Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[bnmdjm]

Originally Posted by bnmdjm

Tried this long ago. No difference.

Honestly in my case, I have some additional reason to believe it may be the disc drive in the 820. Recently, I bought Dunkirk and it refused to play at a certain point on the 820, so I tried it in my PS5 and it played flawlessly. I ended up exchanging the disc and the new one played fine on the 820, but there's just a lot of evidence suggesting my 820 is extra sensitive to any disc issues. I examined the Dunkirk disc extensively and could not find one single scratch - I cleaned it and everything and it still wouldn't play. It just seems like some folks 820 are not bullet-proof and mine -- while still very good when it's working -- is certainly not something I can say that I'm confident that when I pop a disc in I'm going to have a problem-free experience. In fact, I've come to expect either a freeze or especially an audio dropout and am surprised when it doesn't happen.

All that said, I watched The Prestige last night and it was flawless. Then I tried Soul again and experienced multiple audio dropouts, all in the scene where the mentors are matched up with a soul near the beginning and when Joe first meets 22.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by bnmdjm

Honestly in my case, I have some additional reason to believe it may be the disc drive in the 820. Recently, I bought Dunkirk and it refused to play at a certain point on the 820, so I tried it in my PS5 and it played flawlessly. I ended up exchanging the disc and the new one played fine on the 820, but there's just a lot of evidence suggesting my 820 is extra sensitive to any disc issues. I examined the Dunkirk disc extensively and could not find one single scratch - I cleaned it and everything and it still wouldn't play. It just seems like some folks 820 are not bullet-proof and mine -- while still very good when it's working -- is certainly not something I can say that I'm confident that when I pop a disc in I'm going to have a problem-free experience. In fact, I've come to expect either a freeze or especially an audio dropout and am surprised when it doesn't happen.

All that said, I watched The Prestige last night and it was flawless. Then I tried Soul again and experienced multiple audio dropouts, all in the scene where the mentors are matched up with a soul near the beginning and when Joe first meets 22.

I've only had 3 issues with my 820 and all of them have been resolved. My first issue was that the player every once in a while would refuse to play any disc (4K, Blu-ray, DVD). Usually unplugging and plugging it back in worked but it would do it again and again. I later discovered that it was my surge protector that produced this issue. I had a smaller Monster Surge Protector that I used for many years. From what I could tell, it was getting older and could not handle all of the devices I was powering. I now have a Monoprice Surge Protector and I haven't had that issue since.

My 2nd issue was that I would have audio dropouts every once in a while. Mind you, this is when I was passing a 1080p signal through my older A/V receiver to my older 1080p TV as well as audio information like Dolby Atmos. I assumed it was because the A/V receiver couldn't handle all of that information. Now that I have a 4K TV, I have the video going directly to the TV and the audio going to the receiver. I also have the HDMI settings set so that the receiver has just Audio through it (2nd HDMI port) and and Video/Audio through the 1st HDMI port. That may solve your issue actually. Because if the player detects that receiver is not on, it will play the audio through the TV. This can also cause audio dropouts from time to time depending on how sensitive or old the receiver is.

The last issue I had was that I had video dropout at the beginning of some discs, specifically blu-ray discs. This would lead to a blank screen at the logos screens of some movies. To solve this, I made sure my Resolution was set to 4K only so that way the player would not detect the resolution. But like I said, all problems have been resolved and I haven't had any issues for a while (knock on wood)!!

[motorheadache95]

Originally Posted by bnmdjm

Honestly in my case, I have some additional reason to believe it may be the disc drive in the 820. Recently, I bought Dunkirk and it refused to play at a certain point on the 820, so I tried it in my PS5 and it played flawlessly. I ended up exchanging the disc and the new one played fine on the 820, but there's just a lot of evidence suggesting my 820 is extra sensitive to any disc issues. I examined the Dunkirk disc extensively and could not find one single scratch - I cleaned it and everything and it still wouldn't play. It just seems like some folks 820 are not bullet-proof and mine -- while still very good when it's working -- is certainly not something I can say that I'm confident that when I pop a disc in I'm going to have a problem-free experience. In fact, I've come to expect either a freeze or especially an audio dropout and am surprised when it doesn't happen.

