Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[Cortiz]

Originally Posted by Compson

I know others have a different opinion, but I’ve found the Panny’s deinterlacing of DVDs to be better than what I’ve gotten from good players from Pioneer, Sony, and Toshiba. You needn’t be concerned.

The Panny players are awesome for BD and 4K playback, but is there one thing that most people actually agree on is the DVD playback is atrocious.

[cicada88]

This is a bit off topic but does anyone have any opinion on the best players for deinterlacing, PAL to NTSC conversion, and upscaling SD content to 1080p or 4K (outside of HTPC of course).

I’ve often wondered how Sonys TVs’ newer custom chips handle most of these tasks compared to high-end Oppos and Pioneer decks from 10 years ago that seemed to put more emphasis on SD DVDs

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by KPackratt2k

Out of curiosity, exactly what does the bad DVD deinterlacing look like on Panasonic UHD players? Does it look like bob deinterlacing (CRT-like flicker), discard deinterlacing (jagged edges at half the frame rate), or weave deinterlacing (constant combing)? Also, does it affect all DVDs (including movies with progressive 3:2 pulldown) or just DVDs that are known to be interlaced (i.e. TV show DVDs).

I plan on getting a Panasonic UHD player since my parents bought a new TV, but the reports on its bad DVD deinterlacing had me slightly concerned, so I thought I'd ask if anyone could describe what it looked like in more detail.

I dunno about half the frame rate but yeah, diagonal details are jaggy as hell, it’s also got added ringing unless you set Edge Correction to +1. It’s so poor for DVD.

[KPackratt2k]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

All DVDs are interlaced. There is no such thing as progressive DVD.

I don’t find the de-interlacing is bad. I find the upscaling to be mediocre, nothings special.

Technically, DVDs can be encoded as progressive with some tricks, most DVD movies have a 23.976 FPS progressive video stream with 3:2 pulldown flags to mark the frame-rate as 29.97 FPS. Some modern Blu-ray players and most PC DVD player software can remove the pulldown flags and output this as a proper 23.976p video. It's also possible to encode a progressive 29.97 FPS video onto a DVD using the "zigzag" scan technique which most MPEG2 encoder software will apply for you when encoding from a 29.97p source. This frame rate is more common on home movie DVDs than it is for studio releases.

With this knowledge in mind, I thought it would be worth pointing out in case the Panasonic UHD players handled these types of DVDs differently than DVDs with a properly interlaced 29.97 FPS video stream (common on TV show DVDs). I'll see for myself how it looks when I get the Panasonic UHD player for my birthday. Worst case scenario I may end up using our Toshiba DVD/VCR combo (with HDMI output) for DVD playback and use the Panasonic for Blu-rays (1080p and 4K) only.

[Compson]

Originally Posted by Cortiz

The Panny players are awesome for BD and 4K playback, but is there one thing that most people actually agree on is the DVD playback is atrocious.

Not everybody

“The DP-UB9000’s HCX processor flawlessly upscales, deinterlaces, and chroma up-samples all lower-res content. This is good news for those of us still watching the occasional DVD. The Epson 5050UB projector I used for testing failed the 2:2 test when fed a source-direct signal but the Panasonic player locked onto the cadence instantly, as it did all other formats. There was no clipping of below black or above white information and the chroma multi-burst patterns resolved perfectly in 4:2:2, 4:4:4, and RGB formats. Jaggies were handled smoothly with no edge enhancement or anti-aliasing visible.”
https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/...-part-1-video/

I can tell you what I see. I’ve watched dozens of DVDs on a 102” diagonal screen, and I see fewer jaggies, etc. on the Panny than on other players (Pioneer BDP-09FD, Sony BDP-S6700, Toshiba HD-A35). My experience is not universal.

[manwithnoname64]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

I dunno about half the frame rate but yeah, diagonal details are jaggy as hell, it’s also got added ringing unless you set Edge Correction to +1. It’s so poor for DVD.

What’s a good alternative that can be had at this point for a few hundred bucks, if possible? I wouldn’t t be looking to pay $1K+ just to play some old DVDs that I pop in once in awhile.

[dontpokethebear3893]

Wizard of Oz UHD has no video output on my UB820. No other discs have this issue. Anyone have any ideas?

[dontpokethebear3893]

Originally Posted by dontpokethebear3893

Wizard of Oz UHD has no video output on my UB820. No other discs have this issue. Anyone have any ideas?

I disabled Dolby Vision and now it's outputting video. However, it's outputting as SDR instead of HDR10. What is going on?

[dontpokethebear3893]

I re-enabled Dolby Vision and now it's working properly. Absolutely bizarre lol.

[George.P]

Originally Posted by Compson

Not everybody

“The DP-UB9000’s HCX processor flawlessly upscales, deinterlaces, and chroma up-samples all lower-res content. This is good news for those of us still watching the occasional DVD. The Epson 5050UB projector I used for testing failed the 2:2 test when fed a source-direct signal but the Panasonic player locked onto the cadence instantly, as it did all other formats. There was no clipping of below black or above white information and the chroma multi-burst patterns resolved perfectly in 4:2:2, 4:4:4, and RGB formats. Jaggies were handled smoothly with no edge enhancement or anti-aliasing visible.”
https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/...-part-1-video/

I can tell you what I see. I’ve watched dozens of DVDs on a 102” diagonal screen, and I see fewer jaggies, etc. on the Panny than on other players (Pioneer BDP-09FD, Sony BDP-S6700, Toshiba HD-A35). My experience is not universal.

From what I read, that review doesn’t suggest they actually played any DVDs for the review, and are just basing its effectiveness off the specs.

