Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[johnny-torrance]

My new, second UB820 from Value Electronics arrived yesterday and in a box! Unlike my first one from Amazon which simply arrived in the box like you'd see it on the shelf in a store, just with a shipping label slapped on it. I've got some discs coming in the mail today including "The Usual Suspects" 4K and "Croupier" 4K. Both blind buys, but I've seen some scenes from "The Usual Suspects" because how can you not have if you're into film at all, but I'm gonna give both of them a spin and see if I have any issues.

Already got the player set up for the most part, firmware up to date and VIERA link turned off. Wish me luck, I hope buying this one from Value Electronics and not Amazon does the trick.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by johnny-torrance

My new, second UB820 from Value Electronics arrived yesterday and in a box! Unlike my first one from Amazon which simply arrived in the box like you'd see it on the shelf in a store, just with a shipping label slapped on it. I've got some discs coming in the mail today including "The Usual Suspects" 4K and "Croupier" 4K. Both blind buys, but I've seen some scenes from "The Usual Suspects" because how can you not have if you're into film at all, but I'm gonna give both of them a spin and see if I have any issues.

Already got the player set up for the most part, firmware up to date and VIERA link turned off. Wish me luck, I hope buying this one from Value Electronics and not Amazon does the trick.

Mine came from Value Electronics a while back, but they jammed the player's container into a too small cardboard shipper and it was sticking out part way with a bunch of tape around it and no packing material. I was kind of pissed off. Really half-assed for such a supposedly reputable dealer. I have never purchased anything from them since.

Hopefully, things have improved.


I have, however, purchased a few items (projector, bulb, pre-amp processor, etc.) from AV Science (the former owner of the AVS Forum that also has a brick and mortar shop residing in New York state) over the years and they double boxed every time with loads of cushioning.

[samdaman94]

Is there anywhere I can find the optimum player settings (UB820) and TV settings (LG C2) for the best experience when combining the two?

[jblank]

Price down to $386 on Amazon sold from Amazon.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

Mine came from Value Electronics a while back, but they jammed the player's container into a too small cardboard shipper and it was sticking out part way with a bunch of tape around it and no packing material. I was kind of pissed off. Really half-assed for such a supposedly reputable dealer. I have never purchased anything from them since.

Hopefully, things have improved.


I have, however, purchased a few items (projector, bulb, pre-amp processor, etc.) from AV Science (the former owner of the AVS Forum that also has a brick and mortar shop residing in New York state) over the years and they double boxed every time with loads of cushioning.

That's very unlike Value Electronics. I ordered my 820 back in 2019 and it came double boxed and in great condition! I also order my LG C9 from them and it came in great condition too. The box wasn't the best, but that was due to shipping because they sent me a photo of it before it shipped. This was also in June of 2020 so shipping wasn't at it's best at the time.

Did you contact Robert and ask about another one? If something like this would have happened on their end, I feel like he would take care of you.

[Discofever]

Originally Posted by jblank

Price down to $386 on Amazon sold from Amazon.

Close to lowest price. The 450 is also cheaper right now. Now if I can just learn if the 820 is any better than the 450 for my use case.

[pbz06]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

Mine came from Value Electronics a while back, but they jammed the player's container into a too small cardboard shipper and it was sticking out part way with a bunch of tape around it and no packing material. I was kind of pissed off. Really half-assed for such a supposedly reputable dealer. I have never purchased anything from them since.

Hopefully, things have improved.


I have, however, purchased a few items (projector, bulb, pre-amp processor, etc.) from AV Science (the former owner of the AVS Forum that also has a brick and mortar shop residing in New York state) over the years and they double boxed every time with loads of cushioning.

Are you sure? VE does a really good job shipping things (i.e. double boxed, nice and sturdy, packed well etc.).

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by jblank

Price down to $386 on Amazon sold from Amazon.

Snagged it. I'm moving back to the 820. I heard Lumagen will be adding LLDV to the Radiance Pro using their own current dynamic tone mapping through the DV 12 bit pipeline while spoofing the edid. So that means no more suffering for me with shitty HDR10 encodes when there is a better DV one.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by pbz06

Are you sure? VE does a really good job shipping things (i.e. double boxed, nice and sturdy, packed well etc.).

Am I sure? What kind of question is that? I received the item and saw the poor packaging with my own eyes. Maybe it was a one-off with a disgruntled employee in the back room, but it's too late to do anything about it now.


I have had solid experience dealing with AV Science, so I will stick with them for certain high ticket items.

[IlCorvo]

Is the problem with the tray being stucked a different one than the one discussed in this video? I always thought it would be enough to use a paper clip but he disassembles the entire player.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tpqhYhCBxKY&t=99s

[Spartan21]

Originally Posted by mx77

Please read my earlier post to this thread. Sony and Panasonic x50 players are capable of reading bdxl (bd-r 100) discs, but with limitations. On my Panasonic dp-ub450 some of the bdxl discs played without errors, some had issues on layer switch.

