Panasonic 9000 vs. Oppo 205

[Barry]

Not in our big media room, with the Panasonic 9000P1K and JVC projector, but in our upstairs room where we have a 77 inch LG TV, we replaced a 15-year-old Oppo 205 Universal 4K player with a Panasonic 9000 4K player


So I had a chance today to compare the picture of the 9000 to the Oppo.   The Oppo  has not been updated in nearly a decade. And the 9000 has been updated recently.  Oppo add originally said that they would honor warrantees and find updates. Well, they haven’t since 2019 and now have no service places in America.

I expected the 9000 to have a mostly better picture, but I was actually wrong. It had a greatly better picture. There was obvious grain the imagery on the 
 Oppo, which showed up greatly on close-ups. This did not show on the 9000. The 9000 also gave a sharper picture and more colorful one. I have seen on YouTube in other places where the two are compared and they often come out close. But I noticed that those videos were mostly 6 to 8 years old.  

All in 4k, I started with “The Mask,” then “Mission Impossible, “ then  “Godzilla vs Kong” and I kept getting the same results so I stopped after about 30-40 minutes. The sound was better also.

Just for the heck of it, I compared a DVD on both machines. It was season two of “Mannix.” again, I was surprised how much better the image was on the 9000 then on the Oppo. 

This should  not be considered a great scientific test.  But we are very happy that we made this decision.

[Paul Heroy]

Interesting, and surprising Barry. 

Your comment about the grain and colors makes me wonder what settings are on or off between the Panasonic and Oppo. I had an Oppo 203 at one point, and a Panny UB820 but not the 9000. I now have a Sony 4K player which replaced the UB820. I don't recall seeing big differences in video unless I cranked up some digital noise reduction or something along those lines, but I've never done comparisons. (And don't have them around to do it anyway, as I sold the replaced players.)

[Barry]

Paul,

I am not an expert reviewer on these things. but with my installer, I know that my settings were correct.

I put on the movie The Mask on the 205. Whenever there was a close-up of Jim Carrey or someone else you can see grain in his face. it was not there on the 9000. the scenery in Mission impossible, especially in the background, was much clearer, sharper and more colorful.

and frankly, Mannix on DVD almost looked like it was a Blu-ray when I played it on the 9000. the Oppo is no longer available, so this really isn’t a contest. but the 9000. Looks so good on my projection system. I really wanted to see what it would look like on the LG.

[bmoney]

Def an interesting find. But makes sense the oppo is defunct

[Paul Heroy]

I can't help wonder, given comments about the grain, if a digital noise reduction type feature is active in the 9000. It also might have better updated support for HDR, which might affect the color palette.