Future of Blu-Ray Player

[thxthx]

Following the departure of OPPO from the market, what is the future of high end Blu-Ray players? Is there any appetite for upgrades to 4K players? I ask as I’m hanging for a new McIntosh model but am I waiting for something that will never come, although I’ve started buying 4K discs. Are any high end manufactures releasing new players? If my current OPPO player dies, what do I replace it with (a PS4)?

Thoughts...?

[Hawk]

Check out the Panasonic DP-UB9000.

[LarsT]

I have the Pioneer Elite UDP-LX500. No complaints plugged into my Marantz 8805

[bart]

Sony also brought a new player to the market with SACD capabilities.
They will not disappear soon.

[RaceCarDriver]

Panasonic UB9000 trumps Oppo as far as 4K playback. Sent the 205 down the road and am realllly enjoying the 9000 with my projector.

I hope if Mac comes out with one it is at least as good as the Panasonic. It’s king of the hill currently as far as I’m concerned.

[JBT]

I'm not getting rid of my Oppo 205. Ultra 4k discs look amazing on my Sony 4k

[nicoff]

Oppo quit making players because Blu Ray discs are going to go the same way physical CDs: nowhere.

[doggiehowser]

Originally Posted by RaceCarDriver

Panasonic UB9000 trumps Oppo as far as 4K playback. Sent the 205 down the road and am realllly enjoying the 9000 with my projector.

I hope if Mac comes out with one it is at least as good as the Panasonic. It’s king of the hill currently as far as I’m concerned.

Totally agreed on Panasonic's video processing. I am using the cheapo UB820 which features the same video processing (bar one extra projector tonemapping setting).

Totally outperforms the Oppo in that area.

The main issue is that the Oppo is a jack of all trades. It does Roon, MQA, DSD DAC and DLNA streaming. Has XLR outputs and multichannel analog outputs and universal disc playback.

The Pioneer's music streaming is much more limited. As is the Panasonic's.

The LX500 doesn't feature balanced outputs nor multichannel analog outputs. (The LX800 has XLR but I wish they'd stuck to AKM instead of the older Sabre32 - 9026.. not even the 9038 they used in the Oppo).

The UB9000 has XLR and multichannel analog but no universal disc playback.

Also, is there a way to allow the UB9000 to output in ANALOG and HDMI audio simultaneously? It's frustrating. If I want to watch a movie, I have to go inside the settings to change the audio out to HDMI. And if I want to listen to CDs, I have to turn on the projector and change the settings to analog outputs, then turn off the projector, then play CDs through the analog outputs

[doggiehowser]

Originally Posted by nicoff

Oppo quit making players because Blu Ray discs are going to go the same way physical CDs: nowhere.

The full story seems much more complex...

Oppo played a gamble with Sonica (cheap wireless multiroom audio solution) which lost a lot of money. Cancelled in some markets even before it was launched.

I don't think they ever recovered fully from that.

Then the parent company wanted to take back their spare production capacity to ramp up mobile phone productions - to become top 2 or top 3 in China.

Oppo only ever used the spare capacity to build their lines.

But I heard that Pioneer uses the same Mediatek engine as the Oppo so there's some hope that the platform survived. If only Pioneer had worked on expanding on the Oppo's feature range (USB DSD/MQA DAC, Roon end point) instead of crippling it further.

[audioguy3107]

I think the future of physical media is shaky at best, there's no question that online streaming and sources will be the future of home theater as well.....but, at least as of right now, the quality obtained from a 4K HDR blu ray is vastly superior to any online source and it's not close, IMO it's much further apart than the difference between CD/SACD and online streaming music. Even standard blu ray is way better than streaming. Before I bought my new JVC 4K projector, I tested some discs vs. Netflix, Amazon Prime and Directv. My wife and I watched a couple of episodes of Game of Thrones on Amazon/HBO, then put the blu ray (standard) disc in. Not even in the same ballpark. I also have one of the new Panasonic UB 4K blu ray players and with the HD tone mapping into the JVC, my picture is pretty much the best I've ever seen and cannot be matched by any online stream.

- Buck