and receiver. (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

Honestly my reason for going 4K when I did was more “catastrophic equipment failure” rather than upgrade fever.

 

[Malcolm R]

I've had 4K players from both Panasonic and Samsung connected to my 1080P displays and have never had to adjust any settings of any kind when switching between disc formats. All seem to play perfectly fine and look great.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

By default the player is gonna downconvert 4K HDR to 1080p SDR when it’s hooked up to an HD display.

And I think for the most part the players will do a good enough job on the tone mapping that it’s not going to register as problematic to most people most of the time. It just so happened that for the discs I did notice some oddities, they were right from the beginning of the format when HDR was being dialed up to 11, and they were movies I had already watched so many times in my life on so many different displays and prior formats that I was just far too familiar with the material and picked up on it. No one else I was watching with noticed anything out of the ordinary, though.

 

[Robert Harris]

I now have my 4K player hooked up to 4K displays, but my projector has a more limited HDR ability so I have to do tone mapping not dissimilar to plugging a 4K player into a 1080p display.

For the vast majority of titles I’ve watched, this hasn’t been an issue. For some of the earliest discs in the format where the use of HDR was very heavy-handed, the (adjustable) conversion would sometimes be a little too bright or a little too dark - but if you weren’t directly comparing an HDR and non-HDR version of the same material, most people probably wouldn’t notice most of the time. That’s mostly become a solved problem as HDR isn’t being overused to the degree it was eight years ago.

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind if you’re thinking about going 4K, whether it’s just the player or the whole setup, is that you’re not really getting 4K just for the sake of going 4K. The reason to do it in my opinion is to gain access to the latest masters of favorite titles - these would look good in any resolution/format, but more and more they’re only coming out in the 4K format. I didn’t wake up and buy 4K because HD stopped being good enough; I got 4K because the stuff I wanted stopped coming out in HD.

Panasonic’s players like the 420 and the 820 have good HDR to SDR tone mapping optimized for different selectable settings, including projectors and flat panels, so they give you some pretty good starting points to see what looks best with what displays you have. This is one area where it may make sense to spend a little more upfront for a player that does good conversions if going from HDR to SDR, or if using a projector, will be part of your experience.

And again, the handful of discs that I had issues with doing the tone mapping on were discs that came out within the first year or two of the format and that seemed mastered intentionally to have an extreme look. That’s not too much different from early DVDs having too much DNR or early BDs having too much sharpening. It always seems to take a while for the people doing these new masterings to learn the ins and outs of the format and to stop trying to show off the extremes of what the formats can do.

Now, I’d also argue that any 35mm-based production from the 20th century was never intended to be viewed in 4K resolution so if you are satisfied with what you have in HD and don’t feel like you’re missing out on anything, you don’t need to feel as if you must get this or else. But it does seem clear that studios aren’t revising older BDs with newer versions on BD nearly as much, and if you have discs that do call out for improvements, you’ll probably need 4K going forward in order to get them.

It's not merely a matter of 4k vs 2k. The major attribute that should interest viewers is how the image harvest was attained, and the age of the master.

 

[John Maher_289910]

I was buying and playing 4K discs on my 4K player and watching on my 1080 TV for at least 3 years before I purchased a 4K television. Didn't upgrade my HDMIs, didn't have different settings, etc. No issues at all. Everything looked great. Of course, better now in actual 4K.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Definitely considering this now, need to step up to the Panasonic 820 since it has an essential feature for me: subtitle shift.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Definitely considering this now, need to step up to the Panasonic 820 since it has an essential feature for me: subtitle shift.

One of my motivations in starting this thread was to give people an opportunity to share their viewing experiences that don’t have 4K capable displays but were still able to enjoy down converted 4K/UHDs using a 4K player with their 1080p displays.

Perhaps that will help others decide to do the same thing so they can enjoy for example Rio Bravo on 4K/UHD without spending a bunch of money on a new 4K display and receiver. It’s not in 4K with HDR, but you’re able to watch Rio Bravo that was derived from a newer scan. I think the trend of not releasing or including Blu-rays derived from 4K scans is going to increase in the near future.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Definitely considering this now, need to step up to the Panasonic 820 since it has an essential feature for me: subtitle shift.

I can recommend the 820. I’m very happy with mine.

The only complaint I’ve seen about it is that it’ll turn itself off after a disc has been paused for more than 20 minutes but that wasn’t a dealbreaker for me. And the tone mapping for projectors is pretty nice. The only disc I didn’t love on it was “Batman Begins” (when viewing it in HD and on a projector, rather than a 4K flat panel) but it’s nothing technically wrong with the disc, they just did a bizarre HDR grade for the UHD disc.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I tried this as well on a cheapy Sony X700 and my old BenQ HD PJ w/ no problems at all for a little while before upgrading to my current Epson 5050 PJ (along w/ Anthem AVM-60 prepro to handle 4K/HDR) circa late-2020.

I did actually do some extra tonemapping "calibration" tweaking on that X700 to try to benefit from HDR (mainly in the highlights)... but yeah, that player is quite lacking especially in that respect... NVM the complaints about its buggy-ness by many, which I never experienced myself. I did "upgrade" to a Panny 420 soon after getting my Epson PJ though and have zero problems w/ that player -- it's generally a nice player, except no DV support, which doesn't matter for PJ setup, and well, the remote and UI aren't exactly great, haha, but fine enough for the most part (and I only use a Harmony remote anyway).

