Hi all.... it's been awhile.
I bought a 4K OLED TV and have been wondering about a 4K player. I should have bought the Oppo while they were available, as I have a good number of SACD and DVD-A discs, and it would have been nice to have one player that plays everything. Lamenting that the ship has sailed does not really gain me anything I guess.
So, I see that there is some talk out there regarding the Panasonic DP-UB820 that will be available in the U.S. in a couple of weeks. Many seem to think it offers everything the Oppo did in terms of picture quality, without the ability to input a source to make use of the DAC, and of course the lack of compatibility with my SACD/DVD-A discs.
I have $40 in Best Buy credit that's expiring tomorrow, and noted that the player is available on the BB website for pre-order. So I was ready to jump on a pre-order, when I started coming across sites discussing how many "4K" releases are really just upsampled HD, because that's the way the CGI was originally rendered. (As a side note, I remember this happening when CDs first came out: Some releases were manufactured with the RIAA EQ used in LP records, in the rush to get content out there made for some really crappy sounding CDs).
Anyway, searching a few "real 4K or fake 4K sites show most 4K discs are, indeed, just HD upsamples and don't look substantially better than the B-D releases. There are, of course, some 4K remasters that look fantastic, but that's only a percentage of the releases and include many movies I don't really care about. Yes, I would buy Saving Private Ryan in 4K and The Greatest Showman for my wife, but it looks like most of the BD movies I've saved in my Amazon basket for future purchase are not available, or not any substantial upgrade if available in 4K.
How many of you guys are using a 4K player? Thoughts on how much of an upgrade it it with a good OLED TV?
I'm not shooting 4K content in my business yet, as there's been no demand for it from clients. That might start changing soon, though, so the ability to monitor the quality of discs that are delivered in addition to the USB memory stick that my TV supports could justify this as a business expense.
But I don't want to order this and only be disappointed in the discs available and end up with two-or three whole discs for the new player I bought!