I'm in the same boat-- granted I have the 420, which is a cheaper build, but the laser in that thing is sensitive as hell. If the disc isn't flawlessly pristine, it will freeze or turn into a glitchy mess at certain points. I regularly play "problem discs" on my X-Box because of this, which is a growing list.

[Matthew.H]

Originally Posted by bnmdjm

Honestly in my case, I have some additional reason to believe it may be the disc drive in the 820. Recently, I bought Dunkirk and it refused to play at a certain point on the 820, so I tried it in my PS5 and it played flawlessly. I ended up exchanging the disc and the new one played fine on the 820, but there's just a lot of evidence suggesting my 820 is extra sensitive to any disc issues. I examined the Dunkirk disc extensively and could not find one single scratch - I cleaned it and everything and it still wouldn't play. It just seems like some folks 820 are not bullet-proof and mine -- while still very good when it's working -- is certainly not something I can say that I'm confident that when I pop a disc in I'm going to have a problem-free experience. In fact, I've come to expect either a freeze or especially an audio dropout and am surprised when it doesn't happen.

All that said, I watched The Prestige last night and it was flawless. Then I tried Soul again and experienced multiple audio dropouts, all in the scene where the mentors are matched up with a soul near the beginning and when Joe first meets 22.

It must depend drive to drive as I have the 820 and my player has been fine with every disc I've played apart from the known DV bug with Knives Out.

[bnmdjm]

Originally Posted by motorheadache95

I'm in the same boat-- granted I have the 420, which is a cheaper build, but the laser in that thing is sensitive as hell. If the disc isn't flawlessly pristine, it will freeze or turn into a glitchy mess at certain points. I regularly play "problem discs" on my X-Box because of this, which is a growing list.

Same with mine. I don't even count discs that have played fine after being thoroughly cleaned - if I include those in my count then I'd say at least 1/3 (or more) of all discs I put in my 820 freeze/glitch at some point. Some of them are fine after cleaning, and maybe it is just that some discs have imperceptible micro-scratches that can't be seen and are causing my player to have audio dropouts. But I am extremely careful with my discs - I'm talking OCD-level careful so I know it isn't because I'm careless. I know it isn't my HDMI cables as they are top-tier, and I can't believe my Denon X4500h is the issue either. I never had this many issues when I had the Sony X700 and the PS5 seems to be almost bullet-proof in regards to playback (obviously it isn't a reference player for a number of reasons and I really like the Optimizer as well).

[hceuterpe]

I came across this thread today, and the symptoms sound eerily similar to the issue I experience with my 820. They even specify that it seems to impact predominantly Disney UHD titles, just like me not to mention naming exact titles that I've also experienced this happening in. Apparently it has to do with Atmos/TrueHD high bitrates with these particular titles. I suspect I'm not encountering it on my Shield running Kodi, because they pulled in a later version of the accompanying software component that fixed it...

https://club.myce.com/t/atmos-audio-...-thread/399840
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce...image/2769698/

As for clean discs. I've definitely noticed this be a much greater significant factor with a number of UHD drives, beyond the 820. I'm guessing it's because they're cramming about 33% more data per layer, and upped the layer count over dual...

Tbh I try to have a microfiber cloth and a Giottos blower around to clean off the disc before playback anyways, just to keep the drive/laser clean...

[Scorsese]

Anyone with an LG C9/CX, do you use the HDR Optimiser on and DTM on? Or is it generally recommended to keep the Optimiser on but DTM off?

[vector72]

The recommendation is Optimizer on but DTM off. With your setup, the optimizer is there for the rarest of scenes, generally when color or detail is lost within glaring whites.

[vector72]

Originally Posted by Scorsese

Anyone with an LG C9/CX, do you use the HDR Optimiser on and DTM on? Or is it generally recommended to keep the Optimiser on but DTM off?

DTM makes midtones slightly too light from the demos I've seen.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by vector72

DTM makes midtones slightly too light from the demos I've seen.

