Have BR & 4K Manufacturing Processes Changed Recently? (1 Viewer)

[Robert13]

The Panny 420 doesn't have Dolby Vision capability while the 820 does have it. I have two Panny 820's which are basically backups to my two Oppo 203 players. I have no complaints the few times I have played the 820 players.

Thanks Robert! Wish I had an Oppo player. I had never heard of the brand and didn't know they were quality machines. It's a shame they stopped manufacturing them.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Thanks Robert! Wish I had an Oppo player. I had never heard of the brand and didn't know they were quality machines. It's a shame they stopped manufacturing them.

There are many people that shared that same sentiment.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

There are many people that shared that same sentiment.

Absolutely.

Those Oppo players are beautiful players.

I have always looked at Oppo's decline to be parallel to the decline of physical disc sales which is a bit difficult to substantiate when we still see a fairly consistent level of studio releases to 4k and Blu-ray. Still, like any company, if Oppo wasn't seeing a decline in its sales, I would think it would still be manufacturing players.

 

[Robert13]

It all makes me a little nervous for the future of BR and 4K discs. Like everyone else who is a collector, I am still buying new discs that are being released. And as they are still releasing physical media, I find it disconcerting that it is getting more difficult to purchase a quality player. My collection is fairly modest compared to those that I have seen share photos of their collection online. In years to come, to have all of those discs and possibly no way of playing them, it all makes me a little uneasy. I'm sure this is not a new fear to many who visit this forum.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

It all makes me a little nervous for the future of BR and 4K discs. Like everyone else who is a collector, I am still buying new discs that are being released. And as they are still releasing physical media, I find it disconcerting that it is getting more difficult to purchase a quality player. My collection is fairly modest compared to those that I have seen share photos of their collection online. In years to come, to have all of those discs and possibly no way of playing them, it all makes me a little uneasy. I'm sure this is not a new fear to many who visit this forum.

I don't want to make you spend more money than perhaps you should.

If you are looking at this new player purchase as perhaps your last, I would spend the money to buy a quality machine.

It has been many years since I bought new hardware so I don't know all the current Blu-ray players. However, I suspect the Panasonic 820 is still the best machine on the market (other than the more expensive 9000 player which you don't need).

That's not to say the Panasonic 820 has been perfect for me. A few people, including myself, reported a supplemental disc in the recent 4k release of 1776 would not play on these players. I don't know how widespread that issue was and if it was due to a disc authoring issue or not.

That being said, if I were looking for a new player the Panasonic 820 would be the choice.

There may be others that have their own recommendations.

 

[Robert13]

I don't want to make you spend more money than perhaps you should.

If you are looking at this new player purchase as perhaps your last, I would spend the money to buy a quality machine.

It has been many years since I bought new hardware so I don't know all the current Blu-ray players. However, I suspect the Panasonic 820 is still the best machine on the market (other than the more expensive 9000 player which you don't need).

That's not to say the Panasonic 820 has been perfect for me. A few people, including myself, reported a supplemental disc in the recent 4k release of 1776 would not play on these players. I don't know how widespread that issue was and if it was due to a disc authoring issue or not.

That being said, if I were looking for a new player the Panasonic 820 would be the choice.

There may be others that have their own recommendations.

That's all very helpful! All of this has made me think. I spoke to a friend who has had the same Sony bluray player for more than 10 years! But everyone keeps saying to stay away from Sony. Did their players USED TO BE good and in recent years decline in quality? My Sony has been very good with the exception of not playing this one Jerry Lewis movie. Much like the supplemental disc you mentioned of 1776. No real explanation. But I will be surprised if I buy a new player and the disc still doesn't play. I have been through 2 sets and the same issue exists. So it seems it could be the newly authored way they produced that one disc. I haven't had a disc not play in this player with any of the newer discs I purchased this year from Kino, Vinegar Syndrome or Warner Archive. Even the Australian Umbrella discs play perfectly. It would be really nice to buy a Panasonic 820 and have it last me a lifetime. But, I'm skeptical with the way anything is made these days. LOL

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Yeah, don't expect any current players to "last a lifetime"... but maybe at most another 10 years I guess though more likely just several years or so, if it sees a lot of usage as the only disc player in your system...

