Home Theater Forum and Systems banner

Sony Releases New Affordable Players; Dismisses 4K Blu-ray (BDP-S6700, UHP-H1)

4K views 12 replies 8 participants last post by  gac 
#1 ·


Color me semi-surprised, but Sony Electronics (the originator of the world’s first consumer Blu-ray player) appears to be forging ahead with 2016 plans to delay the release of a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player until next year. As first reported by the trade publication TWICE, the company says it wants the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray market to mature and saturate itself with media before officially launching a 4K player.

This begs the question: Why?

The surface answer is that Sony is hedging its bet with the impending launch of a 4K High Dynamic Range streaming service. This isn’t to say the company is completely ignoring the physical media side of the equation. After all, they are manufacturing and releasing movies on 4K Blu-ray. But the ugly truth – the sad and painful truth – is that Sony is entering a wait-and-see mode. In other words, Sony appears to be cautiously implying that the 4K Blu-ray player world has limited life; streaming is the new and true battleground.

Yesterday, the company further cemented its 4K Blu-ray player stance by releasing a new standard player. The new BDP-S6700 ($130) is deceptively called a “4K Upscaling 3D Streaming Blu-ray Disc Player,” which implies it’s capable of playing true 4K UHD discs. Alas, it’s not. Instead, the S6700 is built around technology that up-scales standard Hi-Def video material to “near 4K quality,” enhances the quality of compressed music, and provides access to PlayStation’s cloud based videogame platform. It also houses LDAC Bluetooth technology that’s able to stream audio to wireless devices at nearly three-times the bandwidth of regular Bluetooth. And with onboard DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), owners have easy access to streaming and transfer of music, film, and photo files.

So, for a relatively small investment (only slightly more than other standard BD players on the market), Sony’s new player brings streaming convenience to the table. As of now, it doesn’t appear that the S6700 will exclusively offer access to any kind of Sony streaming video network. But it does provide access to current popular app based services like Netflix and YouTube.



The UHP-H1 is due to be released soon.


Sony also announced a pre-sale of its forthcoming UHP-H1 Premium Audio and Video Player. This model is a different animal and is the company’s new flagship Blu-ray player, with a price tag that’s more than twice as large ($350). Much like the S6700, it does just about everything but play a 4K Blu-ray disc. It carries everything the S6700 offers in addition to a step-up digital sound enhancement engine and versatile Hi-Res audio playback of FLAC, ALAC, AIFF, DSD (up to 5.6 MHz), and WAV (192kHz/24-bit). Sony says the UHP-H1’s chassis is smaller than traditional players and offers anti-vibration construction.

So there you have it. Sony’s 2016 Blu-ray player offerings deliver on a bevy of consumer friendly and hi-res performance parameters…but swing and miss on the one front most videophiles have an eye on: 4K UHD Blu-ray playback.

Surprising? Most certainly. A mistake? Only time will tell.

Image Credits: Sony Electronics
 
See less See more
2
#2 ·
Probably making as much room as possible for the still-rumored but seemingly inevitable PS4 4K (PS4+). That's gotta be Sony's big move, otherwise the company is smoking something really good and not sharing.
 
#4 ·
I still dont see the big deal with 4k (UltraHD).
HD (2K) on a good display looks great and the upgrade to 4k wont really make any big impact until we see projectors offering true 4k performance on a big screen at a reasonable cost. Ive said it before all the major TV networks just spent millions going to HD Im not sure if they are willing to fork out more to go even higher. Streaming still has a long way to go given most people dont have the bandwidth to stream true 4k and any that do are really only getting 4k thats being compressed and looks only slightly better than HD.

I wonder if 4k sales are sluggish and they are waiting to see what the market does?
 
  • Like
Reactions: amedius
#10 ·
#13 ·
Given that this player has been named UHP-H1, it would be interesting to know if Sony has in mind a follow-up called UHP-H2, which to be provided with 7.1 channels analogue output. This might be useful for those who enjoy listening to multi-channel music from DVD-Audio, SACD and BD-Audio despite the player has only 4K video upscale capability.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top