Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[PowellPressburger]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Turn off quick start.

And watch my Pana setup linked in my sig.

Yep I have quick start applied. I will turn that off and check out links later!

[deatheats]

Originally Posted by rickardl

but why would I need do that?
A simple power off, even with quickstart on, removes the corruption from the player.
I have added point 8 to clarify that...

In order to see if the issue persists after a real power cycle, but I can see you’ve already confirmed it does. Thanks for testing this out and letting us all know about it!

[Oscarilbo]

Guys, Apparently, There’s a serious issue with the UB820 and maybe UB9000 with Dolby Vision playback that hadn’t been discovered until now, so most of us hadn’t been aware.

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/off...90966/page-879

Please check this starting there from the AVS forums, as others can explain it much better than me. Here’s a part of a quote from the guy that discovered the problem:

“I've now discovered two DV discs that break the UB820 in the same way: Doctor Sleep (2019) and Nosferatu (2024). As soon as you get to the disc's main menu, without playing the movie, the UB820 stops outputting DV content metadata. But even worse, that's also true of any DV disc you play after that, and output colors are also corrupted, until you power the UB820 off and back on. For example, here's the low end of grayscale, showing good DV output and corrupted DV output:

Having found two discs that are five years apart, it seems entirely likely there are other discs that cause the same problem. To be safe, always power your UB820 off after playing a DV disc”

[Telemachus]

If I can't even notice this problem without a graph I'm not worried, never had any issues with how my DV discs look, and I don't own those films. I'll keep tabs to see if Panasonic updates the firmware again, they did fix all my flickering discs over time. A Sony player may not have this problem but when you can't even finish the film it's pick your poison and that seems worse.

[rickardl]

Update from the guy who found the broken/corrupted Dolby Vision problem, good news for the most part with pause/play:

OK, after more testing, here's what works for me:

Nosferatu: Start playing from main menu (which breaks it), then stop, power cycle, and then choose resume rather than start over. Then don't use pause, FF, rewind, or pop-up menu, as they all will break it.

Alien: Romulus: Start playing from main menu (which breaks it), then pause and resume to fix it.

Doctor Sleep: Start playing from main menu (which breaks it), then pause and resume to fix it. Going into the pop-up menu can break it, so again pause and resume after exiting the pop-up menu.

Wonder Woman 1984: Start playing from main menu (which breaks it), then pause and resume to fix it. Going into the pop-up menu can break it, so again pause and resume after exiting the pop-up menu.

Ahsoka: Start playing from the main menu (which breaks it), then bring up the pop-up menu and exit the menu to fix it. (Pause and resume won't fix it.) Pause and resume are OK after that.

[rickardl]

Originally Posted by Oscarilbo

Guys, Apparently, There’s a serious issue with the UB820 and maybe UB9000 with Dolby Vision playback that hadn’t been discovered until now, so most of us hadn’t been aware.
...

I started reposting information about this a page back.

[Oscarilbo]

Originally Posted by rickardl

I started reposting information about this a page back.

Oh sorry didn’t catch it. Thank you.

And is good to know there’s a bit of a workaround on those discs. The real problem is that we don’t know the extension of it, and how many discs experience this loss of DV information on the player.

[anephric]

I had a problem with Hunt for Red October in DV a while back, with weird raised black levels. I assumed it was an issue with my TV's implementation of DV (Sony XH95), so only watch that disc in HDR10 and have never looked at it again in DV.

Sounds like it may have been the player corrupting the metadata!

[sjy1969]

Thanks to those who have spotted and tested this.

So, we have Oppos with DV playback bugs that will never be fixed, Panasonics with DV playback bugs that can be worked around by jumping through a few hoops and Sonys that choke on layer changes in 100GB disks.

What a bloody mess!

[sjy1969]

I think I’ll just power cycle and resume for everything. Although I don’t believe you can do that with Paramount discs, so if they’re corrupted it’ll be HDR10 only for them.

The Panasonic equivalent of Sony’s manual DV toggle lol.

[Wintermute]

Originally Posted by Wintermute

This Studio Canal/Region B copy of The Vanishing...

