Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

I doubt Panny will ever fix the LG issues on current players with firmware, that's what the new models coming out this year will be for (wild guess).

Really? That's the first I've heard of it! It would be great to have a really fantastic replacement for the 820. I'm sure it will cost more however. There's very few things I don't like about the 820...mainly the display on the screen when it's reading the disc and the subtitle button should turn on the subtitles without having to push 20 buttons just to see the subtitles.

Plus I have only one disc that the player won't load the menu options such as PLAY, or Start Movie or what ever it's called! It will work on my Sony UHD Blu-ray player but not on my Panasonic 820.

Is there a link to this new player?

[Telemachus]

Originally Posted by chip75

Everyone would be thrilled to see new players, especially mid-range ones.

Yep lots of money in new affordable units, charging a grand is instant death, but sub $500 units would sell, discs are selling great, but will anyone step up is the question. If they make a deck that ****s on the old decks no one will buy the old decks unless they discontinue them, that's all I think is stopping someone. Sony really needs to stop selling their current UHD players they don't even work right, not that Panny is perfect but they mostly seem to have botched firmware.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by thebarnman

I'll have to check to see if my Sony UHD Blu-ray player passes DVD natively.

It's MediaTek based, so it's fine.

[blue348]

Is Panasonic the only manufacturer not using a MediaTek chipset?

[timfitz99]

After dealing with Panasonic's tech support over the numerous issues I'm having with my 820 (same ones other have posted, lots of DolbyVision issues resulting in strobing or no picture, fails to play most standard Blurays I've tried it with), they finally said I can return it for evaluation for replacement. I had to pay for my own shipping of course. Wish I'd bought it at Best Buy rather than Amazon this time so I could have brought it back to swap more easlly.

Really hoping the replacement (if they choose to send one) is better; if not I'm going to be returning it.

When it works, it's great... but I don't want to need a 2nd player on hand to cover for it when it doesn't work.

Meanwhile my Sony X800M2 works great. Not as good an image for HDR as the Panny, but at least I can play my movies.

[HeavyHitter]

Originally Posted by timfitz99

After dealing with Panasonic's tech support over the numerous issues I'm having with my 820 (same ones other have posted, lots of DolbyVision issues resulting in strobing or no picture, fails to play most standard Blurays I've tried it with), they finally said I can return it for evaluation for replacement. I had to pay for my own shipping of course. Wish I'd bought it at Best Buy rather than Amazon this time so I could have brought it back to swap more easlly.

Really hoping the replacement (if they choose to send one) is better; if not I'm going to be returning it.

When it works, it's great... but I don't want to need a 2nd player on hand to cover for it when it doesn't work.

Meanwhile my Sony X800M2 works great. Not as good an image for HDR as the Panny, but at least I can play my movies.

You should also consider Crutchfield - 60 day return policy, free shipping, and excellent CS.

[tama]

Well, my 820 finally gave up playing UHDs. Still plays BDs fine. I've cleaned the lense and it worked for awhile, about a month, now cleaning doesn't help. The player is not dusty inside so not sure what would cause such an issue. Started acting like this about 2 months ago. Lasted close to 4 years now without issues till now.

[Telemachus]

Dang, 4 years doesn't even seem too long on a player, I am still on my three original Toshiba HD DVD decks, and have a Sony CD changer from 1993, 2006 and 2014. Hope my Panny lasts half of that.

[chip75]

Tried ringing a few repair shops I might be stuck unless I can travel out of the county. There is a PC shop in the high street, but they seem to be incommunicado.

[CreasyBear]

Anyone else get a lot of connectivity issues when switching back and forth between SDR and HDR? My UB9000 is lately trying to play HDR discs in SDR. I have it connected to a Denon S720W. The receiver accepts and passes through 4:4:4, so I don't think it's the receiver and I have no issues with this on my Sony X800M2, also connected to the same receiver. I've changed cables and same issue. I'm using the correct HDMI video/audio out as well. It doesn't happen all the time, but it is annoying, and I have to reboot the player in order to get it straight.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by sa5150

That's pretty cool that the Toshiba makes the dvds look best of what you tried .

I watcha a lot of tv shows on DVD that have no HD stream or Blu-ray set so I'm always looking for the best it can look with the limited source .

I'm sure this has been disgusted 1,000 of times but what is the best dvd upscaler dvd player ,bluray player ,4k player or TV own upscaling ?

No computer software in the mix . Don't have a laptop and would be a huge PIA to try and run a dvd through software and then to tv .

I nominate for myself the Oppo 103D , The Sony x800m2 is a very close second . I have not tried the TV's doing the upscale on there own yet. Have an LG C9 , A Sony 80J , and a old 2012 Panny Plasma not hooked up .

