Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Sango]

Originally Posted by TooOldToDieYoung

...
Oh wow, didn't know that! Is it save to do with modified firmware?

Yes, it should not have any effect on the player. I own a Panasonic DVD-RP82 which has a region free mod on it and the service mode for it works; the command list for it is completely different which also included had the ability to display the spindle motor play time as well.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by tama

No pets, non smoking household, player on an open shelf dusted weekly in a tempt controlled environment. I live in the Bay Area California after all so no extreme weather elements here.

The Player boots up just fine. Just will no longer read UHDs and struggles a bit loading BDs.

I guess blaming the owners/users is easier

Have you tried plugging the player directly into the wall or into another surge protector? The amount of power going to these players can sometimes be an issue, which will then prevent the reading of discs. Happened to me several years ago and figured out my surge protector was going bad. Replaced it and I haven’t had that issue since.

[RandyK]

Crossposting this here from the Land of the Dead 4K thread since it just happened to me again with another 4K title released by Shout Factory; Gretel & Hansel. Anyone have similar issues and found a fix?

Anyone try to play this disc on a Panasonic UB820 and not have any disc menu options show up? Went to watch it last night and it first gave me a disc not compatible error message. Restarted the player and it made it to the main menu but there was no options to select for play/chapters/setup; just the disc menu image and music. Tried cleaning the disc/rebooting/turning off Dolby Vision/turning off HDR completely/resetting the player twice but nothing worked. Had to open the new UB450 player I bought as a backup to get it to work. Played with no issue after that.

Something similar happened when I went to play Shout's Return of the Living Dead disc recently. Got to the menu but no selectable options showed up. Forget exactly what I did to get it to work but it eventually did. This was the second time I've played that disc since it released and it was the first time I had any issues.

[Reignman35]

So add me to the list of users with an 820 having pixilation/freezing issues. Mine was bought in 2017 if I recall right, and gets used maybe 3-4 nights a week.

I've tried all the steps already mentioned, and the disc I'm testing, Young Guns 4K, freezes at the same point on the 820, but works just fine on my older Sony 4K player so all signs point to the 820 itself being the issue.

Does anyone know if opening the unit up to clean it (if it's possible/won't make things worse) has helped? What about taking it to an electronics repair shop to have them look at it or do the a cleaning there?

[TotallyTuned]

I wanted to add some more data about the UB820 and issues with pixelation/freezing.

Here are the facts:

• I've observed pixelation on several different titles, new disks with no marks
  
• The pixelation is fairly consistent in what part of the film it appears in BUT if you restart the disk and/or the player, sometimes you get different results--it may play through the same section of the movie just fine after
  
• The disk plays just fine on my X800M2 AND on another UB820 that I have as a backup
  
• In my case, after trying the second UB820, I went back to the first one and it wasn't doing it anymore. Possible causes: the chip cooled down, the cable shifted away from a source of interference? (used the same cable for the second UB820) Or maybe an out of spec part on the disk reader jiggled into the proper place...
  
• I have an additional issue, when the main menu of this particular 4k disk loads, it looks fine for a second and then the menu bar gets replaced/covered by a black bar. This only happens on the UB820 that was faulting in the first place. It doesn't happen on the X800M2 or the secondary UB820

So right now, my diagnosis is unclear.

Theories:

Overheating
Tempting to think it's overheating because of the inconsistency. However, it doesn't explain the blacked out dis menu on one example. Also, on the current 4K disk, the problem happens at about 54 minutes in (possibly a layer transition). If you go past that point it never occurs again which doesn't point towards heat buildup.

Faulty Disk
Maybe this disk is hard to read, but it works fine in a secondary UB820 and in a X800M2

Signal Interference OR Bandwidth Issues
If this is the problem, then why isn't the signal affected constantly instead of just at specific parts of the movie?

Dirty Laser Head
I don't have issues with every disk, plus I don't put dirty disks in my player and no one else uses it.

Corrupted System Files/Config
I'm leaning towards this for the missing menu problem. How to fix this? I kind of doubt that resetting system defaults will make it go away. If there was a way to reflash the firmware that would probably do it.

Failing Disk Reader
If this were the case it would be pathetic, the UB820 is only a couple years old, and doesn't even play every disk I watch in it.


Anyway, if anyone has additional thoughts to share I'm all ears.

Just for the record, I have tried turning Viera Link off in the past and it did not help. Both UB820 players are configured the same as far as system settings. The players are up-to-date as well. (not like there are any recent updates either)

[Braktastic]

Totally tuned, thanks for taking the time to do that! My experiences have been mostly similar. I had VIERA Link turned off too.

Earlier in the thread someone mentioned turning off Quick Start. Have you tried that? I did without success.

[TotallyTuned]

Originally Posted by Braktastic

Totally tuned, thanks for taking the time to do that! My experiences have been mostly similar. I had VIERA Link turned off too.

