Top 10 best Bluray Players 4k 2022 According to experts

Short Version: I use this unit primarily for streaming but I also wanted blu-ray/dvd/cd capability in a single unit. It excels at all functions. While my wireless signal is strong, I prefer wired connections for added stability – another feature of this player. Performance is very good all around and I recommend the unit as a great value for the money. Details and minor flaws noted below:Compatibility: First and foremost understand THIS IS NOT A 4K PLAYER. It uses “4K upscaling” which is of limited value unless you have a 4K (UHD) display, and even then you’ll be disappointed. Here’s why: The BDP-S6700 HDMI output is version 1.4a which meets some, but not all, of the minimum requirements for 4K video. Of particular note is color depth. HDMI 1.4a displays a maximum 8-bit color depth (256 colors) which is VGA quality. For full 4K color resolution you need a player with HDMI ver 2.0 or better to get the 10-, 12- or 16-bit colors that really make the new 4K displays shine. I knew this going in so the BDP-S6700 was a perfect match for my “older” (2012) Samsung HD plasma display and Denon AVR-591 receiver.CAUTION: If you set your BDP-S6700 to a color depth greater than your display can process, you will get screen flickers, interference bands and blank screens. The BDP-S6700 will auto-detect your display and adjust color depth appropriately most of the time. However, if your A/V receiver is rated for 4K – but your display is not – then the BDP-S6700 will pass the high-bit color on to the receiver. Your receiver may or may not scale this back when sending it to your display. This was my experience and it took some hours (and copious cursing) to figure it all out. I offer that experience here to save some of you some frustration. In the settings look for HDMI Deep Color. It defaults to “Auto”. Set this to “Off” if you have anything less than a 4K display. Trust me and just do it. You won’t see any difference (your display can’t resolve it, remember?) and you will save yourself headaches when random artifacts and flickers occur.Performance: The interface is quick and intuitive. Discs load reasonably fast. Network connection was flawless – the BDP-S6700 detected the network, obtained an IP address and accessed the internet within seconds. Network connections have been rock solid since I connected it. Screen mirroring with my Android phone works very well (IOS users are SOL – I tried 14 different apps with no joy). I don’t use Bluetooth devices with it but they are detected without issue. Supposedly upscales 2D-3D (yawn).Streaming: BDP-S6700 offers 75 streaming apps, most of which are of no interest to me. They’ve got cooking channels, shopping channels, sports, movies, TV, news. There’s even an app in Russian. The most useful IMHO are: Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, YouTube, Pandora and Spotify. All of these work flawlessly with one caveat – the search functions using the remote are tedious in every case. Otherwise, they are great. The Home Screen lets you customize 10 – and only 10 – of your favorites. You can’t change the “Featured Apps” so half the Home Screen is useless.Screen Mirror: The BDP-S6700 uses Miracast so if you want to display your Android content you are in luck. It utilizes the Wi-Fi function of your phone to stream directly to the player. No lag. Sound is perfect. One flaw I noticed is that the wired connection to the BDP-S6700 is disabled while mirroring and doesn’t automatically switch back when I’m done. Have to power cycle the unit every time. Only mildly annoying. As mention above, IOS AirPlay doesn’t play. You can set up your IOS device as a DNLA server and play media that is physically on the device but you can’t stream from the internet nor can you see the IOS device screen (think Facebook, emails, etc). Ironic, since Apple pioneered the technology but then they locked it all up with their proprietary Apple TV system. Oh well…Remote: Small enough to easily fit into the cracks of your couch or recliner and lodge deep in any moving mechanisms. Just sayin’… I actually like the remote for it’s simplicity. One of the better device remotes I’ve used. It is IR directional, so you have to point it at the player with a clear line of sight. You can also download an Android app and control the unit with your phone which is great for entering data in app search boxes.Conclusion: If you just bought a shiny new 4K (UHD) display you are NOT going to like this unit so start shopping for a $500 UHD player. If you just want to stream internet then get a Roku, it’s faster with more customization and 2000+ apps. If you still have HD equipment and want to play all those Blu-Ray/DVD/CD discs you’ve accumulated for the past 20 years, as well as stream the major providers (Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Pandora, Hulu), then this unit is for you and it’s a terrific value for the money.

