Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[bizzle]

Originally Posted by VanHiscers

Go to player settings—>HDMI—>24p Output, turn it off instead of “auto.”

Funny, I have the same TV and also had sync issues. I ended up just turning the 'Audio Delay' via the 820 to 30ms and that solved it. I'm also listening through a sound bar so YMMV

[Jack Priest]

I don't get the playback info. For around 50% of discs I've tried, it looks like this, showing 0 nits etc. And saying "HDR10 metadata" for Dolby Vision discs (The TV has Dolby Vision too and appears to be working.), I'm not sure if it's meant to say that.

Should it be doing this?

[Jack Priest]

Originally Posted by chip75

I couldn't get the update to work from a stick, it just kept going, if your player is Wi-Fi/Ethernet connected you can just update it from the menu. But if you have to use a USB stick it just needs to have the unzipped update on the drive and I think it needs to be FAT32 so if yours is NTFS you'd have to reformat it (back-up anything on the drive first) and then add the update.

Okay, great, thanks. It shouldn't matter that my USB stick is 16GB then?

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Jack Priest

I don't get the playback info. For around 50% of discs I've tried, it looks like this, showing 0 nits etc. And saying "HDR10 metadata" for Dolby Vision discs (The TV has Dolby Vision too and appears to be working.), I'm not sure if it's meant to say that.

Should it be doing this?

Not all disc provide MAXFLL and MLL data as far as I recall.

Originally Posted by Jack Priest

Okay, great, thanks. It shouldn't matter that my USB stick is 16GB then?

It might be an issue, but if you don't have an alternative it's worth trying. Doing it over Wi-Fi is simple if you have the means.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Jack Priest

I don't get the playback info. For around 50% of discs I've tried, it looks like this, showing 0 nits etc. And saying "HDR10 metadata" for Dolby Vision discs (The TV has Dolby Vision too and appears to be working.), I'm not sure if it's meant to say that.

Should it be doing this?

Yes, it should be doing this. Keep in mind that every single Dolby Vision UHD disc will have what's called a 'base layer' that's in HDR10, this is why the metadata still shows up when you press the info button when playing a DV disc.

However, see how the right hand column is blank? That's because the output is DV so it's not sending any of that metadata to the TV, it's just showing you what the HDR10 layer contains on the left column. If you play a disc that's HDR10 only the metadata will show up on the right hand column as well because it's sending that information to the TV.

And don't be perturbed by the 0 nits for MaxFALL and MaxCLL. As chip rightly says, not all discs actually carry this information. Some studios put that data on there, some don't. Discs from Universal, Lionsgate, Sony and Warners will usually have the CLL/FALL figures while those from Paramount, Fox and Disnee typically do not, though there are exceptions on both sides. StudioCanal don't often bother with CLL/FALL either.

Does any of that make sense?

[Guydowood]

My Panny UB820 is just a week old, but 20 movies in and UHD/BD discs have played flawlessly! Not to mention the discs look much better then before.

I retired the Sony X700 Freeze Machine with the X800M2 but got tired on manually having to switch to play Dolby Vision discs. I went with the LGUBK90 and got good use out of it until roughly every other UHD would freeze more often then not.

Hopefully now this UB820 will run extremely well for the next several years because my wife is pissed I’ve replaced 2 players in the last year and a half! 😆

Long Live Panasonic UB820-Kenobi 😂

[jordanburns]

Originally Posted by bizzle

Funny, I have the same TV and also had sync issues. I ended up just turning the 'Audio Delay' via the 820 to 30ms and that solved it. I'm also listening through a sound bar so YMMV

You too have a 2018 TCL 6 Series and have audio sync issues with your Panasonic UB820? If so I think that confirms that it’s the tv giving me the issue and not the Panasonic. I don’t want to turn on audio delay because half the disks I try don’t have an issue. So if I delay the audio it messes it up for the ones that work.

[Matt89]

So I picked up my UB820 a couple weeks back, upgraded from a Sony X700 (huge upgrade btw lol got so sick of having to manually switch DV on/off, and the freezing was starting to drive me nuts). Overall, I'm loving it. I've only really had the fluctuating brightness issue on Kino's Invasion of the Body Snatchers and SC's UHD of The Fog but another issue I've noticed is sometimes when I play back 1080p discs, the gamma levels are raised. Like the black bars look greyish instead of a deep black. I pop the same disc into my region-free Sony BDP-S1200 and those issues are not there. Not sure why the 820 is doing this. Paramount's Region A disc of Titanic has this issue, as does Powerhouse's disc of Roadgames. Has anyone else had this problem? Firmware is up to date.

Also, had no idea this player was essentially region free. Using the Top Menu trick or hitting 1 and then OK has worked on nearly every Region B disc I've tested. The only one I've found to be hard locked to Region B is 88 Films' blu of Terror Train. I tested out dozens of discs and they pretty much all worked. Pretty cool. The only issue is the gamma thing that's going on with some 1080 discs.

~Matt

[VanHiscers]

Originally Posted by jordanburns

You too have a 2018 TCL 6 Series and have audio sync issues with your Panasonic UB820? If so I think that confirms that it’s the tv giving me the issue and not the Panasonic. I don’t want to turn on audio delay because half the disks I try don’t have an issue. So if I delay the audio it messes it up for the ones that work.

Did you try turning the 24p setting off at all?

[manwithnoname64]

Originally Posted by panasonicst60

Yup seen it the other day for that price and even though I have the ub820 I was so close to pull the trigger at that price. Great pick up. Can't bet that price. It's OOS now though.

