Which blu ray player to buy

This is the only current Xbox model that accepts optical discs. It can also be used with standard IR remotes, unlike the PS5.

The cheaper Xbox Series S does not have a disc slot. Read our Xbox Series X review. The cheaper PS5 Digital Edition does not have a disc slot. Both models continue to be sold out at various retailers, but keep checking back for restock updates. Read our PS5 review. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. With excellent video and audio processing, this player will spin any of your favorite discs at their brilliant fidelity. It takes over as our top pick for music from the UBP-X, which was also excellent, but for some reason lacked Dolby Vision support.

This player offers just about everything you could want, including gorgeous 4K resolution, high-end audio decoding that includes both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and both HDR10 and Dolby Vision to bring the very best performance out of every disc in your collection. So if your disc collection is as big on audio as video, this is likely the option for you. This Blu-ray player is the latest version of a perennial favorite, and now — in addition to its crazy-low price — it has Dolby Vision, something its predecessors lacked.

It can play just about any audio format you can throw at it, including Dolby Atmos , but there is one notable exception: It does not work with DTS:X, the object-based competitor to Dolby Atmos. This player also allows you to access the non-4K versions of many streaming services, including Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, but it can connect to your home network only via Ethernet, not Wi-Fi. With the help of Stacey Spears co-creator of the Spears and Munsil HD Benchmark test disc , the team devised a testing system to determine which Blu-ray players were actually accurate and which were not, working to show that, even in the digital domain, you can introduce errors because of color-space conversions and other factors.

A 4K Blu-ray player, and the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray discs that play on it, is the component to buy if you want the absolute best video and audio presentation of your favorite films. The picture quality varies greatly from service to service and is largely dependent on your Internet speed and reliability. This means that 4K discs can provide more fine detail, less compression, fewer artifacts, and a better-looking image.

And whereas all streaming services use compressed audio formats, most 4K Blu-ray discs contain lossless soundtracks, often in the Dolby Atmos or DTS:X format, which adds overhead and height effects for an even more immersive experience. On its own, the improved resolution in 4K Blu-ray content over standard Blu-ray content may not be that obvious. Most Hollywood movies are currently made this way, because finishing in 4K is more expensive and time-consuming. This means that the improvements in picture quality come primarily from HDR and WCG, not from the increased image resolution.

When we originally created this guide in , we researched all of the 4K Blu-ray players available at that time and called in almost every player we could. But these days the number of new players to test is dwindling: Some manufacturers including Samsung and Oppo have officially stopped making new 4K Blu-ray players, and others including LG and Sony have not introduced new models since This setup allowed us to compare still images sourced from each player side by side. Both of these TVs support Dolby Vision, and we calibrated each to be as accurate as possible so that we could see exactly what the disc was outputting on the screen.

In addition to picture quality, we considered the design of the players, how easy they were to use, how responsive the interface was, which streaming services they offered, and how well they upscaled lower-resolution Blu-ray and DVD movies to a 4K resolution.

So, while we appreciate the inclusion of streaming apps, it is not a major criterion in our selection of the best Blu-ray player. One of the distinguishing features of the player is HDR Optimizer.

A display can deal with these bright highlights in a number of different ways; commonly the display clips the highlight so the entire highlight becomes white, and you lose detail.

With the DP-UB you can select the type of display you have, and it will reduce the brightness of those highlights so that you can see them better. Every detail matters! Blu-ray players offer amazing picture quality with 3D and 4K capabilities, plus surround sound and high-resolution audio. View our ratings and reviews and browse our buying guide to find the best Blu-ray players for your home entertainment. Sign In.

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