Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[rickardl]

It is not a random glitch, but it doesn't affect all subtitles all the time but it is repeatable. Also black menu items have been reported.
With display led Dolby Vision, it only affects displays which reports 1200 nits or above through the EDID. Setting VSVDB to V1 disables that reporting for us with G3s and similar high nits LG displays.
If you don't get the new DV option menu in the player, you are probably safe.
I suspect Panasonic were trying to mitigate very bright subtitles for high nits displays but overdid it.

[rroeder]

Originally Posted by Nibbler

No, I'm referring to a new setting in the Panasonic DV capable players. The toggle appears on a new screen only after setting Dolby Vision to "On". If you previously already enabled DV, you need to put it on "On" again to be presented with the choice. There's no separate menu entry for it. Beware also that this mode switch is apparently only shown when connected to a TV that has a peak luminance value above a certain threshold (higher than 1200 nits, according to what I read in the owners thread on avsforum).

I need to check that setting I guess but mine has a peak luminance of 1000 nits so should be no option. If no option then which one am I getting TV led or player led?

[Nibbler]

Originally Posted by rroeder

If no option then which one am I getting TV led or player led?

If your TV supports TV-led DV via HDMI to begin with (older Sony models do not!) and peak luminance is below that 1200 nits threshold, you should be getting TV-led DV again from the player with firmware 1.82. I say again, because TV-led DV was unavailable as of firmware 1.76 (either due to a bug or intentionally as a work-around for cases of super bright subtitles, opinions differ on this). I'm not sure though if the forced switch to player-led was for every TV or only ones with high peak luminance.

In the end, the only way to be sure is to test on your TV what you are getting. Do Sony's have some kind of debug info screen which shows what data is coming in via HDMI?

[Nibbler]

Originally Posted by rickardl

It is not a random glitch, but it doesn't affect all subtitles all the time but it is repeatable. Also black menu items have been reported.

I can confirm this. From what I read about it, it's different people having the issue with different discs and it's reproducible. It's indeed not limited to the subtitles. During my test I wanted to open the VRR info screen (push seven times green button on remote) of my LG G3 to check what it was receiving from the player and surpisingly also some bookmark screen of the player popped up (I'm not familiar with this functionality yet) and was rendered as a black box. The bookmark popup rendered normally again after switching the player to player-led DV. So the bug seems to be triggered when the player needs to do some overlaying on the picture (subtitles, popups,...).

Originally Posted by rickardl

Setting VSVDB to V1 disables that reporting for us with G3s and similar high nits LG displays.

According to my understanding, switching the VSVDB to V1 doesn't disable anything on TV side. It just provides the info in an older, legacy format. V1 uses a different number of bits to report the peak luminance compared to V2 though. This might indicate that the Panasonic player incorrectly parses the V2 format, at least in the case for TV's with high peak luminance.

[Nibbler]

Originally Posted by pbz06

This works fine on my A95L.

What exactly do you mean by that? You have firmware version 1.82 and player is outputting TV-led DV and you tried the same disc? Subtitles in this case are normal?

[rroeder]

Originally Posted by Nibbler

If your TV supports TV-led DV via HDMI to begin with (older Sony models do not!) and peak luminance is below that 1200 nits threshold, you should be getting TV-led DV again from the player with firmware 1.82. I say again, because TV-led DV was unavailable as of firmware 1.76 (either due to a bug or intentionally as a work-around for cases of super bright subtitles, opinions differ on this). I'm not sure though if the forced switch to player-led was for every TV or only ones with high peak luminance.

In the end, the only way to be sure is to test on your TV what you are getting. Do Sony's have some kind of debug info screen which shows what data is coming in via HDMI?

It's a 2018 900F, I don't think it supports TV led but not sure if that was updated via firmware or not. No data info screen like the 820 has, I think the 820 shows 4:2:2 12 bit usually for DV. Gonna watch a DV movie tonight so will check things out, I do like the DV picture better than HDR10 usually.

[rickardl]

Originally Posted by Nibbler

According to my understanding, switching the VSVDB to V1 doesn't disable anything on TV side. It just provides the info in an older, legacy format. V1 uses a different number of bits to report the peak luminance compared to V2 though. This might indicate that the Panasonic player incorrectly parses the V2 format, at least in the case for TV's with high peak luminance.

Well, I don't know the technical details of what V1 does except it makes the panasonic treat a high nit LG as all other low nit displays when it comes to player-led & display-led Dolby Vision.

[rroeder]

Can confirm no DV option on my 900F, also the player shows "Dolby Vision 12 bit" on info screen which I think means player-led DV

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by rroeder

Can confirm no DV option on my 900F, also the player shows "Dolby Vision 12 bit" on info screen which I think means player-led DV

If you are playing an FEL Dolby Vision disc, then, yes, you are sending a true 12 bit video signal. It will also send, depending on the display EDID, MEL Dolby Vision as upsampled 12 bit even though those discs are standard 10 bit.



In that regard TV-led or Player-led usually makes no difference. It's whether or not the TV or Player processes the dynamic metadata to adjust the video image data according to the instructions in that grading stream.

[dcx4610]

Anyone know why the UB9000 would turn off while I'm browsing my TV? It's a little annoying. I'm assuming it's ARC related but I can't really find the setting. I don't understand why it would trigger to cut on when I'm not doing anything player related.

