Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[spiltmilk]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

5000 nits would blind me, this reminds me of the old school CPU speed debates, which no one does anymore after multicore. My LG only does 800 something nits, and if I watch an extremely bright HDR disc I still have to adjust my seating because it's too bright (I'm in a blacked out movie room). I also watch a lot of SDR stuff calibrated to about 120ish nits, gaming is maybe 150nits unles I'm in HDR, I don't see how things can get better than I have it now. I never owned a plasma and enjoyed my films all the same, I think waiting for new tech is always chasing a carrot, and most people don't even need it to have a satisfying experience.

I agree. I have an LG C6 and find it almost too bright in HDR10 and DV at times. I understand that 5000 nits might bring better range and avoid blown out highlights, but I can't comprehend this race for more nits. Better tonemapping yes, but more brightness sounds awful. Films with strobe effects and sudden flashes of light (like a lightning strike) would likely be painful to watch with higher peak brightness.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by spiltmilk

I agree. I have an LG C6 and find it almost too bright in HDR10 and DV at times. I understand that 5000 nits might bring better range and avoid blown out highlights, but I can't comprehend this race for more nits. Better tonemapping yes, but more brightness sounds awful. Films with strobe effects and sudden flashes of light (like a lightning strike) would likely be painful to watch with higher peak brightness.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/i-saw-tc...-me-from-oled/

[Cherokee Jack]

Originally Posted by Banner23

thanks, how old was your player when this started to happen ? Mine is 4 years old and I use it a lot.

Originally Posted by James Luckard

It was just over a year old when it had to be replaced.

I've had my replacement for about 18 months and it still works fine, knock on wood.

Mine was also about a year old when it started developing problems in earnest (first pixelation actually occurred within a month or two of purchase but it was on a disc that was known to cause the UB820 problems so I disregarded it). Got progressively worse and I finally gave up on it a little after two years after purchase. Should have done something about it sooner as by that point it was out of warranty.

Based on my readings across various forums and Reddit, age/use doesn’t seem to be a very common determining factor in UB820 playback problems. In fact, it’s usually people who’ve had their unit the longest who are happiest with it. Some players simply seem to have faulty components that fairly quickly cause trouble reading discs with even the smallest imperfections.

Edit: Ooh, just read through James Luckard’s post in full and see he had problems with Casino Royale. That’s the very first one that caused me problems too. Fair number of people in the 4K thread for that disc saying the UB820 doesn’t like it which is why I didn’t pay it much mind at the time.

[sapiendut]

Also where they stack the player. I’ve seen countless cases where people say “my player is freezing, dead, etc” and when asked, they say that they put their player on top of a receiver or in the same enclosed cabinet as their receivers and/or power amps.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Cherokee Jack

Mine was also about a year old when it started developing problems in earnest (first pixelation actually occurred within a month or two of purchase but it was on a disc that was known to cause the UB820 problems so I disregarded it). Got progressively worse and I finally gave up on it a little after two years after purchase. Should have done something about it sooner as by that point it was out of warranty.

Based on my readings across various forums and Reddit, age/use doesn’t seem to be a very common determining factor in UB820 playback problems. In fact, it’s usually people who’ve had their unit the longest who are happiest with it. Some players simply seem to have faulty components that fairly quickly cause trouble reading discs with even the smallest imperfections.

Edit: Ooh, just read through James Luckard’s post in full and see he had problems with Casino Royale. That’s the very first one that caused me problems too. Fair number of people in the 4K thread for that disc saying the UB820 doesn’t like it which is why I didn’t pay it much mind at the time.

I had TONS of trouble with the Casino Royale UHD disc in the Warners reissue of the 4-movie Daniel Craig Bond set. I had to buy a copy of the earlier Fox standalone copy of that title to get it to play properly. My first three copies from Warner CraigBond sets all froze and pixelated at the same point, as he got to the Bahamas, about half an hour in.

