Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Kage]

I recently bought the Sony x700 4k blu-ray player and I would like to know if the UB820 is worth the extra money?

[Sailor09]

Originally Posted by Kage

I recently bought the Sony x700 4k blu-ray player and I would like to know if the UB820 is worth the extra money?

Like everything, it depends on your expectations, priorities and how you value certain things.

[LordoftheRings]

I recently bought the Sony x700 4k blu-ray player and I would like to know if the UB820 is worth the extra money?

Do you have SACDs?

The Panasonic 820 looks like a 4K BR player winner to me.
• https://hdguru.com/review-panasonic-...m-performance/
• https://www.soundandvision.com/conte...-player-review

[Show spoiler]"I cant believe how much better my 4K UHD's look on this Panasonic 820 player compared to the oppo 205 or the Panny 900 I have. Unbelievable. Night and day. THis is the best player on the market hands down. Cant believe how much better HDR looks now. Not dark anymore."

[LordoftheRings]

PANASONIC

820 Video performance

"During tests of the DP-UB820, we compared the player with the comparably featured Oppo UDP-203. Watching a 4K UHD Blu-ray of Planet Earth II, images looked equally clear, clean, and vibrant and were virtually indistinguishable. Scenes from the African grass lands showed incredible detail and nuanced colors in the closeups of individual strands of the tall grasses that a field mouse carefully navigates trying to escape a hungry owl circling above. Both players delivered exceptionally rich and deep colors on the screen of a Samsung QN65Q8C QLED display used for this review.

Again, in these real-world tests, any difference in quality level between 1080p Blu-ray playback of the DP-UB820 and the Oppo UDP-203 were difficult to discern. Both players perform so well that any detectable nuances must be determined with test patterns, like the Spears & Munsil Blu-ray test disc, where the Panasonic DP-UB820 shows marginally better results. Indeed, even the player’s upconversion of DVD passed the usual Spears & Munsil tests. But most people don’t spend a lot of time watching test patterns. We noticed that black levels on standard Blu-ray material appeared darker and lost some shadow detail compared to Ultra HD Blu-ray discs with HDR.

Fortunately, the Panasonic DP-UB820 continues to offer a nice selection of picture setting adjustments to help dial-in just the right amount of sharpness, luminance, and color noise reduction. Adjustment for sharpness, for example, can bring out subtle detail elements before any ringing artifacts begin to emerge.

Similary, a few notches up on the brightness setting in the luminance adjustment section brought out more of the hidden dark shadow detail in the early cave sequences of Iron Man, without disrupting the calibration settings of the television."

Audio

"Where the Panasonic DP-UP820 earns its bones is in music reproduction. We found the sound quality differences between the DP-UB820 and the excellent Oppo UDP-203 to be very subtle. Performing an A/B comparison using Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains The Same from the Houses of the Holy CD, the UB820 was just slightly warmer and more lively than the Oppo played through Denon’s excellent AVR-X6400H AV receiver.

The UB820’s nice flat delivery is excellent for stringed performances. We also found a pleasingly full midrange listening to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra) from the original soundtrack to A Clock Work Orange. The disc provides a wonderful transition test into Wendy Carlos’ brilliant use of the synthesizer on Timesteps, and back into the power of the second movement in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The UB820 didn’t miss a note, and did a nice job of making the instruments sound natural.

Panasonic offers a lengthy selection of sound effects that provide subtle shading nodes for music, including six different “Digital Tube Sound Effects,” which are fun to play around with to test your golden-ear worthiness, as the changes are only slightly different.

Panasonic’s player also performed well wirelessly tied into a DLNA Network Attached Storage device to stream hi-res audio (FLAC) tracks ripped from Charles Mingus’ Mingus Moves CD. Here the midrange was really put to the test. The brilliant musical conversation between the tenor sax of George Adams and trumpet of Ronald Hampton was crystal clear, right down to the rattling of spittal from Adams’ reed.

