Panasonic DMP-UB900 Ultra HD Player - Page 55 - Blu-ray Forum

Robert Zohn · 05-25-2017, 03:00 PM

Thant's a good assumption. This came down from Panasonic two days ago. I first found out from a customer who saw the price drop on Best Buy's Magnolia.

HDTV1080P · 05-25-2017, 08:30 PM

Thanks for the info Robert. The Panasonic and Sony have the advantage of built in streaming. Possible the OPPO UDP-203 might never offer streaming unless they surprise people with a future firmware update. The advantage of the OPPO and Sony over the Panasonic, is DVD-Audio and SACD support. The advantage of the OPPO is the Dolby Vision support.

Hucksta G · 05-27-2017, 07:23 AM

A bit of a noob question but should I be leaving 24p output on? I turned it off and found Passengers to look a bit weird. Thanks for your help sorry if it's a dumb question

Jeff R 1 · 05-27-2017, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hucksta G

A bit of a noob question but should I be leaving 24p output on? I turned it off and found Passengers to look a bit weird. Thanks for your help sorry if it's a dumb question

Turning it off is probably forcing the player to out-put at 60fps, so it's also applying 3:2 pull-down, that would acount for it looking weird.

Just leave it on 24p, the only UHD Disc with HFR (so far) is Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk.

Hucksta G · 05-27-2017, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff R 1

Turning it off is probably forcing the player to out-put at 60fps, so it's also applying 3:2 pull-down, that would acount for it looking weird.

Just leave it on 24p, the only UHD Disc with HFR (so far) is Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk.

Awesome, good to know. Thanks for your help 😀

HDTV1080P · 05-28-2017, 01:01 AM

24P should only out 24Hz for native 24fps material. When playing a HFR Blu-ray that is 60fps, the Blu-ray player should output 60Hz even if 24P is turned on.

Jeff R 1 · 05-28-2017, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

24P should only out 24Hz for native 24fps material. When playing a HFR Blu-ray that is 60fps, the Blu-ray player should output 60Hz even if 24P is turned on.

Yup, and most of what's out there, at least in North America is 24 Hz or 24fps or 23.9676 fps.

But upon looking I see Hucksta is in New Zealand, so he may be dealing with 25fps, but even with that, those discs are not that common.
Most Blu-rays and probably all UHD Blu-rays are still at 24 fps.

ewokuk · 05-28-2017, 07:47 AM

Just ordered my UB900. I got it for £284.05! Shop called tekzone (never heard of but trustpilot reviews seem good) had it for £299 and offered another 5% discount for the bank holiday. Couldn't resist at that price! There is one other place doing it for £299 but without the 5%. Everywhere else has now dropped the price after Panasonic reduced it but they are all still at £379.

danny24 · 05-28-2017, 08:17 AM

So I have a few Region B only titles (Red Rock West, Dragnet, Bowfinger, Bird On A Wire). I put the disc in and it took me to the screen that says disc is not region compatible. So with the remote I pressed stop and pressed "top menu" a few times and I was able to access the menu and play the movie. It does not work with every Region B title (Mission To Mars I tried, didn't work) but it does work for a few discs I have tried. It's still a Region A player but that is a cool trick I thought I'd share and it works with other Panasonic BD players to. If you have this player and a Region B disc around, give it a try. I don't have any special firmware installed, it's not region free. This is just a trick for playing Region B discs, it won't play every Region B disc, just a few. I would not buy this thinking it's region free, it's not. This trick does not work on the Oppo 203 and Sony x800 just the Panasonic UB900. Anyway it's pretty cool and the 4k upconversion makes these look fantastic, just hope Panasonic doesn't read these forums and try and find a work around it with a future firmware update.

DJR662 · 05-28-2017, 10:12 AM

^^^ I'm gonna try this with my region B player and region A movies.

Geoff D · 05-28-2017, 12:57 PM

The top menu trick has been in place on Panasonic players for years, there's a thread here for example with several titles listed: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ight=panasonic

For region B players it usually works a treat on Criterions in particular, although it's not 100% for those.

For region A players I've found that Arrow's UK discs are often receptive to this trick.

I *think* it's got something to do with Java, I don't know specifics but David M doesn't like to use Java in his authoring so that might be why those Arrow discs work with the top menu trick, and Criterion seem to alternate between HDMV and Java.

danny24 · 05-28-2017, 08:30 PM

I have a Seiki 4k upscale BD player that can do region free it usually stays in the closet (till I am ready to play a Region B disc) some people might not know of that top menu trick with Panasonic BD players. Still that 4k upscale with the UB900 was amazing, wish this could be region free it blew the Seiki away. I do try to avoid Region B discs if possible, I like to have a Region A friendly collection. Though sometimes it's hard to resist certain titles that are only out in other regions and are movies I really like. That is one of the reasons why UHD BD is great, it's region free does not matter what country the disc is from, it will play.

d514 · 05-30-2017, 07:17 AM

I recently bought the UB704 which is the German version of the UB700 to replace my Samsung K8500. I've been using a Panasonic Blu-ray player for years, a BDT120 (it's the BDT220 without WLAN) which has the same image processing as the BDT500 which Panasonic sold for many years after they switched to MediaTek chipsets for their cheaper players.

