Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

The current gen of players, the DV are clipping be it Sony, Pioneer or Panasonic. Unless Dolby fixes it, it will be like that. The manufacturers can’t do anything

So all except Oppo?

[sapiendut]

Oppo is part of the previous gen. So Oppo is OK. I think the Sony 700 is also OK.

[dominica]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Oppo is part of the previous gen. So Oppo is OK. I think the Sony 700 is also OK.

The Sony 700 is Ok. Compared it to the Oppo 203, 800M2 and UB820. It's a Dolby Labs issue. Hopefully they fix it.

[Minimejer05]

So my UB820 is starting to worry me. I tried loading up Reservoir Dogs on Blu the other night and it loaded up a frozen image and then just blacked out and went back to main menu. Today, I tried watching Death Proof on Blu and at first it made it to the disc’s loading screen, only to freeze and force me to power it down. Second time, it went to disc loading screen, got stuck for 2 mins, then bounced back to Panasonic main menu, only to show the “disc loading” prompt and then back to disc loading screen. It sat like that for 5 mins. Only this time I couldn’t power it down — it just kept saying “Please wait”. I eventually had to unplug the power cord. Anyone had something like this happen to them before? Any suggestions?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by DJR662

So all except Oppo?

Even the OPPO is clipping >4000 highlight detail in Low Latency mode, but as most movies don't venture anywhere near those levels then it's not a day-to-day problem, but the torture test DV Montage on S&M UHD Benchmark really shows it up.

These other players are clipping nearer the ~2000 nit mark in DV (as best as I can tell). Basically the Low Latency (player-led) mode is a ****ing mess. Reduced brightness (at least on my ZD9), reduced colour saturation, clipping highlights, greybar problem still very much present (I've just gotten used to it).

But hey, I'd still rather watch any given StudioCanal UHD in Dobly because even with all those faults it's STILL better than the dreadful HDR10 layers!

[sapiendut]

Yes. The low latency mode is f-up. It seems like Dolby didn’t design DV properly as more players fail instead of passing the signals properly.

[EddieLarkin]

Geoff, are you saying the Dolby clipping issue is a player-led only problem? That it is not happening when DV is TV-led? Does this apply to the Pannys or just the Oppo?

[Minimejer05]

Whenever I go to load a disc, the front of the player will say “reading” (as will the TV briefly) and then the front of the player says “High Clarity” followed by “Stop” and then it kicks me back to the main menu. Tried on all sorts of discs. This sucks! Anyone think Panasonic will cover this?

[sapiendut]

If it is under warranty I don’t see why not.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by EddieLarkin

Geoff, are you saying the Dolby clipping issue is a player-led only problem? That it is not happening when DV is TV-led? Does this apply to the Pannys or just the Oppo?

The Panny UB9000 on TV-led is fine according to Stacey Spears.

[sapiendut]

So it’s only the LLM as suspected then.

[AKORIS]

Originally Posted by Minimejer05

So my UB820 is starting to worry me. I tried loading up Reservoir Dogs on Blu the other night and it loaded up a frozen image and then just blacked out and went back to main menu. Today, I tried watching Death Proof on Blu and at first it made it to the disc’s loading screen, only to freeze and force me to power it down. Second time, it went to disc loading screen, got stuck for 2 mins, then bounced back to Panasonic main menu, only to show the “disc loading” prompt and then back to disc loading screen. It sat like that for 5 mins. Only this time I couldn’t power it down — it just kept saying “Please wait”. I eventually had to unplug the power cord. Anyone had something like this happen to them before? Any suggestions?

Originally Posted by Minimejer05

Whenever I go to load a disc, the front of the player will say “reading” (as will the TV briefly) and then the front of the player says “High Clarity” followed by “Stop” and then it kicks me back to the main menu. Tried on all sorts of discs. This sucks! Anyone think Panasonic will cover this?

this appears to be a "glitchy" player which is unfortunate because I love it when it works 95% of the time. I've had certain movies freeze and pixelate as well as sound drop out and garble... but never a second time once I go back and replay the scenes....

[Minimejer05]

Originally Posted by AKORIS

this appears to be a "glitchy" player which is unfortunate because I love it when it works 95% of the time. I've had certain movies freeze and pixelate as well as sound drop out and garble... but never a second time once I go back and replay the scenes....

The odd thing is I’ve never had a single problem with it until now. It’s been the best player I’ve had yet. Hopefully Panasonic can help me out as it hasn’t been a year since original purchase date. I just don’t think I’ll be able to justify dropping another $500 on a new one.

[DJR662]

I'm still having the "power on" issue.

Sometimes when I power on the player it gets stuck when the "welcome" message appears on the front display. No picture and the player doesn't do anything. I can either wait a couple of minutes before it powers itself off or disconnect the power cable and then try again. But even after doing that, the same thing might happen again, sometimes even for a third time.

[sapiendut]

It comes with 1-year warranty, so Panasonic will repair it under warranty

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

It comes with 1-year warranty, so Panasonic will repair it under warranty

Admittedly I still have neglected to contact Panasonic about this.

[cjake]

Originally Posted by DJR662

I'm still having the "power on" issue.

Sometimes when I power on the player it gets stuck when the "welcome" message appears on the front display. No picture and the player doesn't do anything. I can either wait a couple of minutes before it powers itself off or disconnect the power cable and then try again. But even after doing that, the same thing might happen again, sometimes even for a third time.

I had a different power ON issue that occurred for about 6 months.

If I powered ON without a disc loaded, my UB820 would display the Welcome notice for a few seconds and then display Goodbye and power OFF. Power ON again was successful.

It did not do that with a disc loaded, or if I used the disc eject button to power on the UB820.

I used Robert's instructions to perform a full reset and it has so far resolved the issue:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=4050

[DJR662]

Originally Posted by cjake

I had a different power ON issue that occurred for about 6 months.

If I powered ON without a disc loaded, my UB820 would display the Welcome notice for a few seconds and then display Goodbye and power OFF. Power ON again was successful.

It did not do that with a disc loaded, or if I used the disc eject button to power on the UB820.

I used Robert's instructions to perform a full reset and it has so far resolved the issue:
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=4050

Thanks for the tip.

[Mierzwiak]

So, as it turned out, Panasonic UB820 is indeed clipping highlight details in Dolby Vision. I checked scene from IT mentioned in Forbes review and yeah, in DV sun, tree and wire is clipped.

In HDR10, at least on OLED, it's also clipped, to bring the details back you need to use LG's dynamic tone mapping (let's call it DTM) or Panasonic's HDR Optimiser.

Dolby Vision UHD


HDR10 UHD, DTM OFF


HDR10 UHD, DTM ON


HDR10 UHD, Optimiser ON


Another example of similar scene is Spider-Man: Homecoming, at the end of the movie Ned and Peter are walking down the hallway and window behind them is overblown in Dolby Vision. In HDR10 there are trees visible, but only with DTM, Optimiser doesn't work in that scene.

What's weird is that you can see lost details by... bringing pop-up menu, which casts, how to call it, some kind of layer over image that makes it darker but brings additional details.

Dolby Vision UHD


Dolby Vision UHD with pop-up / progress bar


What's interesting is that window in mentioned scene from Homecoming is also overblown in Dolby Vision version on iTunes. Does it mean both Apple and Panasonic are using the same Dolby Vision profile?

[sapiendut]

All the new DV implementations clip regardless of the brand and model players you buy. Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic (never tested the new LG) they all clip in varying degrees.