Listening to Mary Lou from Steve Miller’s The Joker album in 96-kHz/24-bit from an HDtracks FLAC download, the vocals were warm and natural, while notes from the clavinet and guitar noodling fills were clear and present in the room. The separation between the right and left channels was excellent. The UB820 will play a range of hi-res audio formats, via network connection or from USB and HDD devices connected to the USB inputs. Supported music formats include DSD (11.2MHz/2.8MHz/5.6MHz), ALAC, FLAC, AAC, MP3, WAV and AIFF. It also includes 192kHz/96kHz surround re-master."

[alien2010]

After using the 820 for my OLED TV since June, I bought another one a few days ago for my regular 4K LCD TV, it really does improve the picture quality for both 4K and regular blu-ray against older models like the Panasonic 700EB (which I still own and have upgraded its firmware to multi-region blu ray and DVD playback)

Really glad to see the 9000 meets its high expectations, shame it won't play DVD Audio though. Anyhow the only think I want from the 9000 is the remote control, and I hope Panasonic advertises this on their spares website soon.

[Kage]

Originally Posted by Kage

I recently bought the Sony x700 4k blu-ray player and I would like to know if the UB820 is worth the extra money?

Originally Posted by Sailor09

Like everything, it depends on your expectations, priorities and how you value certain things.

This morning, I ordered the Panasonic UB820 from Best Buy and will pick it up at the store in a couple days. I read good things about it, but it does not have good streaming, but I have an Apple TV 4k for streaming purposes. The UB820 will be the replacement of the defective Sony x700 that I returned back to Best Buy this morning. For the time being I'l be using my Apple TV 4k to stream movies.

The Sony x700 has the same freezing issues when I tried out the Sony x800. I also don't like that it does not have an auto DV mode (going to be upgrading to a DV tv next year). I read that the freezing issues is common problem on the Sony x700, x800, and x1000ES. Sony does not acknowledge the freezing issues a problem. Also the disk drive noise got louder for the two days that I used it.

Hopefully I'll be happy with the UB820.

[LordoftheRings]

PANASONIC owners don't report many issues about freezing.
The 820 seems to be very capable in reading brand new 4K discs that need to been dishwasher cleaned and dried with other players like Oppo and Sony, occasionally.
Maybe it's their special sprinkled Hollywood video processor chip with better system correction and buffer qualities in reading discs from the laser transport? I have zero clue, I go with the reported facts only.

Anyway congrats in getting what I consider to be the best 4K player today in picture and sound quality in his price bracket, and best picture quality in all price brackets.

It would be nice that it was build like a Bugatti with carbon fiber carrosserie, but it would cost one million dollars. It would also be swell that it had Sony streaming qualities, or Oppo with none.
Panasonic went for the middle, and for the top in picture and sound from discs, for discriminating videophiles and audiophiles.

Streaming is the future today, and tomorrow 4K Blu-ray players won't sport a transport anymore, only apps. Freezing issues from brand new 4K discs will be a thing of the past and we will be only dealing with Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, Opera, Amazon, Google, YouTube, etc., from their platforms and streaming qualities @ rush hour traffic jams. 8K streaming will require ultra fast speed on the highways, and we'll all be driving Tesla Roadsters.

Hopefully you'll be happy with the 820. Report all your successes, and crashes too if ever you experience any, like discs freezing issues, streaming freezing issues, audio/video sync issues, lost of audio, lost of HDMI handshake, lost of video, black screen, blue screen, discs that won't play, ...all that jazz that people experience on occasion with Oppo, Sony, Samsung, LG 4K BR players.

I have a gut feeling that you are going to enjoy your new 820.
I don't know why exactly, must be me doing too much reading? Could it be bad?
No it's very good actually, I'm expanding my knowledge from reading people like here, like in the UK, like around the globe.

Common problems with Sony is with their not including in their manuals to use dishsoap to clean the badly manufactured brand new 4K discs when they freeze and jam and won't play in their players, that's all. Oh, some of their TVs too with dimming issues. And their affinity to complicate life with Dolby Vision, their own personal request. But it's normal, Sony is like Apple...having their own operational accessories that work for them and with them only, and nobody else. Sony first, you always do what's best for you first.

