Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Honest question: does this happen a lot in the Americas? You all seem to have some kind of power conditioner/surge protector or another but I've never seen the point of it and have certainly never had a piece of equipment fried at the mains in all my years in Engerland. I did even try one many moons ago but it made my AVR sound like shite, very 'hard' and unforgiving.

Where I live in MI the infrastructure is really neglected in general. There needs to be a lot of power line replacement, tree trimming, etc. but it hasn't sufficiently happened. (DTE, the main provider here, is in bed with the state legislature and regulators so there's been little overall investment). There are so many power lines that are just loosely hanging and waiting to get knocked down with a 40 mph wind gust. Last year alone, I went through two different four day periods with no power. Any kind of moderate thunderstorm or snowstorm for that matter can knock out the power here. I've considered buying a Generac gas generator which are nice for this kind of BS, but they don't come cheap.

[chip75]

Just an update on my player, the processor on the mainboard is knackered. There's little hope of repair as the parts aren't available.

Boo-urns. The day it went I was just about to region free my other player, but now? without a back up, I'm not going to risk it.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by Marsstudd

Do you have any recommendations for power conditioners/surge protectors in the 200$ to 500$ range? I’ve also been reading that they’re useful for improving audio and video.

You need to start with a whole house surge protector located at your main panel. If your power utility will install one, you also want a meter surge protector. A whole house surge protector is not super expensive, but it will help protect your household appliances as well. The Siemens FS140 is very highly recommended, which is what I use.



A point of source surge protector is only useful for any residual let through from those two solutions.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

Furman (the PST-8) sounds impressive based on this review.

"It blocks virtually all excess voltage. In our testing, the PST-8 repeatedly allowed just 40 volts of a 5,000-volt surge to pass through to its eight outlets.

Instead of relying on standard metal-oxide varistors (MOVs) to absorb the entire surge, Furman adds extra protection: Once a surge goes over 137 volts, the entire unit shuts down to protect itself and any connected equipment (switching the unit on and off resets it).

Any surge that gets through before the shutdown passes through a series of capacitors as well as a large inductor meant to filter the extra power. The large MOV, similar to those found in less-expensive units, sacrifices only part of itself as a last resort after the filtering stage.

This is why you won’t find a joule rating listed for the PST-8, according to Furman—other surge protectors rely solely on MOVs to absorb energy, so it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison."

I have a Furman for my source HT electronics and SurgeX's parent company's (AMETEK) 20 amp large current surge units for my subwoofers and amplifiers.



But I STILL have a Siemens FS140 for my main electrical panel. Sadly, our electric utility will no longer install meter surge units, so I have to rely on the whole house unit to be the first line of defense. It's actually a Stage 2 unit and a meter surge protector installed at the point of the city power coming in to your home is Stage 1.



Stage 3 is something like the Furman or SurgeX. They will not work for large surges UNLESS you have a quality whole house unit installed as well. They are only for small spikes and surges and many actually have small print in their warranties stating you need a larger surge protector upstream. You need BOTH. The whole house takes the main hit and the point source protectors take the small jolts that arrive after. Though, nothing will stop a DIRECT lightning strike. Nothing. That's what home owner's insurance is for. Even multi-million dollar server farms have units that keep the direct lightning hits from reaching the main power relay through lightning rod towers and the like to discharge and dissipate the massive amounts of power in a lightning strike.

[Telemachus]

Surge protectors have always been a scam more or less, to be truly protected you need to have the home budget of Bruce Wayne. I have lost stuff from unlucky lightning strikes and nothing else devious except old age of the equipment. I only use the cheap consumer power strip models which I need anyway for the plugs, I don't believe they do anything much beyond being a multi-tap. Now a battery backup/surge for a 5k PC that I can see the usefulness of.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Surge protectors have always been a scam more or less, to be truly protected you need to have the home budget of Bruce Wayne. I have lost stuff from unlucky lightning strikes and nothing else devious except old age of the equipment. I only use the cheap consumer power strip models which I need anyway for the plugs, I don't believe they do anything much beyond being a multi-tap. Now a battery backup/surge for a 5k PC that I can see the usefulness of.

They work IF you get a quality product and you don't rely solely on the power unit at the electronics. You have to use a whole house panel surge protector, which is not hard to install unless you are a complete moron, and a meter surge protector if your utility will install one.

[Telemachus]

I just let Jesus protect my electronics

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

They work IF you get a quality product and you don't rely solely on the power unit at the electronics. You have to use a whole house panel surge protector, which is not hard to install unless you are a complete moron, and a meter surge protector if your utility will install one.

Surge is not only caused by external sources outside your house but also within the house when the HVAC kicks in, fridge kicks in, etc. so having whole home surge protection only protects your from external sources.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Surge is not only caused by external sources outside your house but also within the house when the HVAC kicks in, fridge kicks in, etc. so having whole home surge protection only protects your from external sources.

As I mentioned earlier, you need BOTH for better protection.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

As I mentioned earlier, you need BOTH for better protection.

Yesssss.

