My TV-testing process consists of two phases. The first phase is painstakingly measuring a TV’s performance with boring-looking test patterns. The second phase involves kicking back with some snacks and watching movies. I’ll let you guess which part is my favorite.
As a former film student and a current cinephile, my penchant for the pictures isn’t limited to the hours I spend on the clock. When my day’s done and I’m ready to relax, there’s a good chance you can catch me spinning a 4K disc I picked from the most-recent Criterion Collection sale.
Between work and play, there’s one constant: the Panasonic DP-UB820. In addition to having the most-memorable name for a product you’ll hear all week, the DP-UB820 is, in many ways, the heart and soul of both my office and my living room. In an era where the relevance of physical media is being questioned by critics and C-suite executives alike, Panasonic’s excellent player is an increasingly irreplaceable part of my life.
For a while, I used Panasonic's 4K player at work while relying on my Xbox Series X at home. Over time, the pain points got too prickly to put up with, and I finally picked up a Panasonic player for my living room.
For one thing, it was a serious drag to fumble with my Xbox controller whenever I wanted to pause, rewind or skip ahead. The clicker that comes with the Panasonic DP-UB820 isn't a marvel of engineering or anything, but you better believe it's more convenient than a video game controller.
However, the Panasonic DP-UB820's primary advantage over a game console pulling double duty is its support for Dolby Vision HDR. Neither the Xbox Series X nor the PlayStation 5 supports Dolby Vision playback for 4K discs.
Neither the Xbox Series X nor the PlayStation 5 supports Dolby Vision playback for 4K discs.
In addition, a ton of people (myself included) have encountered problems when trying to play certain discs on an Xbox Series X. A quick Google search returns piles of message board posts and comments-section rants about the issue, which typically affects 100GB Blu-ray discs (often called "triple-layered" discs).
Based on these accounts, the problem doesn't affect all discs of this size, but it speaks to the Xbox Series X's limitations as a Blu-ray player.
Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment to talk about just how much better my discs look on the Panasonic DP-UB820. It's not just the 4K discs, either — my garden-variety DVDs from 2007 look their best with this player's processing backing them up. It's the secret sauce that makes a standalone player superior to the alternatives.
There's no way around it: If you've poured a lot of hard-earned cash into a physical media collection and the best TV you can afford, you won't be getting the most out of either on a subpar player like an Xbox or PlayStation.
I'll leave you with a very-real, not-at-all-fabricated admission: I'm thinking about buying another Panasonic DP-UB820 and keeping it sealed in the box, stashed away in a safe place.
It's not that I expect my current player to break anytime soon. But as companies abandon physical media at an exponential pace, my own physical media collection grows. 4K Blu-ray players are an endangered species in the home entertainment ecosystem, and I can't bear the thought of living in this world without one.
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