[Banner23]

Originally Posted by Cherokee Jack

Mine was also about a year old when it started developing problems in earnest (first pixelation actually occurred within a month or two of purchase but it was on a disc that was known to cause the UB820 problems so I disregarded it). Got progressively worse and I finally gave up on it a little after two years after purchase. Should have done something about it sooner as by that point it was out of warranty.

Based on my readings across various forums and Reddit, age/use doesn’t seem to be a very common determining factor in UB820 playback problems. In fact, it’s usually people who’ve had their unit the longest who are happiest with it. Some players simply seem to have faulty components that fairly quickly cause trouble reading discs with even the smallest imperfections.

Edit: Ooh, just read through James Luckard’s post in full and see he had problems with Casino Royale. That’s the very first one that caused me problems too. Fair number of people in the 4K thread for that disc saying the UB820 doesn’t like it which is why I didn’t pay it much mind at the time.

Thanks, are most people still sticking with Panasonic when buying a replacement ?

[Spare_Tire]

Hi all!

Is there anywhere that lists out the ideal settings for the UB9000 across DVD, Blu-Ray, 4K SDR, 4K HDR, and 4K DV content? I've looked through this thread a bit...but it's 650 pages lol. I watched this 90 min video to get some settings down, but seems like there's a lot of contradictory advice: https://www.youtube.com/supported_br...tube.com/watch

FWIW, I have the LG CX, so some settings might be specific to that (or I might need to tweak some settings on that to best compliment the UB9000).

Outside of the above question about whether there's anywhere that lists ideal settings across all those formats, I do have a few specific questions:

1) Dynamic range adjustment -2 for HDR content (to match brightness of DV)?

2) Edge Correction: always 0? (I saw some say for 1080p to set to 1 or 2, due to ringing but then that the ringing on test patterns isn’t indicative of regular content and that it can have a negative effect on regular content if test to anything other than 0)

3) Chroma sharpness to -1 for both UHD and regular Blu-ray (or better to just leave at 0?)

4) High clarity sound on (video on) - does this literally just affect the display on the front panel of the machine itself? If so, why is it called “high clarity sound?” I don’t wanna mess up my audio!

5) I’ve seen contradictory advice re: dynamic tone mapping for the LG CX:
- “For HDR optimizer to work correctly, turn off dynamic tone mapping in HDR Filmmaker mode.”
- “turn off the AI Picture Pro, turn on the Dynamic Tone Mapping and Turn on the Optimizer”

[Cherokee Jack]

Originally Posted by Banner23

Thanks, are most people still sticking with Panasonic when buying a replacement ?

Impossible for me to say but I’ve seen very few people saying they switched to another brand after having problems with a Panasonic. It’s not like there’s a lot of options to choose from these days though.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by sapiendut

Also where they stack the player. I’ve seen countless cases where people say “my player is freezing, dead, etc” and when asked, they say that they put their player on top of a receiver or in the same enclosed cabinet as their receivers and/or power amps.

Yes quickest way to kill a player is put it near excessive heat.

[Vriess]

I read in another thread someone was saying the latest firmware update has removed the ability to use the top menu trick to play different region discs, I was concerned so I put in a disc that is region locked, But to my surprise instead of having to do the top menu trick it just played. I'm pretty confused by it...

*edit* nevermind, I was mistaken these are 50hz blu rays they always played in this player though

[Cherokee Jack]

Originally Posted by Vriess

I read in another thread someone was saying the latest firmware update has removed the ability to use the top menu trick to play different region discs, I was concerned so I put in a disc that is region locked, But to my surprise instead of having to do the top menu trick it just played. I'm pretty confused

Had you played the disc on the machine before? Perhaps it used the resume function?

[ronand]

Total nonsense. Pick better sources for your reading

[Geoff D]

Or they just confused those with actual region mods talking about the latest firmware, as applying the newest official one will remove the software based ‘region freedom’ capabilities if one has them installed..