I had been shopping around for a region-free bluray/dvd player and I’d like to provide you the information I have gathered to help you with your decision.First: There are laws that prohibit the sale of region free bluray players from manufacturers or by retailers in the US. That is why you don’t see region free bluray players in brick stores like Bestbuy, WalMart, Target, etc.Second: Due to the first point, manufacturers like Sony, Samsung, etc. do not manufacture or market region free bluray players in the US. I’d like to emphasize this because I see a lot of comments and complaints from customers who purchased such players and when they contacted Sony, Samsung about their region free bluray player, they were disappointed because [insert bluray company] customer service said thay did not have region free bluray player in their line of products therefore could not provide service.If you pay attention, you will see all region free bluray players are sold by third-party sellers. There is nothing wrong with that. I have already purchased and tested two region free bluray players sold by such third-party seller on Amazon and both players met my expectations and did play discs from different regions of the world. However, you should not contact [insert bluray company] for any questions regarding region free functionality of your region free bluray player. Because they did not produce such a product. It was the third party seller (a company with technical skills and expertise) that purchased the player from [insert bluray company], changed the factory settings, unlocked the bluray player and turned it into the region free bluray player.Region free bluray player is simply an existing model of a bluray player (such as the one on this page) with all the functionalities of that model, but in addition to that, it is region free and plus converts PAL to NTSC (and the 110 – 220 voltage conversion is added if you wish to use it in another country that uses 220 voltage). Because of that, if you contact the third party seller for any of the features of the product, they will most likely refer you to the product page on the offical [insert bluray company]’s website. You should only contact them only if your question is pertaining to the region free functionality.My biggest complain is that third party sellers often double the price of that bluray player model. I checked many region free bluray models on the internet and found out that almost every bluray player is actually half the price when they are not region free. Basically, the third party seller charges the price of the bluray player to unlock it, thereby doubling its price. If a bluray player in its plain version is $75-80, the region free version will be $150 – $160. This is all because of the current regulations that prevent bluray companies from manufacturing their own region free models. I am not sure if that’s the case in other parts of the world.This Sony model works well as expected. So far I have used Region B Bluray discs imported from UK (The Avengers Series 4 Bluray) and it played it perfectly with no issues. Here’s what you need to pay attention to:1) Make sure Quick Start Mode is off!! This is a setting on the player, very easy to see and confirm. Sony models show that when you turn on the player for the very first time and going through initial setup proceess. LG model I have tested (LG BP350), it’s in the settings. Both models have Quick Start Mode off by default so you probably won’t have to do anything.2) Make sure your player is OFF before you press the button to change the region code. You don’t have to change the region for DVDs It is set to region free for DVDs. You only need to change it for Bluray discs. Turn off the player. For Sony models, press Yellow for Region A, Blue for Region B, Red for Region C. For LG models, press 1 for Region A, press 2 for Region B and press 3 for region C. When you do that, the player will turn ON. And it will be ready to play the disc. By habit, I turned the player on and pressed the region codes and it didn’t work. It is important that the unit must be off before you take that action.This model has wi-fi buit in and I was able to connect successfully with no issue. The third paty seller states that updating the firmware will not cause issues with the region free capability; they say they guarantee that their player won’t lose region free capability but I would not want to test that theory unless my player starts having issues as I don’t want to risk losing region free capability (with so many firmware updates and codes, you never know what will happen).The only problem I had was when I played a region B Bluray disc that had 5.1 DTS audio track, and the audio kept cutting out for a second every 2-3 minutes. I had the HDMI out from the player to LG OLED TV and I was using the audio optical out from the TV to the receiver. For whatever reason, the sound kept cutting out for a second and came back on. I could see the signal going out on the front panel of my receiver. I am not sure if this issue has anything to do with the disc being region B (maybe the TV didn’t fully recognize the audio signal although I thought regions codes are only for picture signals and did not impact audio signals) I Googled it and saw recommendations about changing the audio settings on the player and turning them off (it also recommended changing the digital audio otput to PCM but that would defeat the purpose of enjoying the 5.1 DTS audio format). I have not had this issue with The Avengers Bluray disc whih only has 2.0 PMC audio track. So either the 5.1 DTS audio signal did not pass to the TV or TV did not pass it to the receiver consistently which caused the audio dropouts. But this player also had digital audio coaxial output. I think I will try that to see if it resolves the issue. The audio quality probably won’t be the same as HDMI signal but still better than constant cutouts.ONE AMAZING FEATURE NOT MENTIONED ANYWHERE ELSE: I noticed that under the Options menu, there is “Closed Captions” settings. This is a fantastic new feature that I have not seen on a Blu-ray player before. I have been trying for years for a way to turn on Closed Captions on DVDs that don’t have subtitles. Not matter what I have tried, I have not been able to succeed. Recently, I read that Closed Captions signals work only on analog signals therefore I I needed to try analog cables. I tried analog cables, switched the picture settings on my Blu-ray player to analog output, also changed the settings on my TV to analog and I was not able to get a signal or turn on the Closed Captions (TV has closed caption feature but it mainly works with cable TV signal -when comes through tuner-, it has been impossible to turn them on while playing DVD without the TV tuner/cable network). All these years, I have been playing those DVDs on my laptop using Windows Player (you can turn on the closed captions on Windows Player) and using an HDMI cable from the laptop to the TV. This was the only solution I could find. Cut a long story short, this Blu-ray player enables the user to turn on the closed captions on DVD!!! My most sincere thanks and congratulations to whoever thought of adding this feature to the blu-ray player (nothing to do with 4K picture quality but such a useful and wonderful feature that had been missing from players until now).