Hopefully you'll be happy with the 820.

[ack_bak]

I have two issue with freezing. It was the 1080p/Blu-Ray version of Goldeneye. There was a section of the movie where the player completely locked up and I had to power down. Locked up again at the same part. Tried the movie on my Xbox S and no lock up at that part of the movie so appears to be a UB820 issue as the disc looks perfect.

The second freezing issue happened with the original Avengers movie on 1080p Blu-Ray. Same issue as above the player locked up and I had to do a forced reboot. I didn't bother to see if it happened again so I just fast forwarded, but the disc looked perfect.

We watch a lot of movies so it's two instances out of maybe 50 or so, but it's still annoying. In all fairness my Oppo 203 locked up several times too over the past couple years, especially early on (I received the first batch of 203's). Hopefully additional firmware updates will continue to stabilize the player.

[clevice]

Originally Posted by LordoftheRings

PANASONIC

820 Video performance

"During tests of the DP-UB820, we compared the player with the comparably featured Oppo UDP-203. Watching a 4K UHD Blu-ray of Planet Earth II, images looked equally clear, clean, and vibrant and were virtually indistinguishable. Scenes from the African grass lands showed incredible detail and nuanced colors in the closeups of individual strands of the tall grasses that a field mouse carefully navigates trying to escape a hungry owl circling above. Both players delivered exceptionally rich and deep colors on the screen of a Samsung QN65Q8C QLED display used for this review.

Again, in these real-world tests, any difference in quality level between 1080p Blu-ray playback of the DP-UB820 and the Oppo UDP-203 were difficult to discern. Both players perform so well that any detectable nuances must be determined with test patterns, like the Spears & Munsil Blu-ray test disc, where the Panasonic DP-UB820 shows marginally better results. Indeed, even the player’s upconversion of DVD passed the usual Spears & Munsil tests. But most people don’t spend a lot of time watching test patterns. We noticed that black levels on standard Blu-ray material appeared darker and lost some shadow detail compared to Ultra HD Blu-ray discs with HDR.

Fortunately, the Panasonic DP-UB820 continues to offer a nice selection of picture setting adjustments to help dial-in just the right amount of sharpness, luminance, and color noise reduction. Adjustment for sharpness, for example, can bring out subtle detail elements before any ringing artifacts begin to emerge.

Similary, a few notches up on the brightness setting in the luminance adjustment section brought out more of the hidden dark shadow detail in the early cave sequences of Iron Man, without disrupting the calibration settings of the television."

Audio

"Where the Panasonic DP-UP820 earns its bones is in music reproduction. We found the sound quality differences between the DP-UB820 and the excellent Oppo UDP-203 to be very subtle. Performing an A/B comparison using Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains The Same from the Houses of the Holy CD, the UB820 was just slightly warmer and more lively than the Oppo played through Denon’s excellent AVR-X6400H AV receiver.

The UB820’s nice flat delivery is excellent for stringed performances. We also found a pleasingly full midrange listening to Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie (La Gazza Ladra) from the original soundtrack to A Clock Work Orange. The disc provides a wonderful transition test into Wendy Carlos’ brilliant use of the synthesizer on Timesteps, and back into the power of the second movement in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The UB820 didn’t miss a note, and did a nice job of making the instruments sound natural.

Panasonic offers a lengthy selection of sound effects that provide subtle shading nodes for music, including six different “Digital Tube Sound Effects,” which are fun to play around with to test your golden-ear worthiness, as the changes are only slightly different.

Panasonic’s player also performed well wirelessly tied into a DLNA Network Attached Storage device to stream hi-res audio (FLAC) tracks ripped from Charles Mingus’ Mingus Moves CD. Here the midrange was really put to the test. The brilliant musical conversation between the tenor sax of George Adams and trumpet of Ronald Hampton was crystal clear, right down to the rattling of spittal from Adams’ reed.