Since a few mentioned region-free BD playback, the Pannies supposedly have some modest capability for some region-locked imports, but I tried that w/ mine since I also have a pair of solid Oppo BD players and a (easily movable) region-hack module for that purpose instead. I don't really care about having just 1 universal disc player in my system -- I actually like having 2 for different purposes (and maybe lengthen their usable lives)... and usually just leave my Oppo in region B to play region B BDs (so I don't have to bother changing regions, heh).

_Man_

 

[Neil S. Bulk]

One of my motivations in starting this thread was to give people an opportunity to share their viewing experiences that don’t have 4K capable displays but were still able to enjoy down converted 4K/UHDs using a 4K player with their 1080p displays.

Perhaps that will help others decide to do the same thing so they can enjoy for example Rio Bravo on 4K/UHD without spending a bunch of money on a new 4K display and receiver. It’s not in 4K with HDR, but you’re able to watch Rio Bravo that was derived from a newer scan. I think the trend of not releasing or including Blu-rays derived from 4K scans is going to increase in the near future.

Another option, if someone didn't want to buy a new 4K player would be to redeem the digital code and watch that version.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Another option, if someone didn't want to buy a new 4K player would be to redeem the digital code and watch that version.

Well, although one could do that, seems like a waste to not use the disc at all in that case, heh -- and no doubt most disc collectors wouldn't want to only watch the digital. One could always just buy the digital afterall... and vast majority of them do eventually drop to <=$5 on periodic sales (maybe 2-3 years after release).

_Man_

 

[Robert Crawford]

Another option, if someone didn't want to buy a new 4K player would be to redeem the digital code and watch that version.

True, but some of us don’t stream for a number of reasons. Anyhow that’s a subject matter that’s appropriate for another thread. We’re talking physical media in this thread.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Well, although one could do that, seems like a waste to not use the disc at all in that case, heh -- and no doubt most disc collectors wouldn't want to only watch the digital. One could always just buy the digital afterall... and vast majority of them do eventually drop to <=$5 on periodic sales (maybe 2-3 years after release).

_Man_

Again, let’s not get into the weeds with that subject matter.

 

[David Weicker]

Another option, if someone didn't want to buy a new 4K player would be to redeem the digital code and watch that version.

Well, that would only work if you have a 4K display.

Otherwise, the streamer would be choosing whether to provide an HD version or a 4K down convert (probably not your choice).

 

[JohnRice]

One of my motivations in starting this thread was to give people an opportunity to share their viewing experiences that don’t have 4K capable displays but were still able to enjoy down converted 4K/UHDs using a 4K player with their 1080p displays.

Perhaps that will help others decide to do the same thing so they can enjoy for example Rio Bravo on 4K/UHD without spending a bunch of money on a new 4K display and receiver. It’s not in 4K with HDR, but you’re able to watch Rio Bravo that was derived from a newer scan. I think the trend of not releasing or including Blu-rays derived from 4K scans is going to increase in the near future.

That's how I took it, and the motivation for my response.

It can be frustrating how muddled a simple suggestion (aka: solution) can get. It seems like more and more that everything has to be about something else. This is a very rational solution to an actual HT problem that some people are looking for suggestions on.

The bottom line is that you do NOT need to have a 4K display to play 4K discs. Not everyone realizes that. It's actually rather simple. There are a lot of 4K releases that are vastly superior to the previous HD releases, even when viewed on an HD display. Nobody HAS to take this advice.

 

[David Weicker]

You are multiple revisions of the HDMI standard behind and it’s definitely time to upgrade those cables when upgrading equipment.

Now, until you upgrade your AVR to one that’s 4K capable, it won’t matter as much. But those older cables will limit a 4K player’s output to HD only. But then again, so will your receiver.

Another option, if upgrading your AVR isn't feasible. Many 4K players have two HDMI.
Feed the audio to the AVR. Feed the video directly to the TV/Projector.

 

[Worth]

Another option, if someone didn't want to buy a new 4K player would be to redeem the digital code and watch that version.

But in some cases, the HD stream is an older transfer than the 4K. I know The Hunt for Red October and Fatal Attraction are like this and I'm sure there are many more.

 

[Douglas R]

I can recommend the 820. I’m very happy with mine.

The only complaint I’ve seen about it is that it’ll turn itself off after a disc has been paused for more than 20 minutes but that wasn’t a dealbreaker for me. And the tone mapping for projectors is pretty nice. The only disc I didn’t love on it was “Batman Begins” (when viewing it in HD and on a projector, rather than a 4K flat panel) but it’s nothing technically wrong with the disc, they just did a bizarre HDR grade for the UHD disc.

The player turning off the disc after a certain time on pause, so that you can't immediately go back to where you stopped watching, is one of my main complaints about 4K. I have an LG player but wasn't sure if it's my player or something that affects every 4K regardless as to make of player.

 

[Worth]

...It just so happened that for the discs I did notice some oddities, they were right from the beginning of the format when HDR was being dialed up to 11, and they were movies I had already watched so many times in my life on so many different displays and prior formats that I was just far too familiar with the material and picked up on it...

Some of those early titles look just as bad in HDR as they do tone-mapped.

 

[BobO'Link]

The player turning off the disc after a certain time on pause, so that you can't immediately go back to where you stopped watching, is one of my main complaints about 4K. I have an LG player but wasn't sure if it's my player or something that affects every 4K regardless as to make of player.

Check the player's settings. My LG BR player will do this but it can be turned off in the device settings menus.