Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Telemachus]

Perfect Panny 820 here. Having every player you buy turn out to be a lemon seems like it may be something else in your chain

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Perfect Panny 820 here. Having every player you buy turn out to be a lemon seems like it may be something else in your chain

I promise you, it’s not. Because I’ve had my 420 for over three years and abused the player to death, and had no issues whatsoever. I buy an 820 and lightly use it for two weeks and have issues. I’m not denying yours works fine, but I’m just saying that maybe later batches were not made the same.

[pr0darek]

You have to look for "Made in the Czech Republic"

[dib1220]

My 5ish year old 820 has been having problems reading discs when I put the disc in and start it. Now it takes a few tries sometimes opening and closing the disc tray. Once it starts everything works fine. It’s annoying though.

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by pr0darek

You have to look for "Made in the Czech Republic"

Dude, you may have something there! I just checked and my 420 says "Made in the Czech Republic" while my 820 says "Made in China." I bet the earlier models of the 820 were made in Czech Republic and probably were built better.

[Naiera]

My 9000 was made in September and has eaten everything I've thrown at it for the past three weeks. I did not take note of where it was assembled.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by MrHT

I'm not sure what's going with the 820, but I'm seriously having bad luck. Mid last year, I bought one and had a glitch sometimes where the picture may freeze or pixelate for a brief second or two before the video loads up when you keep skipping chapters and/or fast forwarding continuously. I returned it for a full refund to Best Buy. So here I am 9 months later. I gave it another chance and bought another one on Amazon. Same exact glitch as the previous unit I had. It seems to happen when playing Dolby Vision, and you keep skipping chapters and/or fast forwarding continuously, the picture may freeze or pixelate for a brief second or two before the video loads up. I was like ok, as long as no issues when playing a movie straight through, then it should be fine. But today, after owning the unit for over two week, I play the movie "Grease" and midway through the movie, the picture freezes. I stop the player, it makes a weird grinding noise, and then goes back to the home screen. I replay the disc, and replay the scene and no freezing. So no issues with my disc and the player is glitching up, apparently.

I'm not sure what's with these latest batches of 820s, but I have a feeling Panny isn't making them like they used to. Because many people are reporting no issues with their units, yet I seem to always have a lemon. And I was an earlier adapter of the 420 and had ZERO issues with that player. So something is going on with how they are manufacturing these units now.

But with all that said, I will sadly have to return the the 820 to Amazon. No Dolby Vision for me, I'm afraid.

I bought mine from Value Electronics back in 2019. Other than a power issue (which I figured out was a surge protector problem), I haven't had an issue with my 820. I would order from them. I'm sure if you had an issue, Robert would take care of you.

[PuppetMasterBlu]

Originally Posted by MrHT

Dude, you may have something there! I just checked and my 420 says "Made in the Czech Republic" while my 820 says "Made in China." I bet the earlier models of the 820 were made in Czech Republic and probably were built better.

Could be. I have one of the first 500 820s in the US from Value Electronics and I have never had a problem with it.

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by PuppetMasterBlu

Could be. I have one of the first 500 820s in the US from Value Electronics and I have never had a problem with it.

I am also open to the possibility that maybe I’m getting units that were damaged in transit. These BD players are fragile, so it’s possible these units are being thrown around during shipment.

[53Fatman]

That Made in Czech Republic means nothing. The 9004 is build like a tank, but the drives are the same dogshit like the two smaller models, just a little less noisy because of insulation.

My 9004 was fine for almost 2 years, then the tray wont open, got a new drive inside warrenty, but just over one year later it frequently pixalated on BD-100 at the layer change to the third one.

Yesterday this happened at the loading screen of a BD-100.

I will disassemble the drive and clean the laser lens, if this will not help i have to buy a third drive...

An it's not that rare, i know several people that have multiple new drives on these Panasonic Devices. The only problem are the drive units, rest ist really good, much better than a Magnetar that will cost much more.

Will report in a few days...

[MrHT]

Originally Posted by 53Fatman

That Made in Czech Republic means nothing. The 9004 is build like a tank, but the drives are the same dogshit like the two smaller models, just a little less noisy because of insulation.

