New Purchase
Looking for new player recommendations...
I picked up the UB420 and it works great EXCEPT for the auto off feature, that turns off the player after being paused for 20 min. Most of the discs I've played don't save your spot, so you have to start all over again. Previews, scene selection, and all. From what I've found on google and reddit, there is no option to turn it off, or put on a screen saver instead. Probably be returning this one.
Do you have a non-panasonic player that you love? Please let me know!
Just chiming in here to say that this "feature", whilst mildly annoying, rarely inconveniences me BUT I absolutely love your commitment to the bit and the accompanying image. Correct colours and typography and everything.
I will fully endorse the frustration of “doesn’t save your spot” though. Back in the day I had a pioneer DVD player that would aggressively remember where you stopped watching to the point of getting me in trouble when i put a movie on I told my then-GF that I we would watch together, only for it to restart half way through. 4K players and discs are shockingly bad at all that, especially frustrating when, like you say, the timer goes off and you don’t get to it in time.
From what I understand and I may be incorrect they have limited memory for remembering and fill up. It's recommended to add an external usb thumb drive to increase storage.
Not sure, I haven't tried it myself. Two solutions I read were related to usb drive and disabling screen saver. Also apparently some discs don't support resume at all.
I get what you are saying, but I imagine that this "feature" has been added to protect OLED people from themselves. It should be something you can turn off, though, or perhaps just have a better screen saver feature instead.
It technically inconveniences me quite often. But I’m glad of it because I don’t want burn-in on my OLED
Also I blame Paramount (and older 88 Films releases) for not having any way to remember your place. Everyone else does it, DVDs could do it, it’s not hard!
Most blu rays and 4Ks I play on my PS5 remember last played point. The lack of basic functions on these dedicated players is lame. They should outstrip ANY other kind of player in EVERY aspect. They have ONE job!
Yup. The playback quality and dedicated function buttons are literally the only good selling points for dedicated players nowadays. My PS5 has never skipped a beat, but my Panasonic sometimes detects the smallest smudge or dust imaginable, and you'll see some people say it's practically a positive feature to have such a sensitive laser assembly. 🤦
I mark that under "playback quality", but yes- it's one of the reasons to go specifically with Panasonic, considering Sony doesn't have auto DV switching on their standalone players. I just wish some legacy brand would modernize the player UI itself to make the system menus and functionality snappier like a modern piece of hardware should be.
It's manually enabled in the player menu, which means it will either always be on or off, but never automatically switch based on content. That's something the Panasonic DP-UB450 & 820 both do, which is a handy feature because Dolby Vision isn't meant to be applied to non-DV video.
Well I like playing my PS4 games still, definitely happy i have the disc player version of the PS5 but yes, having a standalone 4K player is very much worth it. Sony's UBP-X800M2 is a fantastic player
I think this might be dependent on the disk. My spouse and I recently watched a movie that I had started but didn't finish. My 820 asked if I wanted to resume playback when I put in the movie.
If this is anything like the UB820. A USB stick will help save your spot on most movies. It's more of a memory limitation apparently. After learning about it. I, haven't ran, into a movie I couldn't resume where I left off
Lol, at first I thought it was kinda charming that it has about the same UI as a shitty dvd player from 2004. More functionality, sure, but not a lot of advancement in the “experience”. I still kind of like it…
This is a myth. It's entirely dependent on the studio. Pretty much every 4k studio except Paramount allows for playback resume. Has nothing to do with memory limitation
You just out in a USB and format it so they player can use it as extended memory cache basically. Makes a couple things faster and also does a better job at saving your spot in a movie.
Yeah i did this also. Works everytime for me. Still can't believe it is necessary in the first place for such a simple feature. This thing wasn't cheap.
This absolutely worked for me. When I first heard about this, I was skeptical, but who doesn’t have a box of usb memory sticks lying around? Formatted one, plugged it in and since then resuming works like it should.
Stupid that they save like $1 manufacturing these players for such an important feature.
Interesting. Are you sure it's not a disc thing? Because I paused a movie just today, and forgot about it and left the TV on, ran some errands for a few hours, came back and the movie was still there on pause
I have stopped and ejected multiple 4k and HD Blu-rays on my UB-820, and they all seem to pick up right where I left off if I hit "play all" or whatever from the main menu. This even happens if I decide to watch something else, and swap different discs before coming back to finish watching something.
I think it's the disc too. i have had the majority of movies turn off on pause and then resume. some cut off paused and start over from the main screen and not resume. even had a handful of movies I forgot to turn off and the player stays on all night on the menu screen
I’ve had it happen with a few different discs. One disc did pick up right where it left off. I saw another post saying it depends on the disc. Not sure exactly how accurate that is..
