Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by DougieJ

Yes hitting eject on the remote started the player and opened the tray, was the only way to open it. Bought the player last November, my first issue with it. And hopefully the last, but reading this thread kinda worries me.

I have an Oppo 103 blu-ray player, bought it in 2013. Never had an issue, still going strong 10 years on, and I've used it a LOT. What a workhorse. But I suppose, if I look up forum threads about it I'll find that people have had issues with that machine as well. Probably been very lucky. Hopefully the 820 will last many years as well. But I think I will continue using the Oppo for blu-rays and use the 820 for 4K only. Just in case the 820 is a bit more fragile.

In that case, here's a couple videos you might be interested in...

I know your Oppo is the 103 but at least with the Panasonic, the 9000 (per the 2nd video) performs about the same (video wise) 820. I don't know about the 900 how that performs to the 820 but the comparisons are very interesting.

OPPO UDP-203 vs Panasonic DMP-UB900: Picture Quality Comparison - YouTube

Panasonic UB9000 4K Blu-ray Player Review (vs OPPO 203) - YouTube

[barrett75]

Originally Posted by allstarr373

Please see video link

I noticed this started happening after I updated my firmware that was just released a few weeks back.

Not sure what's going on, if it's others or just me.


https://imgur.com/a/ArFgd7z

same here. it happened twice yesterday only on the menu of two new 4k discs: The wicked man (SC) and The Mist (LG). was a little bit worried, never happened before. probably something in the new firmware

[rickardl]

Can anyone recommend a blu-ray/DVD lens cleaner disk for the 820 or is that not a good idea to use?

[Loneliest rider]

Originally Posted by thebarnman

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.

I prefer the upscaling of these Panasonic players. I've compared the upscaling of both Sony A80K (a 2022 OLED) and a UHP-H1 and there was no difference between them. The UHP-H1 is a 2016 model blu ray player that can upscale video to 4K, but that option has to be turned on manually. The 'auto' resolution setting only upscales up to 2K. The Panasonic UB9000's upscaling smooths out aliasing in the edges, if it exists, but the image is not blurred as a result. It's hard to explain, but it makes the video seem closer to native 4K than either of those Sony products. The colors also seem to have more range, other artifacts of upscaling such as smeared noise look less prominent. Must be magic.

[Nightman04]

Anyone else having issues playing the new Little Mermaid 4k release on their UB820? I’m getting a lot of pixelation. Plays fine on my ps5.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Loneliest rider

I prefer the upscaling of these Panasonic players. I've compared the upscaling of both Sony A80K and a UHP-H1 and there was no difference. The UHP-H1 is a 2016 model blu ray player that can upscale video to 4K, but that option has to be turned on manually. The 'auto' resolution setting only upscales up to 2K. The Panasonic UB9000's upscaling smooths out aliasing in the edges, if they exist, but the image is not blurred as a result. It's hard to explain, but it makes the video seem closer to native 4K than either of those Sony products. The colors also seem to have more range. Must be magic.

Upscaling and downscaling is in art, in addition to being a science. You can't just increase/decrease the resolution of something and do nothing else, otherwise there will be obvious scaling artifacts. So all of these players have their own special sauce (or the special sauce of the chipset they use), in the case of Panasonic 420/820/9000 its their own unique algorithm which is quite excellent - perhaps the best I've seen. It also offers lots of user controls to tweak the output which is uncommon these days.

[CreasyBear]

Are they or have they ever addressed the flickering in Dolby Vision on certain titles, namely from Shout and Kino, with the Panny players?

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Are they or have they ever addressed the flickering in Dolby Vision on certain titles, namely from Shout and Kino, with the Panny players?

Yes, i think most of those it was fixed in last year firmware update, but there was a new one that came out just a few weeks ago (1.76)

[CreasyBear]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Yes, i think most of those it was fixed in last year firmware update, but there was a new one that came out just a few weeks ago (1.76)

Ronin was still flickering and that was a few months ago. I'll have to test some discs.

[Matt89]

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Are they or have they ever addressed the flickering in Dolby Vision on certain titles, namely from Shout and Kino, with the Panny players?

From what I've seen, it seems to be the combo of the Panny and Sony TVs that cause this flickering in DV (but I may be wrong). And it's not like a constant flicker, it's more like the brightness levels will shift when a scene cuts. I assume it's the same for you. On Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for example, one place it happens is near the beginning of the film when Brooke Adams is looking out the window of their apt at Art Hindle throwing the trash into the garbage truck. Happens like 2 or 3 times whenever the shot cuts from the window to the street. I feel like the issue stopped with some of their releases for a little while but many of their recent ones have this issue again. Do you have a Sony TV?

Originally Posted by Ruined

Yes, i think most of those it was fixed in last year firmware update, but there was a new one that came out just a few weeks ago (1.76)

It definitely wasn't fixed in the last firmware update (and admittedly I haven't downloaded the latest one so I can't speak to that, I should download it today actually and check but honestly I doubt it's been fixed). But yeah, all those flickery DV discs from Kino and Shout still flicker in exactly the same places. Halloween 3/4 comes to mind, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers from Kino. Shit drives me absolutely nuts. It's the main reason I kept my Sony X700. Can't watch those discs in my UB820.