My 9004 was fine for almost 2 years, then the tray wont open, got a new drive inside warrenty, but just over one year later it frequently pixalated on BD-100 at the layer change to the third one.

Yesterday this happened at the loading screen of a BD-100.

I will disassemble the drive and clean the laser lens, if this will not help i have to buy a third drive...

An it's not that rare, i know several people that have multiple new drives on these Panasonic Devices. The only problem are the drive units, rest ist really good, much better than a Magnetar that will cost much more.

Will report in a few days...

The problem with 4K discs is that there is so much data crammed onto a disc. So the lasers need to be very good quality as they need to be very precise when reading discs. If the quality of the laser is bad, it can certainly trip up easily, causing freezing, skipping and pixelating. I have a lingering suspicion that something was very wrong with the lasers on the units I got. Maybe defective (which coincidentally happened two consecutive times for me) or damaged while in transit.

[53Fatman]

This is correct, when you read the official Blu Ray whitepapers, it's insame how tight the tolerances are on multilayer discs. However, dual layers where never a problem. The distance between the second layer and the third is less than between the first two, so the laser transport has to very precise to place the lens in the exact spot to be in focus. If the laser is worn a little bit too you get this stuff.

They should just go the other route and make the discs slighty larger again, maybe 1cm would be enough to get two 50gb layers. The players would still be downward compatible.

The problem is there are drives that handle this better, at least in the long term stability. The PS5 seems to be not that fragile. But Sonys own UHD Players are sensitive as well.

[Maggot]

Mine has served me well. So has my 820. I'm considering getting another as a "backup to the backup". Wonder what tarrifs are gonna do to the prices? As much as another 9000 would be nice, I could imagine prices that force me to get another 820.

[bizzle]

Is the general consensus for the UB820 with an LG C4 (or any OLED) to have the 820 set to RGB Enhanced or YCbCr?

[grim_tales]

Hey,
I wasn't sure if this is the right thread as its more a technical question. Can anyone help?

When I bought this UB820 4K player (in 2024 I think) I'm sure it had been chipped to make it Region Free for DVD, and to play BD in other regions you had to press 1, 2, 3 when the player is off, and there's no disc in there.

Today I popped in a Simpsons USA DVD. I got a message saying "This disc is not compatible with your region"

The button press trick seems to work, but it seems now I have to do it with DVD as well as Blu Ray which is annoying I was wondering what could have happened or if there are any fixes, as it was working fine very recently.

Thanks in advance

[ronand]

Originally Posted by grim_tales

Hey,
I wasn't sure if this is the right thread as its more a technical question. Can anyone help?

When I bought this UB820 4K player (in 2024 I think) I'm sure it had been chipped to make it Region Free for DVD, and to play BD in other regions you had to press 1, 2, 3 when the player is off, and there's no disc in there.

Today I popped in a Simpsons USA DVD. I got a message saying "This disc is not compatible with your region"

The button press trick seems to work, but it seems now I have to do it with DVD as well as Blu Ray which is annoying I was wondering what could have happened or if there are any fixes, as it was working fine very recently.

Thanks in advance

You should contact whoever you bought it off. There were a few different methods available and you probably did a firmware update and undid the modification. Without knowing what mod was applied we can't really help you here. There is a free software mod available but it's not the easiest to apply if you have limited computer skills.

[dib1220]

Mine has been doing this too. No mods applied, it’s just struggling to read discs when I first put it in. Eventually it just says disc is unreadable

[kevers7290]

Originally Posted by bizzle

Is the general consensus for the UB820 with an LG C4 (or any OLED) to have the 820 set to RGB Enhanced or YCbCr?

Always YCbCr, unless you're connecting it to a PC monitor.

[PipesDonatello]

I'm another one who is having problems with the UB820. The player gave me no issues for 3 years and then all of the sudden it's only reading half of the discs I put in there, both 4K and blu-ray. I keep taking these discs out and putting back in, even unplugging the player itself and plugging it back in....still nothing. It just seems like a crapshoot when being able to watch a movie. Luckilly I have my PS5 as a backup but it just doesn't look or sound as good.

Does anyone know if there was a recent firmware update and if that can eventually solve this problem? Or does it sound like I need to get a new UB820?

[sapiendut]

Your story sounds like a laser diode aging problem.