Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I think secondary audio is on by default on the Pannys? If you haven't actually double checked it then please do. How were you connecting it before though?

I haven't changed anything connection-wise (HDMI Video to the TV, Audio Only to the AVR), secondary audio is off. I don't get through enough discs as I should, so I can't remember 100%, when you play a disc with Atmos (say when you're not using a receiver), does the input drop down to TrueHD (in the bottom section of PLAYBACK INFO) or does it stay Atmos (and just stay in the top section)?*

I'm pretty sure I was seeing Atmos on the front of the receiver even when I was using 5.1, but now it's just TrueHD. Not sure if it's a AVR issue or not.

*Looking at your Alita picture posted I can see TrueHD, so I guess that answers that, as if I remember you're not a surround sound listening these days.

[SCLee]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

If it's now on the latest one then yeah, the meter is borked on that model I guess.

How do we know that the bitrates are correct, ever, without a playback button? Panasonic has now removed the info button from their newer models. I'm not sure if Sony and LG have?

So, if that's the case, you have to rely on your own two eyes and not any readings from the player. Which kinda sucks! Because it could be faulty and you'd never know...

[chip75]

Originally Posted by SCLee

How do we know that the bitrates are correct, ever, without a playback button?

As in you're not receiving the correct amount of data from the disc?

I don't think it would be a common issue, it's not like streaming where you see bitrates drop before your eyes. If you weren't getting the correct data from the disc it would be a very uncommon problem akin to seeing the compression turn to garbage on a badly mastered disc.

If we're talking about bit-depths, you'd probably be able to find out the info from an AVR.

[SCLee]

Originally Posted by chip75

As in you're not receiving the correct amount of data from the disc?

I don't think it would be a common issue, it's not like streaming where you see bitrates drop before your eyes. If you weren't getting the correct data from the disc it would be a very uncommon problem akin to seeing the compression turn to garbage on a badly mastered disc.

If we're talking about bit-depths, you'd probably be able to find out the info from an AVR.

Are you saying that if the bitrates were dropping that low (5 mbps to 30 mbps) it would be compressed and very noticeable, in terms of picture quality? Because the picture looks great to me. Hopefully Geoff is correct and it's just a false reading that isn't affecting the actual picture quality. But I have no way of knowing, technology wise.

[SCLee]

I was looking at the Panasonic DP-UB150EB as it has HDR10+ (which would work with my Samsung TV), no playback info button! It seems that Panasonic have done away with the playback info button on newer models!

I took the remote from the 391 (that has the playback info button) and it will work the 450, but it won't display the bitrates even with the old remote. Panasonic seem to have removed the option from their new players.

Would any of you buy a Panasonic 4K player going forward? Knowing that the playback info button is missing.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by SCLee

Are you saying that if the bitrates were dropping that low (5 mbps to 30 mbps) it would be compressed and very noticeable, in terms of picture quality? Because the picture looks great to me. Hopefully Geoff is correct and it's just a false reading that isn't affecting the actual picture quality. But I have no way of knowing, technology wise.

It doesn’t matter if it is 5 mbps or 100 mbps. Does the picture look good? That’s all that matters. I don’t care if my didc is only running at 2 mbps. If I don’t see artifacts then I’m happy.

[Mikke73]

Originally Posted by SCLee

Would any of you buy a Panasonic 4K player going forward? Knowing that the playback info button is missing.

Well.. if I didn't already have a Panasonic 4K player, I would definitely buy one - just not any of the cheapo models without playback info button or HDR Optimizer.

[IntelliVolume]

Originally Posted by chip75

Not sure why the resume function isn't working, I've used Warner Bros. discs, Disney UHDs and FOX UHDs and they all resume (the WB BDs just start up in the same place) with my budget 420.

This is disheartening, Chip -- my unit doesn't seem to be functioning like this. But even the manual of the 820 and 9000 says the player WON'T remember places with Blu-ray...maybe the 420 allows for this? That would be downright weird...

Are you hard stopping? if you long press or press twice it wipes the resume data. I'd try powering down and resuming with the PLAY button to see if that helps.

