WHICH ULTRA HD BLU-RAY PLAYER?
THERE ARE CURRENTLY THREE ULTRA HD BLU-RAY PLAYERS AVAILABLE ON THE AUSTRALIAN MARKET. HERE’S A BRIEF RUNDOWN ON THE PROS AND CONS OF EACH.
PANASONIC DMP-UB900 $848 www.panasonic.com.au
At almost $900, it’s obvious that this is going to be the most fully-featured Ultra HD Blu-ray player on the market. Features that the Panasonic player includes that are lacking on the others are digital coax output, an SD slot and 7.1 channel analogue outputs, just in case you’re using old-school speakers. The Panasonic also has a slight edge in image quality, with slightly richer looking colours and better contrast performance. It’s also got the edge in audio quality, with a more dynamic sound field. But the price might be enough to make you reconsider.
SAMSUNG UBD-K8500 $298 www.samsung.com.au
As the most affordable Ultra HD Blu-ray player on the market, the UBD-K8500 is a wallet-friendly approach to 4K and HDR content. Comparative reviews have noticed that the image quality isn’t quite as good, nor the sound quality (we can’t see any mention of Dolby Atmos support on the official specs page), but it’s still a huge step up from standard Blu-ray discs. The menu system mightn’t be as good as the Panasonic, nor the range of audio outputs, but the price difference makes this a very compelling option. Note that none of the existing players officially support Dolby Vision, according to their official specs at the time of writing.
MICROSOFT XBOX ONE S From $399 (500GB model) www.xbox.com
Microsoft’s latest iteration of the Xbox One is smaller than the original, but its biggest new feature is the inclusion of an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive. So not only do you get a 4K/HDR compliant player, you also get an Xbox One that will upscale your existing games to 4K resolution. Like the other players, there’s no support for Dolby Vision… yet. Fingers crossed firmware updates bring this feature to these players, but we have a feeling it’s a hardware limitation, not just software, due to the increased processing power required.