[u2popmofo]

My 820 seems to be starting to encounter pixelation / playback issues on some discs now (primarily UHD's, though it's had some playback freezing issues on standard Blu's that my other players have no issues with). Just shy of 3 years worth of regular use.

Any suggested cleaning or resolution steps on my end? Are those cleaning discs worth a shot, or snakeoil? Looking through the prior page of posts, it sounds like buying a new player will likely be the best option. in the end, I suppose 2 years and 10 months of regular use was a decent enough life for the item. Particularly since we're just coming out of Halloween season, where I start going extremely heavy on daily disc watching for nearly 3 months.

[metsfan1545d]

How does the 820 compare to the reavon 100

Have a Sony 700 that is good but the manually turning Dolby vision on and off is getting beyond annoying

[Cherokee Jack]

Originally Posted by u2popmofo

My 820 seems to be starting to encounter pixelation / playback issues on some discs now (primarily UHD's, though it's had some playback freezing issues on standard Blu's that my other players have no issues with). Just shy of 3 years worth of regular use.

Any suggested cleaning or resolution steps on my end? Are those cleaning discs worth a shot, or snakeoil? Looking through the prior page of posts, it sounds like buying a new player will likely be the best option. in the end, I suppose 2 years and 10 months of regular use was a decent enough life for the item. Particularly since we're just coming out of Halloween season, where I start going extremely heavy on daily disc watching for nearly 3 months.

I got desperate and tried one right before I gave up on my player completely. I’d read some people saying they’d fixed playback issues with a lens cleaning disc on Reddit but my player wouldn’t read the cleaning disc at all. I returned the disc for a refund and bought a new player a few days later.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Good lord, NEVER use lens cleaning discs.
Just open the player and carefully clean the lens with a cotton swab. You may put some cleaning-alcohol or distilled water on the swab first or use it dry. Works either way. I did this to CD-players and DVD-players when they started skipping and always got them working fine again for a few more years. Should work on 4K players too.

[MooneyRara]

Originally Posted by u2popmofo

My 820 seems to be starting to encounter pixelation / playback issues on some discs now (primarily UHD's, though it's had some playback freezing issues on standard Blu's that my other players have no issues with). Just shy of 3 years worth of regular use.

Any suggested cleaning or resolution steps on my end? Are those cleaning discs worth a shot, or snakeoil? Looking through the prior page of posts, it sounds like buying a new player will likely be the best option. in the end, I suppose 2 years and 10 months of regular use was a decent enough life for the item. Particularly since we're just coming out of Halloween season, where I start going extremely heavy on daily disc watching for nearly 3 months.

Clean it yourself. Take the cover off the drive, and give the lens a cleaning using a q-tip and 90% alcohol. You might get another 3 years out of the player. I had a drive that had the same issue you describe. All it needed was a cleaning and it played flawlessly again.

The 820 drive with cover off. Clean laser lens thoroughly with q-tip and rubbing alcohol:

[Show spoiler]IMG_20231006_201129878_1.jpg

Slide the laser assembly back and forth a couple of times to clear its track:

[Show spoiler]IMG_20231006_202818368_1.jpg

[Show spoiler]
IMG_20231006_202916731_1.jpg

Reassemble. Hey, there's not much risk if you're considering buying a new player. I hope it works out for you.

[Telemachus]

I've greased many rails inside older players but I've never cleaned a lense since top loading videogame systems like the PS1 and Sega Saturn since those got way dustier. Most of the time even touching the lense could cause a new problem, but if you've got nothing to lose because you're already wanting to replace it why not. I echo the sentiment on not using cleaning discs, open the player and do it by hand.

[rickardl]

Originally Posted by MooneyRara

Clean it yourself. Take the cover off the drive, and give the lens a cleaning using a q-tip and 90% alcohol.

Would chemically clean (>99,5 %) Isopropyl alcohol do?