Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[CompleteCount]

Have had a bit of a problem with my 820 for a while now, but the last straw came yesterday.

I have had to replace a few discs when, during playback, at between the 50-60 minute mark, it starts to glitch before freezing, only going back after wrestling with skipping over the problematic section.

I would have said that it could be a problem with changing layers, but was watching a new disc last night, and 10 minutes in, paused it to alter a couple of settings on the amp. Once finished, I pressed play only to find it immediately started doing the very same glitching and freezing previously associated with an hour into a disc.

All discs have been clean when putting them in, with no visible scratches.

Does anyone have any ideas of what this might be, as I feel tempted to throw the ****ing thing out of the window. Any help would (or even half-plausible explanation) be appreciated.

[sapiendut]

Warranty service?

[Jack Priest]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Warners discs have done that for years. Not all, but some.

Good to know it's not a fault then. That is weird though.

[Naiera]

Got my eBay remote today. Just ten days to get here from China, with super cheap shipping. I can't say for sure if it's original, but it does say Panasonic on it and it's got a lot more weight to it than you'd expect. The clicks are much better than I thought they'd be. Can't wait to try it out tonight



It's this one, in case anyone else finds the selection on eBay a bit confusingly large.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by Naiera

I was amazed that a dang UHD BD would default to a lossy track

Same thing with early BD releases that had independent lossy tracks. Many were authored to default to the lossy tracks.

[sofaman]

Originally Posted by sofaman

This sounds identical to me, although I watched Independence Day a few days ago and it only took 3 attempts

Last night I tried to watch Ghostbusters II, but after 30mins or so had to give up. Only took 10mins to get the Many Saints of Newark working tho, lol.
I just tried Bladerunner 2049 and it worked first time...twice!

I can categorically assure you this only started happening a few months ago, every disc worked fine before then without a sniff of a problem!

So a few weeks ago I received my copy of Ghostbusters Afterlife. It took 9 attempts to work. Enough. I already had cotton buds and Iso (99.9%) so I had a go at cleaning the lens.

Long story short, I put it back together and popped in Afterlife, seeing as it was at hand. It worked 1st time, twice. Popped in Ghostbusters 2 which flatly refused to be read before ....worked 1st time. Tried Superman v Batman which I know normally works 1st time ...4 attempts. Oh well.

Anyhow, since then virtually every disc has worked 1st time, with a few needing 2 attempts. A massive improvement

[Cap.T]

RegionFreedom doesn't support the UB450 yet, right? I'm not just not seeing it on their side? I got the UB450 relatively cheap as a backup for my UB820 which still has trouble with DV on some discs even with 1.69. I just assumed RegionFreedom would offer it's firmware for the UB450 without even checking before...

[ronand]

Originally Posted by Cap.T

RegionFreedom doesn't support the UB450 yet, right? I'm not just not seeing it on their side? I got the UB450 relatively cheap as a backup for my UB820 which still has trouble with DV on some discs even with 1.69. I just assumed RegionFreedom would offer it's firmware for the UB450 without even checking before...

the UB450 doesn't seem to be supported by regionfreedom. I fitted the rattlebyte mod to my UB450 and its working nicely.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Cap.T

RegionFreedom doesn't support the UB450 yet, right? I'm not just not seeing it on their side? I got the UB450 relatively cheap as a backup for my UB820 which still has trouble with DV on some discs even with 1.69. I just assumed RegionFreedom would offer it's firmware for the UB450 without even checking before...

450 has a different chipset/firmware than the 420/820/9000 models, hence why it doesn’t have the same DV problems as those and why it doesn’t support matey’s hacked firmware.

[Jack Priest]

What does it mean when is says "This card is incompatible. Please insert a compatible card"?
My 820 had this up for a few seconds the other day. I've never seen it say that before.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Jack Priest

What does it mean when is says "This card is incompatible. Please insert a compatible card"?
My 820 had this up for a few seconds the other day. I've never seen it say that before.

Does that sometimes. Pay it no mind.

[Farerb]

Does anyone know where I can find this player with a type c plug?

[KarlK]

I just purchased this unit and wanted some advice for possible audio choices. just having the audio play through the TV speakers is not acceptable, it sounds like an old 1970's speaker. My previous blu player was an integrated system with the speakers as a part of it. so, I will have to buy a separate audio system to plug into the player.

I want to get an affordable sound system, ie; not costing more than the player ($400.00)

Thanks for any advice in advance.

[sapiendut]

Soundbar like Sonos Beam Gen 2 would suffice as a starter system.

[Riggins1]

Originally Posted by pbz06

I figured, as that can be a common problem with OLED. I see it a lot on my A9G as well, and it's frustrating. It's chroma overshoot for the low light black and near black. You can improve it with calibration but it's an inherent issue.

One way to mitigate the issue is to use a little bit of ambiant lighting in the room (not pitch black), sometimes I also reduce black level one click down. OLEDs simply struggle with the white subpixel that needs to be "on" for the image to work. At these near black levels, sometimes they're not charged enough to be fully on or they're straddling that on-off state. Additionally, since each pixel is separate, it's easy to see how millions of pixels would not exactly be on and off at the same time.

Originally Posted by JackTwist

I also agree with this recommendation. I would turn the Black Level setting to 49 from the default 50 setting. This one click down helps reduce the flickering issue without significant or noticeable crush. (I think this is the setting name if I recall from when I had the CX previously)

I can’t seem to find the setting you guys are mentioning. There is one setting called Black level, but the only options are auto, low or high. Is it contrast maybe?
Thanks again for your help. Much appreciated!

[pbz06]

Originally Posted by Riggins1

I can’t seem to find the setting you guys are mentioning. There is one setting called Black level, but the only options are auto, low or high. Is it contrast maybe?
Thanks again for your help. Much appreciated!

It's not the contrast setting.

Is there a "brightness" setting? Some TV's mislabel this but it's intended to adjust the black level, while the actual brightness setting might be called "oled light" or something.

[Riggins1]

Originally Posted by pbz06

It's not the contrast setting.

Is there a "brightness" setting? Some TV's mislabel this but it's intended to adjust the black level, while the actual brightness setting might be called "oled light" or something.

Yes. There is one called “Oled light” and one “brightness”. Oled light is on 56 and brightness 58. It was professionally calibrated. I haven’t touched the settings.

[pbz06]

Originally Posted by Riggins1

Yes. There is one called “Oled light” and one “brightness”. Oled light is on 56 and brightness 58. It was professionally calibrated. I haven’t touched the settings.

Ok, then yes you would adjust the Brightness. I understand it's calibrated but just if you notice it again, try 1 or 2 clicks less to see if it helps. You can always revert it.

What's the default value anyway? Seems strange that it was adjusted up I'm the first place.

[Riggins1]

Originally Posted by pbz06

Ok, then yes you would adjust the Brightness. I understand it's calibrated but just if you notice it again, try 1 or 2 clicks less to see if it helps. You can always revert it.

What's the default value anyway? Seems strange that it was adjusted up I'm the first place.

Thanks again. I’ve played around with both settings and it seems to make the flickering slightly less noticeable, even though the picture obviously gets a lot darker. I think the default setting on brightness is 50. I lowered it to 49 and also lowered the OLED light a few clicks. Seemed to help though not perfectly. It’s so strange that I have to change the settings every time I watch a Blu-ray then. I haven’t heard other people talking about this issue before.

[Riggins1]

What’s also really weird is that the problem doesn’t occur when streaming stuff.