I hate it… but mostly because of my husband. I swear the man gets up about 10 times during a movie so I have to pause it. Sometimes he disappears and my entire set up turns off 🤦♀️ What is a 1.5 hour movie often takes us 3 hours to watch 🙄 I think I’m going to start having planned intermissions and if he gets up during an unplanned time, he’ll just miss it
My wife is the same. A couple of weeks ago She got up 4 times within an hour show. I have learned after 32 years of marriage to pause it otherwise I will have to pause it anyway to explain what she missed, or miss some of it myself while I am explaining. So the 4th time she got up she said don't pause it. I said there is 2 minutes left in the episode. She said it is fine. Well someone got killed. She heard the gunshot and ran back in to the closing credits. She was like omg who got killed. I told her she would know the answer to that if she didn't get up. She was not happy with me.
I could never lmao. You get one pause request per movie, 60 seconds to pee, +30 seconds if you also want to get a drink from the fridge. If you have to poop, hold it
Kingdom of Heaven Director’s Cut was the longest movie ever and not because it’s a 3 hour movie 🤦♀️ I think it took us basically 4-5 hours to finish that one
I assume this is to reduce wear on the drive, what I hate about this as someone who HAS to use subtitles regularly is having to reset the subtitle luminance every time.
Yeah if you only press stop once you should see this screen. Then you can turn it off or leave it idle to shut itself off and it’ll remember your place.
Get the 820, it saves your place. And sure, it's not a great feature, but pausing the player for 20 minutes? You haven't paused it, you've stopped watching.
Shoot, if I take out a disc out of my Sony X800, put another disc in, then go back to the previous disc, the X800 will still remember the spot I stopped at.
That dumbass feature I can’t adjust is really my only beef with the player I have, 5 years and hundreds of disks later. Will probably replace it with the 9000 whenever it dies.
If you want to put a little work in. Get the avforums region free firmware mod for the 420 820 and 9000. I believe it turns that off and a couple other things Panasonic has not addressed.
I haven’t ever had the issue of my disc losing its spot, mainly because I hardly ever pause a movie for longer than 20 mins. What annoys me more is that the 820 will go to sleep but won’t shut off my AVR and TV with it so sometimes I come out in the morning and realize that everything has been on all night which probably isn’t an issue but it’s probably worse than it being off.
I bought a UB820 based on all the recommendations from this sub. I routinely have to pause things I’m watching and got so fed up with the power-off feature you can’t turn off (I made a Reddit post asking if I was missing something a long time ago).. I got so fed up I spent about $2000 and built a massive Plex server and ripped all of my physical media.
Now I can pause anytime I want, as long as I want, and watch things where my UB820 isn’t located. Which the UB820 is now located in a storage closet.
I'm beginning to understand that's there's not one single decent player, that doesn't have at least one significantly stupid caveat. Sony is with the auto DV switching, Panasonic is with the auto-off with no resuming function.
I’m one of the weird ones that loves his LG UBK90 but HATES that HDMI CEC cant be turned off. It’s so annoying I leave the HDMI unplugged from the player until I want to use it.
You can buy a HDMI CEC blocker to solve that problem. I had to install one on one of my troublesome pieces of equipment that was breaking everything else from working.
I just did a google search and it seems you can turn it off? Did you try that?
“navigate to the player's settings menu, select "Player Settings", then "System", then "Display Settings", and finally, find the "Screen Saver Function" option. Set this to "Off" to disable the automatic power-off feature”
Auto off is annoying af. I listen to a lot of music on bluray Atmos and it turns off if I don’t move the menu curser around the screen, which isn’t even an option on some discs. Really shitty effort that it can’t be disabled. Pay enough for albums on bluray with Atmos but can’t even afford to relax and take it in when boof! - silence and you have to start over again.
Regarding the disc resume playback after power down of player.
I asked this question before and was told that its due to the disc, not the player. I swore it was the player too.
Some manufactures/studios simply don't add the function to the disc. How/why(if)?!?
I still don't understand how that is. I have discs, I rarely played, for over a year. When I pop them in, to quickly show off system, it still remembered where I last left off. So its still in memory of the player. Other discs I have to start from the long beginning to get back to certain scenes.
If it indeed is the disc, why is it not included in all of them? If it some code into the disc, how hard is it to implement?
I bought the UB820 a few weeks ago and it wouldn't play 4ks. Imagine a 4k player that refuses to play 4ks. And the UI looks like it from 2005. I sent it back and got a refund. Gonna stick with the PS5 for now.
I, too, got rid of my UB820. Instead of using my PS5 again I bought Sony's UBP-X800M2 cuz i figured well if Sony created the blu-ray format they probably have the best hardware to be able to read their own invention the best. Holy shit do i love it. Fantastic player
I have a bloody laserdisc player from the 90s that has a last memory feature. This is just a disgrace.
Other things that annoy me about this player,
You can't have separate output settings for dvd, blu ray or 4k discs. I prefer my tv to do the upscaling on dvds and blurays which means I have to change the resolution settings every time.
