Panasonic DMP-UB900 UHD Blu-ray Player First Look

4K res­o­lu­tion is com­ing to liv­ing rooms: just in time for the launch of UHD-Blu-ray, Pana­son­ic, like Sam­sung, is intro­duc­ing its first new disc read­er. With a rec­om­mend­ed price of 799 euros (about 60,000 rubles), this play­er, of course, can­not be called cheap. We test­ed the UB900’s 4K and HDR capa­bil­i­ties by run­ning Mad Max: Fury Road on a Pana­son­ic TX-50DXW734 TV and saw sig­nif­i­cant pic­ture improve­ments, espe­cial­ly in con­trast-poor scenes.

Pros and cons

+ Great image with superb con­tours
+ Lots of inter­faces
+ Ana­log audio out­put capa­bil­i­ty
— Long load­ing times
— High ener­gy con­sump­tion
— High price

Aver­age retail price: 60,000 rubles

Panasonic DMP-UB900: high detail

The new play­er sup­ports HDR tech­nol­o­gy, which means the expan­sion of the dynam­ic range of the image. In prac­tice, this makes it pos­si­ble to dis­play even “face­less” scenes with sharp details and rich col­ors. That’s why, in the desert races in Mad Max: Fury Road, the device man­ages to endow objects with the appro­pri­ate con­tours.

In addi­tion, the UB900 sup­ports 4K res­o­lu­tion — and we enjoyed watch­ing the test film, although in fact it was a 4K trick, since the Blu-ray had 2K res­o­lu­tion source mate­r­i­al in its base. How­ev­er, the image was con­vinc­ing due to its sat­u­ra­tion and clear struc­tures. How­ev­er, to see all the beau­ty, home the­ater fans will have to move clos­er to the screens.

Panasonic DMP-UB900: Dolby Atmos and Surrond 7.1

Any­one who attach­es par­tic­u­lar impor­tance to sound in a home the­ater will not be dis­ap­point­ed either. The Pana­son­ic DMP-UB900 sup­ports Dol­by Atmos tech­nol­o­gy, is equipped with eight RCA out­puts and has a sec­ond HDMI con­nec­tor for con­nect­ing a stereo or mul­ti-chan­nel audio sys­tem.

Thus, with the right con­nec­tion, you can get not only a clear pic­ture, but also 7.1‑channel sound in your liv­ing room. In addi­tion, the UB900 has addi­tion­al inter­faces: a flip-down front pan­el pro­vides access to a USB port and an SD card read­er.

Panasonic DMP-UB900: high power consumption and long boot times

HDR, 4K com­pat­i­bil­i­ty and high qual­i­ty upscal­ing come at a price: Not only does the UB900 need more pow­er than reg­u­lar Blu-ray play­ers, it also takes a long time to load. When play­ing the movie “Mad Max”, it con­sumed 16.2 watts, which is well above aver­age.

The time that elapsed from load­ing the disc to start­ing play­back was 31.2 sec­onds. Thus, the UB900 took 10 sec­onds longer than the Pana­son­ic DMP-BDT374, the slow­est Blu-ray play­er on our list. Nat­u­ral­ly, all this is crit­i­cism at the high­est lev­el: if you do not pay atten­tion to the load time, the device will give you a lot of plea­sure.

Alternative: Samsung UBD-K8500

The sec­ond UHD-Blu-ray-play­er is pre­sent­ed by Sam­sung. With sim­i­lar char­ac­ter­is­tics, it costs a good 300 euros (about 22,000 rubles) less than a com­peti­tor from Pana­son­ic. But if you choose this option, you will have to give up some inter­faces: for exam­ple, such as ana­log audio out­puts.