Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[chip75]

Originally Posted by DJR662

It needs to be away from being on any remote altogether.

I have a strong dislike for Netflix, so imagine how it feels when I accidentally push the Netflix button for the umpteenth time, and the Netflix startup screen comes up on my 110" projection screen. I hate when that happens.

And ofcourse all of my other TV/player remotes have that dreadful N button too.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by SpinDoctor

Any idea where i can find a ub9000 remote? I’ve had no luck searching for one

They're about £50 on eBay.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by DJR662

But the UB900 remote doesn't have the HDR Optimizer button though.

It's not a major hindrance, just press the display settings button which brings up the in-play settings which has the HDR Optimiser right at the top. I couldn't do without it, I really couldn't, as the plastic piece of shit remote supplied with these players is awful.

[guile]

Having big problems streaming 4K discs from my network with the UB820.

I have a 1gig network, using one of the strongest mesh systems (Orbi) going wired from one of the Orbi sat's directly into the player and I'm continuing to get stutter galore on high bitrate discs over my server.

Speed test is showing 550mbps where the player is so speed is not the issue here.

Anyone having similar problems trying to stream high bitrate 4K over a network? Any ideas how to fix this?

[SpinDoctor]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

It's not a major hindrance, just press the display settings button which brings up the in-play settings which has the HDR Optimiser right at the top. I couldn't do without it, I really couldn't, as the plastic piece of shit remote supplied with these players is awful.

Yeah, i found it quite amazing that i could drop $500 on a disc player and get a remote that looks and feels like it was built by Fisher Price. But if i’m being honest, the build quality of the 820 isn’t exactly reflective of it’s price tag either. I actually preferred the remote and build quality of the x800m2, though Sony’s remote isn’t exactly anything to brag about either. Still, at the end of the day i ended up returning the Sony and keeping the 820, since the picture quality was noticeably better with the Panasonic. I just wish that companies would realize that we don’t need a dedicated Netflix button or most of the other buttons they try and squeeze onto these remotes.

[Geoff D]

Yes, the build quality of the 820 itself isn't exactly something to crow about either. The X800 Sonys feel much sturdier but I think they're cheating by just making the chassis a lot heavier than it actually needs to be.

[sa5150]

Originally Posted by SpinDoctor

Yeah, i found it quite amazing that i could drop $500 on a disc player and get a remote that looks and feels like it was built by Fisher Price. But if i’m being honest, the build quality of the 820 isn’t exactly reflective of it’s price tag either. I actually preferred the remote and build quality of the x800m2, though Sony’s remote isn’t exactly anything to brag about either. Still, at the end of the day i ended up returning the Sony and keeping the 820, since the picture quality was noticeably better with the Panasonic. I just wish that companies would realize that we don’t need a dedicated Netflix button or most of the other buttons they try and squeeze onto these remotes.

"noticeably better" on uhd,blu-ray ,dvds or all of it better ? I have the Sony and I'm considering returning it but is it worth another $250 + the $200 I paid for the Sony ? Hard to believe . The Sony is super quiet and is almost overkill heavy .

[SpinDoctor]

Originally Posted by sa5150

"noticeably better" on uhd,blu-ray ,dvds or all of it better ? I have the Sony and I'm considering returning it but is it worth another $250 + the $200 I paid for the Sony ? Hard to believe . The Sony is super quiet and is almost overkill heavy .

I hardly ever play DVD’s, so i didn’t do any comparisons there. With BD’s and UHD’s the playback quality was improved over the x800m2; not that things looked bad on the Sony. But the improvement, to my eyes, was with color and depth. Colors had a bit more punch/saturation on the 820, and the image seemed to have more dimension/depth on the 820. There are actual professionals/experts on this forum (and elsewhere) that endorse this player as well, and their explanation is much more specific and technical than anything that i can throw out there.

I was actually hoping that they were wrong (or at least exaggerating) about the Panny vs Sony. As I’d rather not spend the extra $$$ and figured that a Sony player would be a better match for my Sony TV anyway. Well, i had both players, looked for every reason i could to keep the Sony over the Panny, and ended up returning the Sony anyway. The 820 simply puts out a more pleasing image on my TV; the Sony x800m2 was fine for the month i had it, and would have kept it and my $$$ if i hadn’t stumbled across this forum.

[sa5150]

Originally Posted by SpinDoctor

I hardly ever play DVD’s, so i didn’t do any comparisons there. With BD’s and UHD’s the playback quality was improved over the x800m2; not that things looked bad on the Sony. But the improvement, to my eyes, was with color and depth. Colors had a bit more punch/saturation on the 820, and the image seemed to have more dimension/depth on the 820. There are actual professionals/experts on this forum (and elsewhere) that endorse this player as well, and their explanation is much more specific and technical than anything that i can throw out there.

I was actually hoping that they were wrong (or at least exaggerating) about the Panny vs Sony. As I’d rather not spend the extra $$$ and figured that a Sony player would be a better match for my Sony TV anyway. Well, i had both players, looked for every reason i could to keep the Sony over the Panny, and ended up returning the Sony anyway. The 820 simply puts out a more pleasing image on my TV; the Sony x800m2 was fine for the month i had it, and would have kept it and my $$$ if i hadn’t stumbled across this forum.

That is great info and I appreciate you taking time to write it . I have a lot of dvds so If anyone else can chime in on the Panny 820 doing better up conversion on dvds over the Sony that would help much . Thanks all .

