Anyone bought a UHD Blu-Ray Video Player?

[JCOConnell]

Has anyone here bought a UHD 4K Blu Ray player, connected it to a full size UHD 4K TV, and watched some UHD 4K Blue Ray Movies or Concerts with the setup? I'm not concerned about the audio quality, I'm wondering if the video quality is really worth the effort. What titles of discs do you own?

[Bodhi]

I plan on buying an Oppo UDP-205 in the near future, however due to my tv's location (on a rack under the stairs), I'm limited to a 32" screen size. And at least for now, no one is making a 4K UHD tv in that size. Samsung's smallest model is 40", so i'll hold off upgrading until Samsung, LG or Loewe release a 4k UHD model in 32". But it appears smaller 4k tv's are on the horizon. Still, 4k UHD Bluray titles should still look & sound better on the UDP-205 with my old Samsung LED tv .

[Cousinbilly]

Last year I purchased the LG 4K OLED TV. To say the picture quality is fabulous, would be an understatement.

Here in Brampton, we have three channels which are 4k. SportsNet and TSN. Watching hockey, you can see every skate mark on the ice. During Super Bowl, when they switched to one of the 4K or 8K camera'. again, fabulous.

DVD's; I had the Play Station 3, which plays Blue Ray, and 3D Blue Ray. Avatar was the first movie, and you know my favorite word, fabulous. This past Fathers Day, my son bought me the XBox, which plays 4K movies. We purchased 'Passengers', and 'Assasin's Creed', both 4K. During Assasin's Creed, my son made a comment: 'the picture quality on Passengers was better'. We finished off our Saturday with 'The Hobbit'. The Hobbit was filmed with a 48 frame per second camera, not the normal 24 fps. Truly remarkable, and almost on par with Avatar.

A few friends have purchased UHD 4K LED TV's. As good as they are, they're no match for the LG OLED.

So, what's my conclusion?. Spend your money on an OLED TV, and don't get bogged down on the player. Any blue ray player feeding an OLED will surpass a 4K player feeding a normal UHD 4K LED.

Until 48fps cameras are standard, and ultimately 96fps cameras are here, the TV itself is the limiting factor.

[Analog21]

LG just doubled down on its investment in OLED technology, so hopefully that means even lower prices on the OLED 4k tvs. A 65" OLED is still around the $3500 mark - pretty expensive still.

[jonathanb]

Until 48fps cameras are standard, and ultimately 96fps cameras are here, the TV itself is the limiting factor.

The quality of the source materials are the limiting factor until such time as there is a readily available consumer format that delivers either uncompressed video (or the equivalent of uncompressed via lossless video compression.)

[Bodhi]

Last year I purchased the LG 4K OLED TV. To say the picture quality is fabulous, would be an understatement....A few friends have purchased UHD 4K LED TV's. As good as they are, they're no match for the LG OLED.

Have you compared the LG to Samsung's QLED technology? And if so, what was your impression? Anyway, it's all lost in translation for me right now as no one is even making a 32" 4k tv yet...maybe in 5 years?

[Cousinbilly]

Bodhi; I recently visited my OLED store. They now carry the Quantum Dot TV's. As good as the QLED is, I'd still get the OLED. I think it's the colors (colours for us Canadians).

Unless I'm mistaken, a 32" UHD 4K TV may never be built. It has something to do with pixels. Because of the smaller screen size, the sharpness is already there. You'd have to sit 2' (that's two feet) away to get the benefit. Again, unless I'm mistaken, ideal viewing distance for a 65" 4K is 5 feet.

jonathanb; I remember reading a 'white paper'. It was written by the genius of Panavision. This was 40 years ago. In the paper he outlines the transmission of information through a wire. This is our cable company. At a frame rate of 24fps, the receiving end can only do so much. If the cable company has a 48fps sourse, the wire (cable) can send 4 times as much picture information. Our TV's can already handle this. Had The Hobbit been filmed with a 96fps camera, our cable company could have sent a 3d signal. I believe we now have the bandwidth to handle this.

Someone more technical than me can explain this, or refute it.

[Bodhi]

Thanks Cousinbilly. I recall a sales guy in a store giving me a similar explanation, though I was confused whether you need a 4K UHD tv to get the full resolution from a 4K UHD bluray disc (played through a compatible player)?

[jonathanb]

Instead of a TV, look at computer displays. There's a lot of 32" 4K computer displays out there. There's bound to be OLED models soon enough.

[Bodhi]

Not a bad idea, though cheap fit and finish on the frame and stand I think would turn me off in most cases. Though would a computer monitor connect to free tv stations without a tv card, like on a computer?

[jonathanb]

You'd probably need an external device for the broadcast TV stations but those are cheap.

[Bodhi]

Instead of a TV, look at computer displays. There's a lot of 32" 4K computer displays out there. There's bound to be OLED models soon enough.

Mmm given LG have sunk another $1b into Oled technology, a higher res 32" screen should be in the pipeline somewhere..

[Joe Pittman]

I'm running the Oppo UHD-203 into a Sony 55" 4K display. Playing the latest 4K videos is awesome.

Sound quality is excellent, so not sure if the UHD-205 is necessary. At $450 for a universal player, there is no equal.

Regarding video, the big thing with 4K movies in my opinion is not just the 4x resolution over 1080p, but the "High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Wide Color Gamut", which adds to the realism. Simply the best video/home viewing experience so far.

[Cousinbilly]

Agreed. The realism was worth every penny. I might even say it equals going to the theatre.

[Alrainbow]

Wow I am not in sync here at all. 4 k is too clear it takes me out of the movie element. The clarity hurts my eyes and makes my head hurt. There is just too much resolution. It's like IMAX in your room. Even 1080 p is a bit too much too. I sit abkit 15 feet back from my 65 inch plasma magnolia series it's more than good enough
another thought I have is there is so little content to watch and the adjustment from 4K to 720 the Avg on fios and direct TV as I have both is just too much change again it's blurry till I adjust. Maybe I am way off but it is how I feel.

[cpp]

I run the OPPO-203 on a Sony 65" XBR X930E, we got it 3 months ago. .My audio goes through my Denon AVR . 4K is oh so nice, and the High Dynamic Range of the Sony is awesome, we love it.

[MylesBAstor]

My question is this? Aren't you better off just streaming? I thought that was the future not players.

[cpp]

My question is this? Aren't you better off just streaming? I thought that was the future not players.

Its the future when content catches up to the equipment that can handle 4k and HDR. A lot of titles on lets say Netflix were recorded at so-called 2K resolution, which is great, but then it has to be up-scaled 2k to 4K, which means that not every pixel you see was captured by the camera when the flick was shot some of it is digital guesswork. For true 4K , the film has to be shot with a 4k camera. Sure streaming is here, but watching a true blue ray at 4k like Sully on my OPPO, nice.

As a wise man told me, streaming "Simply put, the more data you can deliver, the better the picture and sound quality is going to be, and Ultra HD Blu-ray can deliver a lot of data." But the internet and its so intermittent unregulated service and some carriers doing their little throttling of bandwidth can screw up a nice evening watching a movie.

A good site to tell if what you are getting is true 4k, site pretty much hits it. http://realorfake4k.com/

[Joe Pittman]

I have not seen any 4K streams from the internet approaching what I see from the Oppo. Also, thanks for the link to Real or Fake 4K. That explains a lot of what I am seeing with the latest 4K disks...