Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Telemachus]

Did anyone try the UB450 yet? Actually has Dolby Vision and switches. Price on Scamazon is unreal. If my UB820 dies I may just grab one and take a chance don't think I'd have the stomach to drop another $400 considering my Toshiba player from 2007 still runs.

Originally Posted by johnny-torrance

Buyer beware. Maybe I got a player from a bad batch if that's possible, but my player purchased from the November sale (from Amazon) last year quickly took a turn for the worse.

My UB820 was from the same sale has been flawless and used every day since. Probably just luck of the draw. :knock on wood: :inb4 my player dies:

[BXR 1138]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Did anyone try the UB450 yet?

I have both the 820 and the 450, each in a different room. The 450 is the only Panasonic player with Dolby Vision that fits in the media console it's currently sitting in. No HDR optimizer and no Top Menu trick. If you can live without those then it's perfectly fine.

[Telemachus]

Originally Posted by BXR 1138

I have both the 820 and the 450, each in a different room. The 450 is the only Panasonic player with Dolby Vision that fits in the media console it's currently sitting in. No HDR optimizer and no Top Menu trick. If you can live without those then it's perfectly fine.

Damn, that's a hard choice. Seems like for pure UHD playback the 450 can't be beat at that price with Dolby Vision. But for a do almost everything else machine the 420 seems like a steal with the remote trick and optimizer.

[Hedrox]

Originally Posted by jess1581

Absolutely it's worth it. HDR is wonderful already. DV is just an extra notch of wonderful.

No offense, but "HDR good, DV even more good" is really not very helpful at telling them what they're getting and the difference between the two.

Dolby Vision is generally use to tell your TV how to properly tonemap HDR content, basically if it's graded at a higher nits value than what your TV can handle it'll help retain the highlight information without the image looking too bright. This also helps with low nits content, as some displays will look at the mastering metadata (which can go up to 10,000 nits) instead of what the image actually outputs (which can be something like 150 nits), making it look too dark.

Bottom line, it all depends on how good your TV is at tone mapping HDR content and its peak brightness (how many nits it has), the better the TV the less impactful DV is to the point where it can be redundant, but either way you're still getting a much better image quality in HDR than what SDR can achieve.

There's also Dolby Vision FEL (full enhancement layer), which can improve poorly encoded HDR base layers, and you would be missing out on that, but unless the base layer is a compression disaster it's probably not something too obvious in motion.

[armus]

Today I tried replacing my Sony X700 with a Panasonic UB820. So far the experience with my Samsung Q60 TV and Samsung Soundbar is disappointing. While I was able to gain HDR10+ (vs. the X700) it seems as though Samsung doesn't support DTS, so the UB820 resorts to PCM but when it does it goes down to 2ch. So, if a disc uses Dolby then that works fine, but it it uses DTS then I'm just going to get 2.0 audio on my 5.1 setup.

[FilmFreakosaurus]

Originally Posted by armus

Today I tried replacing my Sony X700 with a Panasonic UB820. So far the experience with my Samsung Q60 TV and Samsung Soundbar is disappointing. While I was able to gain HDR10+ (vs. the X700) it seems as though Samsung doesn't support DTS, so the UB820 resorts to PCM but when it does it goes down to 2ch. So, if a disc uses Dolby then that works fine, but it it uses DTS then I'm just going to get 2.0 audio on my 5.1 setup.

This is a great example of why soundbars should be a last resort purchase.

I would seriously consider saving up and going with the traditional receiver, speakers, and sub route.

[martydmc12]

DP-UB9000

I've made some comments before on this thread with some ongoing issues I've had with my player, or perhaps discs, as it's been mixed on who the culprit is. I've had a good number of Criterion titles from around the 2012ish era which are prone to having freezing, skipping and pixelation. I've also had a couple of Fox Blu-ray titles, such as Prometheus, X-Men: First Class do the same, the first release of Marvel's The Avengers Blu-ray, and some Shout! Factory/Scream Factory titles as well.

Recently I've noticed my 4K Alien: 40th Anniversary (2019 Fox) Edition has been causing me some problems, I title I've watched many, many times since I originally purchased it in 2019. Upon first inserting the disc everything seems to be working fine, however when I select PLAY and it goes into the movie, the menu bar at the bottom does not disappear, nor will it revert back to the main menu either when I try to go back. Instead I need to eject the disc and start over, thus eliminating the menu bar from view during the movie.

Now tonight when I tried to access the Final Theatrical Isolated Score in the Extras menu, it will select it but when I go to click on Play the menu bar freezes and won't proceed into the film, nor can I select anything else at that point, causing me to have to eject the disc and start all over again. The only way I was able to select this specific audio track was through the audio settings menu, then go to play to have it actually work.

Also of note it had gotten to a point where the "now reading' grey box that appears in the right hand corner of the screen that's a Panasonic graphic remained on the TV and the disc wouldn't load upon the second attempt at trying to play the disc after ejecting. I ended unplugging the player for about two minutes before plugging it back in before I got it to work again.

