The Corner Penthouse

Even though I have not had a good history with LG Electronics products, I bought the LG UBK80 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc player for $99.99 (normal price is $199.99) from Best Buy on Black Friday 2019. I was upgrading from the LG BP125 Blu-ray Disc player (purchased on December 10, 2012 from Walmart for $48.00), which was the only LG product that I never had an issue with. Based upon my positive experience with the BP125, I thought that LG, at least, made good disc players. Boy, was I wrong...

I want to preface this list of issues with the UBK80 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc player by stating that I have the player connected via HDMI to the LG 43UJ6300 43" Ultra HD TV. With both products manufactured by LG, both should work optimally without issue.

Now, let's start by looking at a big change made to the physical unit itself.

• No Front Display Panel - The BP125 has a front display panel which shows the current timecode of the media being played. I like when a player shows information on the front of the unit. This is missing from the UBK80. If you want to see that information, you now have to press the Info/Menu button on the remote, which puts a timeline on the screen, underneath which is a menu of options. (see "Info Button Now A Two-Step Process" for more on this menu) Obviously, the front display panel was left out to save on production costs, though I'm sure the price was not reduced accordingly. Perhaps all manufacturers no longer include front display panels, so this may not be an issue exclusive to LG.


The reason I bought the LG 4K player (instead of a Sony or Samsung model) was that it would have the same interface as the LG Blu-ray player, so it would be something I was already familiar with. While it is true that much of the interface is the same, there are some differences. This is because LG, in their infinite wisdom, removed buttons from the remote, and thus necessitated some rather stupid changes to the interface.

• Smaller & Less Useful Remote - The BP125 comes with remote AKB73615801, while the UBK80 comes with remote AKB75135401. The UBK80's remote is not only smaller, but loses all of these buttons: TV Channel Up/Down, Audio, Subtitle, Title/Pop-Up, and Clear. It combines the color buttons with the R/G/Y/B buttons, and adds a Caption button. The TV control buttons have been moved to the bottom. With the removal of the Audio, Subtitle, and Title/Pop-Up buttons, you are now forced to use the Info/Menu button, and the new submenu it brings up, to access those functions.


• Info Button Now A Two-Step Process - The ease of pushing the Info/Menu button to see information is gone! On the BP125, you'd push that button and see a whole screen of information (titles, chapters, audio, subtitles, angles, etc.). Now, you have to press Info/Menu, and then select "Option" from the menu that pops up, in order to see that same screen. Since this info screen is a feature that I use quite often, you can imagine how annoying it is that this is now a two-step process. Even more annoying is that "Option" is not the first option on the menu that pops up. It's usually the THIRD option (second if I'm playing a video file).

On the BP125, pressing the Info/Menu button on the remote takes you directly to this:


On the UBK80, pressing the Info/Menu button on the remote takes you directly to this:


Then you have to move over and select "Option" to see this:


• DVD Menu Highlight Disappears - Sometimes the DVD menu highlighter will disappear. I have to move it so it can reappear. The highlight disappears after performing an action, such as watching a video and then the DVD coming back to the menu. I don't think I've ever seen it do it on a Blu-ray, but Blu-ray menus don't really work the same way as DVD menus. Even going from one menu to the next, the highlight will not show up on the next screen unless I move it. This doesn't happen every time, but it happens so often that it's quite noticeable.

• 4K UHD Video/Audio Starts In Progress - When I play a 4K Ultra HD Disc, I noticed that the video and audio tends to start a couple of seconds after I start playing the movie. When it finally appears, I have to hit the back button just to catch the few seconds I missed. Granted, it's not usually anything important (usually a studio logo), but I should see/hear from the very first frame to the very last frame every time.

• No MKV Chapter Support - When playing MKV video files that contain chapter marks, the player will not recognize them. This is more of a "feature suggestion" than an issue with the player. The BP125 Blu-ray player didn't have this feature, either, but that player was manufactured in 2012 and this one was manufactured in August 2019. I'm really surprised that no one at LG thought to add this common ability in those seven years.

• Freezes Up On Rare Occasions - On rare occasion, if I do something the player does like - such as going to the chapter placed at the end of a video and then quickly pressing rewind - the player will completely freeze up. No buttons will respond, and the only way to unfreeze it is to unplug it from the power source and then plug it back in. It doesn't do this often, but it's happened at least five times over these past six months. That's five times too many. No other disc player I've ever owned in my life ever froze up, EVER! Clearly, no one at LG ever stress-tested this player.

• Auto-Fast Forwards Through Some Still Galleries - It "fast forwards" through still image galleries on certain discs. I've noticed it on the Men In Black 1 Blu-ray, where it skips past several images instead of going to the next one. I think it happened on a few other discs, as well, but I wasn't keeping track. I have checked this same disc in the BP125 Blu-ray player, and it played perfectly, so it's an issue with the UBK80 and not the disc itself.

Here's how the Men in Black Blu-ray storyboard gallery plays in the LG BP125 Blu-ray Disc player. Notice that when I select the next image, it only goes ONE frame ahead.


