Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by captainsolo

Yep. It’s completely stuck and won’t open at all. I’ve done the resets and contacted Panasonic support who had me do a reset and then told me I had to pay for shipping and repairs. This is certainly one of the most frustrating players I’ve ever used on any format.

The repair place is some shop in Florida that seems to mostly do cameras. Their phone line is closed, and Panasonic‘s phone line is closed so it seemed a bit suspicious for me to just up and ship a player to them.

Did Panasonic provide any idea on the cost of this kind of repair?

[HorrorBlu]

Originally Posted by captainsolo

For the second time I have a disc stuck in the 820. If I press the open button it will say open and the tray does not open. Then it tries to reload the same disc and starts playing it. This happened to me once before and after a lot of trial and error it randomly opened finally and has worked fine since until now where it has done it again.

Look underneath your player. There should be a slot near where the disc tray is, and if you shine a light in there, you'll see a little white plastic latch with a notch in it. Using a paperclip, you can slide the latch from whatever side it is on to the other. Then hook your player back up, and it should hopefully eject.




Note, probably not a good idea to turn your player upside down with a disc inside, so I would go at it mechanic style.

This seems like a fairly common issue with Panasonic players. Mine started doing it last summer. At the time, I was using that player for all discs, so it was being used nearly every night. Ended up hooking my old blu-ray player back up to the same TV, and now I only use the 4K player to play 4K discs. Since doing that, it happened one more time around August or September, and then it hasn't happened since.

Good luck.

[captainsolo]

Originally Posted by HorrorBlu

Look underneath your player. There should be a slot near where the disc tray is, and if you shine a light in there, you'll see a little white plastic latch with a notch in it. Using a paperclip, you can slide the latch from whatever side it is on to the other. Then hook your player back up, and it should hopefully eject.




Note, probably not a good idea to turn your player upside down with a disc inside, so I would go at it mechanic style.

This seems like a fairly common issue with Panasonic players. Mine started doing it last summer. At the time, I was using that player for all discs, so it was being used nearly every night. Ended up hooking my old blu-ray player back up to the same TV, and now I only use the 4K player to play 4K discs. Since doing that, it happened one more time around August or September, and then it hasn't happened since.

Good luck.

THANK YOU!!!
That seems to have done the trick. It took me a while to even find the white latch in that tiny little slot with a flashlight. That allowed me to get the disc tray open enough to pry it out. It seems like some discs get off-center somehow and that makes the whole tray lock off and stop working. I had to move the disc tray back and forth slightly to work out the Blu-ray disc.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by captainsolo

Yep. It’s completely stuck and won’t open at all. I’ve done the resets and contacted Panasonic support who had me do a reset and then told me I had to pay for shipping and repairs. This is certainly one of the most frustrating players I’ve ever used on any format.

The repair place is some shop in Florida that seems to mostly do cameras. Their phone line is closed, and Panasonic‘s phone line is closed so it seemed a bit suspicious for me to just up and ship a player to them.

Do you have the player's power cable plugged into a surge protector or directly into the wall? I know my player had issues reading discs because I had an old surge protector that wasn't giving it enough power. After switching to a new surge protector, it worked!

[rroeder]

I bet my surge protector is over 20 years old and I have everything plugged into it-TV, player, DirecTV box, AVR, subwoofer. Everything works fine do surge protectors actually go bad?

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by rroeder

I bet my surge protector is over 20 years old and I have everything plugged into it-TV, player, DirecTV box, AVR, subwoofer. Everything works fine do surge protectors actually go bad?

Yes they do and you don’t know when it goes bad until you get that one extra hit of surge without actually being protected.

[IXOYE1989]

Originally Posted by rroeder

I bet my surge protector is over 20 years old and I have everything plugged into it-TV, player, DirecTV box, AVR, subwoofer. Everything works fine do surge protectors actually go bad?

Surge protectors only last 2-3 years at most in terms of protecting from electrical surges. They may still function for over a decade, but the protecting aspect is shortlived. But some electricians will say that surge protectors are mostly a scam that rarely protects anything.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by IXOYE1989

Surge protectors only last 2-3 years at most in terms of protecting from electrical surges. They may still function for over a decade, but the protecting aspect is shortlived. But some electricians will say that surge protectors are mostly a scam that rarely protects anything.

Overall, it’s true. Most surge protectors, especially the sub$200 price, don’t have enough clamping capability to do anything useful. My experience also hover in 3 years range in terms of a lifespan of a surge protectors.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by rroeder

I bet my surge protector is over 20 years old and I have everything plugged into it-TV, player, DirecTV box, AVR, subwoofer. Everything works fine do surge protectors actually go bad?

Most are MOV based surge devices and they only have about a 5 year lifespan at most as they are constantly being hit with small spikes.

Even then you need a whole house surge protector, like a Siemens FS140. Also check with your power utility to see if they will install a meter surge unit.

Those surge strips at the equipment are only good for light surges after a whole house gets the brunt of the surge.

[vista-vision]

Found out later in life surge protectors only work good on grounded wall sockets .On new houses no problem but in mid 70s apartments they put only 1x or 2x grounded the rest is just two wire wall sockets.

