Someone polled 4K Blu-ray player owners about the reliability of different models over time, and there's a clear winner

Practically 400 4K Blu-ray customers shared data about participant issues
There’s an enormous hole between the most effective and worst within the ballot
Panasonic can be completely satisfied; Sony not a lot

One of many issues I like finest about Reddit is the way in which folks share their experiences of specific merchandise: whether or not it is a kitchen knife, a transportable AC or a Gibson guitar I do know I will have the ability to discover sage recommendation on what to purchase and what to be careful for. And now the great folks of r/hometheater have come collectively to speak in regards to the best 4K Blu-ray players and their reliability.

The poll was carried out by r/hometheater poster “requieminadream” and generated almost 400 responses — virtually double the variety of earlier ballot respondents — from r/4KBluray, r/Bluray, r/PhysicalMediaMatters, the AVS Boards, and the Blu-ray.com boards. And there are some very clear variations between totally different corporations’ Blu-ray units.

Requieminadream very kindly summarized the ends in a sentence: “The Sony UBP-X700 continues to be the issue baby, the Panasonic DP-UB820 continues to be champ, and the expensive UB-9000 posted the cleanest numbers (small pattern although).”

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However there have been some attention-grabbing discoveries within the element too, so it is positively price taking a look at in the event you’re contemplating a pre-owned 4K Blu-ray participant buy, or simply which one appears to make folks the happiest long-term.

The 4K Blu-ray Standalone Player Reliability Poll numbers ARE IN!
from r/hometheater

Which 4K Blu-ray gamers are the most effective?

One of many causes I like Reddit knowledge is as a result of with few exceptions, reviewers cannot spend years with the merchandise they take a look at — so the evaluations of my automotive do not know in regards to the software program points that drive me wild and generally require a reboot at visitors lights, and the evaluations of my router do not learn about its tendency to misbehave each few weeks.

It is the identical with Blu-ray gamers: even probably the most in-depth evaluate will not have the ability to inform you if a participant’s prone to pack up in yr two or three. (Although one exception is our Panasonic DP-UB820 review, written by our TV {Hardware} senior author James Davidson, as a result of he wrote us a contemporary evaluate primarily based on combining utilizing it in our take a look at room and having used it each day for a number of years beforehand.)

However on the whole, polls like this are a superb useful resource.

By a big margin, the Panasonic DP-UB820 is the neighborhood’s favored participant: 43.4% of respondents have one, and its downside price was round half that of the Sony UBP-X700. The speed of significant points was very low, at simply 8% — backing up what James had stated, when he known as it “the workhorse of the 4K Blu-ray participant world”.

The “downside baby” that emerged from this newest ballot is the Sony UBP-X700. Of the 103 Sony customers, some 77.7% reported some points over time; recurring and/or severe points have been 23%. The primary grievance is freezing throughout triple-layer transitions, which is one thing that has lengthy been mentioned on Blu-ray boards.

The ballot reveals one other attention-grabbing sample, which is issues over time. For the Sony, points turned extra widespread over time — however for the Panasonic the sample was of any failures exhibiting up early, however higher long-term reliability.

The opposite gamers within the survey got here in between the 2 extremes, however among the finest outcomes have been from “different” gamers together with video games consoles and extra area of interest Blu-ray merchandise.

Satisfaction with these merchandise was exceptionally excessive, with the PS5 getting a considerably greater score than the Xbox. That is all of the extra putting given the Sony X700’s efficiency: the PS5 is a extra premium product and that appears to be mirrored in its reliability — alas, we shouldn’t expect any more PlayStations to arrive with a disc player.

I ought to clarify, as the unique Redditor did, that in some circumstances the pattern sizes for possession in these polls is fairly low, so we should always take the outcomes with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, the Panasonic UB820 and the Sony X700 have been the best-represented, and are the 2 hottest gamers, so their knowledge is arguably probably the most helpful anyway.