Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[George.P]

Originally Posted by Paul.R.S

As of that Panny outlet's latest response this morning, new 820s are available but not new 9000s. One might conclude from that that at one time they were indeed shipping new 9000s. (So tempting to just get a 9000 as that deck appears to now be "unavailable" from Panny in a way the 820 is not.)

The operative issue appears to be whether your deck is under warranty or not. If it is not and you wish to pay for a replacement, my understanding is that you very well could tender an 820 and pay for a 9000. (But yes of course, you need to send a deck to them.)

Well let us know how you make out in upgrading to a 9000. I’d be game picking up a broken second hand 820 for $300 or less and paying an additional $326 for a 9000…

[James Luckard]

My new 820 arrived from Amazon and I tried out Singin' in the Rain. It played perfectly all the way through.

I tried it again on the old machine and it still broke up into rainbow pixels like crazy.

Clearly, the old machine's laser was the tiniest bit out of alignment or something. It played 99% of discs, but absolutely had seizures when I tried to play a few discs that other people are having trouble with too.

I'm going to try my American West Side Story UHD disc tomorrow night. If it works, I'll know it was mostly the player, and I'll have bought the UK UHD of it for nothing, but I don't really mind, as long as I have a setup that plays movies properly again.

[Geoff D]

Hope your WSS plays. But yeah, I think it shows that the tolerances and/or error correction of these drives are desperately narrow and if you get one that’s just slightly off it’s no good.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Hope your WSS plays. But yeah, I think it shows that the tolerances and/or error correction of these drives are desperately narrow and if you get one that’s just slightly off it’s no good.

Thanks! My American UHD did, indeed, play perfectly tonight on the new 820, just like it played fine on my friend's equally brand-new 820. My old 820 clearly just had some subtle problem with the laser that only showed on a tiny fraction of discs.

Still, WSS is one of my favorite films of the last decade, so it was worth both importing the now-needless UK UHD and buying a new player to be able to watch this masterpiece without glitching.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Hope your WSS plays. But yeah, I think it shows that the tolerances and/or error correction of these drives are desperately narrow and if you get one that’s just slightly off it’s no good.

I remember reading that if you change/replace the drive unit for PlayStations you have to adjust the pots inside with a multimeter, you just can't swap them out. I wonder if the Panasonic players are slightly out-of-whack with some units?

Thankfully haven't had many issues with my players, just* the original Vertigo IT disc, but I honestly haven't played a lot of UHDs on it.

*I did have issues with some DVDs, but they'd been cleaned and needed a rinse under the tap with warm soapy water to remove the gunk that was on them.

[lforigno]

Apologies if this has been asked, are there any plans for a new version of the UB9000. If my memory serves me correct, this came out almost 3 years ago now.

[bhampton]

It has been updated to the UB9000 P1K in 2021.

[lforigno]

Originally Posted by bhampton

It has been updated to the UB9000 P1K in 2021.

Thank you!

[punking]

I’ve had my UB820 since they came out and it’s worked perfectly, but as of today I’m getting a “dynamic range conversion output” message with every 4K UHD and it no longer plays HDR or Dolby Vision.

It’s directly connected to a Sony XBR65X900F and nothing has changed with my setup.

Has anybody ideas of what’s happened?

Thanks

[sephirothkefka]

Originally Posted by punking

I’ve had my UB820 since they came out and it’s worked perfectly, but as of today I’m getting a “dynamic range conversion output” message with every 4K UHD and it no longer plays HDR or Dolby Vision.

It’s connected to a Sony XBR65X900F and nothing has changed with my setup.

Has anybody ideas of what’s happened?

Thanks

Its possible DV and HDR are disabled in the settings. Have you tried confirming theyre on? If not id do a factory reset on the player as i believe that happened to me once with my now old UB820.

[punking]

Originally Posted by sephirothkefka

Its possible DV and HDR are disabled in the settings. Have you tried confirming theyre on? If not id do a factory reset on the player as i believe that happened to me once with my now old UB820.

Factory reset fixed it. Phew panic over! Thank you.

[NeilZ]

Originally Posted by lforigno

Thank you!

