I love Blu-ray players. I still get tons of use out of my Panasonic DP-UB820-K, which I find to be an invaluable tool when testing the best TVs. But there's no question that 4K Blu-ray sales are in free-fall and the state of the market is in a rather tight spot.
Despite these dire straits, Sony decided to release a new Blu-ray player called the UBP-X700/K, a successor to the older UBP-X700 model.
It might not get the same fanfare say, as the new Google Pixel 9a, but this new entry in the physical media space is a sign that the ship could be finally turning around.
The cheapest route to pure 4K
Never did I think a new Blu-ray player would launch in the year 2025. After all, most of the major players have long left the market, but it's added proof that Blu-rays and Blu-ray players themselves aren't a dying breed as we once thought.
Although many of the best streaming services nowadays offer a more expensive subscription tier for 4K content, it doesn't include their entire back catalogue. Two of the cheapest options, Netflix and Disney Plus, for instance, offer around 1,200 and 600 titles at the higher resolution, respectively.
There's also YouTube TV, which boasts the largest selection of 4K content in terms of both live broadcasts and on-demand programming. The major downside behind it (as well as its aforementioned counterparts) is the cost of entry. Not only do you have to pay $73 a month for YouTube TV but you'll also have to shell out an additional $10 for the 4K Plus add-on.
For the same price as three months of YouTube TV and Disney Plus, you could have a new 4K Blu-ray player and a small collection of movies instead.
If quality matters more than quantity to you, remember that Netflix and Disney Plus' '4K' isn't the same quality that you'd find on a 4K Blu-ray: 4K Blu-ray discs store a massive amount of information and can pass that information to your TV at a much higher speed than a streaming service could. Remember, too, that streaming services need to compress and decompress data streams to fit your bandwidth (usually far less than 100Mbps) whereas 4K Blu-rays can be read at a steady 128Mbps.
So what does Sony's new 4K player bring to bear?
The main among them being HDR10 and both Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support, as well as DTS:X audio. It's a bummer there's no HDR10+ on the UBP-X700/K for those running any of the best Samsung TVs, especially newer models like the S95D or S90D.
As far as design goes, it's rounded out with two HDMI outputs, one ethernet port and one USB port.
"Spending thousands of dollars on a home theater just to turn on Netflix is like buying a Lamborghini just so you can go 25 mph to the city park and back."
Jason, Tom's Guide commenter
While there is no Wi-Fi capabilities like its predecessor, it's not like you'll really need this for optimal viewing potential. In fact, that's the whole point. You'll never get any better picture performance over a 4K Blu-ray player as a multitude of factors can diminish picture quality when streaming content over the internet, even when it's in the higher resolution.
That's especially true for home cinema enjoyers. If you're like me and have a full setup for 4K movies (and shows, if you prefer), wrangling a massive 98-inch Sony Bravia 9 Mini-LED TV together with a 5.2-channel home theater system by Klipsch, then you're going to want a Blu-ray player for the best possible viewing experience.
As one commenter named Jason so eloquently writes in our recent piece on Blu-ray DVDs, "Spending thousands of dollars on a home theater just to turn on Netflix is like buying a Lamborghini just so you can go 25 mph to the city park and back."
A market that won't die
To be fair, while the Blu-ray player is cost-effective in the face of paying monthly fees to streaming platforms, the discs themselves can set you back when you buy more than a handful at a time.
Just a quick glance at Amazon will show you how much of an investment you're looking at. The widely popular "Wicked," which launched late last year, has a 4K Blu-ray going for $28 while the normal Blu-ray option is $25. These can wrack up over time, but they do see several price drops if you're willing to wait a bit.
Even in the face of these higher prices, which also largely depends on the movie or show in question, those who enjoy physical media are keeping them alive. So, too, is Sony it seems, which interestingly hasn't given up on the format despite rivals dropping their DVD player businesses, including LG, Samsung, and Oppo.
And it's not just movies and shows. Say you have a USB disk drive with a slew of 4K content, like home videos, YouTube clips, or music videos. While you could plug the USB directly into the TV, it's a far safer bet to plug it into a dedicated Blu-ray player, one built for 4K content and playback, so you get the better processing capabilities.
That's just one minor aspect that makes Blu-ray players so special, but it's true that the market for DVDs and DVD players is on a downward spiral. As per data provided via FlatpanelsHD back in August of last year, fewer and fewer people are buying discs each year, which even includes those more expensive UHD Blu-rays.
Sure, Blu-rays and UHD Blu-rays might cost a hefty penny in excess but at least it's one flat fee and you're not locked into a monthly or yearly subscription that offers little in the way of raw performance.
The good news? Although the market is on a downturn, people are still buying physical media, especially those of newer releases, as evidenced by data collated by MediaPlayerNews, which shows "Gladiator II" at the top of the list with 52% sold on UHD Blu-ray.
Add to that the fact that UHD Blu-ray's market share has yet to dip below 20% since the first week of 2025, according to Ultra HD Blu-ray on X, and it's clear the market for physical media isn't quite as dead as you might expect.
So don't throw out your discs! Blu-rays may be hitting a bit of a rough patch, but there's still some fight left out there in fans of physical media. And with companies like Sony releasing new hardware to play discs on, fans of 4K Blu-rays can keep their collections growing for years to come.
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