I also watch a quite a bit of old TV shows on DVD (Gunsmoke, Combat!, Maverick, Rawhide for example), and so far they all look best on the Panny 9000. I have the XA2, Oppo 83, 95 and 203 hooked up as well to compare to, and it's not even close. I guess I'm an outlier.

[jurid]

Originally Posted by bruceames

I also watch a quite a bit of old TV shows on DVD (Gunsmoke, Combat!, Maverick, Rawhide for example), and so far they all look best on the Panny 9000. I have the XA2, Oppo 83, 95 and 203 hooked up as well to compare to, and it's not even close. I guess I'm an outlier.

I don't see how they look "best", but they can look very good if the material is 24fps based.

From an earlier post:

Using S&M disk test patters

24fps sourced material is very good:

https://imgur.com/UEDtUX9

https://imgur.com/l47uvAX

Thus, almost all movies and some shows will play well.

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by jurid

I don't see how they look "best", but they can look very good if the material is 24fps based.

I'm just giving my own humble opinion on actual content, on my particular setup. (fed to the Sony Z8H). YMMV. I'm not comparing test patterns. The 9000 destroys the DVD PQ of the other players I mentioned. "Best" is an understatement.

[jurid]

Originally Posted by bruceames

I'm just giving my own humble opinion on actual content, on my particular setup. (fed to the Sony Z8H). YMMV. I'm not comparing test patterns. The 9000 destroys the DVD PQ of the other players I mentioned. "Best" is an understatement.

Originally Posted by bl4ck

I have the same opinion I have the 105D and 93. But you must know that image is denoised by default in pana and sometimes it's not good and than better set 1 or 0.

That's interesting. Tell it to Geoff D He is very negative about this player. I am much more positive. I still can see that XA2 is visibly better than Panny (on 24p-sourced material anyway, because on 60i - the Panny is not too good to start with). But Panny is still quite good for movies.

I agree that the patterns don't tell the whole story: they are better on Panny (actually close to ideal) than on XA2, but XA2 is still better on actual material (the trick is to engage the Reon processor on XA2: you have to select Picture options, I usually select Edge enhancement = 1, and leave the rest unchanged. )

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by jurid

That's interesting. Tell it to Geoff D He is very negative about this player. I am much more positive. I still can see that XA2 is visibly better than Panny (on 24p-sourced material anyway, because on 60i - the Panny is not too good to start with). But Panny is still quite good for movies.

I agree that the patterns don't tell the whole story: they are better on Panny (actually close to ideal) than on XA2, but XA2 is still better on actual material (the trick is to engage the Reon processor on XA2: you have to select Picture options, I usually select Edge enhancement = 1, and leave the rest unchanged. )

I agree the sharp difference of opinion is odd, and I defer to Geoff's vast knowledge about this player (and AV in general). I'll check the player settings when I get home, but I do recall tweaking them before. But whatever I do, it would likely make the picture worse.

The only thing I can think of (other than these players seem very individualistic) is that the 9000 somehow pairs very well to my display?

[deatheats]

This might have already been taken into account, but perhaps the differences in opinion on DVD performance, have to do with player led vs TV led resolution upscaling. My DVD collection is fairly small so I haven’t dug into this much, but are the folks in this discussion letting the Panasonic set the resolution of their TVs or does it not make much of a difference?

[jurid]

Originally Posted by bruceames

The only thing I can think of (other than these players seem very individualistic) is that the 9000 somehow pairs very well to my display?

Shouldn't be that dependent...

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by deatheats

This might have already been taken into account, but perhaps the differences in opinion on DVD performance, have to do with player led vs TV led resolution upscaling. My DVD collection is fairly small so I haven’t dug into this much, but are the folks in this discussion letting the Panasonic set the resolution of their TVs or does it not make much of a difference?

Well in my case the display is 8k, so it's going to be doing at least some of the upscaling. I'll have to check when I get home if the upscaling up to 4k is player led or not.

[Telemachus]

For DVDs my Toshiba is visibly better than the Panny, it's a big difference to me. For 1080/60i BD discs, unfortunately I can only compare those on my PS3 and X700 vs the Panny, only compared the PS3 so far, and I used a few discs like Timeline (1080i/60 Japanese disc), a concert Blu ray (1080i/60) and Masters of Horror (1080i/60), hard to tell any difference, since the PS3 can't upscale to 4k/60 I think the Panny wins by default. I used a particular scene that looked jaggy on the Panny but it was almost as jaggy on the PS3.

[Naiera]

Originally Posted by bruceames

The only thing I can think of (other than these players seem very individualistic) is that the 9000 somehow pairs very well to my display?

That's definitely not a thing.