But the UB9000 P1K is essentially a repackaged UB9000.

Honestly I hope next year they release new models. It makes it seem like they're giving up on disc players with no new models for this long.

[Badas]

Originally Posted by NeilZ

But the UB9000 P1K is essentially a repackaged UB9000.

Honestly I hope next year they release new models. It makes it seem like they're giving up on disc players with no new models for this long.

They probably are giving up on disc players. I don’t blame them. There is no future in disc players.
My Oppo 103D and Panny UB9000 hasn’t been turned on for months now.
I even have unwrapped UHD’s sitting to go.

I purchased a new smart TV and with the way Apps run and how easy it is the disc is over.
I can hear the crowds screaming “what about quality?” Well the DV streamer movies look just as good as UHD.

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by NeilZ

But the UB9000 P1K is essentially a repackaged UB9000.

Honestly I hope next year they release new models. It makes it seem like they're giving up on disc players with no new models for this long.

They changed some of components for the new model so it's not simply repackaged.

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by Badas

They probably are giving up on disc players. I don’t blame them. There is no future in disc players.
My Oppo 103D and Panny UB9000 hasn’t been turned on for months now.
I even have unwrapped UHD’s sitting to go.

I purchased a new smart TV and with the way Apps run and how easy it is the disc is over.
I can hear the crowds screaming “what about quality?” Well the DV streamer movies look just as good as UHD.

There's a future in discs at my place. I'm glad there's so many new releases.

You may consider unwrapping or returning your UHDs because there are likely Digital Copies inside.

[George.P]

Originally Posted by bhampton

They changed some of components for the new model so it's not simply repackaged.

They had to use different DACs because the AKM DACs were no longer available (which might have required changing some related parts). Many receiver and audio manufacturers also had to do a slight redesign to account for the lack of AKM parts (eg DENON x8500H became x8500HA). So it was out of necessity that changes were made. Visually and functionally there is no difference, though many would say the current version is inferior.

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by George.P

Visually and functionally there is no difference, though many would say the current version is inferior.

I guess people will say just about anything. One review said the new components are for the better.

I've only had the newer one and it's been excellent. If the older one is better, I'm ok with that.



I only use the digital (HDMI) outputs for now so I don't think it matters at all in my use case as they changed the DAC which should only matter for analog outputs. The FW update is more significant and I'll always glad to see updated FW if it's for the better.

[NeilZ]

Originally Posted by bhampton

They changed some of components for the new model so it's not simply repackaged.

Wasn't that only due to some internal components being discontinued? Functionality and features are the same I believe.

[Badas]

Originally Posted by bhampton

There's a future in discs at my place. I'm glad there's so many new releases.

You may consider unwrapping or returning your UHDs because there are likely Digital Copies inside.

Agreed. Still a future here as well. Ownership of a film is still best format.
I will eventually get to the unwrap stack. Actually to put in perspective. I always have a unwatched list. At one point it got to 275 titles.

My point was. You can't expect Panny or any other manufacturer to put any effort into disc players. It's over.
Realistically you can't ask joe average to buy a player, order discs online, get totally confused on how to set it up (settings on player and TV) when they can watch plenty of films/TV shows easily on streaming built into the TV.
Without Joe average then forget it. All the R&D effort right now will be put into streaming.
Player owners are just too small.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by bhampton

There's a future in discs at my place. I'm glad there's so many new releases.

You may consider unwrapping or returning your UHDs because there are likely Digital Copies inside.

Me too… but the disc market is transitioning from a mass consumer sell through format to a collector focused cinephile format. We are seeing more and more ‘classic’ titles with large fan followings get a BD/UHD release handled by boutique labels like Arrow, Shout/Scream Factory, Criterion, Kino Lorber and others. So it’s not all bad news but unfortunately the days of getting new releases for $20 or under is long gone. Retailers are no longer using physical media as a way to generate foot traffic into their stores.

Going into places like Best Buy, Target and Walmart on Tuesdays no longer has the special excitement it once did. Places like Target are downright depressing seeing how much they have shrunk their media sections.