I think I am done with Sony. (1 Viewer)

[ChrisOC]

For this type of stuff, extended warranties are a complete waste. Basically flushing cash down the toilet.

In general terms, I agree.

However — and granting that this is the exception rather than the rule — I had one good experience, with a Panasonic DMR-EH50 DVD recorder. When its original warranty was up they offered a two-year extension for something like $30, and I took it. About a year later, the hard drive failed and the machine shut down. A Panasonic authorized service shop (not a box store) replaced the drive at no charge and gave it back to me about a week later. This was when hard drives were expensive due to flooding in Taiwan, where most drives were made. (BTW, the recorder and drive still work!)

Side note: I've always had good luck with Panasonic DVD and blu-ray players. I have a DMP-BD85 that still works despite no firmware upgrades in at least a few years, and I'd have happily bought a Panasonic 4k player when I started down that road, but the only ones I could find then were very expensive.

I have a Sony UBP-X800 which has yet to give me any trouble, even with BD-100 discs.

 

[jcroy]

Hearing so many horror stories with 4K UHD disc players, I’m definitely not regretting my decision to opt for Apple TV 4K instead of a disc player.

The main thing which has been holding me back from buying a 4Kbluray player, is the fact that 4Kbluray movie discs have not hit the $5 dump bins over the past four years.

Over a decade ago, I didn't buy a bluray player until movie bluray discs started showing up in local dump bins for $5 a pop or less.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I also have a Sony X700 (for nearly 2 years now) and haven’t had any significant problems so far — actually also have a Panny 420 still unopen from late last year’s holiday shopping season I probably need to open and make sure it works while its warranty’s still good.

But yeah, despite my X700 still working fine so far, I’m not a big believer in Sony’s (at least non-ES series) disc players ever since the advent of DVD given their past history (of last couple decades) and my own previous experiences w/ their disc drives. Panasonic just seems to be the best amongst the mainstream brands although I’ve still had my share of seemingly premature BD player failures w/ them (2x after roughly 1-2 years each) nonetheless — unlike the bigger Sony issues I had, they still read CDs and DVDs, but stopped reading BDs.

I went w/ an Oppo 103 ~5 years ago after my last BD player failure, and that’s been by far my longest lasting disc player so far (other than my ancient Sony ES CD changer from circa 1990 that only started gradually failing after being dropped a dozen years later during my last move... and still lasted somewhat longer than several others after that drop!) — well, that’s not counting a couple other good NEC and LG computer drives, but they also don’t see nearly as much use/wear as regular players, but don’t get me started about Dell’s OEM optical drives that often seem to die quickly on me. Because of Oppo’s good rep and generally top notch quality, I also added a (not inexpensive) used Oppo 95 ~3 years ago that I mainly use for occasional hirez audio playback in my home office. Too bad they’re no longer making players...

Anyway, seems like none of the mainstream brands “make them like they used to”... although Panasonic seems to be generally the best amongst them (outside of “high-end” gear anyway) at least during their operational lifespans — and I would’ve gone Panny for my first 4K player if they actually had a sub-$250 player on the market at that point... I might’ve gone w/ the Panny 820 or maybe even 9000 if they included (good) SACD playback, but that missing support on top of past experiences of premature player failures kept me from doing so. Maybe if my Panny 420 actually lasts a few years (feeding my new Epson FP), I’ll reconsider for my next player upgrade, especially if my old Oppos start flaking out too by then...

_Man_

 

[jcroy]

But yeah, despite my X700 still working fine so far, I’m not a big believer in Sony’s (at least non-ES series) disc players ever since the advent of DVD given their past history (of last couple decades) and my own previous experiences w/ their disc drives. Panasonic just seems to be the best amongst the mainstream brands although I’ve still had my share of seemingly premature BD player failures w/ them (2x after roughly 1-2 years each) nonetheless — unlike the bigger Sony issues I had, they still read CDs and DVDs, but stopped reading BDs.

....

Anyway, seems like none of the mainstream brands “make them like they used to”... although Panasonic seems to be generally the best amongst them (outside of “high-end” gear anyway) at least during their operational lifespans —

In terms of Panasonic branded disc players, in practice I found they had one huge exception which was complete garbage. It turns out Panasonic consistently made some of the worst computer cd/dvd-rom drives over the past two decades or so. (They were branded as "Matshita" computer dvd drives).