Yet, if you watch Vincent’s video on Disney Dolby Vision on Disney + vs Disney HDR 10, it’s clear that HDR 10 is dimmer than the Dolby Vision version due to the APL being in 1 setting the entire movie. Although inaccurate at times, DTM sort of acts like Dolby Vision and adjusts the contrast and brightness scene by scene or frame by frame. And even if you make changes on the 820’s Optimizer, you still can’t get close to the Dolby Vision version of the film in Disney +. Only using DTM can you get close to it. This is why I use DTM and the Optimizer at the same time, but the Optimizer is set at the highest setting so it takes care of things my LG C9 can’t. I have done several tests on this and came to this conclusion.

[hceuterpe]

Did some more tests, found another title with problematic audio. Toy Story 4 UHD. That title started inducing the audio dropouts pretty quickly with my 820. So plopped that disc in my computer, ripped the disc to ISO, and then ran the ISO through makemkv. Tried to play both on the Shield Pro, ISO first. Using the Kodi app, the ISO actually has audio dropouts similar to the 820. Interestingly however, the mkv file is flawless. I think I'm experiencing the bug that's described here. Apparently later versions of makemkv incorporated this demuxer utility which I suspect is why the mkv file is the variant that plays the Atmos/True HD without issues (short of decoding to LPCM first).

https://github.com/domyd/mlp

[bnmdjm]

Originally Posted by hceuterpe

I came across this thread today, and the symptoms sound eerily similar to the issue I experience with my 820. They even specify that it seems to impact predominantly Disney UHD titles, just like me not to mention naming exact titles that I've also experienced this happening in. Apparently it has to do with Atmos/TrueHD high bitrates with these particular titles. I suspect I'm not encountering it on my Shield running Kodi, because they pulled in a later version of the accompanying software component that fixed it...

https://club.myce.com/t/atmos-audio-...-thread/399840
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce...image/2769698/

As for clean discs. I've definitely noticed this be a much greater significant factor with a number of UHD drives, beyond the 820. I'm guessing it's because they're cramming about 33% more data per layer, and upped the layer count over dual...

Tbh I try to have a microfiber cloth and a Giottos blower around to clean off the disc before playback anyways, just to keep the drive/laser clean...

This is an interesting finding. I definitely have to say I think it happens the most on Disney UHDs and Dolby Vision titles for me. I've ordered a second 48 Gbps certified HDMI cable (arriving tomorrow) for my audio connection from the 820, just to 100% rule out that it could somehow be a cable-related bitrate issue. I'm also going to test doing video+audio together using those two high speed hdmi cables (one hdmi from 820 to the Denon X4500H and one high speed from the Denon to my LG CX).

[panasonicst60]

Originally Posted by Scorsese

Anyone with an LG C9/CX, do you use the HDR Optimiser on and DTM on? Or is it generally recommended to keep the Optimiser on but DTM off?

If you care about accuracy at all, keep DTM off.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by panasonicst60

If you care about accuracy at all, keep DTM off.

https://youtu.be/XbN00Sm0Bsg

But with DTM off, the TV will only give 1 tone curve for the entire movie, creating an overall dimmer experience than say the Dolby Vision version of a film. This video points that out. DTM acts like Dolby Vision and translates the static HDR 10 metadata into dynamic metadata. Again, I know DTM may have some and I mean "SOME" inaccuracies at times, but it provides a picture that is at least closer to Dolby Vision than leaving it off.

For us LG OLED owners, there is no middle ground. You either have a dimmer, less vibrant picture but be accurate with DTM off or you turn DTM on and get more of a Vibrant, lively picture but slightly inaccurate, and again I mean "SLIGHT!" The choice is really up to Scorsese as to what he wants. Both ways are correct because for LG owners, there is no middle ground when it comes to interpreting HDR 10 content on an OLED.

I would also like to add that even if you make adjustments to the Panasonic Optimizer (say changing it from OLED to Super Luminance or even to Basic Luminance), it still doesn't do much and does not match the Dolby Vision version of a film. I have tested this out multiple times, especially with Marvel's Avengers (or Avengers Assemble) in 4K UHD HDR 10 physical disc vs the Dolby Vision version on Disney +.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by bnmdjm

This is an interesting finding. I definitely have to say I think it happens the most on Disney UHDs and Dolby Vision titles for me. I've ordered a second 48 Gbps certified HDMI cable (arriving tomorrow) for my audio connection from the 820, just to 100% rule out that it could somehow be a cable-related bitrate issue. I'm also going to test doing video+audio together using those two high speed hdmi cables (one hdmi from 820 to the Denon X4500H and one high speed from the Denon to my LG CX).

