Panasonic UB820/UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray player

[gardengirl1331]

Originally Posted by AKORIS

your experience applies to everything--- computers, appliances, TV's, blu ray players, etc etc. This is the way the world works these days....

I had a compressor go out on my expensive LG fridge a month or so back-- $1500 to repair it!!! (paid about $2200 for it around 5 years ago)
I bought a new Samsung fridge from Costco instead for $1000

I took a class in high school (with a name that didn't age well haha) called Man and His Environment, it was actually and english class?! But we talked about this stuff a lot. One question the teacher asked was how many of our grandparents still have the toaster they got when they got married and everyone raised their hands. We talked about how we're in a throw-away society and how it costs $75 to fix a $50 toaster, and it's getting harder and harder to find someone to fix it, and this was... wow, a few decades ago... and is MUCH MUCH worse now. We had my in-laws old washer from 1979 in our last two rentals, during those 13 years we went through 3 dryers (and the washer survived our sump going out during floods one year and was floating in 4' of water we dried it out and last I heard from our old landlord it was still working!!!!) the only thing we ever had to do was replace the belt once in all that time! The last one had the thermostat on it go, my husband was going to just order the part and fix it, but you couldn't get it without the heating element, which together was $250! The dryer cost us $200, the replacement dryer cost us $225?! It's horrible and such a waste! The guy who sold it to us said expect things to only last about 5-10 years, and you're lucky if it lasts more then 8 or so. Yet if you have any appliances from the 50's-70's, as long as you take care of them they'll still be working today. Sadly due to this his business is now gone after being in town since the 1940's! He still does repair work and when I called him about our cooktop and wall oven (original to the house from the early 80's) he said keep them working as LONG as possible because the new stuff is such crap now. The cooktop has a weird hard wired element that can't be replaced and is wonky to use, but we can still use it knowing it's only for low and high. haha. The wall oven is awesome, since it was ugly my husband told me to do whatever I want with it and I got high heat engine paint and painted it candy apple red, with the old chrome on it it looks like a 1950's car!! We've replaced the heating element and a couple other little things (sadly the clock stopped working and no where to get the part) and knock on wood it's still working well, and pre-heats to 500* in less than 10mins!!!!

But yes this throw-away stuff really gets me too. I'd much rather fix things and have them last a lifetime! Making higher profits is more important and making stuff shit that will die in a few years making you buy it again and again will not be sustainable for much longer. I really hope this changes back.

[samuelkhan999]

https://www.eurogamer.net/new-xbox-s...microsoft-leak

Xbox abandoning blu ray?

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by chip75

Check whether the player is displaying 704 pixels or that there's overscan if you display DVDs at 480? I'd assume the former is a certainty, and I'd go with Vincent with his review.

Test patterns/discs are the way to go to check. If you haven't got any, you might try one of those DVDs with the THX tests.

Failing that you could create a few patterns with Photoshop and output them in Da Vinci Resolve. I might give that a go this week.

Hi Chip,

Last night I popped in a regular DVD with the Panasonic 820 set at 480p, but all the TV said was 480p SD...so there's no full resolution listing.

Then I popped in my old Joe Kane Video Essentials on DVD since I know that has test patterns. When the Panasonic is set to 480p, not only did the test pattern show there is overscan close to 5% on the upper part of the image, the image was also stretched to 16x9 (it's a 4:3 ratio video.)

Afterwards I set the Panasonic 820 to 4K, this time the video was it's original 4:3 ratio and the test pattern displayed looked to have no overscan.

Of course I want the TV to do the up-conversion so what I'll try tonight (I really didn't have time last night) is to use the same DVD, set the Panasonic 820 to 480p, then set the TV to display the original ratio and then check at that time to see what the test pattern shows.

It will be interesting to see what the results are at that point.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by thebarnman

Then I popped in my old Joe Kane Video Essentials on DVD since I know that has test patterns. When the Panasonic is set to 480p, not only did the test pattern show there is overscan close to 5% on the upper part of the image, the image was also stretched to 16x9 (it's a 4:3 ratio video.)

That's what I got. I had to set the TV to 4:3 to display properly, 16:9 and 4:3 were the only options without zoom.

Originally Posted by thebarnman

Afterwards I set the Panasonic 820 to 4K, this time the video was it's original 4:3 ratio and the test pattern displayed looked to have no overscan.

