RATING
UBR-X100
UBR-X200
IT’S NO secret that the Ultra HD Blu-ray disc player market has become a barren wasteland over the past few years. It seems like we’ve lost more players than we’ve gained, with little in the way of new models coming from manufacturers who used to debut several players a year during the heyday of shiny discs. And the situation is even worse for someone seeking a high-end player with advanced features, broad disc format support, and top-flight build quality.
When Oppo, the previous leader in the field, abandoned the player market a few years back, I fully expected to see other manufacturers rush in to fill the void. But that hasn’t exactly happened. Pioneer released its UDP-LX500 that I reviewed in the June/July 2019 issue, but that model has since disappeared. Panasonic’s DP-UB9000 (reviewed October/November 2019) is probably the closest thing to a true high-end player available today, and although I was enamored with that model’s onboard HDR processing, it’s missing some key features like a direct video output (with