The UB700 (and the UB900) is obviously based on the BDT500. The menu structure is almost the same. This also means there isn't much improvement in the playback of various file formats and apps like Netflix. The Netflix App is rather slow compared to the K8500 and my Samsung TV. Yes, the UB700 supports more formats but it's still not as good as the Samsung - which played almost any file I tried. The UB700 still doesn't support gapless playback for FLAC files and you still can't change folders without stopping the playback. Overall the player is faster than my BDT120 and reacts faster to the remote but quickly skipping a few chapters on a disc is still slower compared to the Samsung K8500.

OK, I already knew most of this. Panasonic never made the best universal media players. Samsung and LG are better in that department. But as expected the picture quality with Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray is great. The biggest difference is visible with UHD Blu-rays sourced from 35mm. The grain is reproduced better. I guess the rumours about the Samsung using DNR in video processing are true. On discs which already have a very "clean" picture the difference in picture quality is not as big. There's still a slight improvement but it's not a night and day difference.

I also got the multiregion firmware from the page that shall not be named. Worked without any problems. Since I also got that firmware on my BDT120 I didn't want to lose that.

Abou the remote: It's almost identical to the one from my BDT120. A few buttons have switched places but that's not a problem. What I really dislike about the remote: There are a few keys to control the Volume and turn off the TV. On the old remote I could enter different codes to control TVs not made by Panasonic. This is not possible with the new remote. I don't need the big remote from the UB900 but removing this feature is really a bad idea in my opinion. But the remote from my BDT120 also works with the UB700 so I'm just using that one.

In the end I wanted a player like my BDT120 but with UHD playback and that is exactly what I got.

Geoff D · 05-30-2017, 04:51 PM

They stopped the universal TV control support on the remote with the BDT700 player which was the true stopgap between the BD and UHD players, the menu really IS identical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geoff D

...here's a picture of the BDT700's front end from the AVF review:

[Show spoiler]

compared to a picture of the UHD player's front end, there's something similar there but I can't quite put my finger on it...

[Show spoiler]

Hell, that's probably what Panasonic's front end looks like on all their current players, MediaTek shite included, but it's nice to see the continuity from HD to UHD.

Yogo · 05-31-2017, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by d514

I also got the multiregion firmware from the page that shall not be named. Worked without any problems. Since I also got that firmware on my BDT120 I didn't want to lose that.

I want to get regionfreedom firmware ("DMP-UB700/704, DMP-UB900 - Enhanced Firmware for selected models [EB,EF,EG,GN,P,PC]") too but I cannot understand the difference between "Multi-Region playback for DVD and Blu-ray" and "Country code selection" ?

Please explain if there is a difference.

Thank you

d514 · 05-31-2017, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yogo

the difference between "Multi-Region playback for DVD and Blu-ray" and "Country code selection"

Most discs only check the region code. But some discs also check the country code. For example North America and Japan both use Code A. If the disc only checks the code it will work in both countries. If it also checks the country code and is programmed to only work within the US it won't work in japanese player. With the firmware you can change both the region code and the country code so your US player can pretend to be in Japan.

ewokuk · 06-03-2017, 10:27 AM

GAH! my UB900 arrived yesterday and I might have a big problem. I put in The Martian 4k, was watching it and got to 18 mins 11 seconds and the player just froze. couldnt go back, forward, stop, nothing. It did let me press the power button and the player then sat there saying please wait for ages, until eventually I pressed the power button again after about 10 mins and it then said goodbye and turned off. Suspecting possibly a dodgy disc, I played it again, skipped to 18 mins and watched to see if it did it again, but it didnt. I continued watching until 1h in and then turned it off. Today I come back and continue watching, at 1h.13.08 it did it again, exact same thing, just froze. I did hear a couple of noises from it this time like it might have been struggling to read the disc. Although even if it is bad disc, the player really shouldnt freeze up like that! every other player I have ever had when dealing with a disc it cant read will usually just skip over it, or freeze and let me skip over it myself.

Now I have a problem, I don't know if it is a bad disc (amazing coincidence seeing as it is the very first 4k disc I tried!) or something wrong with the player. I did play some old buffy dvd for a bit and that didnt freeze. I am now trying hunger games 4k and hoping it doesnt freeze on this.

