Marantz UD9004 Universal player with Blu-ray - Page 7

I am looking for some advice on what to do next.......

Earlier this year i started noticing that some Blu-Ray discs would not play on my Marantz UD9004. I contacted the Marantz service department here in Australia. They advised me to bring the unit in to them...1.5 hours drive i took the unit in to their service department. Over 2 days they stripped out the firmware and took it back to a factory setting. The unit would still not play various Blu Ray movies. The screen would go red and would advise to update the machine.
I was advised by the Marantz Australia service department that they had not come accross this problem with other UD9004 models. They would be sending and email to Japan to look into the problem and would get back in touch with me.
6 months later and i had not had any further communication with the Marantz Australia service department.
i continued to buy Blu Ray movies. Some continued to come up with the red screen asking me to update the machine and refused to play.
I had now noticed a pattern to the movies that would not play......THEY WERE ALL 20TH CENTURY FOX RELEASES.
As i had not had any communication from Marantz Australia Service Department i called the same service engineer that had first viewed my machine.
He told me they had had a fix for 20th Century fox for a couple of months (my first question was why did you not contact me.....i was obviously very unhappy...for 6 months i had not been able to watch any releases from this company.....he had forgotten about me)
I was told to bring the unit into the service department again and they would load the updates. This would take 2 days.
1.5 hours Drive later i took the machine back in.
4 days later i called to find out the progress.
2 days later i was told the updates had not taken.
The engineer was waiting for an email from Japan
2 days later i was told the unit had to be taken apart and a piece of the inside had to be sent to Japan. They needed my consent to take it apart. I said please get it done asap. They gave me a time frame of 3 weeks.

In the meantime i was given a loan machine: ud5005
This machine does not offer the same standard of playback as the ud9004 and does not operate in my home theater setup....its kind of useless. When playing back a blu ray it makes more noise that a 747 taking off. It just does not fit in and operate properly with my setup.
I was not happy with this loan unit. I feel that after paying $9000.00 AUD for the Marantz flagship UD9004 i should have been offered the same or similar standard model. I feel that if an update for the machine was available then Marantz Australia should have contacted me....knowing that i had a problem with the my unit.....After paying 9k for the ud9004 is this too much to ask??

After waiting for 2 weeks i thought i would contact Marantz service centre Australia to get an update on the status of the work being done in Japan.
The same engineer i have been dealing with tells me the part has not been shipped to Japan and is still here in Australia. It has not been sent yet.
I ask why and are fobbed off with excuses.
The engineer at Marantz Australia never returns my calls. I have not been given a time frame for the repair.I feel that i am being lied to. The standard of customer service is the worst i have ever come accross anywhere in the world.
After paying such a large amount of money for this unit i really expected more.....At the moment i am totally disillusioned with Marantz / Marantz Australia / Marantz products / Marantz customer service or lack of it...
My last communication with the engineer ended with him promising to call me back and give me an update / new time frame on the repair......he has not called me back yet...24hours later
I want to write a letter to the MD of Marantz Australia / Marantz Asia Pacific / Marantz Japan
Please can someone give me an idea of how to get this problem fixed.

1. Have you updated the firmware to the latest?
2. If you have, then your problem is likely a drive failure which might cost $500 - $800 USD.

My advice:

If firmware updates do not solve the problem, your best bet is to throw it out.
Early Blu Ray players seem to have been more prone to drive failures, so buy a new model and move on. It's a loss, regardless of what you paid.

Another issue to report. Every time I load a disc with BD live the player says:

"This disc is requiring access to internet"

This is happening after I upgraded the last firmware.

Any thoughts

The marantz company only saling there products only for earning mony and making fool to chitng to customers iam also sufering with theme iam from india purchase marantz 9004 bluray player till know from one year they are not release any update of said player if u see SONY picture they are not running properly they requir firmware the other companys are releasing firmware time to time there products like oppo and pioneer i have pioneer elite 09 and also oppo 93 players also we paid huge amount to purchase this machine which is company said FLAGSHIP product of the company this is not flagship this is flagdown product of the company foolship of the comany

Mine says"requesting", not "reequiring".

