Sony Unveils Their First 4K UHD Blu-ray Player

Samsung, Phillips, and other companies dove into the brand new market with 4K UHD Blu-ray players earlier this year, but Sony held back and only released the information that their 4K UHD Blu-ray player wouldn’t be released until early 2017. While that’s still the case, we finally get a first view of what that player will look like and some specifications to go along with it – something I’m sure a lot of people have waited for.

TVs with 4K UHD resolution have been on a market for some time, but the content has been limited in many ways and that’s something a proper supply of players could change. As such, we welcome this new player from Sony that is called the UBP-X1000ES 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player. The new Sony UHD Blu-ray player is however not aimed at the broad consumer range and instead targets the custom install set market with this new player and the company plans to have the UBP-X1000ES certified with vendors like Control4, Crestron, and Savant.

It won’t just play HD Blu-ray disk, but also DVDs, CDs, and SA-CD as well as support streams in 4K resolution and naturally, it will play the 4K content with HDR for the best colours and contrast compared to pure 4K. Other features include upscaling of 1080p content which Sony claims to be near 4K resolution at 60FPS/Hz. Video is just one part of the playback as the audio side also has to be properly supported – and it is. The UBP-X1000ES comes with a 32-bit DAC and support for high-resolution audio, including LPCM up to 192KHz and DSD up to 11.2MHz. It also comes with dual HDMI output, one for audio and one for video.

Sony Electronics director of home entertainment systems Yukio Ishikawa said: “It is specifically designed to deliver the highest quality video and audio possible and will excite the most demanding A/V enthusiasts.”

While the availability is set for early 2017, Sony didn’t reveal any pricing yet. But it probably won’t come cheap with those specifications and quality built that includes a frame and beam chassis combined with a honeycomb top plate.