 

[jcroy]

(outside of “high-end” gear anyway)

(Going slightly offtopic).

At times I wonder if "high end" disc players, are just using a generic computer cd/dvd (or bluray) drive which is hidden inside a big chasis.

 

[jcroy]

— well, that’s not counting a couple other good NEC and LG computer drives, but they also don’t see nearly as much use/wear as regular players, but don’t get me started about Dell’s OEM optical drives that often seem to die quickly on me.

IIRC, Dell and other companies of that type (ie. Acer, HP, etc ...), frequently just used generic oem cd/dvd drives made by LiteOn or LG. (Occasionally Panasonic oem drives). Usually the firmware was slightly modified.

 

[CC95]

Hearing so many horror stories with 4K UHD disc players, I’m definitely not regretting my decision to opt for Apple TV 4K instead of a disc player.

That’s not the way to go. With streaming you are getting anemic bitrates, and they should not even advertize HDR or DV - since they can barely deliver above 250 nits of HDR - which is basically SDR in an HDR container.
which means - you really aren’t getting DV or HDR at all.

 

[Mike_Nepo]

I could be in the minority here, but so far my choice to go with the XBox One S as a 4K disk player has been working flawlessly since there's been firmware updates for the player app. I feel Microsoft has to beef up the drive and keep the player app updated to keep the player community happy. Sony and other bluray manufacturers realize they need to keep releasing newer players so they may not have as much interest in keeping up the firmware on their older players.

 

[jcroy]

That’s not the way to go. With streaming you are getting anemic bitrates, and they should not even advertize HDR or DV - since they can barely deliver above 250 nits of HDR - which is basically SDR in an HDR container.
which means - you really aren’t getting DV or HDR at all.

This is the case today. Will it remain the same in a decade, once 5G or 6G is mature?

For most stuff I only watch once or twice (such as lousy action movies), it would not really matter whether I watch it via streaming or on bluray disc.

Though for anything I want to watch more than once or twice, I will buy the blurya disc.

 

[jcroy]

I could be in the minority here, but so far my choice to go with the XBox One S as a 4K disk player has been working flawlessly since there's been firmware updates for the player app. I feel Microsoft has to beef up the drive and keep the player app updated to keep the player community happy. Sony and other bluray manufacturers realize they need to keep releasing newer players so they may not have as much interest in keeping up the firmware on their older players.

This may very well be the case for the current generation of consoles. I don't see micro$oft doing the same thing if the next generation of xbox sends the bluray drive to secondary status.

 

[CC95]

This is the case today. Will it remain the same in a decade, once 5G or 6G is mature?

For most stuff I only watch once or twice (such as lousy action movies), it would not really matter whether I watch it via streaming or on bluray disc.

Though for anything I want to watch more than once or twice, I will buy the blurya disc.

The main selling point of 5G is faster speeds. They purport to increase bandwidth as well - but that remains to be seen. THAT would be the important factor.
increased speeds are great - but if there is no increase in bandwidth allowing for greater number of connections - Then the speed boost would not help with streaming quality. Bandwidth is the elephant in the room.
(of course, that assumes that streamers would take advantage of increased bandwidth and offer better specs for their streams - but that is at the whim of the streaming service. If Netflix had a major boost in bandwidth- they may decide that that translates to more subscribers at the same (low/midrange) quality rather thn increasing the quality for existing customers)
Physical media is the only was to guarantee you are getting top quality at all times.
*and yes - there will always be movies that don’t need to be/get no benefit from top quality presentations. (The quality is only as good as the source material - you can’t polish a 480i turd to 4K)

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

That’s not the way to go. With streaming you are getting anemic bitrates, and they should not even advertize HDR or DV - since they can barely deliver above 250 nits of HDR - which is basically SDR in an HDR container.
which means - you really aren’t getting DV or HDR at all.

Curious what’s your source that streaming “barely deliver above 250 nits of HDR”.

I haven’t come across any such info even though I don’t doubt at all that streaming remains inferior (at least to some degrees) to the best discs have to offer. Reports I’ve seen suggest the best 4K streaming services are AppleTV/iTunes, MoviesAnywhere and Disney+ yielding avg bitrates around 25-26Mbps (vs roughly 2-3.5x that on 4K discs) while most others do seem to lag quite substantially behind.