I’d thought about buying one of these for some time. I have several interests that have never been released in Region 1, but fearing some kind of grey market item, I put it off.Finally, after even more of these films and programs being remastered, and some being released for the first time exclusively to Region 2, I took the leap.It’s a good little machine and it’s region changing is as simple as a single button to push.Hit that number 2 button and the unit boots right up to Region 2. Hit that number 1 button, and you’re right back to Region 1.I had one occurance where the unit froze and recognized neither. I tried unplugging it a couple of times to reset, but no luck. I figured I would send it back, but thought I would try once more.After about 24 hours I plugged it back in, and it was working perfectly. I’ve not had that trouble since.The LG unit itself is a nice player, but paired with my 2020 TCL Roku 4k TV, I found the audio synch on playback to be absolutely dreadful. The unit does not have an audio synch function, nor does it have an angle menu.My Vizio sound bar had limited sync options and I never could sync it up correctly, but with my later model JBL 5.1 it works much better with blu-ray and DVDs. I still can’t for the life of me get a good sync with a 4k blu-ray disc though. In my online research, that may have more to do with the TV.To sum up, the region decoding on my unit, at least for Regions 1 and 2 works as advertised. I’ve not tried Region 3.There are however probably better 4k players with more options out there than this LG.

Everyone shopping for a simple, stand-alone blu-ray player needs to figure out exactly what they need before ordering stuff and finding out what they bought doesn’t do what they need. That isn’t the product’s fault … it’s yours. Manufacturers have a devil of a time putting the right combination of features together in an affordable package that will “work” for the greatest cross-section of potential customer/end-users, because everyone’s combination of internet access, networking, distribution and home entertainment systems are different.For example, my home internet is cable-based, with a 4-channel router that does both wi-fi and wired (ethernet cable) connections. The wi-fi is fine for any laptop or phone that isn’t too far from the router, and would probably “work” for wi-fi connection to a blu-ray player, but I have found that using wi-fi as a source for streamed video content … especially “high-def” content … and even MORE especially on any wi-fi signal/router being shared by multiple devices … is WAY more glitchy and prone to errors than a good old cable connection. Most problems experienced by people with this crap are caused by inadequate bandwidth, or poor/incompatible matching of the player they chose to whatever internet/TV/audio equipment they’re using, not any defects in the blu-ray or other media player(s) they’re trying to use.I searched a LONG time, and kept living with a broken-down, ancient blu-ray player that stopped working on most of our blu-ray discs a long time ago, before finally choosing this player, which I have found to be perfect for our needs. It can work with either a wireless or wired feed from our cable modem/router (and I use the wired connection for ALL streamed content); it works with our older HD plasma TV (1080p max), which has multiple HDMI input ports and a separate digital audio out that I convert into analog stereo to feed an old school audio system I’ve had for ages, and still works/sounds great. We don’t want/use/need 3D or 4K UHD stuff, it plays ALL our DVDs and blu-rays with great resolution, AND it supports every streaming app we DO regularly need/use, including Amazon Prime, Netflix, Pandora, Spotify, and a few others. My only gripe is that it doesn’t seem to have any standalone internet browser in its firmware, so we haven’t yet found any way to access/install any streaming or other apps that aren’t pre-installed, or “approved” for optional installation via its native “home” interface. If we can’t figure out a workaround for that, we’ll end up having to access that kind of stuff by, e.g., bypassing the player entirely and running that stuff direct to our TV through an HDMI-equipped laptop.See what I mean? SO many variables … there’s no such thing as a single player that does it all … especially not at this price point. As for me, as long as this thing keeps performing as well as it has for us so far, no complaints. For the $100-150 price range, we got a player that does pretty much everything we need it to. Five stars.

