Panasonic UB420 UHD Blu-ray player $297 @ Noel Leeming / The Market

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Forums › Bargains and Deals › Panasonic UB420 UHD Blu-ray player $297 @ Noel Leeming / The Market

ShinyChrome

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#272570 2-Jul-2020 14:55

If you are in the market for a decent physical disk spinner, this is cheaper than it has been in a while and probably the best value option all around, especially since Sony's X700 has gone up in price by quite a bit.

It only supports HDR10+, no Dolby Vision support, but features Panasonic's well regarded HDR Optimizer, so will work excellently for anyone with a projector or not fussed on DV.

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#2516341 2-Jul-2020 17:24

Good price for sure, possibly because its an older model? Either way I don't really need one but I am tempted by a deal

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ShinyChrome

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#2516346 2-Jul-2020 17:33

JPNZ:

Good price for sure, possibly because its an older model? Either way I don't really need one but I am tempted by a deal

All of them are pretty older models at this stage, since the physical media market has been shrinking for awhile and manufacturers aren't really rushing out new models. Certainly the newest ones I know of are a couple of years old now.

I was thinking about jumping on it since it is normally $479 and the Xbox One isn't just cutting the mustard anymore. The HCX chip is top notch for picture processing, which you will know since your TV has that anyway. I'm kinda still flirting with getting a projector vs. an OLED, so could go either way really.

Not having DV is not rad, but for the amount of disks that currently have it, and the price difference to get it, its not a huge deal.

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#2516554 3-Jul-2020 08:12

Yes I'm really betwixt and between on this one. It would be a good match for my new GZ but I hardly ever use disc media (although my boss has hundreds of 4K discs and is willing to let me borrow from week to week) but the media player side of it works better for me. Being able to plug in a ext HDD and play all formats and particularly audio formats would be good.

An apple TV would be the end goal but I really don't want to buy one when a new one maybe out soon..

Decisions... Decisions

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#2516560 3-Jul-2020 08:40

I am genuinely worried that BR players will be not be around for much longer. I have close to 400 BR disks and very much want to maintain ability to play them for the rest of my natural life!

I currently have two BR players - a 10-year old Panasonic and a 5-year old Sony.

I've been wondering for a while if I should buy another couple of players and put them on ice until required - I'm assuming a BR player could remain unused for years without risk of component fail from lack of use?

Anyone else been contemplating the risk of BR players being discontinued?

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#2516619 3-Jul-2020 09:29

I had been thinking the new Playstation 5 or XBox X just to add a uhd player. Would they offer more than the above?

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#2516622 3-Jul-2020 09:32

dafman:

I am genuinely worried that BR players will be not be around for much longer. I have close to 400 BR disks and very much want to maintain ability to play them for the rest of my natural life!

I currently have two BR players - a 10-year old Panasonic and a 5-year old Sony.

I've been wondering for a while if I should buy another couple of players and put them on ice until required - I'm assuming a BR player could remain unused for years without risk of component fail from lack of use?

Anyone else been contemplating the risk of BR players being discontinued?

Why not just back them all up to a hard drive as REMUX copies. Then you can use any good software player. Is the draw of a disk the actual getting it out and putting it on a tray?

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#2516632 3-Jul-2020 09:46

Every BR and 4K disc I've got is copied to a HDD (or 7) and I compress the blurays as well. If you compress 4Ks you loose the HDR apparently. Then they get played through Emby.

400 discs is hardly an overnight process though.

I still wish I'd bought an X700 a few months ago when they were much cheaper though. Just couldn't figure out a way to get it past the financial controller when there's a perfectly good BR player sitting next to the TV that gets used about once every 3 months.

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#2516644 3-Jul-2020 10:05

Yes I worry about BR players disappearing, I am looking to buy a spare standalone plus a spare internal for the PC.

I might be a little crazy but I do ISO rips of all my discs (40-50TB so far) and wondering if in the future I'll have a bunch of physical discs that can't be played anywhere. Bit like holding onto ZIP drives.

But I like all the docos, commentary tracks and extras that go on a disc which is why I rip ISO and just have Kodi mount the disc for playback through PowerDVD.

I guess it has to be accepted that things will draw to a close but I would like the equipment to last long enough that I can still make use of the physical discs if required.

I imagine my kids will one day have to cart all this to the dump haha

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#2516660 3-Jul-2020 10:34

Well I just caved and grabbed one from NL. Spoke to my friend at Harvey Norman and he said grab it, at $297 its about $140 under cost price. He said best he could do was $382 and thats making nothing.