It looks like my open box from woot was a Crutchfield return/damaged box. The box was in pretty bad shape and the packaging was obviously opened. I’ll test it out. Is there any way to see how many hours the player has been used?

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by manwithnoname64

It looks like my open box from woot was a Crutchfield return/damaged box. The box was in pretty bad shape and the packaging was obviously opened. I’ll test it out. Is there any way to see how many hours the player has been used?

Unfortunately there is no way to find out.

Believe it or not, however, when people return their 820/9000 is because they don’t see the improvements over other players. And the reason for that is because usually they don’t set up the player properly. See the link in my signature for the detailed set up (far too long to type here).

[Gold Ranger]

I need the region unlock...
I now have only one movie that won't play with the Top Menu trick.

[bizzle]

Originally Posted by jordanburns

You too have a 2018 TCL 6 Series and have audio sync issues with your Panasonic UB820? If so I think that confirms that it’s the tv giving me the issue and not the Panasonic. I don’t want to turn on audio delay because half the disks I try don’t have an issue. So if I delay the audio it messes it up for the ones that work.

Ah, sorry, I've got the 2020 TCL 6 Series model (R635). I also misspoke and said I set the Audio delay to 30ms, and I meant to say 130ms.

Regardless, I drove myself crazy during the first month with this player and the audio delay. I was starting to convince myself that only DTS tracks had the delay and Dolby tracks worked fine. At some point I read about the audio delay switch to 130ms and it seemed to align everything up. Again, I'm still not totally sure if this was a TV, SoundBar or Panny issue, but I decided to just stop stressing about it, as the delay setting worked.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Unfortunately there is no way to find out.

Believe it or not, however, when people return their 820/9000 is because they don’t see the improvements over other players. And the reason for that is because usually they don’t set up the player properly. See the link in my signature for the detailed set up (far too long to type here).

Eh, if people *are* seeing a massive difference between this and any other player (when playing content day to day without any bespoke processing like the Optimiser) then they're doing it wrong.

[manwithnoname64]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Unfortunately there is no way to find out.

Believe it or not, however, when people return their 820/9000 is because they don’t see the improvements over other players. And the reason for that is because usually they don’t set up the player properly. See the link in my signature for the detailed set up (far too long to type here).

Thanks for the info. I’m pretty excited to upgrade to a premium DV capable player. I’ve just been using a PS5 up until this point. I’ll follow the set up instructions in the link. Thank you!

[JB27]

My Sony X700 is starting to freeze and I'm looking for a new player. Is the Panasonic 820 considered the best bang for your buck for those on a budget?

[VanHiscers]

Originally Posted by bizzle

Ah, sorry, I've got the 2020 TCL 6 Series model (R635). I also misspoke and said I set the Audio delay to 30ms, and I meant to say 130ms.

Regardless, I drove myself crazy during the first month with this player and the audio delay. I was starting to convince myself that only DTS tracks had the delay and Dolby tracks worked fine. At some point I read about the audio delay switch to 130ms and it seemed to align everything up. Again, I'm still not totally sure if this was a TV, SoundBar or Panny issue, but I decided to just stop stressing about it, as the delay setting worked.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it's the TV. I'd run into this issue whether I chose to connect my Apple TV 4K directly to the TV, or via my Sony sound bar, same with my PS4 and the blu-ray player. All their issues went away after I made them all output at 60fps. I still love my TV, but since it is a value brand, I figure they have to cheap out somewhere, not being able to do 24fps or 50fps as a 4K TV that can go up to 120fps sound like an OK trade-off to me.

[VanHiscers]

Originally Posted by Matt89

Also, had no idea this player was essentially region free. Using the Top Menu trick or hitting 1 and then OK has worked on nearly every Region B disc I've tested. The only one I've found to be hard locked to Region B is 88 Films' blu of Terror Train. I tested out dozens of discs and they pretty much all worked. Pretty cool. The only issue is the gamma thing that's going on with some 1080 discs.

~Matt

I just tried a few of the Region-B locked blu-ray discs of some of the recent 4K UHD StudioCanal releases, and it worked! My mind is so blown right now. Needless to say I'm loving this player even more compared with my previous freeze-ridden Sony X800M2.

[jordanburns]

Originally Posted by VanHiscers

Did you try turning the 24p setting off at all?

I boxed up the Panasonic in thinking I’d have to return it, but maybe I’ll unbox it and hook it back up and try this. What does the 24p setting do? If I weren’t having any issues would I still want to turn this off? If not, why not? By the way, thanks for offering advice on how to get the issue corrected!

[VanHiscers]

Originally Posted by jordanburns

I boxed up the Panasonic in thinking I’d have to return it, but maybe I’ll unbox it and hook it back up and try this. What does the 24p setting do? If I weren’t having any issues would I still want to turn this off? If not, why not? By the way, thanks for offering advice on how to get the issue corrected!

Do NOT return the player: if you have been reading this thread, you'll see this player is a solid player--it's our TCL TVs that can't handle contents in 24fps (frames per second).

Most of today's 4K TVs' default frame rate is 60fps. It's because that's what a lot of 4K contents are being made in nowadays, but most TV shows and movies we see were made in 24fps, and 60 is just a number that computer can easily convert to from 24.

Our TV brand is a value brand, so they're only optimized at 60fps. When the external device is outputting 24fps, our TV is converting it to 60fps (a higher-end TV will simply switch to a 24fps frame rate), causing the audio sync issue. That's why you need to turn off the 24p setting in order for the player to convert the video signal to 60fps itself, so our TV can receive the video and audio signals that's already synced by the player.