I’m going to take part of the blame for the 4 star review personally. Up till now I’ve always had plug and play devices for discs. You hook it up and it works. Today you have to do quite a bit of manual configuration based on the kind of discs you are going to be playing. The instructions can get you there eventually, but you have to read them comprehensively if you are not familiar with all the disc formats and audio and video codecs (which I am still trying to learn).I bought this unit because it was highly rated as being one of the most up to date (future proof, if you will). I wanted to be able to view my old DVD’s and CD’s using this unit, as well as SACD’s and the latest and Blu-ray and other audio/video format combinations.For movies it has worked well, though I’ve not been particularly impressed with the screen resolution. Again, I’m not even sure I’ve configured the unit correctly and I am constantly making setting changes to try and improve picture quality. The sound quality has been good with movies.As for CD’s, that is the primary reason for my 4 star rating. I’ve yet to get the unit to successfully play a music CD. It recognizes the CD and even the tracks and the time length of the tracks, but no matter what settings I try, it plays them at about 4 times speed (on the progress bar) and emits no sound from them whatsoever. I may figure it out eventually, but again, I really expected more of a plug and play experience and thus far the instruction manual has not been helpful is resolving this problem for pure audio CD’s.This is not a super high end looking or feeling unit, as it is the more typical glossy plastic finish. It feels fairly light weight and for it’s price point that is to be expected. Overall the quality of the build seems sound. For someone who is perhaps not savvy on the latest and greatest technology, this might not be the ideal unit if you are looking for plug and play. Again, my own ignorance as to the latest technology is I’m sure a factor. I’m simply pointing out that I’m fairly adept at picking up what I need to know on the fly and this was a bit challenging for me.

This is a review of the region-free capabilities, not so much the player itself although it is a pretty great uhd player.My wife bought this player for me around xmas. I’ve been using it so far to watch my film collection – many of which are not from the US. Every dvd I threw at it played fine, so maybe I was feeling a little bold – and I started buying foreign blu-rays. This is where I hit my first snag.I was getting a ‘this disc can only be played on a region b player’ message. I tried pressing the yellow, blue, red & green buttons to change the region but nothing worked.So I wrote to the sellers and they guided me through what needed to be done. Wipe the settings, and with the disc tray open – press the region button. It worked!The only criticism I can come up with is that there isn’t a light on the player or message on the screen to tell you what region you’re set to, but that’s not the seller’s fault. This is a great player and I’m completely satisfied with it.

I bought this player after reading reviews about its nice build quality and very good picture and Sound Quality. While I was unboxing it, I was quite amazed at how much this thing weighed (about 8 pounds). Once I hooked it to my Samsung 40″ 4k smart tv and got it configured. I was glad to see how great the picture and sound quality were. So far, I have played about a handfull of bluray discs and they played flawlessly. I have not tried 4k discs quite yet, so I don’t know if I will experience skipping/freezing as some reviewers have mentioned. There are quite a few settings in the setup menus for picture, sound etc. The user interface and home screen are not the prettiest by any means, but they get the job done! One thing that I found with this unit that most players don’t often include are compatibility with SACD and DVD-Audio.I have not tried those features yet! Also, this player features bluetooth connectivity, which is not a common feature with many bluray players. I have not yet tried this feature out either. The remote control that came with the player is far from being the best, but it isn’t the worst remote that I’ve used either! While I do like most things about this player, there are a few things that I will mention that could be better. With this model being Sony’s flagship disc player, they should have added a front panel display. Also, according to some other reviews there should be auto-detect for Dolby Vision. The networking features in this player are quite limited. Only three streaming apps. It is hard to judge this player mainly on that since most players from other brands nowdays have that amount or fewer apps. Since the player is connected to a smart tv, (that has more app options than I can count) I will not be using this unit for its streaming apps. In addition, I was encountering some error messages when trying to operate the network features. I don’t think that the errors are unique to this model because I’ve experienced the same kinds of errors on other Sony models that I have used.I do highly recommend this player for its excellent picture and sound quality and wide disc compatibility. However, I recommend that the connected tv be used for streaming internet content, if it has those features.Overall, a very nice machine made by Sony!