IF you're not using a projection (FP) setup w/ the player, then the Panny 820 is probably the way to go. IF you're using FP setup, then the 420 should do perfectly fine (as no FP setup can really do Dolby Vision anyway) -- maybe buy 2x of them, LOL, for the price of one 820 and just rotate between the two every 1/2-to-full year or something to get you to 10-plus years or longer, haha.

The 820 does seem to be more solidly built though, so...

FWIW, yes, I also have a Sony X700 4K player (before adding/replacing it w/ my Panny 420), and while I didn't run into actual playback issues w/ that myself, plenty others have... plus its handling of Dolby Vision is an utter pain-in-the-a$$ (requiring manual switching on/off between DV and non-DV content/discs amongst other UI quirks). And I've had other previous issues w/ Sony disc drives over the many years even going all the way back to the early days of DVD w/ a drive kit I used for my initial entry into DVD and then again w/ a 2nd(?) gen PS3 for my initial entry into BD... and plenty others had experienced issues w/ their various drive/PS3/standalone solutions throughout.

While I've also had (2) previous, inexpensive Panny BD players fail very prematurely on me, they do generally perform flawless/best (outside of rare exceptions like a few generally more expensive Denons and Oppos) where/when it counts most and seemingly almost always have since the early days of DVD.

My current main setup rotates between an (non-4K) Oppo 103 (that I use mainly for import BDs and music discs, especially since it supports SACD very well) and Panny 420 (for 4K and all other/regular BDs, no music) -- and I have my Harmony remote setup accordingly. Hoping the fairly regular rotation (on top of my use of streaming) will help them last far longer than otherwise...

_Man_

 

[Robert13]

Thanks _Man_ for all that info! I really only use a BR player for my BR discs and nothing else. My collection of BR discs is very modest of only a couple hundred discs of my favorite films. I don’t have a massive collection like most. Is it pretty common for collectors to buy several players to have on hand for the future. I’m just wondering if they somehow “expire” from just sitting without use. Otherwise, I would totally buy a couple of BR players to try to have a way to play discs at least for another decade or so.

My friend has a Sony S-370 and he has had it for more than 10 years. I’ve seen a few movies at his house and they always look spectacular. I’m kicking myself for not buying one of those.

 

[jcroy]

Yeah, don't expect any current players to "last a lifetime"... but maybe at most another 10 years I guess though more likely just several years or so, if it sees a lot of usage as the only disc player in your system..

Back in late-2011 when I was first looking to buy a bluray player, it was disconcerting to find that there were no good reviews about then-current bluray players on the market (other than maybe oppo). Too many reviews mentioned the players dying a year or two after the warranty expired.

I ended up buying a generic toshiba bluray player around black friday, which was in large quantities at BB. During the xmas break when I had time off from work, I was watching through all the $7 (or less) bluray discs I had purchased over black friday such as james bond, superheros, etc ... Around this time period, blurays were also starting to show up in dollar stores such as titles from bottom feeder movie companies like The Asylum, Echo Bridge, Mill Creek, etc ...

I wanted to see if this toshiba bluray player could die after a week or two of heavy use (ie. playing almost all day while I was awake). It turns out this same player is still functional today.

 

[Worth]

Oddly, the only blu-ray player I’ve had die on me so far was an Oppo.

 

[jcroy]

It all makes me a little nervous for the future of BR and 4K discs.

The primary reason I was willing to jump onto the bluray treadmill, was that I found that I could check newly purchased bluray discs on the computer for unreadable bad sectors due to manufacturing defects. It takes around 37 minutes on a computer bluray-rom drive, to extract the entire undecrypted iso from a fully packed 50 gigabytes sized bluray disc. (In contrast for fully packed 8.5 gigabytes sized dvd-video disc, it takes around 11 minutes to extract the entire iso on a computer dvd-rom drive).