Now let's look at that same gallery on the LG UBK80 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc player. As I say in the video, notice that it skips ahead several frames; and it does it more than once!


While some of the issues above could be considered "annoyances", I now get to the MOST SERIOUS issue of them all.

• Zooms In On 4:3 Video On Some DVDs - On some DVDs, it will ZOOM IN on 4:3 video, thus cutting off the top and bottom of the picture. I can verify this happens on the DVDs listed below, though there may be more. Interesting to note that all of these were released in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

• Mighty Joe Young (1998) - The movie itself.
• Spaceballs (first MGM dual-sided DVD) - The movie itself.
• Scream 1 (first DVD) - The movie itself.
• Jurassic Park 1 (first DVD) - The special features "Early Pre-Production Meetings" and "Location Scouting".

The "movie itself" ones above are not so bad since the video is 4:3 letterbox, so it makes it seem like an anamorphic widescreen video, though I prefer to see the video EXACTLY as encoded on the disc. For Jurassic Park, both of those videos are 4:3 fullscreen, so it's cutting off important parts of the image.

The aspect ratio on the player is set to "16:9 Original", so there's no reason for it to do this. It's not an issue with the LG 4K TV, as that is set properly, and if I change it, it doesn't "gain" the missing part of the picture in any other modes.

In my PlayStation 3 and computer, all of these DVDs play fine. I see the entire 4:3 picture, including the black bars for the letterboxed movies. Even more telling is that all of these DVDs play fine in the LG BP125 Blu-ray player, which confirms that this issue is with the UBK80 and not the TV or the discs.

Here's how the "Early Pre-Production Meetings" bonus feature looks on the UBK80 (the black frame in the image is the edges of my TV):


Now here's how it's supposed to look:



I know for a fact that all of these issues (aside from the front display panel and remote issues) are due to bugs in the player's firmware. They could all be fixed by LG technicians debugging the software that runs the player. The player's firmware is MAIN VER: BD.38819.80420.C and SERVO VER: UP17SON0017, which is what it came pre-installed with. Currently, there are no firmware updates on the LG UBK80 Support page.

On June 20, 2020, I e-mailed LG Support to let them know of these problems. I received a reply back a few hours later from Cel telling me to perform some basic troubleshooting steps: a "hard reset" of the unit (unplug and replug it back into the power source), and to initialize the unit (restore to factory settings). Obviously, neither of these things did anything, since the issues lie in the firmware.

Cel's e-mail also said to provide LG with some basic information: complete physical address, phone number, cell phone number, model number, serial number, date of purchase, and photo of thermal or official sales receipt. With that information, they would "determine the service options we can possibly offer you from here on our end". While I did provide them with that information, I'm positive that the issues are not with this unit itself, but with the firmware that runs this unit. They could send me a new player, and I'm quite positive that it would behave in the exact same manner.

That said, although I sent them a new message (their e-mail address doesn't accept replies) with the additional information on June 23rd, I have not received any further e-mails from LG Support in these past two weeks. I just e-mailed them again with a link to this review, in the hopes that they will fix these issues. I'll be happy to update this review if they do.

If they don't release a firmware update that fixes these issues, I'm going to buy another 4K player from a company other than LG.

[UPDATE #1]
Based on the advice of others in the Blu-Ray, Dvd and VHS Collectors Public Group on Facebook (thanks Tim), I decided to buy a Region-Free Modded Sony UBP-X700 4K UHD Blu-ray Player.

The Sony UBP-X700 has a much different interface. Some changes are better than LG, but to LG's credit, their choice to have a long menu with options (like audio and subtitles) that can be changed by pressing left and right, instead of toggling using one button, is much better. The Sony player also has no time search, and no number buttons on the remote (you have to press the Options button and then select Number Entry from the bottom of the list, and go up and down to the number you want to input). The lack of number buttons makes getting to the gag reel on those Star Wars DVDs (episodes 1, 2, 3, Bonus Materials) more of a chore than it should be; and may prevent the timed menu change eggs.

The Sony player also lacks support for chapters in MKV files. It makes me wonder if any 4K/Blu-ray players have this feature. On a positive note, the Sony player doesn't suffer from the "Auto-Fast Forwards Through Some Still Galleries" bug present in the LG player. Doing a quick test, I had no issues with the storyboard gallery on the Men in Black 1 Blu-ray.

Unfortunately, the Sony UBP-X700 has the same "Zooms In On 4:3 Video On Some DVDs" issue that the LG 4K player does on the same discs (and more that I've discovered). If I can't tell when a DVD has been zoomed-in upon, I would have to go through the annoyance of watching it in my PlayStation 3 or on my computer, as neither of these 4K players could be trusted to properly display 4:3 DVD content. The Screen Format setting is set to "Normal", so it should not do this. This means that the LG 4K player is not entirely at fault, even though only these two 4K players exhibit this behavior. (The LG Blu-ray player I have shows the 4:3 video properly.) I have to wonder why the Sony and LG 4K players even have TV aspect ratio and screen format settings. Who would buy a 4K player to connect to a 4:3 TV? Sadly, the Sony player is just as bad, if not worse, then the LG player. It also auto fast-forwards the storyboards in the Back to the Future Animated DVD, just like LG does. I didn't mention it in my review, originally, because I thought it was the disc - but I know differently now.

