Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Yogi6807]

Originally Posted by bhampton

That would be delightful but as I said the drives were not inter changeable and so no repairs were made and everything is put back together.

The UB150 is new and works well.

The UB9000 is out of warranty and works well but the drive doesn't always open and close without using the sliding mechanism below the player.

If I ordered a replacement drive for the UB9000, I would be happy to document the repair ... probably not a video but certainly some pictures.

As it stands, ... The new player works and I have other things to budget for so I'm most likely going to wait on repairs of the UB9000.

You are aware the 150 is the worst 4k blu ray player you could buy. It doesn't display scenes.properly. For example if something is bright it will be dim on thatplayer. Vincent teoh made. a.video about it.

[Yogi6807]

Originally Posted by bhampton

I found a webpage where parts are available.

https://panasonic.encompass.com/modelbrowse/MSC/5/2

This page with parts for my UB9000PK1 specifically... The Disc Drive in my case is $206.95 and in stock.

https://panasonic.encompass.com/model/MSCDPUB9000P1K

I know I would be doing the installation myself for my player which is out of warranty and currently not in use.

Edit - I removed the drive from both my UB9000 and UB150. The connecting cables are not the same and a swap is not possible. Just FYI.

Just checked the price for a drive on the 420. It cost more than I paid for my 420 new

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by Yogi6807

You are aware the 150 is the worst 4k blu ray player you could buy. It doesn't display scenes.properly. For example if something is bright it will be dim on thatplayer. Vincent teoh made. a.video about it.

Do you have a link to the video? I trust Vincent so I would like to see it. I searched the HDTVTest videos on YouTube and did not see this video.

(Edit - I did see Linus Tech Tips guy did a video so maybe you are confused. I didn't bother with his video. I'm not a fan of Linus Tech Tips.)

It has been working well for me and I haven't noticed any difference going from my UB9000 to this player. I wasn't using the HDR Optimizer of the UB9000 or Dolby Vision or the analog audio outputs. I will look into the video and also check the player with my test discs. Inside this player the circuit board is tiny. I assume it's basically just providing the digital information directly from the disc to the HDMI digital output and so far I have been impressed with it.

If it is providing some clipping or some form of image inaccuracy that I can verify I will return the player as I only just purchased it and kept the box and receipt. Maybe I'll just buy a replacement drive for my UB9000. Maybe I will do that anyway and keep them both.

[TheHighRoller]

I noticed that the upscaling on Blu-rays is a million times better on this than the Sony X700. The Sony made them kind of look a bit pixelated if you really looked at it. The black levels also had this weird kind of blue and green artifacting.

The Panasonic DP-UB820 does a great job of upscaling and making it look better than the Blu-ray, and the black levels aren't weird. I'm sure some of it is my Sony 4K TV, which I kind of modeled after the rtings settings (even though they had theirs professionally calibrated, and recommended the RBG levels aren't copied since it varies from TV to TV). But even then, theres a noticeable difference between the two.



One good thing I will say about the Sony is that it handled scratched/damaged discs better than the Panasonic DP-UB820. With the Sony, you could rewind or fast forward through any issues for the most part. With the Panasonic, the whole system seems to freeze to the point I have to go to Home or straight up eject / close the disc and go back to the menu.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by Hedrox

I mean yeah, but they're used any time you play a disc anyway. It's not like the motor has to spin the disc faster when you're fast-forwarding.

When you fast forward or rewind a movie, the disc spin rate does not change,

Actually it does change. At the start of the movie the disc spins the fastest, at the end of the movie (when the laser is reading the most outside part of the disc,) the disc spins at it's slowest speed.

A typical Blu-ray spins roughly at 1957 RPM (from the inside of the disc) to 810 RPM at the outer most part of the disc.

In a way your probably correct, if the change is about 10 seconds or so, it probably doesn't have to change much at all, but for the most part the rate of rotation constantly changes.

A 33 1/3 RPM record's rotational rate is content...so the highest fidelity of audio is always on the outer groves.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Do you have a link to the video? I trust Vincent so I would like to see it. I searched the HDTVTest videos on YouTube and did not see this video.

(Edit - I did see Linus Tech Tips guy did a video so maybe you are confused. I didn't bother with his video. I'm not a fan of Linus Tech Tips.)

It has been working well for me and I haven't noticed any difference going from my UB9000 to this player. I wasn't using the HDR Optimizer of the UB9000 or Dolby Vision or the analog audio outputs. I will look into the video and also check the player with my test discs. Inside this player the circuit board is tiny. I assume it's basically just providing the digital information directly from the disc to the HDMI digital output and so far I have been impressed with it.