Earlier in the thread someone mentioned turning off Quick Start. Have you tried that? I did without success.

Thanks for checking, but yes Quick Start is also disabled.

[TotallyTuned]

When it comes to replacing the drive unit in the UB820, the replacement parts are about $200--highway robbery! What's interesting though is that there are two parts available as drop-in replacements for the optical drive. According to google, the newer TXP0183 can be used in place of the original TXP0034.

Now I'm wondering if the same TXP0034 drive is in both of my UB820 units, or maybe the one that works has the newer TXP0183? At any rate, opening them up could be useful if I find that the faulty drive is a different part number.

It could just be my imagination, but I could swear that the picture quality is a little better on my original UB820 that has the pixelation issues. Maybe they neutered performance somehow to improve reliability.

[Sango]

Originally Posted by Sango

This can be more accurate by having the unit display the hour info.

...

Here is my laser used time display for my UB9000 which can give an idea of usage of the player which is still running perfectly.

• September 2008 manufacturing date
• BP 600
• DP 32
• CD 0

[TheHistorian]

Anyone know of a firmware alteration that lets you get around discs that don't want to let you jump to Top Menu, but instead force you to sit through previews? (Chapter skip or fast forward almost always still works, but still...)

[I5o]

Originally Posted by TotallyTuned

When it comes to replacing the drive unit in the UB820, the replacement parts are about $200--highway robbery! What's interesting though is that there are two parts available as drop-in replacements for the optical drive. According to google, the newer TXP0183 can be used in place of the original TXP0034.

Now I'm wondering if the same TXP0034 drive is in both of my UB820 units, or maybe the one that works has the newer TXP0183? At any rate, opening them up could be useful if I find that the faulty drive is a different part number.

It could just be my imagination, but I could swear that the picture quality is a little better on my original UB820 that has the pixelation issues. Maybe they neutered performance somehow to improve reliability.

Gidday TotallyTuned,

Well done on carefully considering the random pixelation issue as seen in your newer UB820 player and not evident in your older 2017 UB820. I second your suspicion that the disc drive is more than likely the problem. You also say that the discs work in your Sony player without issue so I reckon the discs are the last likely issue.

Now to definitely remove doubts on pixelating player's disc drive might I respectfully suggest if you are able and willing to carefully open up both UB820 players. You will most likely see the older model TXP0034 in your older 2017 player. And the model TXP0183 in your newer player.

Also from first hand experience I have placed a NEW old stock TXP0034 UB9000 disc drive into my UB820 and worked fine without issue. Look back in this forum showing a photo of both drives and instructions on removal. My UB820 was also a 2017 model and 2019 UB9000. And I have the Sony 700,800m2 and 1000xe with modchips that I installed for region free ability.

First remove the pixeation issue disc drive from your newer player and carefully place it into your fully working 2017 player and you can keep the metallic top off the player and then play the disc that pixelates most times and see if you see any pixelation at that known point of the movie. If there is no pixelation issue evident then you have found your problem ,it's your disc drive belonging to your newer player. Sadly mass produced items can become

Also you could place the disc drive from your fully working 2017 player into your newer player and then play the disc and if see if there are some random pixelation issues then its most likely the motherboard as that is where the opearating system controls all the rendition aspects of the drive and consequently outputs signals via HDMI and any visual glitches are seen as frozen text or not working as it should. If the disc drive works from your 2017 player then its your newer disc drive that is on it's way out. Good luck and let me know what you end up doing. cheers

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by TheHistorian

Anyone know of a firmware alteration that lets you get around discs that don't want to let you jump to Top Menu, but instead force you to sit through previews? (Chapter skip or fast forward almost always still works, but still...)

The regionfreedom hack, I believe, lets you skip everything.

[ronand]

It doesn't let you skip everything but a lot of it.

[Naiera]

[pr0darek]

For DVD it always works, for blocked audio tracks and subtitles it always works for DVD and BD (blessing for French locked discs . This thing also make STOP > "TOP MENU" tick work even more often and allow you to skip all that junk. In the case of BDs and advertisements or unnecessary warnings, the matter gets complicated - many discs are built on Java, so these mechanisms do not affect Java.

For Oppo this also can be done.

[Infallible Presence]

Originally Posted by pr0darek

For DVD it always works, for blocked audio tracks and subtitles it always works for DVD and BD (blessing for French locked discs . This thing also make STOP > "TOP MENU" tick work even more often and allow you to skip all that junk. In the case of BDs and advertisements or unnecessary warnings, the matter gets complicated - many discs are built on Java, so these mechanisms do not affect Java.

For Oppo this also can be done.

Are you saying that subtitles that are locked and can't be turned on or off will now be optional with this trick?

Given my that one of ears is half deaf or worse, it's always really-really annoying when companies lock/force subtitles tracks. Such as when I want to watch the English dub and have the subtitles on, but the subtitles only are allowed when watching the foreign language.

