This Is My Holy Grail Blu-Ray Player

When my boss Dan asked me “What would you say was your ‘holy grail’ Blu-ray player?”, I’d never even thought about it. My stance has always been to get the best bang-for-buck tech I can. So, I decided to think about it, and from the heavens descended the Panasonic DP-UB9000.

The Panasonic DP-UB9000 was launched all the way back in 2018, with a refreshed “mk2” model released a few years later. Both are identical save for a difference in audio chip, which Panasonic changed for supply chain reasons. Regardless of which version you get, the Panasonic DP-UB9000 is widely lauded as the videophile’s player of choice, and looking at what’s under that brushed aluminum shell, I can see why.

Incredible Cinema-Accurate Image Processing

Pansonic refers to this as a “reference” player, and just like other “reference” video and audio gear, this means the DP-UB9000 is designed to accurately reproduce the video image as intended by the creators of the content.

This is possible thanks to a specialized, high-performance image processing chip referred to as the Panasonic Hollywood Cinema Experience (HCX) processor. This chip works to convert the image from the Blu-ray to its true and accurate representation in terms of color, contrast, clarity, and brightness.

It’s effectively an “upscaler,” but for more than just resolution and detail. The chip takes into account what your display is capable of, and then does the best with what you give it. You also get bit-perfect translation of the video without resorting to chroma subsampling (excellently explained by RTINGS), though the average person would certainly be unable to tell that they are getting a slightly worse image in return for big bandwidth savings.

Nonetheless, the UB9000 promises to be a reference player, and so whether you can tell at a glance or not, it offers the most technically correct picture it can on your display.

Wide HDR Format Support

While I’ve seen this player almost universally praised for its image reproduction, a lot of that is down to its support for the best HDR formats. This means HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.Paired with a display with the right specs and HDR support, the UB9000 will make it literally shine, and, again, give you the experience intended by the content creator. It also supports standard HDR and HLG, so you’re pretty much covered for every type of HDR format you’re likely to encounter.

The player’s HDR optimizer feature is widely considered the best in the business, and you can see why in this demo video.

This is a big deal, since it means that any display device, including home theater projectors, will retain more detail with HDR footage, because the optimizer maps the original HDR data into a brightness range that the display can actually produce.

Hi-Res Audio With Numerous Output Options

If anything, the audio capabilties of the UB9000 are even more impressive than its image quality chops. Both of the versions have a high-end digital-to-analog converter and a balanced analogue audio output circuit, so you can hook it up to your fancy analogue home theater receiver. The audio subsystem has its own separate power supply, to eliminate interference.

Sadly, this player does not support audiophile disc formats like SACD or DVD-A, but it does support just about every digital format that matters: WAV/FLAC/WMA/AIFF/AAC/MP3 formats, DSD (2.8 MHz/5.6 MHz/11.2MHz) and ALAC music files.

Connection options for the audio include the aforementioned balanced analog XLR/RCA, twin HDMI, and 7.1 channel, optical and coaxial audio connections.

Built to Last (and to Be Quiet)

This is the sort of device that seems to be hewn from a solid slab of metal. The DP-UB9000 has a rigid aluminum body designed to stick things out for the long haul. So if you’re looking for a player that will go nicely in your doomsday bunker, this seems to be it. It’s anodized (what the Japanese often call “alumite-treated”) which both looks nice and helps prevent corrosion, and weighs in at a hefty 17.2lbs! This also cuts down on vibration and noise from the drive and its moving components.

The fact of the matter is that the UB9000 is solidly out of my budget. My current non-4K player cost me almost $200 and that felt hard to justify at the time. However, if the Editor-in-Chief handed me the company credit card and said “You can buy any Blu-ray player you want.” then this would be the one I gleefully swipe for.

Panasonic DP-UB9000

$998 $1100 Save
$102