I just say "No". (Or whatever the option is.)

Likewise. This started after the last update for me. It also appears that the firmware corrects the problem with 20th Century Fox BDs. Happy Time.

Why does Fox always do something difficult for the blockbuster blu-ray
discs since Avatar,Knight and day,Alien anthology,SW and RotPot Apes.

Bringing this thread back from the dead. My brother owns this player and he borrowed Underworld-Awakening on Blu-Ray (All regions ABC) and it fails to play the movie. It will play the trailers at the start but sits there for over 5mins doing nothing. He tried switching the regions from A-B but nothing changed.

What is the latest firmware for this player? Has anyone else tried this disc? Thanks in advance.

I think mine played that flick, but I do know it is a VERY finicky beast. hangs up on some movies, or breaks up and pixelates. Sometimes ejecting and then reloading works, sometimes it works for awhile and then you have to start over. Only seems to happen with Blu-rays. I think the medium is a bit flawed. Maybe too many "features", that screw things up.

I have asked this question on the A1UDCI forum with no luck. Can anybody tell me if the "Source Direct" option of either On or Off under Audio Set-up is strictly when using the Digital (HDMI) connection or does the choice of On or Off also affect if connected via the analog connections. To be honest I have always been unclear about how to set "Source Direct". I am using HDMI for all BD and DVD-A and am using the analog connections for all sacd both m/c and 2-channel and cd's.
Edited by mt14942 - 8/29/12 at 5:30am

Gday Guys

Needing some help.
Having issues with my Marantz UD8004 universal player.
I have started a thread in the Blu-Ray Players Forum with all the details in full, was hoping you could have a read through and provide some feedback if at all possible.

Looking forward to any help

cheers

i can't directly answer your post , but the translation to English from whatever language the UD9004 User Guide is from leaves a lot to be desired.
Mine is printed in China.

What I have done is downloaded and printed out the Owners Manuals for the UD9004 clones

Denon DVD-A1UDCI
http://safemanuals.com/user-guide-instructions-owner-manual/DENON/DVD-A1UD-_E

and the McIntosh MVP881BR
http://www.mcintoshlabs.com/us/Products/pages/ProductDetails.aspx?CatId=Source&ProductId=MVP881

between all three of the User Guide/manuals I have answered most of my own questions about set up and use of the Marantz UD9004

.

Hi to all

I'm putting a help call out to all Marantz UD9004 and UD8004 universal player owners to possibly help me find a solution to a annoying but real problem with my Marantz universal player.
I have read through the posts and threads for these players and have noticed that some of you have had issues playing some 20th Century Fox Movies.

My unit has troubles with the movies - Knight and Day, ROTPOT Apes, 127 Hours, X-Men First Class, Water for Elephants and Chronicle. All these movies will start playing but at the 30 minute mark they will start to pixelate, audio is still perfectly playing but video eventually will freeze. I also noticed that these movies have a resume playback feature, so when i eject the disc after it has frozen and then reinsert it, it asks for resume playback and does so perfectly fine (both audio and video) from where it left off for another 30 minutes and then starts to pixelate again.

I'm in Australia and my unit was purchased from an Australian retailer where the players have been blocked by the distributor from doing firmware upgrades over the net. THE UNITS MUST BE RETURNED TO THE DISTRIBUTOR FOR THE FIRMWARE UPGRADES TO BE APPLIED. I have done this a month ago and they loaded the latest firmware upgrade but it did not fix the issues. same movies create the same problem. All other movies play fine.

Those of you who have had issues did your firmware upgrades fix the 20th Century Fox issues?
Have you found any new release movies cause you any problems?

How can you tell what the latest version firmware is and whats on your unit?

Are the firmware versions different from Australia to USA to Europe to Asia?

I know its only 5 movies at this stage but i would like to get to the bottom of it and have a fix applied, the distributors here are giving me the run around in finding a solution.

Any feedback and info would be much appreciated

cheers

Ian from Aus

I have similar issues Ian. I wish you luck. As soon as my new processor arrives and I A/B it with my old one, I plan to scrap my 9004 for an OPPO 103--which actually arrived yesterday.