If a manufacturing defect is discovered during these iso extractions, the disc goes back to the retailer for an exchange (or refund). I encountered this frequently in large multidisc sets, such as tv show bluray or dvd sets. (Not surprisingly).


In the case of 4Kbluray, I haven't purchased any discs or players yet. (At this point I likely won't bother anymore).

My dilema with 4Kbluray discs, is that it can take over an hour to extract the entire 100 gigabytes sized iso from a 4Kbluray disc on a computer bluray drive. (The latter, such as a recent LG or Pioneer model which can handle 4Kbluray discs). From reading many annecdotal accounts, many 4Kbluray drive models have been "riplocked" to slower disc speeds, where the drive will not use its maximum technical speeds to play 4Kbluray discs.

A generation earlier, this same "riplock" behavior was also exhibited on the first batch of computer bluray-rom drives on the market in the mid -> late 2000s era. Going back even further in time to the first generation of computer dvd-rom drives around y2k, the "riplock" behavior was also exhibited where it took 20 to 30 minutes to extract the entire iso from a fully packed 8.5 gigabytes sized dvd-video disc.

If it is going to take over an hour (or two) to check for disc manufacturing defects on a computer 4Kbluray drive, then I mind as well just watch the actual movie on a generic 4Kbluray player from start to finish. Though with too many complaints about the subpar performance of current 4Kbluray players, it is bringing back bad memories of the laserdisc era where I would watch through every newly purchased laserdisc to check for any manufacturing defects. The latter was one of the big reasons why I never got into hobby of collecting laserdiscs.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Back in late-2011 when I was first looking to buy a bluray player, it was disconcerting to find that there were no good reviews about then-current bluray players on the market (other than maybe oppo). Too many reviews mentioned the players dying a year or two after the warranty expired.

I ended up buying a generic toshiba bluray player around black friday, which was in large quantities at BB. During the xmas break when I had time off from work, I was watching through all the $7 (or less) bluray discs I had purchased over black friday such as james bond, superheros, etc ... Around this time period, blurays were also starting to show up in dollar stores such as titles from bottom feeder movie companies like The Asylum, Echo Bridge, Mill Creek, etc ...

I wanted to see if this toshiba bluray player could die after a week or two of heavy use (ie. playing almost all day while I was awake). It turns out this same player is still functional today.

Interesting that it's a Toshiba.

I almost mentioned that Toshiba might possibly be the most durable, if fairly no frills, for disc players, except I never bought one for the HD formats since I never got into HD-DVD and Toshiba only begrudgingly did very little for BD after BD won the HD format war. Actually, wasn't the Toshiba BD players even just rebranded/rebadged models made by Magnavox or something?

But yeah, I liked Toshiba back in the day... and our ancient 32" 4x3 CRT was a Toshiba (that we finally threw out a few years back). They were pretty much neck-and-neck w/ Panasonic (and probably also JVC and Hitachi) for best overall value in CE (at least for video playback), including near (enough) the top for performance along w/ tops for durability and generally affordable prices, a couple decades ago. But they've fallen by the wayside since then, especially after the HD format war.

Yeah, if they stuck around the way Panasonic has, I'm sure I woulda tried a BD (and maybe 4K) player from them, especially after I had 2x Pannies fail on me so prematurely back in the early 2010's before I finally went Oppo... but am now back again w/ Panny (and a sorta-backup Sony) for 4K w/ fingers crossed, LOL, because I was too slow to act on an Oppo 203 before they stopped making them...

_Man_

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

The primary reason I was willing to jump onto the bluray treadmill, was that I found that I could check newly purchased bluray discs on the computer for unreadable bad sectors due to manufacturing defects. It takes around 37 minutes on a computer bluray-rom drive, to extract the entire undecrypted iso from a fully packed 50 gigabytes sized bluray disc. (In contrast for fully packed 8.5 gigabytes sized dvd-video disc, it takes around 11 minutes to extract the entire iso on a computer dvd-rom drive).