Was it displaying 704 wide? it would be weird if your SONY was an anomaly.

____________________________________

Sorry if folks are bored with the "my DVD is cropped" talk, I know it's not a priority for most. From what I can gather it's also something from digital to analogue conversion (or vice versa I can't remember), some of our UK broadcasters flipped around with the method.

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by chip75

Was it displaying 704 wide? it would be weird if your SONY was an anomaly.

I don't know if it will be 704 or 720 since I don't have a way to generate that info at least on the equipment I have...or at least I don't think I can get that type of info.

I ran out of time tonight but I will have lots of time tomorrow evening. All I'll be able to do when I set the player to 480p, is to then set the TV so it will show the proper ratio and check out the test pattern. I'm guessing it's not going to be as bad when compared to the TV's stretched mode of SD content. It might even be perfect but again all I can do is look at the test pattern.

Tomorrow (Wednesday night) I'll take a picture of the results and post it.

[chip75]

Originally Posted by thebarnman

I don't know if it will be 704 or 720 since I don't have a way to generate that info at least on the equipment I have...or at least I don't think I can get that type of info.

I think if you play 4:3 content at 480p and place markers on the screen (I placed some Tac on my TV's bezel), and then switch to 4K you should see a difference in horizontal information.

[DMRI2006]

Originally Posted by samuelkhan999

https://www.eurogamer.net/new-xbox-s...microsoft-leak

Xbox abandoning blu ray?

They've wanted to go all digital ever since the original Xbox One

[samuelkhan999]

Originally Posted by DMRI2006

They've wanted to go all digital ever since the original Xbox One

True. DRM and always on Kinect. Xbox was way ahead of itself and now Facebook/ Meta have got a kinesthetic like camera for FB/WhatsApp messaging.

[Cerberus40000]

New firmware(1.76) is out for these machines, just updated my 820 and 9000

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by chip75

I think if you play 4:3 content at 480p and place markers on the screen (I placed some Tac on my TV's bezel), and then switch to 4K you should see a difference in horizontal information.

I didn't place anything on my screen but I did take pictures of three results. At the bottom, you'll see the links for the images labled 480p, 4K and 1080p.

Image 1; Player set at 480p

Image 2; Player set at 4K

Image 3; Player set at 1080p


I've discovered having the player set at 4K for SD content has the least overscan of any of the settings but I do not know if it's the full SD resolution or not.

Additional note: When the player is set at 480p, and I switch my TV between AUTO and FULL, there are slight differences in overscan. Even so, having the player set at 4K provides the least overscan.

As far as the quality of the up-scaling; I did not check for that at all. The weird thing is, Vincent always demos how well the Sony A90J does at up-scaling SD content as he usually says that it's slightly sharper looking than other TV. And, I think he's talked about little to no overscan too but I can't seem to confirm that.

Here he touches on it for about a second in one of his reviews...

https://www.youtube.com/supported_br...tube.com/watch

[chip75]

Originally Posted by thebarnman

I didn't place anything on my screen but I did take pictures of three results. At the bottom, you'll see the links for the images labled 480p, 4K and 1080p.

Annoyingly, if you watch 4:3 content through the player's USB, you get 720x480 or 720x576!

[thebarnman]

Originally Posted by chip75

Annoyingly, if you watch 4:3 content through the player's USB, you get 720x480 or 720x576!

Hmmm, food for thought.

[sapiendut]

Originally Posted by Cerberus40000

New firmware(1.76) is out for these machines, just updated my 820 and 9000

It was released 2 weeks ago.

[HeightOfFolly]

@DMRI2006

Fortunately, they already have a system for people without Internet. It's called Xbox 360.

[chip75]

Blerg or Borg. Popped in Star Trek: Origins Blu-ray to watch "Space Seed" and the disc started breaking up nearly ten minutes in, checked it and there was some pitting on the outer rim (and that's not an plot point), and a welt in the middle of the disc. Can't remember if I've played the episode before on my Panasonic, but it played fine on my Samsung.

Not sure if the damage was on the disc when I bought it, I'd assume it was, as I think it predates my Panasonic players, but it highlights the fine line with disc playback with these machines. Might try it on my other player.

Not sure if I bought another copy of the disc, I think I passed on it even though it was only a few pounds.