Listening to Mary Lou from Steve Miller’s The Joker album in 96-kHz/24-bit from an HDtracks FLAC download, the vocals were warm and natural, while notes from the clavinet and guitar noodling fills were clear and present in the room. The separation between the right and left channels was excellent. The UB820 will play a range of hi-res audio formats, via network connection or from USB and HDD devices connected to the USB inputs. Supported music formats include DSD (11.2MHz/2.8MHz/5.6MHz), ALAC, FLAC, AAC, MP3, WAV and AIFF. It also includes 192kHz/96kHz surround re-master."

Excelent, excelent 820/824EGK ..........

[Sailor09]

Originally Posted by LordoftheRings

PANASONIC owners don't report many issues about freezing.
The 820 seems to be very capable in reading brand new 4K discs that need to been dishwasher cleaned and dried with other players like Oppo and Sony, occasionally.
Maybe it's their special sprinkled Hollywood video processor chip with better system correction and buffer qualities in reading discs from the laser transport? I have zero clue, I go with the reported facts only.

Anyway congrats in getting what I consider to be the best 4K player today in picture and sound quality in his price bracket, and best picture quality in all price brackets.

It would be nice that it was build like a Bugatti with carbon fiber carrosserie, but it would cost one million dollars. It would also be swell that it had Sony streaming qualities, or Oppo with none.
Panasonic went for the middle, and for the top in picture and sound from discs, for discriminating videophiles and audiophiles.

Streaming is the future today, and tomorrow 4K Blu-ray players won't sport a transport anymore, only apps. Freezing issues from brand new 4K discs will be a thing of the past and we will be only dealing with Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, Opera, Amazon, Google, YouTube, etc., from their platforms and streaming qualities @ rush hour traffic jams. 8K streaming will require ultra fast speed on the highways, and we'll all be driving Tesla Roadsters.

Hopefully you'll be happy with the 820. Report all your successes, and crashes too if ever you experience any, like discs freezing issues, streaming freezing issues, audio/video sync issues, lost of audio, lost of HDMI handshake, lost of video, black screen, blue screen, discs that won't play, ...all that jazz that people experience on occasion with Oppo, Sony, Samsung, LG 4K BR players.

I have a gut feeling that you are going to enjoy your new 820.
I don't know why exactly, must be me doing too much reading? Could it be bad?
No it's very good actually, I'm expanding my knowledge from reading people like here, like in the UK, like around the globe.

Common problems with Sony is with their not including in their manuals to use dishsoap to clean the badly manufactured brand new 4K discs when they freeze and jam and won't play in their players, that's all. Oh, some of their TVs too with dimming issues. And their affinity to complicate life with Dolby Vision, their own personal request. But it's normal, Sony is like Apple...having their own operational accessories that work for them and with them only, and nobody else. Sony first, you always do what's best for you first.

Hopefully you'll be happy with the 820.

"tomorrow 4K Blu-ray players won't sport a transport anymore".... I have one of those!!! Today! It's a Nvidia Shield!
If it doesn't have a transport it cannot be called a blu-ray player (or DVD or CD player for that matter).

[LordoftheRings]

I like you guys; ack, clevice, Sailor, you see the bright side of life.

[hgwy407]

Except until the day comes wherein streaming can actually match consistently the quality of physical media, I'll opt for something that plays physical media.

[knicolai]

Originally Posted by hgwy407

Except until the day comes wherein streaming can actually match consistently the quality of physical media, I'll opt for something that plays physical media.

PRECISE Rewind/Review/Fast Forward/Pause/Play while viewing program material is simply awful with streaming services. They have a long way to go in that respect. I suppose that, in general, if you like to begin at the beginning, press Play, and watch to the very, very end... you're okay. I pause and shuffle around the credits a half dozen times or more, plus have to repeat program material that I miss because of my hearing loss.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by knicolai

PRECISE Rewind/Review/Fast Forward/Pause/Play while viewing program material is simply awful with streaming services. They have a long way to go in that respect. I suppose that, in general, if you like to begin at the beginning, press Play, and watch to the very, very end... you're okay. I pause and shuffle around the credits a half dozen times or more, plus have to repeat program material that I miss because of my hearing loss.