[Geoff D]

I'm speaking only for the PAL-region Panny players but they're not very good at playing 480i DVD content, they can look quite jagged and poorly deinterlaced while the Sonys and OPPOs are far better to my eyes. You get no zoom/AR controls on the Pannys at all which can be an immense ballache if your 4K TV doesn't allow AR changes on 4K signals, it means that if I'm upscaling a DVD then I can't adjust the aspect if it's a non-anamorphic widescreen disc.

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

Yes, the build quality of the 820 itself isn't exactly something to crow about either. The X800 Sonys feel much sturdier but I think they're cheating by just making the chassis a lot heavier than it actually needs to be.

I've actually saw a Sony X-800 by inside as my first x-800 died and got a new X-800 from Sony Service. I was shown my X-800 by a technician and you're right, the aluminium frame it's built is heavy and also the shell plastic is harder than the ones used on Panasonic players, but real circuit build quality on the Sony X-800 looked very cheap, specially the power supply.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by eddievanhalen

I've actually saw a Sony X-800 by inside as my first x-800 died and got a new X-800 from Sony Service. I was shown my X-800 by a technician and you're right, the aluminium frame it's built is heavy and also the shell plastic is harder than the ones used on Panasonic players, but real circuit build quality on the Sony X-800 looked very cheap, specially the power supply.

One of the reasons why the Sony is $300 and the Panasonic is $1,000. The only real reason to purchase the Sony is for people that want SACD/DVD-Audio support and who want a cheaper price. The power supply is lower quality on the Sony when compared to the better quality power supply on the OPPO and Panasonic. However people get what they pay for. Panasonic offers tone mapping, HDR10+, and 7.1 analog audio outputs (Something that is lacking on the Sony).

[sapiendut]

The biggest killer of it all is if someone buys the Sony 1100. In Canada, the street price is about US$200 less than the UB9000 but the internal of the 1100 is identical to the 800.


But some people still claim that there is no difference in PQ and AQ between Sony and Panasonic. Well, let the delusion continue.

[DVD Josh]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

One of the reasons why the Sony is $300 and the Panasonic is $1,000. The only real reason to purchase the Sony is for people that want SACD/DVD-Audio support and who want a cheaper price. The power supply is lower quality on the Sony when compared to the better quality power supply on the OPPO and Panasonic. However people get what they pay for. Panasonic offers tone mapping, HDR10+, and 7.1 analog audio outputs (Something that is lacking on the Sony).

But if you have a Bravia TV then the Bravia mode on the X800 does pretty much the same thing as tone mapper.

[eddievanhalen]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

One of the reasons why the Sony is $300 and the Panasonic is $1,000. The only real reason to purchase the Sony is for people that want SACD/DVD-Audio support and who want a cheaper price. The power supply is lower quality on the Sony when compared to the better quality power supply on the OPPO and Panasonic. However people get what they pay for. Panasonic offers tone mapping, HDR10+, and 7.1 analog audio outputs (Something that is lacking on the Sony).

I have a Sony X-800 and a Panasonic DP-UB420 which is like a UB820 but without analogue outs, HDMI only, just like the Sony X-800.
They are both about the same price and yet the Panasonic HDR Optimizer on or off looks better than the Sony X-800, better and more natural color renditition, cleaner picture, overall picture has more depth and "pop" with the inexpensive UB420 than with the equaly cheap Sony X-800 which looks flat in comparison.
I keep the X-800 in my set up to play CD's/SACD's and Hi Res audio files, all videos either discs or files are played by the Panasonic UB420.

[DJR662]

Just to put some perspective back into this thread (again).

On my calibrated 75Z9D, the X800 and 820 (running through the same AV receiver) more or less produce the same qreat picture for both SDR and HDR. Now I fully understand that in theory, the 820 should have the upperhand in chroma upsampling. This might be more apparent with the appropiate test patterns, perhaps it might be even a little visible to the eye with certain regular content? But to say there is a huge difference which is clearly noticable all of the time, and then to such an extent which would make the X800 an inferior player when compared to the 820 regarding picture quality? No. Or at least, I am not seeing it.

Still waiting on examples to be given of regular Blu-rays (preferably with indications of scenes and timestamps) with which one could easily and clearly spot the difference. I still own two Blu-ray copies of certain titles. That would make a good comparison I think, because then I can run two copies of the same movie at the same time and toggle between the 820 and X800 (which I actually did before). I will happily eat my words should I be wrong and do see a difference after all.

In the meantime though, I shall be enjoying both my 820 and (multiregion) X800. I'm a Sony man first, but I have nothing but love for the 820, especially for its Optimizer.

[HeavyHitter]

In all reality, the last time we saw "huge" variances with player PQ was with DVD. They were all over the place. Even though there were/are notable differences with BD players, they are much smaller by comparison and now even smaller with UHD BD.

[sapiendut]

"huge" is subjective. For me, if I can see the differences without the need of A/B-ing, the difference is huge.

[MAUL xx]

Can anyone tell me how to keep the info box from displaying (UB820)? It gets annoying as it doesn't go away until I press the HDR setting button or some other button like the Status button. If I pause, it pops up again telling me it's paused & also displays after unpausing or playing. It stays until I press buttons again.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12xg...ew?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/132U...ew?usp=sharing

[PissedOffPeoN]

Did you try hitting the playback info once or twice? or more?