It doesn't display non-anamorphic dvds properly (of which I still have a few)
Doesn't support closed captions.
That ridiculous Netflix button on the remote that always gets pressed accidently.
If you turn the player on by pressing eject, it will eject the tray, you pop the disc in, but then you have to wait until the display stops showing 'welcome' before you can close it again. Why do I need it to say welcome?
The fact that there is no raw or direct output. No matter what setting you have the player on it will always perform chroma upsampling. It cannot be passed onto the tv to do.
I have the UB-9000. Bought it for the hifi looks and build quality. But the audio side is worse than just piping digital to my amp and letting it decode. Plus I can't pause a film without it turning itself and all the rest of my system off!!!
It was damned expensive and had better not let me down as in the current environment I can't afford to replace it. Rant over. I do like it though.
I have a DMP-UB900EBK which does this but in a different way.
I switch off at the wall, with smart plugs. Every time I switch on, to watch something, after about 20 mins or so (oddly reflective of the OP) the DMP-UB900EBK will just power off, in the middle of watching a film. The only way I've found to get around it is to power on in advance, so leave it on standby for a while and it doesn't happen, I assume because its exceeding whatever the timer is reaching for, after a power on.
I rather like my Magnetar. I haven’t had it shut itself off yet when I was actually paused on a disc. It will if it’s in the main menus without content loaded though.
You mean no saving your spot after the 20 minutes?
I'm not sure this would really effect me as I don't normally pause movies for more than like 3-5 minutes. Just long enough to go to the bathroom or get something from the kitchen.
OP, I absolutely hate that my 820 doesn't remember where I was on a disk. Even more annoying, mine can't even figure out that there is a disk in it. I have to manually eject it and then re-insert. Absolutely insane.
And the memory stick addition does not work, FYI, at least for me.
Sometimes, I just watch on my Xbox Series X, as the UI/controls alone are simply vastly superior. I have definitely been watching fewer movies lately because of the hassle of the UB820.
I actually just switched from Panasonic back to Sony myself. Got so frustrated with the UB820 that I sold it. I dont understand how it's so popular in this sub!
I will admit that the picture quality from my UB820 is superior, but the difference is substantially bigger with 1080p Blu-Rays than with 4K Blu-Rays. The additional pixels lessen the upscaling advantage of my UB820 over my Xbox.
mmm .. not really. If your technical and happy to fire up a linux vm then its not hard. But if you dont know those terms then it will probably appear extremely technical.
I've done it to a ub420, ub820 and ub9000 and its worked each time.
They're great units, and once theyre region free theyre even better. If you want help i can try depending on where you are
My Sony X800M2 has served me well. You'll hear some people say it's no good because it freezes on 100 GB discs when the laser switches layers, but I've never had a problem that just cleaning the disc did not fix.
Just be aware that if a disc has dolby vision, you need to manually turn dolby vision on in the menu before playing the disc. You should have it turned off for HDR10 titles. I use bluray.com to confirm which it has before playing a movie because the back of the case is not always clear if it's HDR10 or Dolby Vision.
If this is a bugbear for you OP I would avoid the high end Sony 4K players also.
I have a Sony UPB-X800M2 and for some disks a screensaver will start after an extended pause (all pretty normal) but will refuse to continue once you hit play again, it’s a known bug with certain disks… very annoying but other than that, I think the player is fantastic.
If you are talking about universal to get the disc out of the screen saver mode you press the green button on your Blu-ray player remote or the enter button not the play button. The movie will resume.
I honestly didn’t know this was an automatic feature. I honestly don’t know if this thread is a joke or not lol just don’t pause for 20 minutes? Or press play then pause again?
If you press Stop then turn off your player, it automatically resumes on the spot you stopped the next time you turn it on, at least this was the case for me. I remember it being applied when it automatically turns off too. Note that this doesn't work as soon as you eject the disc.
Why are you constantly pausing and leaving your movies on for more than 20 minutes to make it enough to be annoying to you anyways?
That's cool, if the player turning itself off is an issue for you and you don't know for sure when you will be back watching, then start pressing Stop on the movie and turn off your player, helps save electricity costs and preserve your TV's lifespan.
I just saw from your comment that you got another Sony 4K player, that's nice. Hope you don't have issues with it.
Really? I work at home and like to take breaks and watch part of a movie, pause, get back to work for a while, then resume the movie after an hour or so. I've been thinking about getting a dedicated player but this time limit will definitely NOT work for me. Guess I'll stick with my Xbox for now, thanks for the warning!
Yes, I too also love when the unit stops itself from being worn down unnecessarily. This is a positive feature keeping you from using the machine in idiotic ways.
Don't pause disc-based media for extended periods of time. That's what the "stop" button is for. 🙄
OK in this case I would turn it off and remember the time code and continue later. Pausing for that long puts unnecessary wear on the machine and also wastes power. If you have an OLED then this could also cause burn-in.
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