Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Funktion]

Thank you, Hedrox.

I'll be sure to properly test things with an actual UHD disc this weekend, and see what works best for my current setup.

And thank you for the tip regarding the menu info.
I'm used to a Sony BD player (an older model), whose menus and remote are a lot different, so that is most helpful.

[Diesel]

My Sony X700 started acting up in recent months with more freezing and sometimes taking two or three times of inserting the disc to recognize it. Decided to finally pull the trigger on a new player and grabbed the 420 while packing up the X700 as an emergency back up if ever needed.

Initial set up was a little wonky as it kept having some sort of handshake issue with my tv and kept forcing to Dynamic Range Conversion mode at 1080p most of the times I tried it. Finally got it to work properly by running the player to the receiver with one HDMI instead of having video to the tv and audio to the receiver; ironically the exactly opposite of what once fixed issues of my Sony player cutting out the video frequently.

Started with three HDR10+ discs since my tv supports it but the old player didn’t. Also happy that the remote is a more comfortable size, though some of the button placement is odd.

[jjhlh]

I’ve been using a Panasonic 820 since 2020 when I bought my first 4K tv, a 65 inch LG CX. I recently decided to upgrade my speakers system from KEF LS-50’s being run by a NAD 7050, to Genelec 8331A’s and 7350 subwoofer run through a Benchmark DAC3L, with room eq management via the GLM kit. The sound upgrade has been substantial.

I purchased a Panasonic 9000 so I could connect to the DAC3. Overall I am very pleased with the device. In particular I’m floored by how well it makes regular blu rays look via its HDR optimizer. I’ve been watching Mad Men blu rays and they look about as good as any of my 4K discs. Truly stunning.

One thing I have noticed, there seems to be the tiniest amount of lip synch discrepancy. Is there a way to fix this? It’s very subtle, and I would be OK with it but thought I’d check to make sure I’m not missing anything. Thanks.

[Naiera]

What prevented you from connecting the 820 to the DAC?

In any case, there’s a lip sync correction feature somewhere in the options menu. 40 or 50 ms should do it. Worked on my 824 and works on my 9000 now.

[jjhlh]

Originally Posted by Naiera

What prevented you from connecting the 820 to the DAC?

In any case, there’s a lip sync correction feature somewhere in the options menu. 40 or 50 ms should do it. Worked on my 824 and works on my 9000 now.

I could have connected the 820 to the DAC using an optical cable, but I read that a coaxial connection delivers slightly higher resolution. I’m not an audiophile but I was trying to get the most out of my speakers and asked my AI to help me with my setup. That’s what it recommended. To be honest I just wanted a new toy haha.

Yes, I found the lip sync correction feature you mentioned. I set it to 50 ms and that solved the problem. Thanks!

[Naiera]

Coaxial and optical are the same in this situation, but just wanting a UB9000 is reason enough to buy one anyway Keep the UB820 for backup.

[sojrner]

Originally Posted by jjhlh

I’m not an audiophile

Umm, I do not think it means what you think it means...

Originally Posted by jjhlh

I recently decided to upgrade my speakers system from KEF LS-50’s being run by a NAD 7050, to Genelec 8331A’s and 7350 subwoofer run through a Benchmark DAC3L, with room eq management via the GLM kit. The sound upgrade has been substantial.

[Naiera]

Yeah, that’s some fairly expensive shit

The Panasonic UB820 is a great pick for 4K UHD—its HDR tone mapping and image quality really stand out. If you’re thinking about upgrading to the UB9000, the big differences are in build quality and advanced audio features. Honestly, both are excellent—it just depends on your setup and what you value more.

[LordoftheRings]

Originally Posted by Naiera

Coaxial and optical are the same in this situation, but just wanting a UB9000 is reason enough to buy one anyway Keep the UB820 for backup.

"In general, coaxial digital connections are often considered to offer better audio quality than optical connections. Coaxial connections can transmit a more direct and less-converted audio signal, leading to a more dynamic and detailed sound. Additionally, coaxial cables can support higher data rates, potentially reducing compression and improving sound performance."

[Sango]

Originally Posted by LordoftheRings

"In general, coaxial digital connections are often considered to offer better audio quality than optical connections. Coaxial connections can transmit a more direct and less-converted audio signal, leading to a more dynamic and detailed sound. Additionally, coaxial cables can support higher data rates, potentially reducing compression and improving sound performance."

If I recall, there was a huge debate on AVS Forum and believe it still goes on about coaxial vs optical like bits are bits and therefore, the same.

With HDMI, I do not think the above matters much now.

[Tim n Tempe]

Originally Posted by Naiera

I disagree. I'm sure Panasonic's is the best, but I don't think it's good enough.

Absolutely good enough.