It's pretty awful with Blu-rays as well, we're a long way away from the trick-play functions with jog-dials of LaserDisc and DVD.

The best we get now is content played from a HDD.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by chip75

It's pretty awful with Blu-rays as well, we're a long way away from the trick-play functions with jog-dials of LaserDisc and DVD.

The best we get now is content played from a HDD.

I've no need for all that trick-play stuff although the capability to step-frame back as well as forwards on some players is a godsend when doing my HDR SDR comparisons. The OPPO and Sony players can do this on BD, the Panny cannot. None of them will step-frame back on a UHD disc.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I've no need for all that trick-play stuff although the capability to step-frame back as well as forwards on some players is a godsend when doing my HDR SDR comparisons. The OPPO and Sony players can do this on BD, the Panny cannot. None of them will step-frame back on a UHD disc.

I don't do it that often, perhaps I would if they were smoother? Funny people were jogging back-and-forth with LaserDisc to see a couple of hundred lines of resolution and now we have HD and UHD it's not really done.

But I do miss having a frame-count, jog-dials and a decent front display with title and chapter times.

I don't think the Panasonic players frame-step forward with certain content either, just slow-mo.

[Mobe1969]

Originally Posted by chip75

I don't do it that often, perhaps I would if they were smoother? Funny people were jogging back-and-forth with LaserDisc to see a couple of hundred lines of resolution and now we have HD and UHD it's not really done.

But I do miss having a frame-count, jog-dials and a decent front display with title and chapter times.

I don't think the Panasonic players frame-step forward with certain content either, just slow-mo.

Don't blame the player for the stupid insanity of steaming services.i have such a disgust for those providers, I'd end them if I could get away with it. If I was at a party, and was asking someone what they did, and that person said they ran Netflix, I'd be hard pressed not to knock the drink from their hand and attempt 5o insert their head into the core of the planet the hard way.. The issues you have are that the content is streamed, not download. So even though these same scum bag streaming services allow downloads on rubbish mobile devices they refuse to allow it in dedicated home theatre av gear. What do they do with dedicated home theater gear? Streaming only, and forcing 24p content to 60p. So they will allow better quality on a mobile than home theater gear. What is the message they are trying to get to you? Pretty simple. They hate home cinema enthusiasts, and treat you with utter contempt. They want you to waste time wondering why they provide rubbish when it would be simpler and better to do it properly.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by chip75

I don't do it that often, perhaps I would if they were smoother? Funny people were jogging back-and-forth with LaserDisc to see a couple of hundred lines of resolution and now we have HD and UHD it's not really done.

But I do miss having a frame-count, jog-dials and a decent front display with title and chapter times.

I don't think the Panasonic players frame-step forward with certain content either, just slow-mo.

They do step frame forward but it's in sequence like you say, they won't allow a one-off single-frame increment when pressing the FF button while in pause, it starts it off as very slow-mo and you have to pause it on the frame you want to look at.

[brazensol]

Originally Posted by Kage

This morning, I ordered the Panasonic UB820 from Best Buy and will pick it up at the store in a couple days. I read good things about it, but it does not have good streaming, but I have an Apple TV 4k for streaming purposes. The UB820 will be the replacement of the defective Sony x700 that I returned back to Best Buy this morning. For the time being I'l be using my Apple TV 4k to stream movies.

The Sony x700 has the same freezing issues when I tried out the Sony x800. I also don't like that it does not have an auto DV mode (going to be upgrading to a DV tv next year). I read that the freezing issues is common problem on the Sony x700, x800, and x1000ES. Sony does not acknowledge the freezing issues a problem. Also the disk drive noise got louder for the two days that I used it.

Hopefully I'll be happy with the UB820.

I've watched ~20 movies on my 820 and so far not so much as a hiccup!

[GiuseppeM]

Latest news, Panny 9000 is already in the delivery room (in Germany).