If a manufacturing defect is discovered during these iso extractions, the disc goes back to the retailer for an exchange (or refund). I encountered this frequently in large multidisc sets, such as tv show bluray or dvd sets. (Not surprisingly).


In the case of 4Kbluray, I haven't purchased any discs or players yet. (At this point I likely won't bother anymore).

My dilema with 4Kbluray discs, is that it can take over an hour to extract the entire 100 gigabytes sized iso from a 4Kbluray disc on a computer bluray drive. (The latter, such as a recent LG or Pioneer model which can handle 4Kbluray discs). From reading many annecdotal accounts, many 4Kbluray drive models have been "riplocked" to slower disc speeds, where the drive will not use its maximum technical speeds to play 4Kbluray discs.

A generation earlier, this same "riplock" behavior was also exhibited on the first batch of computer bluray-rom drives on the market in the mid -> late 2000s era. Going back even further in time to the first generation of computer dvd-rom drives around y2k, the "riplock" behavior was also exhibited where it took 20 to 30 minutes to extract the entire iso from a fully packed 8.5 gigabytes sized dvd-video disc.

If it is going to take over an hour (or two) to check for disc manufacturing defects on a computer 4Kbluray drive, then I mind as well just watch the actual movie on a generic 4Kbluray player from start to finish. Though with too many complaints about the subpar performance of current 4Kbluray players, it is bringing back bad memories of the laserdisc era where I would watch through every newly purchased laserdisc to check for any manufacturing defects. The latter was one of the big reasons why I never got into hobby of collecting laserdiscs.

I haven't actually watched that many 4K discs (all the way thru) so far even though I do have a good(?) size collection (of around 300?) by now, but so far, haven't actually run into any actual bad disc AFAIK yet even on the supposedly iffy Sony X700 I own (w/ which many seem to have trouble), but haven't used in a couple years. And I don't even bother updating firmware on my players that often, if at all -- I did update my Sony X700 pretty regularly as an exception up til ~2 years ago though. I also haven't really run into more than an extremely few bad BDs and DVDs other than those obviously damaged after manufacturing (probably usually during some leg in shipping or inventory management before reaching me).

I've never tested 4K discs via a computer drive, but it's really unclear whether most of the reports of issues are simply hard to see/notice dirt/finger-prints/smudges/very-light-scratches/etc causing problems for the apparently extreme precision requirement(s) for playback, especially for the 3-layer 100GB discs.

It certainly does seem the 4K disc is much more susceptible to the slightest obstructions and/or defect than all its predecessors. Regular BD seems the most durable/reliable... though CD (well, at least redbook CD) and DVD may be more readily salvageable if/when there are significant scratches/damages.

_Man_

 

[Robin9]

I haven't actually watched that many 4K discs (all the way thru) so far even though I do have a good(?) size collection (of around 300?) by now, but so far, haven't actually run into any actual bad disc AFAIK yet even on the supposedly iffy Sony X700 I own (w/ which many seem to have trouble), but haven't used in a couple years. And I don't even bother updating firmware on my players that often, if at all -- I did update my Sony X700 pretty regularly as an exception up til ~2 years ago though. I also haven't really run into more than an extremely few bad BDs and DVDs other than those obviously damaged after manufacturing (probably usually during some leg in shipping or inventory management before reaching me).


_Man_

I have the Sony X700 and I've never had a moment's trouble with it. In addition to playing 4K, it also has made my Blu-ray discs look very slightly better. I've noticed that some people disparage the X700 but you won't hear a word of criticism from me.

 

[Robert13]

I noticed a lot of people saying Panasonic blu-ray and 4k players can be made region-free. I would actually welcome a region-free player. I only have 2 region-locked titles but it would be nice to finally see them. I would even buy a cheaper BR player to try it. Can anyone recommend a good one? I see there are some that are under 100. I'm sure they are not durable. But wondering if anyone has had any luck in this area. I'm thinking of adding on an extra player for any problematic discs or region-locked ones.