New 4K blu ray players

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by LordoftheRings

The Oppo DVD days are over; get a grip.

Oppo still services their players to this day. They respond to emails within hours on a business day. Repairs, if needed, cost a flat $109 for all makes and models. Contrast that with any other manufacturer's customer service.

What I would like to get is another 4K disc player with a solid build quality, not a featherweight plastic box, that can do a great job playing all disc formats. I only have so many inputs on my AVR.

The ability to play an SACD is less important, but it would be nice to have. It would also be great if it supported a wide range of video file types.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Vilya

Oppo still services their players to this day. They respond to emails within hours on a business day. Repairs, if needed, cost a flat $109 for all makes and models. Contrast that with any other manufacturer's customer service.

What I would like to get is another 4K disc player with a solid build quality, not a featherweight plastic box, that can do a great job playing all disc formats. I only have so many inputs on my AVR.

The ability to play an SACD is less important, but it would be nice to have. It would also be great if it supported a wide range of video file types.

You know he's just yanking your crank, right? Best not to feed. But I suppose he had to go somewhere after the Penton and LOTR Show a.k.a. the HDR discussion thread got shut down.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

You know he's just yanking your crank, right? Best not to feed. But I suppose he had to go somewhere after the Penton and LOTR Show a.k.a. the HDR discussion thread got shut down.

It's my soft . I can't bear to watch anyone go hungry.

[LordoftheRings]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

You know he's just yanking your crank, right? Best not to feed. But I suppose he had to go somewhere after the Penton and LOTR Show a.k.a. the HDR discussion thread got shut down.

You should mind your own business and pick a fight somewhere else. Check AVS
Stay on topic too.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Vilya

It's my soft . I can't bear to watch anyone go hungry.

You sir are a true philanthropist.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by ronand

DVD playback is not great by default in the 450 either and I shouldn't have to change a setting every time I play a disc. Have you tried this setting on the 820? I had to change a similar setting on my 12 year old sony bdp-s370 to get acceptable results although its still worse than my panny.

This post should really be in the Panny thread but I'll keep it here and the mods can maybe shift the whole discussion over to there, but I tried using the Video deinterlacing on the 820 when playing the terribly jaggy test patterns/clips on the S&M DVD...and it had zero effect. Literally none. They're all still jaggy as hell. As bad as the Hockey clip is, the Ship one is even worse.

I did though try the Montage, first watching with the deinterlacer set to Auto and then to Video. With it on Auto then not only did it have the extra jaggies but it also showed combing on several of the edit points. With it on Video then the combing was eliminated, but now it's causing shimmering and moiré on finer details because it's applying a Video deinterlacer to Film content. The Euro 820 is just so very, very bad at playing 480i any way you slice it.

I say that because, as I mentioned previous, PAL/576i content doesn't seem to be affected anywhere near as badly. Using the R2 DVD of My Fair Lady, at first I was horrified because it was unbelievably jaggy, but then I realised I'd left the deinterlacer on Video and switching it back to Auto made it look 10x betterer, because it was applying the correct deinterlacing and not forcing video cadence onto film. I then compared the same DVD playing on the OPPO 203 and aside from some additional but very mild jaggies on diagonals on the Panny the two were very similar indeed, with the Panny looking superficially 'sharper' because of the extra special sauce they're ladling on.

So for PAL DVD content the Panny 820 is fine, more than watchable on a day to day basis. But for NTSC? Shoot it man! Shoot it in the head! One thing I will say is that film-based NTSC content doesn't look as mega-jaggy as that video-based torture test NTSC content does. I mean, it's still way worse than the OPPO when you compare them (those piano strings in the Montage, yikes!) but I can understand why people might not think it terrible in isolation just because DVD itself is thought of as terrible, that things like jaggies are par for the course. They're unavoidable when dealing with such low-rez content, true, but there comes a point when I have to aks if it's the content doing it or the player doing it, and as always I don't want any extra processing slathered on if I can help it, even when playing DVD. And I wonder if the extra sharpening applied by default in the Panny is also what's making people think it's "better" for DVD than whatever other playback deck they have to hand.

[Jonathan McLeod]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

So for PAL DVD content the Panny 820 is fine, more than watchable on a day to day basis.

I finally have an answer as to why I've never been bothered by the supposedly horrendous DVD playback on the 820. I don't play many, but when I have they've always been PAL. They all seemed to look about as good as you'd expect for a DVD.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Jonathan McLeod

I finally have an answer as to why I've never been bothered by the supposedly horrendous DVD playback on the 820. I don't play many, but when I have they've always been PAL. They all seemed to look about as good as you'd expect for a DVD.

Yeah, I mean I've mentioned it before https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...l#post19753253 but I don't expect everyone to have read everything ever.

But my DVDs are predominantly NTSC which is why it niggles me so much. And it's not just this current generation of Panny players that are doing it, I noticed it going right back to the OG UB900 4K player.

[Vixzer]

Originally Posted by AgentOrange

I'm not sure I agree with the assessment the existing players are all "junk". I'm pretty happy with my Sony 800M2 so far, like 99% of discs have played perfectly all the way through, and the build quality seems solid (the thing feels like a tank compared to all the late model Sony blu-ray players which are feather light). The one quirk is obviously that you have to manually turn on-off Dolby Vision. It's madness that this software quirk was never addressed in an update or in a further revised "M3" model.