[Riggins1]

Hey guys. I’m asking this again since the problem is still around. I am experiencing flickering on most of my standard Blu-ray discs. I have also started noticing som banding issues when there’s a scene with a bright sky included. Someone on here suggested I get a bed hdmi cable. Did that but problem is still there. It’s not super obvious flickering but definitely enough to annoy me. What can I do? Any tips? I have the UB820 and an OLEDCX55”.

Thanks again.

[sfmarine]

Originally Posted by dontpokethebear3893

I re-enabled Dolby Vision and now it's working properly. Absolutely bizarre lol.

I had a similar problem where the player was only recognizing DV and not HDR content. You definitely need to tweak this player a bit to get it working properly. It worked once I switched the output from 4:4:4 to 4:2:0 in both the Color Mode output and 4K/60p output menu.

[Reignman35]

Does anyone know if the 820 will play the NARC or Swimming with Sharks Blu Ray using the region free trick? They are both Region 2 locked if I recall right.

[sfmarine]

I know the 820 has gained a lot of new users with the latest sale and I have seen several members on here mention they got one.

Just asking for a little more feedback from them regarding the excessive noise. My player is likely going back but just curious if others experience the loud humming from the fan and loud noises while using the search function.

My video for reference.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=9621

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by sfmarine

I know the 820 has gained a lot of new users with the latest sale and I have seen several members on here mention they got one.

Just asking for a little more feedback from them regarding the excessive noise. My player is likely going back but just curious if others experience the loud humming from the fan and loud noises while using the search function.

My video for reference.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=9621

I've legit never heard the fan start up on any of the multiple Panny UHD decks that I've owned, but one thing they do do is rattle and hum like a mofo when placed on my TV stand, they seem to resonate with the glass and make an absolute racket. Bought an "isolation platform" (translation: bit of wood with three half-spheres of rubber for feet) and it solved the problem instantaneously.

[Reignman35]

Originally Posted by sfmarine

I know the 820 has gained a lot of new users with the latest sale and I have seen several members on here mention they got one.

Just asking for a little more feedback from them regarding the excessive noise. My player is likely going back but just curious if others experience the loud humming from the fan and loud noises while using the search function.

My video for reference.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=9621

I've owned my 820 for over 2 years, and have yet to notice any excessive fan noise, or any fan noise at all, during use.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by George.P

From what I read, that review doesn’t suggest they actually played any DVDs for the review, and are just basing its effectiveness off the specs.

The crazy thing is that the Pannys ace the DVD test patterns like CUE and the chroma multibursts and cadence detection and whatnot, I mean they look perfick, far better than they do on the OPPO 203. But the jaggies test pattern gives it away, the swinging bar is jagged as hell on all the angles as it swings back and forth and when you play real world content it's right there too, it's like the upsampling engine is so intent on REBUILDING THE CHROMA, MUST REBUILD THE CHROMA!!! that it ignores the niceties like halfway decent deinterlacing...which kinda sucks when dealing with a format that is literally always stored as interlaced material.

This is totally and utterly unscientific but below are some crappy cellphone photos of the Hockey clip from the Spears & Munsil DVD included with the HD Benchmark disc. This is a piece designed to be a torture test, shot on what looks like Video8 tape or something and it's grotty as hell, right, but what any competent deinterlacer should be doing is rendering the diagonals as smoothly as possible. Instead the Panny 820 makes the hockey sticks look like they've been half-inched from Minecraft and no, I'm not being hyperbolic.

Again: these are terrible cellphone photos (something I don't normally do, I use an actual camera camera) so ignore things like the colour tinting, moiré from the screen, visible clumps of pixels, and just look at the hockey stick the kid is holding. Same frame on each. Nicely smooth on the OPPO 203, jagged AF on the 820. There's more ringing on the Panny with the default video settings too. And this is nothing to do with only displaying fields when paused or whatever, this is exactly how it looks in motion as well. And also no, it's not because "the source is shit" or whatever, this manifests in day to day viewing with whatever 480i content I dare to watch on it (which isn't often).

Panny 820

[Show spoiler]

OPPO 203

[Show spoiler]

PS

Just one more thing: the Pannys also have a bug when playing SD content stored on a Blu-ray, again it's very badly jagged and even the test patterns show it, e.g. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...5#post14660725. This is something that even David Mackenzie documented.

[Stormyyy]

After a closer look, I would not recommend buying from WOOT with the UB9000. The one I got from them is pretty beat up. I will be keeping my new one I bought from best buy instead.

[sfmarine]

Originally Posted by Stormyyy

After a closer look, I would not recommend buying from WOOT with the UB9000. The one I got from them is pretty beat up. I will be keeping my new one I bought from best buy instead.

Thanks for the feedback. I was pretty upset after I found out I missed out on the deal. This takes the sting away. Will you be returning it?

[blakeyamc]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

But the jaggies test pattern gives it away, the swinging bar is jagged as hell on all the angles as it swings back and forth and when you play real world content it's right there too, it's like the upsampling engine is so intent on REBUILDING THE CHROMA, MUST REBUILD THE CHROMA!!! that it ignores the niceties like halfway decent deinterlacing...which kinda sucks when dealing with a format that is literally always stored as interlaced material.

Aww. This makes so much sense. I just recently watched a few episodes of my Buffy DVDs (480i) and I noticed this on my Panny 420. I wish I would've known this earlier, I spent most of the time thinking it was the TV that was causing the nasty deinterlacing edges. I eventually, dropped the sharpness down and turned on Sony's reality creation (which I never really use for content on disc), to create a watchable image. May have to use my old DVD/VCR for 480i DVD content, in the future.