The problem comes....once I choose U.K., it has always taken me to a sub-menu screen that (aside from the cover-art image & title, "The Vanishing") is functionally blank, with no Play option -- except for one time, where that sub-menu screen included a "Play Film" option in the bottom right corner, which worked just fine....

There must be some sort of instructions the player can receive to make it show the sub-menu screen with Play Film option, because when I did get it to work, I was mashing random buttons out of desperation during the interim period between Top Menu and sub-menu. That must've somehow done the trick, but I can't replicate it for the life of me...

Originally Posted by Telemachus

The trick reminds of of the old region mod codes in game systems that you could trigger with a save file or something, all hidden there by devs to test things on retail systems most times. Next time it works watch the whole disc before you power it down lmao

Update:

I just learned about an alternative to the regular old Top Menu trick to get region-locked discs to play on Panasonics! (It's what I must've accidentally done when mashing buttons the one time I got my Region-B The Vanishing blu-ray to play: )

When it shows the Region-lock screen, instead of hitting Stop and then Top Menu, what you should do is hit Stop, then 1, then OK, then 1 again and then OK again (notice how that step needs to be done twice, for this The Vanishing disc at least) -- and voila, you're taken to the Top Menu screen where you select U.K (or Deutschland), and then you're taken to the sub-menu with a functioning Play Film option! (The old/regular Top Menu trick does take you to The Vanishing's Top Menu, but then selecting either U.K. or Deutschland just leads to a sub-menu title screen with the cover-art graphic but no Play Film option.)

I was so frustrated by the fact that I'd gotten The Vanishing to play ONCE, but could never figure out which buttons I'd mashed to make it work again... "Should I get rid of this disc or what??" This is so simple and reliable! I tried it 3 times, and it keeps working.

I wonder how many "nope-the-Top-Menu-trick-doesn't-work-on-this-one" Region-locked discs are actually playable this way!

I guess it should have its own name, now: the "Number-OK trick"?

Here's the post by RBrittain where I learned about this method; apparently the Top Menu trick for the Region-B BD on Arrow's A Fistful of Dollars 4K set leads to a blank menu, but the Number-OK trick gets around it:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=2020

[Funktion]

I'm a newbie to the player (820).
Just started using it this week.

May I ask: is there any way to disable the pop-up windows that appear on the top right corner of the screen? For example, I'm on the main menu of a disc, and press to start it, and it shows a window saying something like "Ultra HD Blu-Ray", and "Play" when the chapter starts playing. Other times things like "Dynamic Range Conversion Output" appears on the top of the screen as well.

This isn't problematic for modern films, where you have these long intros, but on older films, like the one I was watching last night, the film starts right away (no black screen with logos), and these windows can be a bit annoying.

Hopefully there's a way to prevent them from appearing.

thank you

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by Oscarilbo

Guys, Apparently, There’s a serious issue with the UB820 and maybe UB9000 with Dolby Vision playback that hadn’t been discovered until now, so most of us hadn’t been aware.

https://www.avsforum.com/threads/off...90966/page-879

Please check this starting there from the AVS forums, as others can explain it much better than me. Here’s a part of a quote from the guy that discovered the problem:

Having found two discs that are five years apart, it seems entirely likely there are other discs that cause the same problem. To be safe, always power your UB820 off after playing a DV disc”

“Serious issues” LOL. These two titles problems have been known for ages. Logic states if there are only 2 discs having problems out of the 1000 titles available have problems, the problem lies in the discs authoring, not the player.

I’m sure you are the same guy on FB groups posting the same thing in various groups.

2 discs problems out of 1000 titles? Faaaaaaaaaaaar from serious problem
The problems can’t be detected unless you graph it? Even much much much far away from “serious problems”.

What’s next’s the sky is falling? Jesus second coming is near? (It’s been “near” from the 60’s)

[Oscarilbo]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

“Serious issues” LOL. These two titles problems have been known for ages. Logic states if there are only 2 discs having problems out of the 1000 titles available have problems, the problem lies in the discs authoring, not the player.

I’m sure you are the same guy on FB groups posting the same thing in various groups.