[Matt89]

Also happens on a bunch of Blue Underground UHDs too I should add.

[CreasyBear]

Originally Posted by Matt89

From what I've seen, it seems to be the combo of the Panny and Sony TVs that cause this flickering in DV (but I may be wrong). And it's not like a constant flicker, it's more like the brightness levels will shift when a scene cuts. I assume it's the same for you. On Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for example, one place it happens is near the beginning of the film when Brooke Adams is looking out the window of their apt at Art Hindle throwing the trash into the garbage truck. Happens like 2 or 3 times whenever the shot cuts from the window to the street. I feel like the issue stopped with some of their releases for a little while but many of their recent ones have this issue again. Do you have a Sony TV?

Yeah, I have a Sony A80J. I just run the UB9000 in HDR, anymore. I got tired of having to turn DV off on certain titles and I have more control if the HDR grade is too dark (Wolf of Wall Street, for instance). But it would be nice if it just...worked...the way it's supposed to and not have issues. Titles like the Halloween 4K's, I run in DV on my Sony X800M2 because the DV on those titles covers up the faults of the shit HDR encode, and they have the flickering issue on the Panny.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Matt89

Also happens on a bunch of Blue Underground UHDs too I should add.

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Yeah, I have a Sony A80J. I just run the UB9000 in HDR anymore. Got tired of having to turn DV off on certain titles and I have more control if the HDR grade is too dark (Wolf of Wall Street, for instance). But it would be nice if it just...worked...the way it's supposed to and not have issues. Titles like the Halloween 4K's, I run in DV on my Sony X800M2 because the DV on those titles covers up the faults of the shit HDR encode.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...ostcount=12736

confirmation from a couple users that at least one kino disc DV flicker gone with 1.76. not sure if anyone tested the shouts/BUs mentioned.

[Matt89]

Originally Posted by CreasyBear

Yeah, I have a Sony A80J. I just run the UB9000 in HDR, anymore. I got tired of having to turn DV off on certain titles and I have more control if the HDR grade is too dark (Wolf of Wall Street, for instance). But it would be nice if it just...worked...the way it's supposed to and not have issues. Titles like the Halloween 4K's, I run in DV on my Sony X800M2 because the DV on those titles covers up the faults of the shit HDR encode.

Ah okay so we have the same TV lol.

And yeah that's exactly what I do. I either just disable DV on the 820 and in the cases where the HDR10 layer is garbage I watch those discs in DV on my Sony X700.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Matt89

Ah okay so we have the same TV lol.

And yeah that's exactly what I do. I either just disable DV on the 820 and in the cases where the HDR10 layer is garbage I watch those discs in DV on my Sony X700.

Maybe its the TV's fault then more than the player? I know in the past Sony has fudged DV implementation in their TVs

[Matt89]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Maybe its the TV's fault then more than the player? I know in the past Sony has fudged DV implementation in their TVs

That's certainly possible. But I don't get the DV flickering issue on any other player. It's probably some weird combination of both.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Matt89

That's certainly possible. But I don't get the DV flickering issue on any other player. It's probably some weird combination of both.

You should try 1.76 tho, b/c there are multiple reports of it fixing flicker on Kino discs. Although apparently not for everyone.

IIRC, in some past models the SOC in the Sony TVs wasn't powerful enough to compute full fledged dolby vision without issues.

[Matt89]

Originally Posted by Ruined

You should try 1.76 tho, b/c there are multiple reports of it fixing flicker on Kino discs. Although apparently not for everyone.

IIRC, in some past models the SOC in the Sony TVs wasn't powerful enough to compute full fledged dolby vision without issues.

Updated the firmware, still getting the flicker lol.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Matt89

Updated the firmware, still getting the flicker lol.

Just did some brief research, it probably is your TV combined with how Panasonic sends the signal. The X90J uses the same Mediatek SOC as the X900H which is limited in power. It also cannot, for instance, do 120hz + Dolby Vision, either, due to processing limitations (this what I was referring to earlier). Have you tried tweaking some of the settings in the panasonic such as color format, etc, that might lower the bandwidth? To like 4:2:2, and lower bit depth? It is possible 4:4:4 is only way Panasonic sends DV , maybe this too much bandwidth when combined with that mediatek chip.

[B.inthe6]

Originally Posted by B.inthe6

Thanks for the link. EDIT: ( https://mandos-a-distancia.es/en/Pan...l?currency=USD ) . Ordered one today for my 820 & will report on it when delivered. I look forward to the 10 sec rewind feature. Do you think that is less stressful on the 820 (transport etc) than repeatedly manually rewinding? Not sure how that works. Thanks again.

Received my UB9000 remote today that was ordered 16 days ago from Spain. Packaged well & shipped via postal as requested. I can't speak to the aftermarket versions of this remote but this original Panny is an example of high build quality not seen in other remotes I've experienced. It's functioning is smooth & positive so far for my UB820. The backlighting button is a treat as is the (10sec <) & (60 sec >). Other functions yet to be acquainted with but it was a worthwhile investment that was swapped & operable "right out of the box" . I may wrap the section of buttons on the remote that get constant use, with a single layer of saran wrap to protect the label on the buttons from wearing off. It's easy to apply & remove when fresh application is needed.