Someone else asked if the recordable media is still a thing and yes it is. In my case, I burned imported discs with finnish subtitles to bd-r dl or bdxl discs since I don't like to use harddrives to host my movies.

Does the Panasonic UB820 support burned BDXL discs? I tried burning an ISO with a 4K movie and the disc could not read. I used Imageburn on 2x, no verification.

[mx77]

Originally Posted by Spartan21

Does the Panasonic UB820 support burned BDXL discs? I tried burning an ISO with a 4K movie and the disc could not read. I used Imageburn on 2x, no verification.

No, ir does not. And even with those x50 series players, reading of bdxl discs is vwry unreliable. I bought a more expensive player with external subtitles support since messing with bdxl discs wasn't that cheap either.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by Spartan21

Does the Panasonic UB820 support burned BDXL discs? I tried burning an ISO with a 4K movie and the disc could not read. I used Imageburn on 2x, no verification.

Get a Zidoo or something like that and archive your discs as mkv to USB hard drives or a NAS. It takes a bit of doing, but you end up with a poor man's Kaleidescape system at a fraction of the cost.

With various software, you can also mux external subtitle tracks and/or different soundtracks to the video. MKV can also retain Dolby Vision MEL and FEL, Dolby Atmos, and DTS: X audio.

[George.P]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

Get a Zidoo or something like that and archive your discs as mkv to USB hard drives or a NAS. It takes a bit of doing, but you end up with a poor man's Kaleidescape system at a fraction of the cost.

With various software, you can also mux external subtitle tracks and/or different soundtracks to the video. MKV can also retain Dolby Vision MEL and FEL, Dolby Atmos, and DTS: X audio.

Do you know if Zidoo can handle ISO files?

[Spartan21]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

Get a Zidoo or something like that and archive your discs as mkv to USB hard drives or a NAS. It takes a bit of doing, but you end up with a poor man's Kaleidescape system at a fraction of the cost.

With various software, you can also mux external subtitle tracks and/or different soundtracks to the video. MKV can also retain Dolby Vision MEL and FEL, Dolby Atmos, and DTS: X audio.

Got it. I like physical discs but these companies are making products not compatible with them (the BDXLs I mean), and that's annoying.

[HDTV1080P]

The BD-ROM drives with up to 50GB capacity for recording video and computer date is 2006 technology. BDXL technology was made for computer BD-ROM drives in June of 2010 and was a format for use with BDXL BD-ROM computer drives as a data storage backup medium for discs up to 128GB capacity. No standalone 4K Blu-ray player or 2K Blu-ray player supports the reading of BDXL discs even if one was to format the discs as video discs instead of data discs. Since BDXL technology is now 14 years old, perhaps in the years to come someone might want to consider making a 500GB or 1,000GB+ optical disc data backup media with 1,000 year lifespan M-Disc technology. However because of the popularity of easy to use fast USB flash sticks that last up to 10 years, optical media only has the advantage of longevity over any other computer media.

https://www.techpowerup.com/125242/b...specifications

[johnny-torrance]

Originally Posted by jblank

Price down to $386 on Amazon sold from Amazon.

Buyer beware. Maybe I got a player from a bad batch if that's possible, but my player purchased from the November sale (from Amazon) last year quickly took a turn for the worse. I spent a little extra and got one from Value Electronics and I've had no issues to report thus far, but then again I've been viewing a lot more standard blu-rays than 4K's lately. Still, my last UB820 from Amazon even had issues with standard blu-rays.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by George.P

Do you know if Zidoo can handle ISO files?

Their newest "8k" compatible models supposedly work well with disc menus from ISO and BD file folders. If you plan on using external storage drives and bitstream audio to a decoder (receiver or pre-amp/processor), even their base models do just about everything playback-wise that their luxury models do.

However, any of these local media streamers that can handle lossless rips work best with MKV files. They were often optimized for that file format. They will even play tracks that were encoded as multi-channel FLAC, like the various Project 4k Star Wars restoration offshoots.

I like not having the fiddly Java menus, FBI warnings, etc. Plus, just archiving the soundtrack(s) and subtitles I want, it shaves the size of the file to store.

[rikraq]

I have a question: Are 4k discs still worth it if your tv doesn't support Dolby Vision? Is HDR good enough? I see a lot of reviews mention DV.

[jess1581]

Originally Posted by rikraq

I have a question: Are 4k discs still worth it if your tv doesn't support Dolby Vision? Is HDR good enough? I see a lot of reviews mention DV.

Absolutely it's worth it. HDR is wonderful already. DV is just an extra notch of wonderful.