2 discs problems out of 1000 titles? Faaaaaaaaaaaar from serious problem
The problems can’t be detected unless you graph it? Even much much much far away from “serious problems”.

What’s next’s the sky is falling? Jesus second coming is near? (It’s been “near” from the 60’s)

Nope, the issue is beyond just two discs, and maybe a lot more than we know, If you don’t want to read more, then that’s fine.

[Telemachus]

Dolby Vision has always caused problems in some situations, but it can always be turned off for a quick fix. I'm sure Panny has had a list of problems discs to fix in firmware but none of these companies are quick anymore to remedy these things. How many discs won't even play on a PS5 or an Xbox right I always read complaints from people who use those as players. Pretty much this tech is finnicky across the board.

[Telemachus]

Originally Posted by Wintermute

Update:

I just learned about an alternative to the regular old Top Menu trick to get region-locked discs to play on Panasonics! (It's what I must've accidentally done when mashing buttons the one time I got my Region-B The Vanishing blu-ray to play: )

[Show spoiler]When it shows the Region-lock screen, instead of hitting Stop and then Top Menu, what you should do is hit Stop, then 1, then OK, then 1 again and then OK again (notice how that step needs to be done twice, for this The Vanishing disc at least) -- and voila, you're taken to the Top Menu screen where you select U.K (or Deutschland), and then you're taken to the sub-menu with a functioning Play Film option! (The old/regular Top Menu trick does take you to The Vanishing's Top Menu, but then selecting either U.K. or Deutschland just leads to a sub-menu title screen with the cover-art graphic but no Play Film option.)

I was so frustrated by the fact that I'd gotten The Vanishing to play ONCE, but could never figure out which buttons I'd mashed to make it work again... "Should I get rid of this disc or what??" This is so simple and reliable! I tried it 3 times, and it keeps working.

I wonder how many "nope-the-Top-Menu-trick-doesn't-work-on-this-one" Region-locked discs are actually playable this way!

I guess it should have its own name, now: the "Number-OK trick"?

Here's the post by RBrittain where I learned about this method; apparently the Top Menu trick for the Region-B BD on Arrow's A Fistful of Dollars 4K set leads to a blank menu, but the Number-OK trick gets around it:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=2020

I tried this on the Dawn of the Dead special features disc from the Second Sight set and still won't work on that one

[Wintermute]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

I tried this on the Dawn of the Dead special features disc from the Second Sight set and still won't work on that one

Damn, that sucks. Did you try different numbers?

Apparently different numbers might correspond to different scenes/selections on the disc -- but maybe this Number + OK trick only works for discs where the regular Top Menu trick takes you to a blank menu with no Play option.

I was hoping it would be more broadly useful.

[Telemachus]

Originally Posted by Wintermute

Damn, that sucks. Did you try different numbers?

Apparently different numbers might correspond to different scenes/selections on the disc -- but maybe this Number + OK trick only works for discs where the regular Top Menu trick takes you to a blank menu with no Play option.

I was hoping it would be more broadly useful.

That region lock screen on the Second Sight blu is like a hard lock, I have no other functions period from the remote to back out of it, I can only eject the disc to get out of it (or I'm assuming Home button didn't try it this time). Yeah I tried different numbers + more and stop doesn't do anything to begin with.

[Hedrox]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

That region lock screen on the Second Sight blu is like a hard lock, I have no other functions period from the remote to back out of it, I can only eject the disc to get out of it (or I'm assuming Home button didn't try it this time). Yeah I tried different numbers + more and stop doesn't do anything to begin with.

You just have to accept that some discs are foolproof is what it is. Prior to installing the modded firmware on my UB820 I tried literally every trick and workaround posted online, including the numbers one, and some discs just wouldn't budge, no matter what.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by Hedrox

If it's taken this many years for anyone to notice it, it's probably so minor that it's not even worth worrying about. Also, most people (like 99%) who own this player don't have a Spears&Munsils disc to check.

That’s exactly my point. If you need an image pattern in order to determine that a handful of DV movies shown wrong on the player after 5-6 years, the problem is far far away from being a big problem as what the poster said. He also posted the “serious problem” in all the FB group he is a member of.