Nope -- not hard stopping. As I mentioned in the post above, I press the STOP button on the remote once enough to have the "Ultra HD Blu-ray" logo come on the screen, which means I pressed stop ONCE. Even when I do this, the player won't recall the last place I left off with Blu-ray either upon immediate playback or when the disc is removed and then played again the next day (it does remember when stopped and then immediately played with DVD).

[IntelliVolume]

Chip:

Please see page 19 of this online manual for your player:

https://help.panasonic.ca/viewing/AL...4/TQBS0234.pdf

It states, too, that the resume function feature ISN'T available with Blu-ray Discs and the unit WON'T remember the last played point if a disc is removed...

[SCLee]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

It doesn’t matter if it is 5 mbps or 100 mbps. Does the picture look good? That’s all that matters. I don’t care if my didc is only running at 2 mbps. If I don’t see artifacts then I’m happy.

It does, yes! I just don't wanna be paying for 60 - 80 mbps and getting 5 to 30! Maybe it's just the reading that's broken but it could be more than that.

[SCLee]

Originally Posted by Mikke73

Well.. if I didn't already have a Panasonic 4K player, I would definitely buy one - just not any of the cheapo models without playback info button or HDR Optimizer.

Do the expensive models have a playback info button though? Or are they doing away with it completely? If the button showed you 5 - 30 mbps, would you be happy with that? Even if it was a false reading.

[Mikke73]

Originally Posted by SCLee

Do the expensive models have a playback info button though? Or are they doing away with it completely? If the button showed you 5 - 30 mbps, would you be happy with that? Even if it was a false reading.

At least UB820 has the button, and of course the top model UB9000. I'm pretty sure UB420 has it too, but that model's availability doesn't look good - at least here in Finland.
And of course I wouldn't be happy with a false reading, but UB820 shows a correct reading.

Anyway, I find it interesting and also a bit troubling that Panasonic seems to remove features when releasing new models, presuming that 450 is meant to replace the 420 which it seems to have done.
In addition to the missing playback info button and HDR Optimizer, 450 also doesn't have the HCX processor, and I've seen some comments suggesting that it has poorer picture quality than 820 because of that - and possibly poorer than the HCX-equipped 420 too, which I think has a pretty much identical picture quality with the 820.
Not a good direction, considering the 820 still costs about 500 euros in Finland, and all the newer models are substantially poorer. Maybe Panasonic thought that performance-wise 420 was too close to the 820, and that is why 450 doesn't have many of the 420's features anymore. That could be a logical explanation, since you can get two 450s for the price of one 820..

[IntelliVolume]

I wanted to report on something in particular I noticed last night after viewing a regular DVD (we rented the latest version of the horror film The Grudge), which brings me back to things I was experiencing when I had the Cambridge player...

For the most part -- and believe this or not -- DVDs have been looking excellent and super-detailed as upscaled by the UB9000 (not something I expected coming from a Panasonic Blu-ray player product, as my experience with them in the past has been less than satisfying to say the least)...perhaps even better, I may dare say, than the Cambridge CXUHD that I was using before. Some scenes look ridiculously Blu-ray-like, especially outdoor sequences, and you'd be hard pressed to know you were looking at DVD resolution if someone told you.

However, I have noticed that the Panasonic trips up every now and then (this may be related to disc mastering though), exhibiting some shimmering and aliasing on horizontal lines in objects on the screen (this seems to be a de-interlacing problem these Panasonics are constantly prone to, as we have discussed here), and while that's annoying enough, in The Grudge DVD last night I noticed a moment when a character is in a pitch-black closet hiding from a demonic entity and the blacks became somewhat pixelated with pretty bad macroblocking...this reminded me of issues I had with DVD upscaling using my first-generation Panasonic DMP-BD10A, which would exhibit macroblocking with difficult saturated colors in scenes, as well as with dark blacks. I guess this is a Panasonic thing...

But here's my query: Even with the NR controls up to "2" on the player's sliders, I saw this macroblocking and "twitchy noise" during this all-black closet sequence...I used to describe colors and blacks looking "noisy" and almost "ghost-like" when I played some DVDs on the CXUHD as upscaled to my Samsung; is something similar happening here with DVDs played back on the Panasonic? Is this because these dark colors or blacks just can't "process" well being upscaled to 2160? Is this something to overtly be concerned with, or something I just need to accept in the era of such high resolutions as 4K?