Ive ordered click and collect so should have it tonight.

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ShinyChrome

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#2516677 3-Jul-2020 11:02

Quinny:

I had been thinking the new Playstation 5 or XBox X just to add a uhd player. Would they offer more than the above?

It depends. If they support DV (nothing confirmed yet), yes, as only the UB820 supports both DV and HDR10+. For anything non-DV/plain HDR10, it depends on your display, as the HDR Optimizer will give a small but noticeable benefit to tone-mapping. Most good recent TVs have decent dynamic tone-mapping built in, so returns may be diminishing over an older TV. For projectors though, 100% get this.

However, I have found the user experience of watching blu-rays to be a bit poos with my current Xbox 1X and it can be quite noisy, so it wins out there.

Since both next gen consoles will have a UHD blu-ray drive built-in, I imagine the physical media market will continue on, and certainly more releases are coming to UHD Blu-ray each week, but also, because most people will be happy with that, there really isn't a huge market for good quality dedicated players.

Personally, my next step is to set up an unRAID server and get a UHD-bluray capable drive to start ripping them, but I do like having physical copies to be honest.

rb99:

I still wish I'd bought an X700 a few months ago when they were much cheaper though. Just couldn't figure out a way to get it past the financial controller when there's a perfectly good BR player sitting next to the TV that gets used about once every 3 months.

I know! I wish I had grabbed one when they were down to $297, but I was a little bit precious about the whole manual DV switch and reliability issues.

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#2516682 3-Jul-2020 11:09

dafman:

I've been wondering for a while if I should buy another couple of players and put them on ice until required - I'm assuming a BR player could remain unused for years without risk of component fail from lack of use?

If you are gonna do that, I would at least pull them out of the box and test them first, it seems like both Sony's and Panasonic's QA isn't as great as you would think. But as others have said, rip them to a NAS etc and keep the physical copies as a backup.

JPNZ:

Well I just caved and grabbed one from NL. Spoke to my friend at Harvey Norman and he said grab it, at $297 its about $140 under cost price. He said best he could do was $382 and thats making nothing.

Ive ordered click and collect so should have it tonight.

Yeah, I didn't really want to spend the money on one that doesn't have DV, but the price is just too good to be honest. Especially since the X700 has shot back up again and the UB820 is twice the price.

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#2516689 3-Jul-2020 11:18

'Personally, my next step is to set up an unRAID server and get a UHD-bluray capable drive to start ripping them, but I do like having physical copies to be honest.'

I guess you'll be checking out MakeMKV and which models work and which firmware to downgrade too, etc.

Sony reckon they'll have x700s on Monday (as you might have noticed, or not), but unless everyone is going to have stock coming out there ears, $478 is a bit ridiculous. Mind you, in a month or two I'll be saying why didn't I buy a UB420 when it was so cheap...

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” -John Kenneth Galbraith

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#2516692 3-Jul-2020 11:27

rb99:

'Personally, my next step is to set up an unRAID server and get a UHD-bluray capable drive to start ripping them, but I do like having physical copies to be honest.'

I guess you'll be checking out MakeMKV and which models work and which firmware to downgrade too, etc.

Sony reckon they'll have x700s on Monday (as you might have noticed, or not), but unless everyone is going to have stock coming out there ears, $478 is a bit ridiculous. Mind you, in a month or two I'll be saying why didn't I buy a UB420 when it was so cheap...

Yup, I'd started to go down the rabbit hole on the makeMKV forums about the whole rigmerole of finding a compatible drive, but just not quite got around to it yet haha. I'd also seen about a forum member who can supply ready to use drives on the right firmware from Aus, but unsure if that is still a thing, or how trustworthy that is.

I'd say you are right about the X700, and we are probably not getting the X800m2 either, so it's probably not going to get any better.

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#2516703 3-Jul-2020 11:52

I'd probably be better off getting a second 4k ripping drive for the PC (have a LG BH16NS55 already). Half the price of a stand-alone. Just in case. Assuming they're still 'fixable'.

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#2516712 3-Jul-2020 12:10

rb99:

I'd probably be better off getting a second 4k ripping drive for the PC (have a LG BH16NS55 already). Half the price of a stand-alone. Just in case. Assuming they're still 'fixable'.

Hmmm...., could be an idea. Happy with the LG's performance?

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