Tru-way · 06-03-2017, 10:37 AM

^Do you have the latest firmware update installed?

ewokuk · 06-03-2017, 10:41 AM

Yes I have 1.74 from the site that shall not be named (suspected perhaps it was that but not heard anyone else mention any issues with it).

Tru-way · 06-03-2017, 11:11 AM

I have never experienced anything like this with my UB900 and I have popped in numerous UHD disks, that being said I don't own The Martian 4k.

Sucks that you are experiencing this, I would feel silly if I said that it could be your HDMI cable causing this issue so I'm just going to suggest resetting your player and see if that fixes the issue.

05-28-2017, 08:17 AM	#1089
danny24 Blu-ray Ninja Top contributor Member since:Feb 2010 4K collection:32 Blu-ray collection:43 Trading Score:58	So I have a few Region B only titles (Red Rock West, Dragnet, Bowfinger, Bird On A Wire). I put the disc in and it took me to the screen that says disc is not region compatible. So with the remote I pressed stop and pressed "top menu" a few times and I was able to access the menu and play the movie. It does not work with every Region B title (Mission To Mars I tried, didn't work) but it does work for a few discs I have tried. It's still a Region A player but that is a cool trick I thought I'd share and it works with other Panasonic BD players to. If you have this player and a Region B disc around, give it a try. I don't have any special firmware installed, it's not region free. This is just a trick for playing Region B discs, it won't play every Region B disc, just a few. I would not buy this thinking it's region free, it's not. This trick does not work on the Oppo 203 and Sony x800 just the Panasonic UB900. Anyway it's pretty cool and the 4k upconversion makes these look fantastic, just hope Panasonic doesn't read these forums and try and find a work around it with a future firmware update. Last edited by danny24; 05-28-2017 at 08:29 AM.

06-03-2017, 10:27 AM	#1097
ewokuk Junior Member Member since:May 2017	GAH! my UB900 arrived yesterday and I might have a big problem. I put in The Martian 4k, was watching it and got to 18 mins 11 seconds and the player just froze. couldnt go back, forward, stop, nothing. It did let me press the power button and the player then sat there saying please wait for ages, until eventually I pressed the power button again after about 10 mins and it then said goodbye and turned off. Suspecting possibly a dodgy disc, I played it again, skipped to 18 mins and watched to see if it did it again, but it didnt. I continued watching until 1h in and then turned it off. Today I come back and continue watching, at 1h.13.08 it did it again, exact same thing, just froze. I did hear a couple of noises from it this time like it might have been struggling to read the disc. Although even if it is bad disc, the player really shouldnt freeze up like that! every other player I have ever had when dealing with a disc it cant read will usually just skip over it, or freeze and let me skip over it myself. Now I have a problem, I don't know if it is a bad disc (amazing coincidence seeing as it is the very first 4k disc I tried!) or something wrong with the player. I did play some old buffy dvd for a bit and that didnt freeze. I am now trying hunger games 4k and hoping it doesnt freeze on this. Last edited by ewokuk; 06-03-2017 at 10:33 AM.

05-25-2017, 03:00 PM	#1081
Robert Zohn Retailer Insider Member since:Nov 2009 Location:Scarsdale, NY Trading Score:2	Thant's a good assumption. This came down from Panasonic two days ago. I first found out from a customer who saw the price drop on Best Buy's Magnolia.

05-25-2017, 08:30 PM	#1082
HDTV1080P Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Jan 2007 Blu-ray reviews: 205	Thanks for the info Robert. The Panasonic and Sony have the advantage of built in streaming. Possible the OPPO UDP-203 might never offer streaming unless they surprise people with a future firmware update. The advantage of the OPPO and Sony over the Panasonic, is DVD-Audio and SACD support. The advantage of the OPPO is the Dolby Vision support.

05-27-2017, 07:23 AM	#1083
Hucksta G Blu-ray Knight Top contributor Member since:Jan 2011 Location:New Zealand 4K collection:119 Blu-ray collection:1000 DVD collection:378 iTunes collection:1 Trading Score:5	A bit of a noob question but should I be leaving 24p output on? I turned it off and found Passengers to look a bit weird. Thanks for your help sorry if it's a dumb question

05-28-2017, 01:01 AM	#1086
HDTV1080P Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Jan 2007 Blu-ray reviews: 205	24P should only out 24Hz for native 24fps material. When playing a HFR Blu-ray that is 60fps, the Blu-ray player should output 60Hz even if 24P is turned on.

