Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[NeilZ]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

The 820 is definitely the most "sensitive" player I've ever owned when it comes to making sure discs are clean. I've chuckled at times seeing how the tiniest little fraction of a finger print on a disc edge can trip up the 820 playback.

I had this happen a couple times on the Sony X800 too but I agree the Panasonics might be a bit more sensitive.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by NeilZ

I had this happen a couple times on the Sony X800 too but I agree the Panasonics might be a bit more sensitive.

With my former Oppo 203, it wasn't much of an issue.

[BIGRED1977]

Quick question that I assume might have been answered before.....

Watching Wonder Woman 4K disc on my LG CX and using the UB820 we experienced a few instances of the black bars flickering, it was really distracting. Wondering if anyone has experienced similar and if a fix was ever discovered? I haven't noticed this on any other disc but I've read that Black Panther has similar problems. Will give the disc a try on my Sony player latter and see if that has a similar issue.

Cheers

[David M]

Originally Posted by cupboy

That's disappointing for Panasonic. It should ignore region locks on UHDs. Other players do that too?

The way BDs are authored, a player manufacturer wouldn't have that option. If the disc is authored in a way that queries the part of the player's memory that holds its BD region code and sends the user to a dead-end area of the disc, they have little way of detecting that. It’d essentially be asking them to design in hacks to second-guess the code on the disc.

[pbz06]

Originally Posted by BIGRED1977

Quick question that I assume might have been answered before.....

Watching Wonder Woman 4K disc on my LG CX and using the UB820 we experienced a few instances of the black bars flickering, it was really distracting. Wondering if anyone has experienced similar and if a fix was ever discovered? I haven't noticed this on any other disc but I've read that Black Panther has similar problems. Will give the disc a try on my Sony player latter and see if that has a similar issue.

Cheers

Try disabling DV from the player settings. See if it still does it. I've noticed anomalies like that with various Dolby Vision content...It (the movie) did the same thing

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

The 820 is definitely the most "sensitive" player I've ever owned when it comes to making sure discs are clean. I've chuckled at times seeing how the tiniest little fraction of a finger print on a disc edge can trip up the 820 playback.

I honestly haven't had any sensitivity issues with my 820. I've had mine since 2019. My only issues were related to the power that was going to the player and a handshake issue. The power issue came from my older Monster Surge Protector. Ever since I replaced that with a Monoprice one, the 820 has played every disc flawlessly. And the handshake issue was solved by switching the HDMI resolution settings from Auto Detection to straight 4K.

With all of these complaints about the 820 and 9000 in recent months, I wonder if maybe the production value has decreased since COVID hit. I feel bad for Panasonic because they can't control the pandemic and I'm sure they are trying hard to do what they can.

[Geoff D]

Yeah I’ve gotta say that the 820 has been bulletproof for me. The only two UHD discs that played up were one with a massive scratch and another with a dent in it (a dent which the 820 managed to play past after it stuttered while the OPPO locked up completely).

[martinstraka8282]

*Knock wood* Both of my 820's have been flawless after I got past the weird issue I initially had on one of them where it wouldn't read a disk anytime I left it in it and tried to play the same disk. An eject always worked for it and after forcing the 1.66 firmware the issue just went away.

[Badas]

820 and 9000 has been rock solid for me.
Only issue was Star Trek UHD which was a bad pressing because the replacement disc played flawlessly.

[NeilZ]

Each of my UHD players had had issues on 2 to 3 discs. After cleaning they always worked perfectly though. I love the Panny 820 the best.

[bnmdjm]

My UB820 stuttered on so many discs I finally decided to go out and try a 9000. It has been 100% flawless on every disc that the 820 had problems on.

[hgwy407]

I am one of the early adopters of the 820 and have had zero issues with playback of any of the discs I have played. Rock solid.

[teddyballgame]

I haven't ran a ton of discs through my 820 (probably 75ish) but no hiccup so far. Always good to check the underside of the disc before inserting it

[NeilZ]

Originally Posted by hgwy407

I am one of the early adopters of the 820 and have had zero issues with playback of any of the discs I have played. Rock solid.

I’ve had the lockups on the 9000 too, which is why I switched to the 820 actually. However after a while I ended up on discs that did that there too. Sometimes I’m considering just cleaning all new discs to prevent any issues during playback.

[V.M. Varga]

I just installed the rattlebyte modkit on my UB820. Pretty nerve wracking, but I'm happy that my main player is now also region free.

[gto35830]

Originally Posted by V.M. Varga

I just installed the rattlebyte modkit on my UB820. Pretty nerve wracking, but I'm happy that my main player is now also region free.

Hello. Would you be kind enough togive a little bit of info on this mod kit? Haven't heard of it and would like to look into. Thanks.

[gto35830]

Hello all. Just wanted to find out some information and thought maybe someone here might know. I just picked up an UP9000 at Best Buy about a month ago as an open box. I know that the latest firmware should be 1.60, but when I checked the version that I had, it was 1.64. Anyone know what this might b or have come from. I am not having any problems at this time with the unit, but was wondering where 1.64 would have come from. Thank for all of your help and info.

[V.M. Varga]

Originally Posted by gto35830

Hello. Would you be kind enough togive a little bit of info on this mod kit? Haven't heard of it and would like to look into. Thanks.

It's a mod kit that you can order from rattlebyte.com. The kit makes it possible for you to install a firmware from the site that makes your player regionfree (you just have to select the region with your remote). Installing the kit requires some soldering and thus makes the warranty void, so it's a little risky.

[Mobe1969]

Ugh, so I'd have to drop back to V1.60 with that mod, and maybe sometime in the future if Panasonic ever bother release an auto network update, I'd get an upgrade?

I wish the units were just multi voltage like the pioneers - I'd just import a Region A model.

[sephirothkefka]

Originally Posted by gto35830

Hello all. Just wanted to find out some information and thought maybe someone here might know. I just picked up an UP9000 at Best Buy about a month ago as an open box. I know that the latest firmware should be 1.60, but when I checked the version that I had, it was 1.64. Anyone know what this might b or have come from. I am not having any problems at this time with the unit, but was wondering where 1.64 would have come from. Thank for all of your help and info.

The 1.64 FW is a firmware that seems to be only pre installed on newer UB820/9000 machines or for certain regions on the Panasonic FW updater website (though they work fine for all regions). My UB820 is currently on 1.66 from the Chinese FW website and it works perfectly.