[captainsolo]

Originally Posted by HorrorBlu

Look underneath your player. There should be a slot near where the disc tray is, and if you shine a light in there, you'll see a little white plastic latch with a notch in it. Using a paperclip, you can slide the latch from whatever side it is on to the other. Then hook your player back up, and it should hopefully eject.
Note, probably not a good idea to turn your player upside down with a disc inside, so I would go at it mechanic style.

This seems like a fairly common issue with Panasonic players. Mine started doing it last summer. At the time, I was using that player for all discs, so it was being used nearly every night. Ended up hooking my old blu-ray player back up to the same TV, and now I only use the 4K player to play 4K discs. Since doing that, it happened one more time around August or September, and then it hasn't happened since.
Good luck.

This allowed me to get my disc out but the tray still refuses to move when powered on. It will retract properly but no matter what will not eject at all. The screen shows open for a second and I can hear noise inside and then nothing.

I called the repair shop and it looks like at least $200 for diagnosing and one hour labor this is not including shipping my player to FL and cost of parts. The disc drive itself as a replacement part is $205. Facepalm.

There’s a one star Amazon review where someone else had this exact same issue and it became fully unusable just outside of the warranty period like mine.

[sapiendut]

Holy! I’ve been charging people too low for my troubleshooting. I charge only 40% of that for diagnostic/troubleshooting.

[Quark1134]

Originally Posted by captainsolo

This allowed me to get my disc out but the tray still refuses to move when powered on. It will retract properly but no matter what will not eject at all. The screen shows open for a second and I can hear noise inside and then nothing.

I called the repair shop and it looks like at least $200 for diagnosing and one hour labor this is not including shipping my player to FL and cost of parts. The disc drive itself as a replacement part is $205. Facepalm.

There’s a one star Amazon review where someone else had this exact same issue and it became fully unusable just outside of the warranty period like mine.

I had the same issue - it's apparently a dead spot on the motor. Link below for a fix that will get you going until it hits the same dead spot again. I used this procedure a few weeks ago and it hasn't recurred yet. Note my player had some minor differences e.g. black screws instead of silver.

Link to fix - scroll down.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by captainsolo

I called the repair shop and it looks like at least $200 for diagnosing and one hour labor this is not including shipping my player to FL and cost of parts. The disc drive itself as a replacement part is $205. Facepalm.

Yep, these machines cost nearly as much to repair as to replace, and the repairs seem to be slow and involve multiple cross-country trips, inviting more damage.

I wasted a fair bit of time investigating this when my first one died a year or two ago.

Like all electronics today, these machines are designed to be thrown away and replaced, sadly, not fixed.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Surge protectors have always been a scam more or less, to be truly protected you need to have the home budget of Bruce Wayne. I have lost stuff from unlucky lightning strikes and nothing else devious except old age of the equipment. I only use the cheap consumer power strip models which I need anyway for the plugs, I don't believe they do anything much beyond being a multi-tap. Now a battery backup/surge for a 5k PC that I can see the usefulness of.

You need one that can clamp surges above 330V. Most of them don’t state their clamping voltage and many only clamp anything above 500V. Nothing is going to stop a direct lightning strike though.

Whole house surge protectors help but the farther the distance from the device the less effective it is. Nearby electric fields can transfer energy to other circuits without physical contact. That’s why even a nearby lightning strike can be catastrophic without physically making contact to the transmission line.

[Sango]

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

...A whole house surge protector is not super expensive, but it will help protect your household appliances as well. The Siemens FS140 is very highly recommended, which is what I use.

My home has the Square D Homeline Surgebreaker which was put in as part of my new construction home at the time. No issue with any of my electronics and still running.

I may consider the Siemens FS140 or their lower line when mine fails since you mentioned it (since I was unaware of capabilities until I looked it up) since it is capable of 140kA while Square D I have it capable of 22.5kA.

Can you show a picture of it in your electrical panel?

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by Sango

My home has the Square D Homeline Surgebreaker which was put in as part of my new construction home at the time. No issue with any of my electronics and still running.

I may consider the Siemens FS140 or their lower line when mine fails since you mentioned it (since I was unaware of capabilities until I looked it up) since it is capable of 140kA while Square D I have it capable of 22.5kA.

Can you show a picture of it in your electrical panel?

I will when the snow stops. The electric panel split for the house is outside.

[blue348]

All this talk and I don’t even have grounding anywhere lol.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by Naiera

What projectors actually need to do HDR properly is to not have them do HDR at all; that requires a Lumagen Radiance Pro or a MadVR thing.

I agree HDR in general does not work with projectors but I find JVC’s DTM to be sufficient on most content. It’s still not quite ‘set it and forget it’ but good enough that I feel I don’t need an external VP.

[HeavyHitter]

The JVC DTM is definitely good, but having recently picked up a Lumagen their recent DTM updates have significantly leaped frogged over JVC's. Kris Deering posted recently how Stacey Spears visited his place and was shocked at how good the JVC + Lumagen looked and actually outperformed some of his mastering displays.