05-28-2017, 07:47 AM	#1088
ewokuk Junior Member Member since:May 2017	Just ordered my UB900. I got it for £284.05! Shop called tekzone (never heard of but trustpilot reviews seem good) had it for £299 and offered another 5% discount for the bank holiday. Couldn't resist at that price! There is one other place doing it for £299 but without the 5%. Everywhere else has now dropped the price after Panasonic reduced it but they are all still at £379.

05-28-2017, 10:12 AM	#1090
DJR662 Blu-ray Knight Member since:Feb 2009 Trading Score:30	^^^ I'm gonna try this with my region B player and region A movies.

05-28-2017, 12:57 PM	#1091
Geoff D Blu-ray Emperor Top contributor Member since:Feb 2009 Location:Swanage, Engerland 4K collection:1348 Blu-ray collection:2525 Blu-ray reviews: 6 Trading Score:33	The top menu trick has been in place on Panasonic players for years, there's a thread here for example with several titles listed: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ight=panasonic For region B players it usually works a treat on Criterions in particular, although it's not 100% for those. For region A players I've found that Arrow's UK discs are often receptive to this trick. I think it's got something to do with Java, I don't know specifics but David M doesn't like to use Java in his authoring so that might be why those Arrow discs work with the top menu trick, and Criterion seem to alternate between HDMV and Java.

05-28-2017, 08:30 PM	#1092
danny24 Blu-ray Ninja Top contributor Member since:Feb 2010 4K collection:32 Blu-ray collection:43 Trading Score:58	I have a Seiki 4k upscale BD player that can do region free it usually stays in the closet (till I am ready to play a Region B disc) some people might not know of that top menu trick with Panasonic BD players. Still that 4k upscale with the UB900 was amazing, wish this could be region free it blew the Seiki away. I do try to avoid Region B discs if possible, I like to have a Region A friendly collection. Though sometimes it's hard to resist certain titles that are only out in other regions and are movies I really like. That is one of the reasons why UHD BD is great, it's region free does not matter what country the disc is from, it will play.

05-30-2017, 07:17 AM	#1093
d514 Expert Member Member since:May 2010 Location:Germany Trading Score:8	I recently bought the UB704 which is the German version of the UB700 to replace my Samsung K8500. I've been using a Panasonic Blu-ray player for years, a BDT120 (it's the BDT220 without WLAN) which has the same image processing as the BDT500 which Panasonic sold for many years after they switched to MediaTek chipsets for their cheaper players. The UB700 (and the UB900) is obviously based on the BDT500. The menu structure is almost the same. This also means there isn't much improvement in the playback of various file formats and apps like Netflix. The Netflix App is rather slow compared to the K8500 and my Samsung TV. Yes, the UB700 supports more formats but it's still not as good as the Samsung - which played almost any file I tried. The UB700 still doesn't support gapless playback for FLAC files and you still can't change folders without stopping the playback. Overall the player is faster than my BDT120 and reacts faster to the remote but quickly skipping a few chapters on a disc is still slower compared to the Samsung K8500. OK, I already knew most of this. Panasonic never made the best universal media players. Samsung and LG are better in that department. But as expected the picture quality with Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray is great. The biggest difference is visible with UHD Blu-rays sourced from 35mm. The grain is reproduced better. I guess the rumours about the Samsung using DNR in video processing are true. On discs which already have a very "clean" picture the difference in picture quality is not as big. There's still a slight improvement but it's not a night and day difference. I also got the multiregion firmware from the page that shall not be named. Worked without any problems. Since I also got that firmware on my BDT120 I didn't want to lose that. Abou the remote: It's almost identical to the one from my BDT120. A few buttons have switched places but that's not a problem. What I really dislike about the remote: There are a few keys to control the Volume and turn off the TV. On the old remote I could enter different codes to control TVs not made by Panasonic. This is not possible with the new remote. I don't need the big remote from the UB900 but removing this feature is really a bad idea in my opinion. But the remote from my BDT120 also works with the UB700 so I'm just using that one. In the end I wanted a player like my BDT120 but with UHD playback and that is exactly what I got.

06-03-2017, 10:37 AM	#1098
Tru-way Senior Member Member since:Sep 2007 Trading Score:2	^Do you have the latest firmware update installed?

06-03-2017, 10:41 AM	#1099
ewokuk Junior Member Member since:May 2017	Yes I have 1.74 from the site that shall not be named (suspected perhaps it was that but not heard anyone else mention any issues with it).

06-03-2017, 11:11 AM	#1100
Tru-way Senior Member Member since:Sep 2007 Trading Score:2	I have never experienced anything like this with my UB900 and I have popped in numerous UHD disks, that being said I don't own The Martian 4k. Sucks that you are experiencing this, I would feel silly if I said that it could be your HDMI cable causing this issue so I'm just going to suggest resetting your player and see if that fixes the issue.

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