New HDR BluRay players from Panasonic and Sony were announced at CES. Of course, it was especially exciting to see how the format support works, as up to 4 formats (HDR10, HDR10+, HLG and Dolby Vision) are struggling for supremacy in the living room. And now it seems that this is exactly what should be avoided in advance. Each player will support multiple standards in the future.
The
Sony UBP-X700 will be shipped with HDR 10 support from January for 269 Euro.
After an update in the summer of 2018, it should also be able to display Dolby Vision. Whether the update will cost something is not announced, nor is the reason for the long delay until summer.
Also unclear is the delivery date (and price) of the upcoming Panasonic Ultra HD Blu-ray Player DP-UB820:
However, it is clear that this
player will now also support Dolby Vision although Panasonic had officially rejected this until now. For this purpose, the DP-UB820 will also support Panasonic's own format advance HDR10+, which was announced on the CES 2018
large announcement. We would find it difficult to assume that HDR10+ capable devices will also support HDR10, but we cannot yet confirm this officially due to a lack of data sheet.
It is also worth mentioning that both devices are not only recommended as universal format players but also as 4K streaming players for Netflix, Amazon and Youtube. Apparently, a player for optical media without 4K streaming capabilities is meanwhile uninteresting for most consumers. Incidentally, HLG is not mentioned by any of the two manufacturers, although Sony and Panasonic's in-house cameras only support this HDR format for consumer recording. Although the new players want to recommend themselves as a media playback centre in the living room, it seems that the application of the family HDR videos filmed by themselves is not taken very seriously.