[darkonex]

I'm not understanding why out of the blue I'm having problems with my UB820 where I have to disable Dolby Vision. The only thing I can think of trying is updating the firmware but I'm using RF firmware so I'd lose that and I guess have to spend $130 or so and buy a RF bluray player and not really wanting to do that. But like I know I watched Jaws 4k before on this thing with both DV and HDR10+ enabled in the settings, I never have had to go in and disable DV to get something to play until now and I had to do that on Jaws and Return of the Living Dead 4k when I know I watched both of them with both options on before. Then today I popped in the 88 Films 4k of Anthropophagous and same thing happened and had to turn DV off again in the settings.

[BXR 1138]

Originally Posted by dcx4610

Anyone know why the UB9000 would turn off while I'm browsing my TV? It's a little annoying. I'm assuming it's ARC related but I can't really find the setting. I don't understand why it would trigger to cut on when I'm not doing anything player related.

It auto shuts off after 20 minutes of inactivity. Read the friendly manual.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

If you are playing an FEL Dolby Vision disc, then, yes, you are sending a true 12 bit video signal. It will also send, depending on the display EDID, MEL Dolby Vision as upsampled 12 bit even though those discs are standard 10 bit.



In that regard TV-led or Player-led usually makes no difference. It's whether or not the TV or Player processes the dynamic metadata to adjust the video image data according to the instructions in that grading stream.

Um....no. Several things to correct here: Dobly Vision TV-led is sent as an RGB 8-bit signal to the TV, the 12-bit output is "tunnelled" inside it as 8-bit 4:4:4/RGB uses the same bandwidth as 12-bit 4:2:2. But player-led is sent as an actual 12-bit signal to the TV which is why rrrroeder made that qualification in his post.

Whether a disc is FEL or MEL encoded makes zero difference to the above parameters, nor does the display EDID have any bearing on FEL or MEL output: Dobly Vision is always unpacked into a 12-bit stream upon playback, same goes for the ITP-encoded streaming versions as the gains in efficiency from using that colour space means that 10-bit ITP is more or less equivalent to 12-bit YCbCr.

[saltburn]

someone requested that I share this here from a post I made in another thread.

I had problems with my UB9000 being inconsistent in reading UHDs (but not blu-rays/dvds). I would get cannot read disc error that would usually be fixed with opening/closing tray multiple times or turning off/unplugging unit for a minute.

I talked to a technician by phone who said most all players have this problem with double/triple layer discs that may be due to the lack of storage in the players. His recommendation to me was to erase the bd data frequently and/or buy a usb expansion flash drive to put in the front of the player that was 8gb or higher. He said that he encounters this problem with all players, some worse than others. except the ps5 and xbox he said because they have adequate ram/storage.

This solution he gave me has seemed to work so far. maybe this could help others.

[cybersoga]

Originally Posted by saltburn

someone requested that I share this here from a post I made in another thread.

I had problems with my UB9000 being inconsistent in reading UHDs (but not blu-rays/dvds). I would get cannot read disc error that would usually be fixed with opening/closing tray multiple times or turning off/unplugging unit for a minute.

I talked to a technician by phone who said most all players have this problem with double/triple layer discs that may be due to the lack of storage in the players. His recommendation to me was to erase the bd data frequently and/or buy a usb expansion flash drive to put in the front of the player that was 8gb or higher. He said that he encounters this problem with all players, some worse than others. except the ps5 and xbox he said because they have adequate ram/storage.

This solution he gave me has seemed to work so far. maybe this could help others.

I don't have any issue playing double/triple layer discs. I've played hundreds of discs without a glitch.

It sounds like a dodgy laser if you ask me, sometimes you just get unlucky. I used to have a sony player that was doing this.

[rickardl]

Originally Posted by saltburn

This solution he gave me has seemed to work so far. maybe this could help others.

And which was it?
a) erase the bd data frequently
b) put in a usb expansion flash drive
c) erase the bd data frequently AND put in a usb expansion flash drive

Or can you only do a) if you have have done b)?
Don't remember... I have a USB stick in the back slot and get the option to erase the BD data: "Setup"->"BD-Video Data Erase"

[saltburn]

Originally Posted by rickardl

And which was it?
a) erase the bd data frequently
b) put in a usb expansion flash drive
c) erase the bd data frequently AND put in a usb expansion flash drive

Or can you only do a) if you have have done b)?
Don't remember... I have a USB stick in the back slot and get the option to erase the BD data: "Setup"->"BD-Video Data Erase"

This just happened, so I erased the data, and put a tiny Samsung usb expansion storage device in the front. So I don't know if its one or the other did the trick, but its been working well the past week without issues.

[sapiendut]

Weird. I have two UB9000 and UB820 that play flawlessly for the past 5-6 years without having to use USB key

[Tok]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Weird. I have two UB9000 and UB820 that play flawlessly for the past 5-6 years without having to use USB key

Same here. Never had an issue but I’m not sure if I have internet access enabled.

[jonam]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Weird. I have two UB9000 and UB820 that play flawlessly for the past 5-6 years without having to use USB key

It all depends when you bought your player and what drive each model has to be honest. The very earliest batchs are more less susceptible to damage. Anything after the covid debacle seems to be more affected. Cost cutting and less attention to detail.