A review from sound and vision
Performance
The UBP-X800 sailed through our full suite of video processing tests, which puts it in the company of the Panasonic DMP-UB900 (see my review in our February/March issue), as well as Oppo’s UDP-203. Comparing its performance with the Panasonic player’s, the Sony held up extremely well when upconverting 1080p material to 4K resolution. For instance, when I watched the chapter “Innocence” from the standard Blu-ray of Tree of Life, a close-up shot of an infant’s face clearly revealed the smooth, powdery, slightly fuzzy texture of the child’s skin. In contrast, the fine lines in mom’s ribbed coat looked solid, and there was no hint of edge enhancement or other noise.
image:
https://www.soundandvision.com/images/517sonybd.vidmeas.jpg
The Sony also compared favorably with the Panasonic when playing animated content. When I viewed a scene from the Blu-ray of The Lego Movie where Vitruvius escorts Emmet into his mind to convince him of his ability to become a Master Builder, the translucent Lego landscape had a finely textured look, as the highlights on the computer-modeled plastic pieces glistened with detail. The Panasonic’s more comprehensive range of detail-enhancement and noise-reduction adjustments did give me more flexibility to tweak images when watching standard Blu-rays and DVDs. Nonetheless, I still found upconverted Blu-ray picture quality to be convincingly 4K-like with both players.
Of course, Ultra HD Blu-ray playback is the main attraction here, and the UBP-X800 delivered on that front as well. When I watched Passengers, the picture looked stunningly detailed and displayed a subtle color range. In a scene where Jim first encounters an android bartender at the spacecraft’s bar (a set-piece copped straight from The Shining), the glow from the backlit bar surface created a warm, radiant atmosphere that was eerily at odds with the otherwise sterile, high-tech environment. When Jim later exits the spacecraft to do some sightseeing, the powerful contrast between the lights on the ship’s exterior and the black expanse of space lent the scene emotional weight—and it was also one of the more dramatic HDR examples I’ve experienced.
Read more at
https://www.soundandvision.com/cont...-ray-player-review-page-2#TR3sTM1PyBcuOub4.99