Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[jurid]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

What is the S&M test disk? Do you think 60i DVD playback would just be better on an HD DVD player or a Playstation 3?

Spears&Munsil disks.

Please read the above post about the player and DVDs:

Playback of 60i material on DVD is bad,

Most of DVDs I watch (95-98%) are sourced from 24fps. Those are not bad.
So if you watch mostly movies, you'll be fine.

Addition: some of the HD DVD players are very good. XA2 is in general considered one of the best (or even the best by some) for DVD playback.

[Telemachus]

I compared Clerks Animated at 1080p/60hz on the Panny, a PS3, and a Toshiba HD DVD player. The Panny looks awful, the PS3 not much better but it is better, the Toshiba is hilariously good looking. Just the menus are night and day to the Panny.

Question though, someone told me once all DVDs are 60hz, so what is the difference if the source was 24hz, I was even told some DVDs may not all be from a consistent 24hz source even films, so it's better to keep it on 60hz output regardless. Who told me this? God himself, of course. So what do you think?

[jurid]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

I compared Clerks Animated at 1080p/60hz on the Panny, a PS3, and a Toshiba HD DVD player. The Panny looks awful, the PS3 not much better but it is better, the Toshiba is hilariously good looking. Just the menus are night and day to the Panny.

Question though, someone told me once all DVDs are 60hz, so what is the difference if the source was 24hz, I was even told some DVDs may not all be from a consistent 24hz source even films, so it's better to keep it on 60hz output regardless. Who told me this? God himself, of course. So what do you think?

Clerks Animated must be true 480/60i, deinterlaced and upscaled to 1080/60p, so it's awful on Panny.

Regarding 60Hz, it's complicated. 60Hz is marked via flags, no matter what the source is. Most movies (almost all in fact) are actually 24Hz on disc but marked with 2-3-2-3 flags in order to be properly displayed on interlaced TVs (like ancient boob-tubes CRTs). Some players can properly detect this and output true 24fps (like Sony, Toshiba, Oppo, etc). Whether a DVD is 60i or 24p can be checked with some software like MPG2AVI. It can remove all flags (without reencoding) and save the video as true 24p. If the video plays normally, then it is true 24Hz.

Even though I have Oppos and XA2, I prefer watching DVDs on Sony BDP-s6700, outputting 1080/24p into MCable to scale it to 2160 (Sony upscaling to 4K is bad). Purely for convenience, as the PQ is still great, and the setup is much more compact.

[TheeCD]

Originally Posted by Academyratio

I'm experiencing Dolby Vision issues on a few Shout Factory discs, as well as one Kino Lorber disc. The signal will randomly drop, screen goes black for 3-4 seconds, before coming back with the "Dolby Vision" logo on the top right corner of my LG OLED. Happens continuously throughout the film.

The affected discs play fine once I disable DV on the 820, but it's still annoying.

This is happening on 3 out of 107 4K discs I own (Carrie, Coraline & Night of the Hunter)

Has anyone else here been experiencing the same thing? Maybe it's just a weird firmware issue interfering with the DV layer, not sure.

Bumping this since I've been digging around trying to figure this one out as well. Having this issue with the 820 playing to an LG OLED. Near as I can figure out, it seems to only happen with discs that have a FEL layer for Dolby Vision. DV MEL discs play fine.

There is an odd work around where if you turn off the 24p auto function in the 820 settings, it will play through to the LG with Dolby Vision without drop outs. With 24p auto set, I get drop outs to my LG with FEL discs. MEL plays fine with 24p auto. Can't seem to grasp if this is on the Panny side or the LG side.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

What is the S&M test disk? Do you think 60i DVD playback would just be better on an HD DVD player or a Playstation 3?

If I remember the PS3 crops stuff on DVD.

[blue348]

Originally Posted by TheeCD

Bumping this since I've been digging around trying to figure this one out as well. Having this issue with the 820 playing to an LG OLED. Near as I can figure out, it seems to only happen with discs that have a FEL layer for Dolby Vision. DV MEL discs play fine.