If it is providing some clipping or some form of image inaccuracy that I can verify I will return the player as I only just purchased it and kept the box and receipt. Maybe I'll just buy a replacement drive for my UB9000. Maybe I will do that anyway and keep them both.

That video may be a older video when display manufacturers were still trying to implement Dolby Vision on the TV sets themselves. When it comes to Dolby Vision, most TVs today are what they call player led...meaning the Dolby Vision processing happens in the display. Player led Dolby Vision happens from the player and sends that info the the display which is not as a good because the player has no way of knowing what the real limitation of the display are. With display led Dolby Vision, the TV knows it's own limits on what it can or cannot do.

Player led Dolby Vision tended to have less APL when compared to the same scene on TVs that have player led Dolby Vision.

Dolby Vision in general (even today) has issues when it comes to displaying Dolby Vision properly. Some scenes that are suppose to be bright can be dimmer than they should be and via versa (if on a Sony set and the TV is set to Dolby Bright.) It's the fault of the exemplification of Dolby Vision in the TV itself, not the player.

However, I'm not familiar with the lower end Panasonic player in question or if it is capable of DV or not.

I like Vincent too but issues with Dolby Vision is not something I've heard him talk about for at least two years.

I'm still waiting for the TV manufacturers to improve the way they handle Dolby Vision. I do know this, LG is the best at handling DV properly. DV problems on other sets are there, but you're not really going to know about it unless you have something to compare it to.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Do you have a link to the video? I trust Vincent so I would like to see it. I searched the HDTVTest videos on YouTube and did not see this video.

(Edit - I did see Linus Tech Tips guy did a video so maybe you are confused. I didn't bother with his video. I'm not a fan of Linus Tech Tips.)

It has been working well for me and I haven't noticed any difference going from my UB9000 to this player. I wasn't using the HDR Optimizer of the UB9000 or Dolby Vision or the analog audio outputs. I will look into the video and also check the player with my test discs. Inside this player the circuit board is tiny. I assume it's basically just providing the digital information directly from the disc to the HDMI digital output and so far I have been impressed with it.

If it is providing some clipping or some form of image inaccuracy that I can verify I will return the player as I only just purchased it and kept the box and receipt. Maybe I'll just buy a replacement drive for my UB9000. Maybe I will do that anyway and keep them both.

By the way, if it's tone mapping that's the issue (I don't think that's what he was talking about) remember here are the settings in detail to help you pick the best one for the nit rating of (of your TV) for tone mapping.

OLED 1000
Super High Luminance LCD 1500
Middle or High LuminanceLCD 1000
Basic Luminance LCD & Projector 500

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by TheHighRoller

I noticed that the upscaling on Blu-rays is a million times better on this than the Sony X700. The Sony made them kind of look a bit pixelated if you really looked at it. The black levels also had this weird kind of blue and green artifacting.

The Panasonic DP-UB820 does a great job of upscaling and making it look better than the Blu-ray, and the black levels aren't weird. I'm sure some of it is my Sony 4K TV,

You say your TV is a Sony. The Sony's upscaling is known to be better than what the Panasonic is capable of.

Try it, I think you'll be amazed.

Next time you put in a regular Blu-ray, go to the settings on your Panasonic player and set it to output 1080p. That way the TV is forced to upconvert 1080p to 4K.

It's a bit of a inconvenience I know, but you'll notice almost right away a nice difference!

Too bad the AUTO feature does nothing more but detect what type of TV you have so it AUTOMATICALLY sets the output to 4K no matter what type of disc you put in. What you really need to do (if you care about image quality) is to set your player at 1080p when you put in Blu-rays, and set it to 4K when you pop in UHD Blu-rays.

I don't know what Sony TV you have, but I have the 83A90J and it really does make a noticeable difference.

[MooneyRara]

Originally Posted by chip75

Can you expand on this a bit? things like cost and installation.

The drive was ~ $200. I did the install myself and it took about 30 mins.

Trickiest part was the ribbon cable from the motherboard as it doesn't have a mating connector.

[Show spoiler]IMG_20230728_135501696_12.jpg

IMG_20230728_143424154_12.jpg

[BXR 1138]

Originally Posted by MooneyRara

The drive was ~ $200. I did the install myself and it took about 30 mins.

Trickiest part was the ribbon cable from the motherboard as it doesn't have a mating connector.

[Show spoiler]Attachment 294929

Attachment 294930

I can't tell from the pictures, does the connector on the drive have a latch to release the ribbon cable or do you just pull it straight out?