I don't have this player, but my Oppo drive sadly went a while back and 9000 is so far the contender. However, I'm still collecting up to get it.

[pr0darek]

This has nothing to do with the trick. The topic concerns uop puo that are disabled in alternative firmware.

UOP – User Operation Prohibition
Meaning: A mechanism that prevents the user from performing certain actions during playback.
Examples of blocked actions:
Skipping trailers or warnings
Fast-forwarding or rewinding
Accessing the main menu
Changing audio tracks or subtitles

Common use: Often applied to trailers, copyright warnings, or studio logos at the beginning of a disc.

---
PUO – Prohibited User Operations
Essentially the same as UOP, just another way to refer to the same concept.
The terms UOP and PUO are used interchangeably in many technical documents.

Turning off these mechanisms affects the trick, because the trick very often doesn't work because we can't press the stop button because pressing it is blocked.

[anchor_man]

UB820 is a crappy, low quality device made by Panasonic which we've had the displeasure of owning over the past several years. To see it get such positive reviews is frankly a mystery; here are some of the fun issues we experience on a daily basis with it:


* Player takes almost 2 minutes to start playing a disc from power off.
* Does not allow skipping relentless copyright warnings and other spam from disc manufacturers.
* Dumb remote design with a soulless "netflix" button front and center which is triggered unintentionally.
* Upon inserting a previously watched movie, a prompt asks whether I want to "continue" the movie from where I last left off, which was the last several minutes with the credits rolling. This is beyond stupid.
* The eject button only sometimes works to retract the disc tray, other times it must be forcefully pushed in, which also defies all reason.
* Device caption menus make no sense, are divorced from actual disc caption features.
* Fails to play my 4K copy of 2001 Space Odyssey.
* Says "Powered by Java" on the back which actually explains much of the dysfunction.


I guess one positive thing would be that it has continued to work beyond the warranty period, which deserves praise in today's market. Still, our next device will likely be a Sony.

[TotallyTuned]

Originally Posted by I5o

Gidday TotallyTuned,

Well done on carefully considering the random pixelation issue as seen in your newer UB820 player and not evident in your older 2017 UB820. I second your suspicion that the disc drive is more than likely the problem. You also say that the discs work in your Sony player without issue so I reckon the discs are the last likely issue.

Now to definitely remove doubts on pixelating player's disc drive might I respectfully suggest if you are able and willing to carefully open up both UB820 players. You will most likely see the older model TXP0034 in your older 2017 player. And the model TXP0183 in your newer player.

Also from first hand experience I have placed a NEW old stock TXP0034 UB9000 disc drive into my UB820 and worked fine without issue. Look back in this forum showing a photo of both drives and instructions on removal. My UB820 was also a 2017 model and 2019 UB9000. And I have the Sony 700,800m2 and 1000xe with modchips that I installed for region free ability.

First remove the pixeation issue disc drive from your newer player and carefully place it into your fully working 2017 player and you can keep the metallic top off the player and then play the disc that pixelates most times and see if you see any pixelation at that known point of the movie. If there is no pixelation issue evident then you have found your problem ,it's your disc drive belonging to your newer player. Sadly mass produced items can become

Also you could place the disc drive from your fully working 2017 player into your newer player and then play the disc and if see if there are some random pixelation issues then its most likely the motherboard as that is where the opearating system controls all the rendition aspects of the drive and consequently outputs signals via HDMI and any visual glitches are seen as frozen text or not working as it should. If the disc drive works from your 2017 player then its your newer disc drive that is on it's way out. Good luck and let me know what you end up doing. cheers

The pixelation problem is present on the older machine. I don't think it will be necessary to swap the parts back and forth though. The service menu told me the drive is bad. I've opened both machines and gotten some new data, see below as a separate post for visibility.

[TotallyTuned]

I have returned with more UB820 data. I opened up both players to see which drive part was installed at the factory. I also accessed the service menu to see the playback stats and check the status of the drive. The device exhibiting issues does report that the drive is bad.

Please note that while the first unit is nearly 220 hrs or ~110 movies in, it was at less when the first issue arose just a few months after the end of the 1 yr warranty. I posted about it Nov/Dec of last year and I've watched more movies on it since then. (not every disk is bothered by this defect)



UB820 - 1
Manufacture Date: Aug 2023
Blu-ray Hrs: 219
DVD Hrs: 5
Firmware: 1.82
Drive Part #: TXP0034
Drive Check: DRV NG (Not Good)

UB820 - 2
Manufacture Date: Sept 2024
Blu-ray Hrs: 6
DVD Hrs: 0
Firmware: 1.82
Drive Part #: TXP0183
Drive Check: DRV OK

So, the players do have different drive parts it turns out and the first one is defective. Guess if I buy a part it should probably be the TXP0183