Why pay twice for expensive DACs? I'll use the Oppo as a transport only.

Good luck. As you and I have exchanged PMs, I'm posting this as a bump.
____________________
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Dave

Hi Dave

thanks for the well wishes
are you not going to try to see if Marantz will do anything about your issues?
have you tried updating to the latest firmware?
Not to be nosey, but how can you just scrap a $10,000 machine (Aus dollars) , not sure what they retailed at in the USA.

I was about to pay 3000 Euros for a new Denon A1-UD Blut Ray Player but with these kind of stories i will NOT!
Seems like the Denon A1UD; Mcintosh MVP881 and Mrantz UD9004 are very buggy.... I have a Pioneer BDP-LX91 and i feel happy with it, tough i was upgrading by getting the Denon but guess not....

Well after not having much luck with trying to solve my issues with the player i have returned it back to the place of purchase.
The owner of the store who i have gotten to know quite well informed me that he has the top of the line Denon player ($12,000 Aus dollars) and he had the same problems.
They replaced the drive mechanism and various other things and it still did not solve the issues, so needless to say he returned it to the distributor for a refund and has now purchased a Primare Blu-Ray player.
Not sure at this stage what he can do for me but at least the ball is rolling now and will have to wait and see what is offered.

It seems as though some units (both Denon A1UD and Marantz UD9004) have some owners with buggy units while others have had virtually trouble free ones. Can't comment about the McIntosh one as I haven't read up on those posts. I'm happy that so far my Denon A1UD has been an excellent performer, and I've had it going on four years now. I hope it continues to work as well as it has been....knock on wood!

Does anyone know the difference between the Marantz UD9004 & the A1UD? Besides the DL4 in the Denon. Sound quality or video?

I have them both.All features are quite the same but different sound styles.After FW update Denon seems to picky playable BD issue but MARANTZ can play every discs with same long loading time.

Thanks butsu, I did it, purchased the last UD004 in the channel, yes I am a late bloomer. Did a lot of research and feel this is the best choice. Replacing my denon 3800bdci. Saved $2,000 by waiting. As long as this player can play all discs I throw at it I am certain I will have the best quality possible. Matting it with my AVPA1HDCI.

Looks like not to much chatter in this forum, maybe, hopefully cause the player is that good vs others.

In the manual I don't see support for playing flac files, is this true and if so is there a firmware update?

After the latest firmware update to your UD9004 do you have issues with playing 20th Century discs?

Well finally got back my unit which had the latest firmware upgrade applied to it and it has performed flawlessly.
It has played all those troublesome 20th century fox movies without any problems.
so glad it is fixed for it truly is a magnificent player

Just like to say a big thankyou to all you guys who have supplied me with advice and info when i had troubles with my unit.
Much appreciated for your time and efforts.
THANKYOU

Hey... after years of drooling I have finally acquired a UD9004! It takes the place of a Denon BD3800 which has performed flawlessly and offered the best sound via the ANALOG outs I have experienced up to this point. The signal path is pure and direct... the player feeds a SONY TA-P9000ES 5.1 ANALOG Preamp feeding a Bryston stereo amp for the Mains and Monoblocks for the remaining speakers
Speakers are NHT Classic Four Towers for the Front and Rear... Classic Three Center and a Classic Twelve Sub which I have removed the factory amp and am powering with a Bryston Monoblock.
All speakers are set to Large since I found that the "Pure Direct" mode offers significantly better sound quality by eliminating Bass management circuitry from the signal path... this factor made the BD3800 beat out the SONY S5000ES via the Analog Outs.
Monitor is a Pansonic P65VT30 Plasma...
Initial impressions:
The UD9004 offers an improvement in PQ with slightly more depth to the image and better rendition of motion... very nice!
Now... the Audio Quality is where this player really sets itself apart... the sound field is just immense... there is the sense of authority and detail that is only achieved by high-end products. The Denon was no slouch, but this is audio nirvana... even my wife noticed a difference and commented on how great the sound was!
If you are considering this player and will be using the analog outs... GO FOR IT!