_Man_

 

[Bartman]

Thanks for letting us know about your problems with high density UHD discs. I have a Sony BDPS1700 Blu-ray player that has had four years of heavy use, that has always suffered from intermittant audio drop outs. The drop outs appear at random (with intervals of months or years) and are fixed by powering down the player and powering up. Sony customer service has been of little help.

Has anyone else experienced this problem with a BDPS1700/BDPS3700 etc?

Can anyone recommend a small format Blu-ray player (9" wide, 1.5" high) other than Sony or LG?

As far as I can tell there are no other players in this small format, the closest is the LG BP175/BP350 at 10.6" wide, 1.7" high.

 

[Bartman]

I'm not done with Sony! Although the LG Blu-ray players are an acceptable size, the remote control does not provide direct access to subtitles and audio selections or display information, so I'm back to Sony.

LG manufactures their players in two places: China (BP175/BP350) and Indonesia (BPM25/BPM35) does anyone know if there is any difference in quality (particularly the drive mechanism) between the two places? Interestingly, Sonys are manufactured in Indonesia too.

Are there any differences in picture quality between LG and Sony for Blu-ray and DVD upscaled to 1080p?

I could find nothing online addressing these issues.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I went with the Panasonic DP-UB9000 4K UHD Blu-ray Player which I have had 0 problems with so far since I purchased it about 1 1/2 years ago. I have also heard very good things about Panasonics DP-UB820K! I typically play both blu-ray and 4K blu-rays with like I said 0 problems. Also had no problems playing blu-rays in my Denon blu-ray player.

 

[Jim Tudor]

I am also having trouble with my Sony UBP-X700. After my first one froze multiple times (unresponsive, with pulling the power cord as the only way out), I exchanged it for an identical model. Same issue. Although this is a 4K player, I'm not quite there yet with my monitor, so I had this set for 1080p. (I do hope a 4K monitor is in our future, hence the 4K player now). It froze playing Blu-rays and once while streaming Netflix. Unacceptable. Per the advice in this thread, it sounds like the Panasonic DP-UB420 model is the way to go. I need something that plays Blu-rays reliably, and can stream Netflix. Thanks!

 

[Bartman]

I had to return my S6700, it worked fine for a month+ then all of a sudden would not play DVDs or Blu-rays. I tried a power reset then factory reset and it started playing DVDs fine but not Blu-rays reliably. The replacement player is working fine after a week+ use.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I rarely use my Sony X-800 UHD player anymore, although it is still in my equipment rack. I was recently reminded why I don't use it much -- the player froze when I tried to play a SACD (my Panasonic UB820 will not play that format). I had to dig behind the equipment rack to unplug the power cord. The player had done that to me several times in the past before I bought the Panny.

I ended up playing the SACD on my Oppo 980H DVD player, which is still in the rack, too.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

It's unfortunate Sony seems to keep going downhill (at least) w/ their disc players... although my X700 still seems to working fine (knock on wood) after 2 years. Haven't used it that much though since the family often just stream whatever these days -- and I actually (sorta embarrassingly) still have a Panny UB420 sitting around new-in-box from the year-ago holiday sale I planned to add to the new, upgrade-in-progress HT setup...

_Man_

 

[willyTass]

Interesting to read about diabolical Sonopress here

these UHD titles all freeze or pixelate on my Oppo 203

Scarface 4k -Australian release

hitchcock 4k collection -Korean release

American Gangster 4k - Aussie release

phantom thread 4k (Daniel day Lewis) British release

back to the future 4k collection -Aussie release

Flash Gordon 4k -Aussie realease

i checked the IFPI codes -all of these titles were pressed in Sonopress Europe

theres a forum in France that has threads on the poor quality control at Sonopress

so not only are disc manufacturers engaged in a race to the bottom, replicators too.

by contrast , CD players from Sony and Phillips from the early 1990’s their lasers are still working perfectly for the flagship models. Sure belts and caps might need to be changed but little else.
seems the Industry is always chasing the next best thing (eg 8k ) instead of perfecting what we have.

im seriously thinking of abandoning 4k and sticking to Blu ray. From a 4k scan , a down rezzed Blu ray is indistinguishable from the UHD version for 35mm film , resolution wise. And I’m not one for HDR for 35 mm shot films.


Since 2007 , I don’t think I’ve had 1 Blu ray movie ever freeze on me . UHD seems like a gigantic pain in the ass for little benefit in resolution .