Oppo and Panasonic join battle in a 4K showdown

In the past year, two 4K Blu-ray titans have emerged. Oppo and Panasonic go head-to-head to see which deserves a place in your home cinema room

If the Panasonic DMP UB900 and Oppo UDP 203 were Norse gods, they’d be on top of a snowy mountain, slinging lightning bolts at each other in a battle for ultimate dominance. The fact they’re 4K Blu-ray players, sitting on the kit-rack in one of our test rooms, doesn’t make their clash any less dramatic.

The reign of 4K Blu-ray players is still in its infancy, but the kind of performance we’re already seeing is breathtaking. The Panasonic DMP UB900 and the Oppo UDP 203 are at the pinnacle of 4K performance, both with glowing five-star reviews in the bag.

It’s time to decide which deserves a place in your home cinema system.

When it finally hit the shops in 2016, the Panasonic DMP UB900 ushered in a new era of home cinema with its 4K talents, but it’s the Oppo UDP 203 that pushes the boundaries of 4K performance even further – in fact, it outshines the Panasonic in every way.

But that doesn’t mean the UB900 gets knocked down a star: it’s still an astonishing player that does justice to your 4K Blu-ray films, especially when helped by a hefty price drop.

Molten gold

We stick in the disc of Mad Max: Fury

Road in 4K and the detail conveyed by the Panasonic blows us away. Every burst of flame is a thrilling event. Explosions are not just flat clouds of orange – you can identify the wisps of yellow and red as the flecks of fiery embers burn intensely.

There’s plenty of dirt, blood and sand in the film, and it is all rendered with the sort of sharpness and clarity that almost makes us feel we’re viewing the picture through a magnifying glass.

The benefits of High Dynamic Range (HDR) are obvious when you look at the brighter whites and darker blacks, with so many degrees of separation in between.

Bright areas – the sunlight glinting off the hood of a monster truck in Mad Max, for example – sparkle enough to make you squint. And yet, in the same frame, the player reveals a huge amount of shadow detail in the darker areas, such as the dirt on the truck’s undercarriage.

We’ve been using the Panasonic as part of our AV reference system for nearly a year now, yet it still impresses with the right material. And yet, somehow, the Oppo UDP 203 outshines it with astounding detail levels. We thought Life of Pi on Blu-ray 3D was beautiful. In 4K, it’s spectacular.

The colourful scenes of Pi stranded on the vast ocean while the sun sets around him are breathtakingly crisp and vivid through the Oppo. The yellow-orange

”With its 4K talents, the Panasonic DMP-UB900 ushered in a new era of home cinema...”

sunset looks like molten gold reflecting on the shimmering water.

The gradations in colour add a dimensionality to the picture that shoves 3D to the back of our minds.

Look deeper

There’s a glossiness to the Oppo’s picture that makes it alluring, but it does so without compromising its hold on reality. Characters and objects seem to pop out from the screen, keeping your attention hooked to the pictures.

That’s down to the layer upon layer of subtlety brought out by the Oppo. It makes more of a disc (4K or Full HD) than the Panasonic UB900: more clarity, detail and gradations of shading.

Every ounce of detail – from the rough texture of sun-exposed skin to the silky smooth clear water – is rendered with stunning subtlety. Each strand of the CGI tiger’s fur looks so tactile that you want to reach out and pet him.

Colours are effusive, inviting you to look deeper into every inch of the screen. There are so many intricacies in shading that we get lost looking into glowing blue depths of the bioluminescent water.

The Oppo goes for an appealing colour balance that’s aimed to impress – reds, blues and yellows are richly hued – but don’t look unnatural. The Panasonic, on the other hand, is more understated.

Dropping the ball

The player’s talents don’t get any less exciting when watching regular Blu-rays. Switch to a more natural-looking palette such as The Imitation Game and the skin tones are textured and shaded in a realistic manner. Even without the dynamic scope of HDR, the picture’s contrast remains strong. Daylight through windows shines brightly, while dark corners of rooms are textured enough to add depth to the scene.

The Oppo fares even better when it comes to upscaling, which is good news for those with a large DVD collection. Once your eyes adjust to the fuzziness of Ocean’s Eleven on DVD, the picture holds up in terms of punch and colour dynamism. It doesn’t have anywhere near the clarity and insight of a 4K Blu-ray disc, but remains enjoyable.

Panasonic drops the ball here – its picture is patchier than the Oppo, with low detail and blocks of colours that don’t do your DVD collection full justice.

There’s little in the way of compression or motion artefacts with either player. The action remains smooth even when dealing with tricky slow-panning shots.

Net ix 4K streams are all well and good, but 4K discs offer a solidity and stability that has yet to be achieved by streaming.

”…but it’s the Oppo UDP-203 that pushes the boundaries of 4K performance further”