Why are you ordering a 48 Gbps cable? All you really is a 18 Gbps 4K cable that is certified. Also, I get that Vincent tested those cables out, but it's possible that they are the issue. I would recommend buying HDMI cable sold from Monoprice. They do have certified 48 Gbps cables as well as certified 18 Gbps cables. I actually have the none certified 48 Gbps from them and they work like a charm. On top of that, they offer lifetime warranties on all of their cables. I've never had an issue with their cables. But if you do, they send you out another for free!

[Bcosta]

I just got my ub9000 over the weekend and was able to watch a few discs and while the video quality is just as beautiful and rich as my 820 is, the sound is just crisper to me. The build quality is second to none. I cant wait to watch another beauty on it!

[panasonicst60]

Originally Posted by PUsokrJosh305

https://youtu.be/XbN00Sm0Bsg

But with DTM off, the TV will only give 1 tone curve for the entire movie, creating an overall dimmer experience than say the Dolby Vision version of a film. This video points that out. DTM acts like Dolby Vision and translates the static HDR 10 metadata into dynamic metadata. Again, I know DTM may have some and I mean "SOME" inaccuracies at times, but it provides a picture that is at least closer to Dolby Vision than leaving it off.

For us LG OLED owners, there is no middle ground. You either have a dimmer, less vibrant picture but be accurate with DTM off or you turn DTM on and get more of a Vibrant, lively picture but slightly inaccurate, and again I mean "SLIGHT!" The choice is really up to Scorsese as to what he wants. Both ways are correct because for LG owners, there is no middle ground when it comes to interpreting HDR 10 content on an OLED.

I would also like to add that even if you make adjustments to the Panasonic Optimizer (say changing it from OLED to Super Luminance or even to Basic Luminance), it still doesn't do much and does not match the Dolby Vision version of a film. I have tested this out multiple times, especially with Marvel's Avengers (or Avengers Assemble) in 4K UHD HDR 10 physical disc vs the Dolby Vision version on Disney +.

[bnmdjm]

Originally Posted by PUsokrJosh305

Why are you ordering a 48 Gbps cable? All you really is a 18 Gbps 4K cable that is certified. Also, I get that Vincent tested those cables out, but it's possible that they are the issue. I would recommend buying HDMI cable sold from Monoprice. They do have certified 48 Gbps cables as well as certified 18 Gbps cables. I actually have the none certified 48 Gbps from them and they work like a charm. On top of that, they offer lifetime warranties on all of their cables. I've never had an issue with their cables. But if you do, they send you out another for free!

I'm ordering them to eliminate one possible -- even if unlikely -- issue from the chain, that's why. It's certainly cheaper to do this than go out and buy a UB9000 and compare it. Additionally, on another forum some users who had the exact problem I had found the solution to be using only video+audio out from the 820 (instead of splitting), so for $20 it's worth a shot.

FYI - I've had monoprice cables that WERE a problem in the past, so I never order them. Personally, I think they suck. The cables I'm ordering have been tested by multiple users in multiple ways and they come with HDMI certification as well.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by panasonicst60

Well, duh I'm beating a dead horse. But it seems that my explanations are falling on deaf ears to some of you. Bashing DTM for being a little inaccurate is getting ridiculous. It's not like any of our TVs are displaying HDR accurately anyways.

[PUsokrJosh305]

Originally Posted by bnmdjm

I'm ordering them to eliminate one possible -- even if unlikely -- issue from the chain, that's why. It's certainly cheaper to do this than go out and buy a UB9000 and compare it. Additionally, on another forum some users who had the exact problem I had found the solution to be using only video+audio out from the 820 (instead of splitting), so for $20 it's worth a shot.

FYI - I've had monoprice cables that WERE a problem in the past, so I never order them. Personally, I think they suck. The cables I'm ordering have been tested by multiple users in multiple ways and they come with HDMI certification as well.

What was the problem you had with monoprice cables I might ask? I've never had an issue and have been ordering from them for over 10 years now. Only HDMI cables I have had problems with are Monster Cables and I don't really have to explain why at this point.