[MooneyRara]

Originally Posted by BXR 1138

I can't tell from the pictures, does the connector on the drive have a latch to release the ribbon cable or do you just pull it straight out?

No latching mechanism. Just careful out and in. And don't give up.

[Yogi6807]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Do you have a link to the video? I trust Vincent so I would like to see it. I searched the HDTVTest videos on YouTube and did not see this video.

(Edit - I did see Linus Tech Tips guy did a video so maybe you are confused. I didn't bother with his video. I'm not a fan of Linus Tech Tips.)

It has been working well for me and I haven't noticed any difference going from my UB9000 to this player. I wasn't using the HDR Optimizer of the UB9000 or Dolby Vision or the analog audio outputs. I will look into the video and also check the player with my test discs. Inside this player the circuit board is tiny. I assume it's basically just providing the digital information directly from the disc to the HDMI digital output and so far I have been impressed with it.

If it is providing some clipping or some form of image inaccuracy that I can verify I will return the player as I only just purchased it and kept the box and receipt. Maybe I'll just buy a replacement drive for my UB9000. Maybe I will do that anyway and keep them both.

No but it is a video where he compared it side by side vs the Sony x700. He was pointing out all the flaws in the video. What I told you is all I can remember. I have searched and not found it.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by MooneyRara

The drive was ~ $200. I did the install myself and it took about 30 mins.

Was the drive ready to go? as it's a complete unit it didn't need any tweaking?

[MooneyRara]

Originally Posted by chip75

Was the drive ready to go? as it's a complete unit it didn't need any tweaking?

Ready to go out of the box. Fully housed and assembled. Four mounting screws for those standoffs shown in the first picture of my previous post. The only connection for the drive itself is that ribbon cable. When buttoning the unit up, there's cutouts to align for the power and eject buttons. The 820 is one of the easier units I've come across for disassembly and reassembly.



I ordered the drive from Encompass. Got here quick, too:
https://panasonic.encompass.com/item...sonic/TXP0034/

[B.inthe6]

Further to the topic of possible stress on the player with REW & FF (& 10sec REW) I wanted to inquire if there could be potential harm to a disc or player with lengthy pausing ( sometimes until the player turns off automatically after a few minutes of pause). Is there any chance the laser could somehow "burn" the disc at that point, maybe resulting in a weak "freeze" point? Can't help but think about burn-in on OLED TV's. Some discs only have pause feature while others have a stop & resume feature. I quite frequently need to pause play to attend to something, & it's very inconvenient to have to stop (rather than pause) play if it requires a complete restart after noting chapter & time.(with a pause only disc). I don't even like to leave a disc in the player overnight. Thanks.

[Yogi6807]

Originally Posted by bhampton

Do you have a link to the video? I trust Vincent so I would like to see it. I searched the HDTVTest videos on YouTube and did not see this video.

(Edit - I did see Linus Tech Tips guy did a video so maybe you are confused. I didn't bother with his video. I'm not a fan of Linus Tech Tips.)

It has been working well for me and I haven't noticed any difference going from my UB9000 to this player. I wasn't using the HDR Optimizer of the UB9000 or Dolby Vision or the analog audio outputs. I will look into the video and also check the player with my test discs. Inside this player the circuit board is tiny. I assume it's basically just providing the digital information directly from the disc to the HDMI digital output and so far I have been impressed with it.

If it is providing some clipping or some form of image inaccuracy that I can verify I will return the player as I only just purchased it and kept the box and receipt. Maybe I'll just buy a replacement drive for my UB9000. Maybe I will do that anyway and keep them both.

I'm just curious. Does the 9000 remote.work on the 150 like it does the 420 and 820?

[bhampton]

Originally Posted by Yogi6807

I'm just curious. Does the 9000 remote.work on the 150 like it does the 420 and 820?

Yes

[Zechs Merquise]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but I'm looking to buy a 4K player and was wondering: say I had £1000 to spend. Would it be better to spend the entire amount on the ultra high end UB9000 or would it be best to spend half of it on the cheaper UB820 and spend the other £500 on movies?

[bl4ck]

UB820 cost ~ 300£ max 350£.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Zechs Merquise

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but I'm looking to buy a 4K player and was wondering: say I had £1000 to spend. Would it be better to spend the entire amount on the ultra high end UB9000 or would it be best to spend half of it on the cheaper UB820 and spend the other £500 on movies?

It will depends on your needs if you're just using HDMI, there isn't really going to be any difference with AV. But if you need Balanced audio outputs or want some hefty for a theater rack the 9000 might suit you. Although I don't think it has rack mounts?