Is The PS5/Xbox Series X A Good 4K Blu-ray Player?

Is the PS5 a good 4K Blu-ray player? Is the Xbox a good 4K Blu-ray player? I get these questions a lot, so here are my thoughts on the gaming consoles vs a dedicated 4K player.

My 4K Player Recommendations

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[AlexGreat]

I've been using game consoles as entertainment systems for the past 15 years because they're such a great bargain for me, being able to play games, films and other stuff

[SeViLionCollectibles]

I’ve always used my PlayStation consoles as my entry level disc players. Literally the PS1 was my first CD Player then PS2 for DVD, and PS3 for Blu-Ray. I’ve usually bought dedicated hardware later in the lifespan, but for getting started on a new format, PlayStation has always done right by me!

[angelchang]

I been enjoying all of my 4ks on my PS5.
I dont have any complaints for the quality of the movies. 👏🏽

[Franksmediaandreviews]

That's honestly how I got into 4k movies. I watched 4k movies on the Xbox One, then decided to go even further, and got the Panasonic UB820.

[SonnyFrisco]

I remember the PS3 Bluray player got significantly better as time went on with firmware updates. One of the nice features was that it was updated frequently. Hope this is the case with the PS5.

[BEEFTEEF]

Thanks. Running all of my blu rays and UHD 4Ks on the dedicated Sony X700 paired with an A80J screen. I can confirm that the upscaling is better using the X700 over my PS5. Some other features worth mentioning: 24p mode, Dolby Vision, fast menu load times, the ability to check audio and video bitrates on the fly and visually confirm audio output format.

[Snoogins]

I’m glad you covered this! A good follow up should be correct picture/calibration etc. Xbox has a great calibration tool!

[jedlomax]

I have both options and I agree 100% with you. For most people a PS5 is great, and if you have a handful of 4K discs it's the better option. If you become a more hardcore collector then upgrade, as I did, you will see a difference. But it's key that the most people possible have a way to play these discs and consoles enable that.

[carlkitchen]

I agree 100%. I own both PS5 and a UB820. PS5 is pretty darn good for UHD discs. There's a slight bump in quality on the UB820 and of course the Dolby Vision. I'm just part of that 2% that's looking for just that little bit more. I only had the PS5 to start and never felt the quality suffered in any way. I mostly got the UB820 for the Dolby Vision but also figured if I was going to upgrade from PS5 that I'd get 'a bit more' where I can.

[RetroMediaRoom]

Interesting little tip, I've watched 3-D blu-ray (Gaurdians of the Galaxy) on my PS4 Pro with my Playstation VR headset. Low resolution but worked pretty well considering I've never had an actual 3-D HDTV.

[Jumpman]

My ps5 is good enough for me. I can’t see myself getting a dedicated player to take up more space in my entertainment center.

[hunsakermedia]

Agreed with everything you said. I had a Panasonic UB-420 4k player before I bought my PS5 and when I got the console and compared movies, they looked exactly the same. The PS5's ability to upscale the DVDs might've been ever so slightly lower than the Panasonic but not enough to notice in most cases. I eventually decided to sell the Panasonic since the PS5 was doing such a great job and figured the most high-end dedicated player would out-perform my PS5 so someday when I need it, I'll buy it.

For the time being, the PS5 is perfect with my Sony Bravia X900H.

[dominicarroyo]

I would say yes. I watched evil dead rise 4k blu-ray on my series x a few days ago and it looked really good with no issues when it came to sound and picture quality

[dislodge]

I’ve mostly watched my collection on consoles for years but this year finally went with a dedicated 4K/3D player because the consoles can’t seem to handle the new triple layer discs like LOTR and AVATAR. I ended up getting a region free version of the Panasonic DP-UB820 and it’s been great. It perfectly plays some burned discs that the consoles had trouble with too, like the DeSpecialized Star Wars discs.

[KreshDraven]

I had a Series X and was happy enough playing 4k movies on it. The biggest problem tough was that the Series X doesn't support the Bitstream mode, so I had very limited audio options since my TV also doesn't support DTS for exemple. As my 4k collection got bigger I decided to buy a dedicated player and got the Sony X800 M2, and I'm extremely happy with it and yes, there is noticeable difference in the picture quality, not night and day difference, but it's there.
And now I have whatever audio or picture quality is available and also a better upscaling with is really nice

[rguitar]

I rip my UHDs to MKV, play them in Plex on the Nvidia Shield and have full support for Dolby Vision and HDR, Dolby Atmos, etc. There is also the added benefit of not spinning up a disk for playback. Best experience for convenient viewing of films. It upscales DVD and Blu-Ray to great effect as well.

[Nick-K]

I started with my Series X and when I started collecting more 4K, I picked up 4K player for the Dolby Vision.

[gregermeister]

Another thing to keep in mind in game console vs dedicated player is power consumption. My Sony UBP-X700 is rated at 15W while a PS5 is rated at 350W. Cant confirm how much it is actually using while playing a 4K disc versus game disc though.

[Pokemonashgreen]

My Xbox one X, was my first 4k player years ago. I eventually got both the ps5 and Xbox series X. But we had a 4k since 2018, I didn't get mine until this year and spent around $600 on a Sony TV lol.

[ELwhaaat]

I used to use my PS5 and didn't really believe the hype on dedicated players.

But then I picked up a Panasonic UB-820 and man, it looks amazing. Comparing the 2 was interesting and I noticed the PS5 tended to crush blacks a lot on my OLED TV, whereas the Panasonic tone mapped correctly and looked fantastic.

The only caveat I found was that maybe 10 out of 100 4K discs I own had Dolby Vision/HDR10+, so it wasn't a super useful feature.