[rickardl]

Has this been mentioned/discussed here??
from avsforum... https://www.avsforum.com/threads/off...#post-63998967

I've now discovered two DV discs that break the UB820 in the same way: Doctor Sleep (2019) and Nosferatu (2024). As soon as you get to the disc's main menu, without playing the movie, the UB820 stops outputting DV content metadata. But even worse, that's also true of any DV disc you play after that, and output colors are also corrupted, until you power the UB820 off and back on. For example, here's the low end of grayscale, showing good DV output and corrupted DV output:



The X axis is source HDR10 code point, the Y axis is output DV code point. Note that in the corrupted state, the first 10 steps above Black are crushed to Black, and other steps are lower than they should be.

Having found two discs that are five years apart, it seems entirely likely there are other discs that cause the same problem. To be safe, always power your UB820 off after playing a DV disc.
...
My guess is the main menu code on these discs is making some specific BD-J API call that, when the menu is running in DV, results in calling down to DV-specific firmware code that has a bug that causes memory corruption
...
My analysis is based on digital capture of the HDMI output of the UB820.
...
With Nosferatu, simply pausing the video results in loss of metadata. With Doctor Sleep, some actions in the pop-up menu result in loss of metadata, but pause/FF/Rew appear safe. Alien: Romulus appears to be OK as long as you stay out of the top menu.
...
Add Wonder Woman 1984 and Ahsoka to the list. And the resume trick doesn't work with Wonder Woman 1984.

Edit by rickardl: other discs affected are Alien Romulus, Ahsoka and Wonder Woman 1984.
Resume trick: stop the movie, power off, power on, press play and use the Resume option to bypass the disc's menu which is causing the problem. Then, just to be safe, don't do anything that brings up disc UI elements (don't pause, FF, rewind, go into Options, etc).
Added some bolding.

[sojrner]

[rickardl]

Steps to verify the broken DV:
0. power on player
1. insert Spears&Munsils UHD Benchmark and press play
2. Select Dolby Vision, Advanced Video->Evaluation->Dynamic Range Low
3. Raise Brightness/Black Level until you see the squares for 75-65. 75-70 is enough.
4. Stop, eject, insert Alien Romulus, play, do not select the Resume option if it pops up
5. From the disc menu, start the movie
6. Stop, eject
7. do steps 1-3 again and there are no squares visible for 75-65, same grey mush since you should have the Brightness/Black Level raised quite high from step 3.
8. power off (quick start on or off does not matter)
Now the corruption is gone.

I tested this with the Nordic/Swedish edition of Alien Romulus 4K UHD.

[deatheats]

Originally Posted by rickardl

Steps to verify the broken DV:
0. power on player
1. insert Spears&Munsils UHD Benchmark and press play
2. Select Dolby Vision, Advanced Video->Evaluation->Dynamic Range Low
3. Raise Brightness/Black Level until you see the squares for 75-65. 75-70 is enough.
4. Stop, eject, insert Alien Romulus, play, do not select the Resume option if it pops up
5. From the disc menu, start the movie
6. Stop, eject
7. do steps 1-3 again and there are no squares visible for 75-65, same grey mush since you should have the Brightness/Black Level raised quite high from step 3.

I tested this with the Nordic/Swedish edition of Alien Romulus 4K UHD.

Try one of the following…turn off quick start, then power down and power on the player. Or pull the power cord while the player is off, wait 10 or so seconds and plug the power cable back in.

[rickardl]

Originally Posted by deatheats

Try one of the following…turn off quick start, then power down and power on the player. Or pull the power cord while the player is off, wait 10 or so seconds and plug the power cable back in.

but why would I need do that?
A simple power off, even with quickstart on, removes the corruption from the player.
I have added point 8 to clarify that.
Steps to verify the broken DV:
0. power on player
1. insert Spears&Munsils UHD Benchmark and press play
2. Select Dolby Vision, Advanced Video->Evaluation->Dynamic Range Low
3. Raise Brightness/Black Level until you see the squares for 75-65. 75-70 is enough.
4. Stop, eject, insert Alien Romulus, play, do not select the Resume option if it pops up
5. From the disc menu, start the movie
6. Stop, eject
7. do steps 1-3 again and there are no squares visible for 75-65, same grey mush since you should have the Brightness/Black Level raised quite high from step 3.
8. power off (quick start on or off does not matter)
Now the corruption is gone.

But the issue is that it will appear again with any of the discs that have the bad menues and it will be present for any DV disc that you play afterwards UNTIL you power off the player.
And how many are those which have bad menus? Who knows, the OP has identified a handful but it could be a lot more.
So the recommendation seems to be:
- Power off the player after playing a DV disc before playing another.
- If you know the disc is one of bad ones or suspect could be bad, try the Resume trick to play that disc.
For some it will not work, such as WW1984, so you would need to turn DV off in the player to watch those to avoid the DV corruption.

[Hedrox]

If it's taken this many years for anyone to notice it, it's probably so minor that it's not even worth worrying about. Also, most people (like 99%) who own this player don't have a Spears&Munsils disc to check.

[PowellPressburger]

I'm new to the UB9000 about a month in...

Just curious does this player stay warm when turned off?

I noticed it seemed to be a little warm, just a little and had been turned off for more than a day.

[sapiendut]

Turn off quick start.

And watch my Pana setup linked in my sig.