There is an odd work around where if you turn off the 24p auto function in the 820 settings, it will play through to the LG with Dolby Vision without drop outs. With 24p auto set, I get drop outs to my LG with FEL discs. MEL plays fine with 24p auto. Can't seem to grasp if this is on the Panny side or the LG side.

Don’t suppose you’ve tried another HDMI cable? I don’t know why that would fix it in this case, but with drop outs like that I’d try it.

[Telemachus]

Originally Posted by chip75

If I remember the PS3 crops stuff on DVD.

Eh? That's crazy, never knew that. I bet it looks like the LG OLED looks if you are on original vs. 4:3 for some things there will be a slight zoom if it's the wrong setting.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Eh? That's crazy, never knew that. I bet it looks like the LG OLED looks if you are on original vs. 4:3 for some things there will be a slight zoom if it's the wrong setting.

It's about the same as overscan, so, yes.

[TheeCD]

Originally Posted by blue348

Don’t suppose you’ve tried another HDMI cable? I don’t know why that would fix it in this case, but with drop outs like that I’d try it.

It's not the cable. I've tried cable swaps as have other people with the same issue. The way I detailed it in my original reply, isolates it down to specifically FEL DV discs on the 820 to LG OLEDS as confirmed by other people on another forum. Seems like a firmware issue with either the 820 or LG. There is a work around by changing the 820's 24p auto setting to off so it outputs at 60p. That will play a full feature without dropouts in DV. For some reason, the issue only occurs with the 820 outputting at 24p to LG OLED with FEL discs.

[timfitz99]

Originally Posted by TheeCD

Bumping this since I've been digging around trying to figure this one out as well. Having this issue with the 820 playing to an LG OLED. Near as I can figure out, it seems to only happen with discs that have a FEL layer for Dolby Vision. DV MEL discs play fine.

There is an odd work around where if you turn off the 24p auto function in the 820 settings, it will play through to the LG with Dolby Vision without drop outs. With 24p auto set, I get drop outs to my LG with FEL discs. MEL plays fine with 24p auto. Can't seem to grasp if this is on the Panny side or the LG side.

I have this issue as well with my LG C1. Certain disks will flicker with DV, some won't show picture at all. If I turn off DV they play fine.

I have a lot of issues with standard Blurays too.

I've got a ticket in with Panasonic regarding this, trying to swap for a new player (this one is a month old).

How can you tell if a disc is FEL or MEL?
I'll try the 24p trick.

[TheeCD]

Originally Posted by timfitz99

I have this issue as well with my LG C1. Certain disks will flicker with DV, some won't show picture at all. If I turn off DV they play fine.

I have a lot of issues with standard Blurays too.

I've got a ticket in with Panasonic regarding this, trying to swap for a new player (this one is a month old).

How can you tell if a disc is FEL or MEL?
I'll try the 24p trick.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=276448 - I've been searching within this thread for DV confirmations on discs. All my MEL discs with DV play fine. The issues I've had on titles, I wasn't able to confirm were FEL because they aren't listed on that thread but other reported titles causing these issues were searchable as FEL. Coraline, Carrie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind & Invasion of the Body Snatchers all show up as FEL in the thread and are from Kino or SF. I couldn't confirm Alligator, In Bruges & Night of the Hunter on that thread but considering those titles are also Kino & SF, it seems reasonable to assume they're also FEL.

24p auto set to off, 60p output on for the 820 then LG Real Cinema set to on to force 24fps conversion isn't the ideal work around to playing them with DV but it's the only way I found to get them to play without the drop outs. Still shouldn't have to go there and the culprit needs to do a firmware update to fix this.

[Yearbook]

Originally Posted by TheeCD

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=276448 - I've been searching within this thread for DV confirmations on discs. All my MEL discs with DV play fine. The issues I've had on titles, I wasn't able to confirm were FEL because they aren't listed on that thread but other reported titles causing these issues were searchable as FEL. Coraline, Carrie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind & Invasion of the Body Snatchers all show up as FEL in the thread and are from Kino or SF. I couldn't confirm Alligator, In Bruges & Night of the Hunter on that thread but considering those titles are also Kino & SF, it seems reasonable to assume they're also FEL.