As I said -- the majority of DVDs look really good through the Panasonic, exhibiting deep, rich color and cleanliness, for the most part, that I never saw before with other players (save, perhaps, my Oppo). But it's these challenging darker sequences that seem to "trip up" the upconversion, causing macroblocking (not in all scenes) and some twitchy noise.

[OracleOfDelphi]

Originally Posted by Mikke73

...
In addition to the missing playback info button and HDR Optimizer, 450 also doesn't have the HCX processor, and I've seen some comments suggesting that it has poorer picture quality than 820 because of that - and possibly poorer than the HCX-equipped 420 too, which I think has a pretty much identical picture quality with the 820.
...

DP-UB150/450 are low-cost devices based on MediaTek SoC while DP-UB420/820/9000 are based on Uniphier SoC (Marketing name used by Panasonic "HCX processor")

Panasonic tried to clone Uniphier UI on the DP-UB150/450 to the best of their ability but even for complete idiots it should be obvious that all the Uniphier related functionality is missing from that junk.

[IntelliVolume]

The latest HCX processor is based on the UniPhier chip used in previous Panny players?

That's news to me...as the UniPhier was used in the first generation DMP-BD10A, which I still own, and yielded pretty shitty DVD upconversion (it's why I bought the Oppo BDP-83 with its Anchor Bay VRS chipset).

[chip75]

Originally Posted by SCLee

Are you saying that if the bitrates were dropping that low (5 mbps to 30 mbps) it would be compressed and very noticeable, in terms of picture quality? Because the picture looks great to me. Hopefully Geoff is correct and it's just a false reading that isn't affecting the actual picture quality. But I have no way of knowing, technology wise.

It would be very noticeable. You can trust Geoff D.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by IntelliVolume

This is disheartening, Chip -- my unit doesn't seem to be functioning like this. But even the manual of the 820 and 9000 says the player WON'T remember places with Blu-ray...maybe the 420 allows for this? That would be downright weird...

When we were discussing the 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 output a few days ago, I was playing a disc, pressing HOME changing the 4K60p Output and Advanced Settings>Color Mode from the Setup menu and pressing PLAY to resume, I had no issues with Disney UHDs or Warner Bros. Blu-rays.

[IntelliVolume]

Originally Posted by chip75

When we were discussing the 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 output a few days ago, I was playing a disc, pressing HOME changing the 4K60p Output and Advanced Settings>Color Mode from the Setup menu and pressing PLAY to resume, I had no issues with Disney UHDs or Warner Bros. Blu-rays.

I don't understand this though; the manual for your player and the 820/9000 clearly states the resume DOESN'T work with Blu-ray content...

Does it have something to do with your region of the world and where you purchased the unit?

With regard to Disney UHDs/Blus: When you go to resume a disc, it doesn't return you to the home menu, after loading the trailers and such, where you're given the "Resume Yes/No" message? You can pick up where you left off just by inserting the disc or hitting PLAY after hitting STOP?

If so, that's very different from how my Disney/Marvel discs behave.

[Mikke73]

Originally Posted by OracleOfDelphi

DP-UB150/450 are low-cost devices based on MediaTek SoC while DP-UB420/820/9000 are based on Uniphier SoC (Marketing name used by Panasonic "HCX processor")

Panasonic tried to clone Uniphier UI on the DP-UB150/450 to the best of their ability but even for complete idiots it should be obvious that all the Uniphier related functionality is missing from that junk.

Yes, I know that DP-UB150/450 and DP-UB420 are low-cost devices, but in this case the older model 420 is better than the newer 450. The fact that 450 has DV support which was missing from 420 doesn't really justify the same price when there are all those changes for the worse.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by IntelliVolume

With regard to Disney UHDs/Blus: When you go to resume a disc, it doesn't return you to the home menu, after loading the trailers and such, where you're given the "Resume Yes/No" message? You can pick up where you left off just by inserting the disc or hitting PLAY after hitting STOP?

If so, that's very different from how my Disney/Marvel discs behave.

Sorry, like I mentioned previously, Disney discs resume to the Resume/Start from the Beginning pop-up, not straight to the feature. Warner Bros. discs just resume playback.