[HanBrolo77]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

I found another problem disc on the 820, Halloween 4 in DV has the flicker jumps, it's very rare compared to Hard Target (which happens almost every scene change) but happened enough in Halloween 4 it annoyed me so I ran it in HDR.

I know it’s been a few days, but did you happen to notate which scenes or grab timestamps of where it happened? Figured I’d pop it in and take a look as well.

No worries if not, just curious.

[Telemachus]

It was happening over the whole film off and on, but not nearly as often as Hard Target which was almost every edit cut. Taking time stamps would be exhausting, you'll see it. I'm basically just making a list of these when I find them and will disable DV for future viewings. I did watch Halloween 1, 2 and 3 on this player and none of them have the problem, will get to 5 and the others at some point.

[Marsstudd]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Overall, it’s true. Most surge protectors, especially the sub$200 price, don’t have enough clamping capability to do anything useful. My experience also hover in 3 years range in terms of a lifespan of a surge protectors.

Do you have any recommendations for power conditioners/surge protectors in the 200$ to 500$ range? I’ve also been reading that they’re useful for improving audio and video.

[RalphoR]

I have a Furman I use with my second system that's been excellent so far.

I have a Monster Signature Series 7000 on my primary system that I've used for over 15 years and it's still going strong. I'll need to keep an eye on it.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by Marsstudd

Do you have any recommendations for power conditioners/surge protectors in the 200$ to 500$ range? I’ve also been reading that they’re useful for improving audio and video.

I use Audioquest 303. It’s pretty good.

AudioQuest PowerQuest 303 conditioner review and comparisons
https://www.youtube.com/supported_br...tube.com/watch

But I also use Torus Power AVR2-15plus

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by RalphoR

I have a Furman I use with my second system that's been excellent so far.

Furman (the PST-8) sounds impressive based on this review.

"It blocks virtually all excess voltage. In our testing, the PST-8 repeatedly allowed just 40 volts of a 5,000-volt surge to pass through to its eight outlets.

Instead of relying on standard metal-oxide varistors (MOVs) to absorb the entire surge, Furman adds extra protection: Once a surge goes over 137 volts, the entire unit shuts down to protect itself and any connected equipment (switching the unit on and off resets it).

Any surge that gets through before the shutdown passes through a series of capacitors as well as a large inductor meant to filter the extra power. The large MOV, similar to those found in less-expensive units, sacrifices only part of itself as a last resort after the filtering stage.

This is why you won’t find a joule rating listed for the PST-8, according to Furman—other surge protectors rely solely on MOVs to absorb energy, so it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison."

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Yes they do and you don’t know when it goes bad until you get that one extra hit of surge without actually being protected.

Honest question: does this happen a lot in the Americas? You all seem to have some kind of power conditioner/surge protector or another but I've never seen the point of it and have certainly never had a piece of equipment fried at the mains in all my years in Engerland. I did even try one many moons ago but it made my AVR sound like shite, very 'hard' and unforgiving.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Honest question: does this happen a lot in the Americas? You all seem to have some kind of power conditioner/surge protector or another but I've never seen the point of it and have certainly never had a piece of equipment fried at the mains in all my years in Engerland. I did even try one many moons ago but it made my AVR sound like shite, very 'hard' and unforgiving.

Our electrical system is pretty antiquated:

The US has more power outages than any other developed country. Here’s why.
https://www.popsci.com/story/environ...-power-storms/

Ever since I was a kid, it's been gospel in the US, at least from everyone I've known, that you don't plug anything expensive (computer, TV, electronics, etc) directly into a wall, it goes into a surge protector.

On the other hand, maybe the surge protector manufacturers just advertise REALLY well here.

[ntotoro]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Honest question: does this happen a lot in the Americas? You all seem to have some kind of power conditioner/surge protector or another but I've never seen the point of it and have certainly never had a piece of equipment fried at the mains in all my years in Engerland. I did even try one many moons ago but it made my AVR sound like shite, very 'hard' and unforgiving.

Depends geographically more than anything, but problems aren't exactly rare.

Some older areas do have dirtier power than others or voltages that can fluctuate. The reason I use a power conditioner for my music gear is you never know when some spot will have fluctuating voltages that can damage gear or affect the sound.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Honest question: does this happen a lot in the Americas? You all seem to have some kind of power conditioner/surge protector or another but I've never seen the point of it and have certainly never had a piece of equipment fried at the mains in all my years in Engerland. I did even try one many moons ago but it made my AVR sound like shite, very 'hard' and unforgiving.

On one of my APC UPS from about 10 years ago I can see the log how many surges happen for each day. And I get on average 5 hits each day. They are small, but the more hit the equipment gets the shorter the life would be, at least in theory. So I use surge protector simply as an insurance. I know it’s illogical especially I used to upgrade my equipments annually. It makes more sense now as I don’t feel any need to upgrade my equipments for the past 2-3 years.

Also the electricity is quite dirty hence the reason I use the Torus Power power isolator for my entire home theatre. It comes with toroidal isolator, automatic voltage regulator and an array of MOV. Which I plan to replace every 3 years (I just replaced the MOV in the autumn of 2023

Dang it I’m rambling.