I'm starting to have my doubts I've got this amount of bad discs in my collection, then again they all seem to be coming from the same studio/distributor where I'm seeing problems (aside from the 1998 Godzilla Sony disc, which you can read back from a couple of years ago where the disc wouldn't eject at all, and just kept re-reading it over and over again).

Have I really got a $1,000 piece of hardware that's just a bad machine overall, or is it a manufacturing problem (made in June 2021), or something else?

[JWgrayhawk]

Originally Posted by armus

Today I tried replacing my Sony X700 with a Panasonic UB820. So far the experience with my Samsung Q60 TV and Samsung Soundbar is disappointing. While I was able to gain HDR10+ (vs. the X700) it seems as though Samsung doesn't support DTS, so the UB820 resorts to PCM but when it does it goes down to 2ch. So, if a disc uses Dolby then that works fine, but it it uses DTS then I'm just going to get 2.0 audio on my 5.1 setup.

Originally Posted by FilmFreakosaurus

This is a great example of why soundbars should be a last resort purchase.

I would seriously consider saving up and going with the traditional receiver, speakers, and sub route.

While I agree that an AVR and speakers is the best way to go, I understand that there are valid reasons why someone couldn't or wouldn't want to go that route.

If you're mostly playing UHDs, Dolby is on the vast majority. But for regular BDs, DTS is the vast majority (at least if considering lossless- there's often a DD 5.1 lossy option on BDs- and I doubt you'd hear a difference between lossless and lossy on a soundbar). So pick accordingly.

However, I find it hard to believe Panny doesn't support DTS. That's a major fail imo; though most UHD viewers are likely to have a full surround setup and handle PCM correctly. Still hard to understand why they'd not offer that feature on a high dollar player.

[armus]

The fault I see is with the 820 doing with the losest denominator of PCM 2.0, rather than the lowest common denominator of PCM 7.1 or 5.1. I tried HDMI via TV and directly to the soundbar. The Sonys handle this fine so I’d expect a Panny costing 2x to handle this okay.

[Telemachus]

The best excuse ever to get a small integrated amp and a 3.1 setup

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by JWgrayhawk

However, I find it hard to believe Panny doesn't support DTS.

Because it does support DTS

[Mierzwiak]

Originally Posted by armus

Today I tried replacing my Sony X700 with a Panasonic UB820. So far the experience with my Samsung Q60 TV and Samsung Soundbar is disappointing.

Which model of soundbar do you have?

[DRC72]

Originally Posted by martydmc12

DP-UB9000

I've made some comments before on this thread with some ongoing issues I've had with my player, or perhaps discs, as it's been mixed on who the culprit is. I've had a good number of Criterion titles from around the 2012ish era which are prone to having freezing, skipping and pixelation. I've also had a couple of Fox Blu-ray titles, such as Prometheus, X-Men: First Class do the same, the first release of Marvel's The Avengers Blu-ray, and some Shout! Factory/Scream Factory titles as well.

Recently I've noticed my 4K Alien: 40th Anniversary (2019 Fox) Edition has been causing me some problems, I title I've watched many, many times since I originally purchased it in 2019. Upon first inserting the disc everything seems to be working fine, however when I select PLAY and it goes into the movie, the menu bar at the bottom does not disappear, nor will it revert back to the main menu either when I try to go back. Instead I need to eject the disc and start over, thus eliminating the menu bar from view during the movie.

Now tonight when I tried to access the Final Theatrical Isolated Score in the Extras menu, it will select it but when I go to click on Play the menu bar freezes and won't proceed into the film, nor can I select anything else at that point, causing me to have to eject the disc and start all over again. The only way I was able to select this specific audio track was through the audio settings menu, then go to play to have it actually work.

Also of note it had gotten to a point where the "now reading' grey box that appears in the right hand corner of the screen that's a Panasonic graphic remained on the TV and the disc wouldn't load upon the second attempt at trying to play the disc after ejecting. I ended unplugging the player for about two minutes before plugging it back in before I got it to work again.

I'm starting to have my doubts I've got this amount of bad discs in my collection, then again they all seem to be coming from the same studio/distributor where I'm seeing problems (aside from the 1998 Godzilla Sony disc, which you can read back from a couple of years ago where the disc wouldn't eject at all, and just kept re-reading it over and over again).

Have I really got a $1,000 piece of hardware that's just a bad machine overall, or is it a manufacturing problem (made in June 2021), or something else?

I just watched Alien for the first time on my 9000 and no issues to report.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by samdaman94

Is there anywhere I can find the optimum player settings (UB820) and TV settings (LG C2) for the best experience when combining the two?

Look in my signature. And you can look for the C2 settings on my channel.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by JWgrayhawk

While I agree that an AVR and speakers is the best way to go, I understand that there are valid reasons why someone couldn't or wouldn't want to go that route.

If you're mostly playing UHDs, Dolby is on the vast majority. But for regular BDs, DTS is the vast majority (at least if considering lossless- there's often a DD 5.1 lossy option on BDs- and I doubt you'd hear a difference between lossless and lossy on a soundbar). So pick accordingly.