24p auto set to off, 60p output on for the 820 then LG Real Cinema set to on to force 24fps conversion isn't the ideal work around to playing them with DV but it's the only way I found to get them to play without the drop outs. Still shouldn't have to go there and the culprit needs to do a firmware update to fix this.

I've had dropouts with the UB820 and Sony x-700 on my LG B2. I changed the cable to a Certified cable, and it's actually gotten better with the 820 (sometimes no dropout but the Dolby Vision logo displays on the top right). This leads me to believe it's on the LG side.

[Telemachus]

LG will break things from firmware to firmware has already happened to me before with ARC (G2) and when I first got UHD I was only using one HDMI cable and would get handshake problems with Shout Factory discs for some reason, when I used the dual HDMI setup they actually stopped.

[blue348]

Originally Posted by TheeCD

It's not the cable. I've tried cable swaps as have other people with the same issue. The way I detailed it in my original reply, isolates it down to specifically FEL DV discs on the 820 to LG OLEDS as confirmed by other people on another forum. Seems like a firmware issue with either the 820 or LG. There is a work around by changing the 820's 24p auto setting to off so it outputs at 60p. That will play a full feature without dropouts in DV. For some reason, the issue only occurs with the 820 outputting at 24p to LG OLED with FEL discs.

Understood, sorry.

I guess for added info/sample data: I think I’ve watched 8 DV FEL discs from the list on my 820. I did not experience any blackouts, but The Limey did freeze on me, which I attributed at the time to the disc itself. My signal chain goes 820 > Denon S920 > LG OLED B7.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by sa5150

How do you just set the tv to do the upconverting , I have the Sony A80J , Is that a good one ?

And yes, the A80J is a good one!

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Well I did notice Panny had a bunch of DNR settings set to ON that I had to disable for DVD upconvert playback, even with those off you still don't like it?

Correct. The upconvert of DVD from the Panasonic is so bad, I think (if I remember correctly) moves the image either a little to the left or the right and a bit of the image is missing. I put in a test disc and put on certain test patterns to see the differences.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by Sea Hag

Yeah it’s weird cause I got a replacement but have the same problem with that one too.

I know this sounds weird, but is the Blu-ray of a different region? If not, that is weird!

I have kind of the same problem with a movie titled "The Rape of the Vampire" (1968.) But it's a different problem in the way the menu of the disc appears without any selection to play the movie! I can put the same movie into my Sony, and all the options show up in the menu but I want to watch it from the Panasonic player.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I've seen that with SD on Blu, it's terrible, but the UK Panny models I've used (and I've used several) also make 60i DVD look visibly jaggier. Couldn't believe how shitty the DVDs of Archer looked on it, I just thought it was a poorly mastered disc but when I popped them into the OPPO it was almost like looking at HD in comparison. Made a quick comparison here (this is with the 420 player but the 820 does the same, the chip is identical between the 420, 820 and 9000, as I'm sure you know): https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...&postcount=128 edit: another example here: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=9659

It's the sort of thing that shows up more with such contrasty, low rez content as 2D animation, true, as live action's inherent randomness covers it up more, but it's still fundamentally borked IMO so I avoid playing back DVD on the Panny at all costs.

Have you tried (with the Panasonic) playing a DVD and have the player output to 1080 and let the TV convert that to 4K? I found that to work just fine on my Panasonic 820.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

What is the S&M test disk?

A disc your player likes to use to send torture signals to the TV, and the TV likes it very much.

[TheeCD]

Originally Posted by blue348

Understood, sorry.

I guess for added info/sample data: I think I’ve watched 8 DV FEL discs from the list on my 820. I did not experience any blackouts, but The Limey did freeze on me, which I attributed at the time to the disc itself. My signal chain goes 820 > Denon S920 > LG OLED B7.

This is interesting in that I wonder if the Denon does something for the LG as a passthru. I'd also be curious if you have 24p auto on and what firmware versions of the 820 & LG OLED you're on but I'm certainly not asking you to go out of your way to look that up with the Denon being an in between. I feel like I've isolated some of the problems from other people posting similar setups to mine.