Sony UBP-X800M2 4K UHD Home Theater Streaming Blu-Ray Disc Player has been a very good media player but not perfect. As part of my home theater the player goes through an AV receiver and then to the monitor/TV. The instructions are well written and the unit also has an easy setup function. To update unit, you receive a message on the screen and follow instructions. Setup/Settings on screen menu is text base. Unit fit nicely in my equipment rack and has some weight to it, lots of metal, not like many of mostly plastic units that are fairly typical giving this player the feeling of a well made piece of equipment. The weight is actually to stabilize movement of the drive mechanism during operation. I have played most of the formats that it can playback even DVD-Audio with success and played back the different audio formats. So far it’s performance leaves little for me to complain about either musically or screen/sound presentation, it has been a quality playback unit. Note, if your playing a CD, the only information is the track number, there is no title associated to the track so keep your track listing handy, surprising it does not go out to web for information. Currently I only have a 1080 TV but the player does an excellent job down revving from the 4K blue ray disks I have played on the unit, the reason I haven’t switch, I still enjoy playing 3D movies which the player supports and does an excellent job of reproduction. I wanted the 4k capability of the player for when I finally make the switch. The unit does have a Bluetooth transmitter which is nice for private headphone listening or playing back through a sound bar/sound box. So how come it only received three stars. First off the streaming portion of the player only supports three predefined applications, your choice is either Netflix, YouTube or Prime. As far as I can tell you cannot add any additional applications. This is a big downer from my other Sony Blu ray player UHP-H1. The unit does have a front USB port but it is hidden by a flip out cover that hangs by a teeter a bit of an annoyance. Here the screen information is better than handled by CD’s. Your USB can contain, video, music, or pictures and when selecting the folder for the information on the USB, you will see the file and associated titles. The USB does not have to contain a single type. The unit also does not have any display for activity or clock, it only has a power on LED. The remote is your typical remote and is not back lite and must be used for all functions except for the two duplicate function switches on the front of the unit, power on-off or open/close tray. It is laid out so you can use your thumb to start, stop, advance, volume while holding it in one hand which is nice. Finally WIFI, I gave up streaming on wireless, it was problematic same as my last player for some reason it sometimes didn’t start at the proper rate or during operating it would start to drop out periodically, I have more then enough bandwidth that this should not be a problem. I only use a wired connection now and the streaming issues went away same as my old unit. Overall the player has been pretty reliable now for several months with one big annoying exception, every so often when switching from streaming back to the menu the unit will hang or lock up and you cannot do anything to clear it using the remote or you can’t even power off the unit with the remote or panel switch. I discovered by a hard power cycle I could clear and unlock the unit. You pull the plug, wait 15 to 20 seconds, plug it back in and all will be fine again. This is a real annoyance having rack equipment to unplug/plug the unit and it would have gone back if it had occurred when I still could return the unit to Amazon. I keep hoping an update occurs that would fix this issue. This occurs about once every three months. The other glitch deals with Prime, while exiting and switching from Netflix to Prime receive this message like the application is two large and Prime will not start. This has happened once going from playing a Blu Ray to Prime and USB to Prime. A second attempt usually provides a successful application execution. The bottom-line here as a pure playback drive for any of the supported media, it has been a fantastic player. From a network streaming device it would be barely adequate if not for the software glitches that make it an annoyance. If you own a smart TV, just forget about streaming from this player and all will be good or purchase a Roku or Fire stick.

I am already liking this player and I haven’t even played a BluRay yet. I tried some DVDs I have sitting around for many years and some I have just borrowed from the local library. I just cannot believe that they weren’t HD to begin with. The upconverting feature in this player is like magic. I just couldn’t believe my eyes seeing how SD DVDs could look like they are in HD. This isn’t some sort of generic image scaling algorithm that makes the image more blurry as it gets scaled larger. Sony’s engineers must have some secret sauce to all this.You might wonder why anyone would still buy a BluRay / DVD player in the age of online streaming media. For me, it is to save money. You see, I can go to the local library to borrow BluRays and DVDs rather than paying monthly subscription fees for online streaming.The other internet based features are more of a bonus add than a secondary feature in this box. I tried the YouTube app and it was slow…. The hardware in this player box isn’t meant for this task. If you want a streaming box/stick, get it separately. This is primarily a BluRay / upconverting DVD player.

I purchased a referb and it was good hooked up did update than loaded all the apps and paired with my Sony x85j TV awesome picture at 120hz Bluray movie look almost as good as the uhd disc. I recommend using this as a player not a smart tv device and you will not be disappointed.

I was researching separate CD and DVD players that were 4K. Thought I’d pay a lot for 2 separate devices that would be large and difficult to operate. But I decided to hire a tech guy to set up my home theatre and he told me everything to buy including this unit. He said it will do everything I need, plus more, and in a sleek profile. It works perfectly, I couldn’t be happier and the price was a fraction of what I thought I would pay

Focused and perfect

I’ve had klipsch speakers before and these are another example that Klipsch speakers are the best

I just bought this 4k player and I did like it. When I first pooped in a disc it paused a couple times on me but decided to check my connections again and to clean the lens with a Blu ray lens cleaner. After that it worked fine. It comes with some apps and you can add other apps if you want. I know it has Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, fox news and other apps on menu screen. I connected it to my sound bar as well and the quality sound is great. Worth the price if it’s on sale.

Blu Ray and 4k play great. Sound is great… Some people might have issues, not me.