However, I find it hard to believe Panny doesn't support DTS. That's a major fail imo; though most UHD viewers are likely to have a full surround setup and handle PCM correctly. Still hard to understand why they'd not offer that feature on a high dollar player.

What are you on about? ALL 4K players support DTS

[chip75]

Originally Posted by armus

The fault I see is with the 820 doing with the losest denominator of PCM 2.0, rather than the lowest common denominator of PCM 7.1 or 5.1. I tried HDMI via TV and directly to the soundbar. The Sonys handle this fine so I’d expect a Panny costing 2x to handle this okay.

If your soundbar supports DTS then you need to plug the Panasonic's second HDMI output into it, you won't be able to passthrough DTS through eARC.

With some Samsung TV's you actually have to turn off eARC to send out Atmos.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by samdaman94

Is there anywhere I can find the optimum player settings (UB820) and TV settings (LG C2) for the best experience when combining the two?

I'm the outlier in this group with my method of watching 4K movies on my LG C9 and my Panasonic 820 but it may benefit you on this.

I have gone through a lot of testing with my TV and the 820 on what settings are best. I've gone back and forth between HDR10 discs and Dolby Vision streams to figure out how can I achieve a picture closer to DV. What I have done is use not only the Panasonic 820's optimizer but also LG's Dynamic Tone Mapping setting as well. The reason for this is that using just the HDR Optimizer seems to still have the overall APL of the movie darker than Dolby Vision. DTM helps get closer to APL of Dolby Vision. I would also argue that other TVs like Sony OLEDs have DTM "On" automatically and so the TVs use it.

Now LG's DTM boosts the brightness and contrast a little too much. So, we have to compensate for it. In order to do that, we go into the HDR Options Menu on the Panasonic 820. There will be 2 settings you will change; The Dynamic Range Adjustment Slider and the Brightness. I have adjusted those to -2 (Slider) and -3 (Brightness). These settings have mostly eliminated the issues that LG's DTM has and allows for a more dynamic picture very similar to DV. Now these setting values may be different on your C2 so please adjust them to how your TV looks. Just make sure your HDR Settings in the HDMI menu is set to OLED and you are set.

I will note, these settings haven't been checked by a measuring device but I feel confident that are pretty good in terms with how the picture looks.

[JWgrayhawk]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

What are you on about? ALL 4K players support DTS

According to the poster I was responding to, when it converts DTS to PCM it only outputs 2.0. I should have said it doesn't fully support DTS, as in it doesn't convert it correctly. I'm sure this only affects a small minority of users, but it's still hard to believe Panny would have such a shortcoming.

[Telemachus]

I run Panny/LG, I keep the LG DTM off, I tried it and it makes the picture way too different for some films, washed out even, but if you watch Heat just turn it on (more on that later). For the HDR optimizer on the Panny, it's off, unless I want it to curve discs that go over 1000nits, but this drops the brightness on my LG vs. having it off and I don't like it (just having the Optimizer ON does this, even if settings are neutral), check a disc like Interstellar for this behavior. If I actually want to use the optimizer's settings, I only have a handful of discs that need it: Heat, Christine, Crank, a few others. I actually stopped turning it on for everything except Heat, that really is the worst of the worst that I've seen. 90% of my discs are Dolby Vision and that's hands off from me except tweaking filmmaker mode for color or whatever.

[armus]

Originally Posted by Mierzwiak

Which model of soundbar do you have?

I've got the Samsung HW-Q6CR, which is the Costco-specific version of the HW-Q60R. I've also got the optional rear speakers, so the 3.1 setup becomes 5.1.

Afaict, Samsung is deficient at all price points in 3 ways since about 2018 or 2019: 1) their TVs don't support Dolby Vision, 2) their TVs don't support DTS in any way, and 3) sound bar support of PCM is limited in 2ch. The net result is there's not a turnkey way to use DTS with Samsung TV&soundbar. I probably wasn't aware of this because the Sony X700 doesn't display what it outputs (which is something the UB820 and Sony X800M2 does do).

I didn't have success with using the digital audio cable between the TV or soundbar, probably because the Samsung TVs don't support DTS regardless of ARC. It also didn't help to just plug the 820 solely into the soundbar, probably because the audio is still going to the TV (which lacks DTS) before getting sent back to the sound bar via ARC.

What did help was to use two HDMI cables from the 820 so the video goes to the tv and the audio goes to the sound bar. The caveat is that the sound bar's input needs to be manually switched from ARC to HDMI. The TV and soundbar remote can still change the audio level even though it's not actually using audio from the TV.

However, there's times when the soundbar will automatically switch back to ARC, and I'm still trying to understand this behavior. E.g., pressing "Top Menu" on the 820 remote will cause the soundbar to switch back to ARC (and thus 2ch PCM). I'm not sure if the soundbar and 820 might share a few remote IR frequencies (I tried placing the 820 remote up to the 820's IR receiver and shield the sound bar when I pressed "Top Menu" and that didn't help to avoid the issue). I'm tempted to try changing the remote code of the 820, but the 820 manual just says how to get the remote to match the 820 (vs. change the 820 to a new code).