Worst of all is that the Sony player cuts to blackness for five seconds between menu screens on MOST DVDs. It seems like it only happens with motion menus, but I can't find much rhyme or reason behind it. It's VERY annoying, and coupled with the zooming-in bug, makes me want to find yet another 4K player.

[UPDATE #2]
Thanks to some large financial help from a relative, I bought the Region-Free Modded Panasonic DP-UB820 4K UHD Blu-ray Player, on sale for $679.20 (normally $849.00). A nice thing about this player is that it has a front display panel. I haven't had a player with that feature since my first Blu-ray player (Insignia from Best Buy) in 2009. I am happy to report that the Panasonic does NOT suffer from the "Zooms In On 4:3 Video On Some DVDs" issue that the Sony & LG 4K players do. Everything is displayed in the proper aspect ratio/format. Interestingly, there are no options for setting display aspect ratio, presumably because it does it all automatically. The Panasonic doesn't have a "TV Mode" settings, like the Sony and LG do, likely because the company knows that they are not needed since no one would connect a 4K player to a 4:3 TV.

The Panasonic is not perfect, though. The remote does not have Subtitle and Angle buttons, forcing users to go through a menu to get to those features. For subtitles, you have to press the Option button, select Subtitle Settings, and then Subtitles to change it. For angles, you have to press the Option button and then select Angle from the list to change it. There's also a HUGE "Netflix" button placed right above the "Up" button which I have accidentally pressed WAY too many times. Heck, within FIVE MINUTES OF OWNERSHIP, I accidentally pressed it. Since I don't have the player connected to the Internet, an accidental press of the button forces a NEARLY 30-SECOND WAIT until a "can't connect" message finally appears, allowing me to go back to the home screen. None of these players have confirmation messages when buttons are pushed that would exit video playback, which I find highly annoying!

Unlike ALL of my previous Blu-ray and 4K players, the interface does not state how many chapters a video has, nor does it add a timecode for videos that were encoded as menus. I haven't had to deal with that timecode issue since my old Pioneer DVD player from 2001, as every other player I've had since then has given these "codeless" videos a timecode. Also, the player has no time, chapter, or title search features, like my older players did. Not surprisingly, there is no support for chapter marks in MKV video files.

The biggest issue I have with the Panasonic is that it has very limited codec support for video files played through USB and DVD-R Data Discs. Of the formats I use, it only supports MKV and MP4 on USB, and only MKV on DVD-R. I have no idea why it can't play MP4 files on a DVD-R data disc. If it could play it one way, it should play it the other way. For MKV, it supports the video codec: H.264 HEVC; the audio codecs: AAC, PCM, Vorbis, FLAC; and the subtitle formats: srt, sub, txt. For MP4, it only supports the H.264 HEVC video codec and the AAC audio codec. There are also lots of different common audio formats, but I have no reason to worry about that.

The region-free ability of both the Panasonic and the previous Sony works great.  The only issues are with the players themselves. Each of the three 4K players has some major faults, with each having one area in which it SHINES! The Panasonic has the best playability. The Sony has the best codec support for video files on data disc and USB. The LG player, which isn't region-free, has the best user interface and feature set.  I really I wish I could find a player that has the best of all three.

[UPDATE #3]
As of November 2, 2023, I no longer endorse 220 Electronics. They gave me a firmware update for the Panasonic DP-UB820 that caused the player to no longer readily play select Region 1 DVDs (from the United States - where I live!), primarily those from 20th Century Fox. They claim to have a "lifetime guarantee" in regards to region coding, so I sent the player to them to be repaired, especially since they're the ones that caused the issue to begin with. First, they falsely claimed that there was a power issue and wanted me to pay for it, when the player powered on perfectly when it left my hands. I even had photographic proof of that. I spoke to one of the bosses on the phone while they had my player in their possession. He was told me they were having trouble diagnosing the Region 1 DVD problem. I suggested that if they can't fix it, they send me a new unit, but they wouldn't do that unless I paid for it. Again, that goes against their "lifetime region-free guarantee".

After a week or two, they claimed that they fixed the Region 1 DVD problem, and sent it back to me.  They didn't fix it at all.  The problem persists the same as it did after I installed the firmware update they gave me.  The only way I can play select Region 1 DVDs, such as those from 20th Century Fox, is to actually change the BLU-RAY region to "A", even though it's a DVD and not a Blu-ray, and the player is (by default) always in Blu-ray Region A.  Even then, it's not guaranteed to work. I have to keep ejecting the disc, changing the region, re-inserting the disk several times until it finally decides to play the DVD.

Had I NOT installed the firmware update they gave me, I wouldn't have this problem, as it didn't exist in the three previous years that I have been using the player.