I do think the lack of any new models is concerning. Surely Sony and Panasonic will come out with one more revision eventually for their mainstream players... right? RIGHT? If I were to get a 2nd player I would like to get a "new generation" of player, rather one that's been floating around 4 or 5 years.

Well, the tech per se haven't changed to the point where they need to release new models, 4k players play everything (if it is modded to be region free is awesome), I still have a 12 years blu-ray player from sony that plays everything from region A (region locked), I have a PS5 that plays everything (region locked too).

The only reason I bought a separated 4k player is because I always wanted a region free/multi-region one, I have a lot of old blurays and DVDs from other regions and it was always a pain to not be able to play them

My bet is that they will keep selling these current models for a long time still.

[Geoff D]

Yeah, the UHD tech was essentially born fully formed and apart from adding features like Dobly and the Pannysonic Optimiser there's no need to keep updating it. And it's not like everyone else - well, the few companies who remain in the market - have been clamouring to add their own Optimiser-type function, mainly because the likes of Sony and LG are in the TV market too and they'd rather improve the tone mapping inside their TVs instead.

BD maturing as a format didn't stop the companies from releasing new models every year, true, but that was when this market was actually worth something and worth competing for with virtually all the big home theatre companies involved. Shitty DVD players that can be knocked out for pennies in China are a no brainer, but a new(ish) format means new licensing fees, new costs and with disc dying on its arse as mass-market media we're lucky that they're keeping UHD players going at all.

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by yoshinobu

Sheesh so do you really watch the DVDs so often guys, that you actually care? I mean, I have some old ones lying around, which I almost never touch, I'm hardly buying regular BRs anymore, let alone DVDs... No matter the upscaler, DVDs simply look like crap on eg 65", so there's not much entertainment value here, and for nostalgic purposes, I can watch them on anything, as I won't be analyzing the picture frame by frame, or at all really anyway.

I still have my Panasonic 58" plasma TV (that I've purchased 9 years ago) in my bedroom, and DVDs upscales and look much better on a plasma TV than on a 4K. Whenever I want see a DVD movie, I'll watch it in my bedroom, not on the 4K TV in my living room, where the home theater is situated.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by yoshinobu

No matter the upscaler, DVDs simply look like crap on eg 65", so there's not much entertainment value here, and for nostalgic purposes, I can watch them on anything, as I won't be analyzing the picture frame by frame, or at all really anyway.

Unless you're watching a garbage transfer/encode then there should be nothing wrong with watching DVDs on a large screen. Just leave the image be and don't add any post-processing and you'll get pleasing results.

[Naiera]

I would stream in HD, but chip is correct. Don't add fake sharpness or some garbage like that.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by yoshinobu

Sheesh so do you really watch the DVDs so often guys, that you actually care?

I never watch DVDs. Haven't for many years now. Not quite a decade, but close.

The only DVD I would consider watching is the old TV special version of The Wave, which I watched in school and recently learned is on DVD. Can't think of anything else.

[RalphoR]

I've had about a couple dozen DVDs in my rotation and I've even watched them on a 100"+ screen (sometimes rough but really not that bad) using a Pioneer Elite LX-500 4k player. That number is dwindling down as the movies are being released on blu-ray and jumping straight to 4k uhd disc. I don't see myself completely going DVD free....or even vhs free since I have a few that never received an upgrade to any other format.

[stonesfan129]

Originally Posted by yoshinobu

Sheesh so do you really watch the DVDs so often guys, that you actually care? I mean, I have some old ones lying around, which I almost never touch, I'm hardly buying regular BRs anymore, let alone DVDs... No matter the upscaler, DVDs simply look like crap on eg 65", so there's not much entertainment value here, and for nostalgic purposes, I can watch them on anything, as I won't be analyzing the picture frame by frame, or at all really anyway.

I have a few movies that I never upgraded from DVD that I do still watch. They don't look that great, but they're watchable.

[unberechenbar]

I am pretty sure the last time I watched a VHS was more recent than the last time I watched a DVD. I have a few old DVDs of horror movies I'd like to watch but I can't find them.

[Paianni]

For some reason Panasonic's North American lineup is different to their European lineup; in North America the DP-UB420 is sold as a cut down version of the DP-UB820 with no Dolby Vision support, while in Europe the DP-UB450 is sold as an upgraded version of the DP-UB150 with Dolby Vision and extra digital audio outputs. Bizarre.

Unless cost optimisations happen with regards to the internal components of players that can persuade manufacturers to redesign their product ranges, I don't think we'll see any more new players 'designed from a clean piece of paper' any time soon.

[kfbkfb]

What more do 4K/UHD players need?

Is everything in the 4K/UHD standard(s) implemented in the newest (software) upgrades on the currently available players?

(my Magnavox MBP6700P works well enough for me to check out my 4K/UHD discs for playability, but lacks Dolby Vision processing)


Kirk Bayne

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by Paianni

For some reason Panasonic's North American lineup is different to their European lineup; in North America the DP-UB420 is sold as a cut down version of the DP-UB820 with no Dolby Vision support, while in Europe the DP-UB450 is sold as an upgraded version of the DP-UB150 with Dolby Vision and extra digital audio outputs. Bizarre.

The UB450 and UB420 are not the same player. The former does not do HDR to SDR conversion, for example. The European model typically goes under the name UB424, where our UB820 is the UB824.