Released in 2015, Pioneer’s BDR-XD05B is a clamshell-designed (opens from the top) slim and lightweight Blu-ray writer that offers a great experience in a design that’s just 8.2 ounces. Measuring 5.24 x 5.24 x.58 inches, the XD05B offers premium and proprietary features such as PowerRead and PureRead to assist in the delivery of smoother playback of both DVDs and CDs.
Best free and paid blu-ray video player software for pc&mac 2018 1. Leawo Blue-Ray Player (PC/Mac): Pricing: Free Leawo is considered as one of the best combo for media player as it extends support to 1080P HD videos, Common Videos, DVD discs and to Blu-ray playbacks.
The Pioneer will handle write speed at 6x for a Blu-ray on one quad-layer BDXL disc that can store the equivalent of around 27 DVDs.
Netflix is booming. Hulu is thriving. In this era of fast internet connections and robust video streaming, you may question the need for optical discs. But DVDs and Blu-ray discs still offer some great advantages, and you shouldn’t abandon this type of technology just yet. To make the most of your optical discs, you need a Blu-ray player. This device offers backward compatibility with older disc technologies, making it quite a versatile piece of equipment.
You don’t even need Blu-ray discs to watch movies on a Blu-ray player. Just pop in a DVD, sit back, and enjoy. At Best Reviews, we love movies.
That’s why we took the time to research the Blu-ray market and create this shopping guide. We want to help you find the very best Blu-ray player for your needs. If you’re ready to buy a new Blu-ray player, please see our product list, above, for our specific recommendations. If you’d like to learn more about Blu-ray players before jumping into a purchase, please continue reading this shopping guide.
Modern Blu-ray players provide two options for connecting to the internet: you can make a wired Ethernet connection, or you can connect via WiFi. By connecting to the internet, you enable streaming video options through the Blu-ray player. Many HDTVs and 4K TVs offer their own internet connection capabilities now; they’re called smart TVs. This fact may leave you wondering if internet connectivity through the Blu-ray player is overkill. The truth is, some people prefer the interface and remote control of a Blu-ray player to the smart TV. You also can stream music through your internet connection to the Blu-ray player.
When shopping for a Blu-ray player, you’re going to encounter quite a bit of jargon. You need to understand what all of the acronyms mean before you can make the right choice. 4K: 4K video resolution is another name for UHD, which provides a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels.
More pixels in video resolution equals higher quality video. Blu-ray: Blu-ray is an optical disc technology that plays back video resolution equal to 1080p high definition (HD). CD: CD (Compact Disc) is an optical disc technology primarily used for audio/music. There is a CD video format, but it’s rarely available.
DVD: DVD (Digital Video Disc) is an optical disc technology that displays video at a 720p or 1080p resolution. HD: HD (High Definition) video is the most common video resolution. It’s called 1080p resolution when it has 1920x1080 pixels. Blu-ray discs play 1080p HD resolution video. Another type of HD is called 720p HD with 1280x720 pixels, and it’s more common on DVD discs.
HD uses a 16:9 aspect ratio for display, equal to what’s found on large, flat screen TVs. HDMI: HDMI (High Definition Multimedia Interface) is a standard that allows for passing HD resolution video from one device to another through a cable. HDR: HDR (High Dynamic Range) is a display technology in some big screen TVs that creates brighter, more vibrant colors with a greater contrast range. Some Blu-ray players offer support for HDR.
If your TV also supports HDR, you can play back Blu-ray movies using HDR. Optical disc: An optical disc is a digital data storage technology.
CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs all are optical discs. All are 12 cm (or 4.72 inches) in diameter and 1.2 mm thick (0.047 inches). They’re made of plastic. Microscopic pits on the disc store the digital data.
The Blu-ray player then reads the pits with a laser to create the digital video on the screen. Streaming: Streaming video is the process of playing a video from the internet.
The Blu-ray player can provide the connection between the TV and internet needed for streaming. When streaming through a Blu-ray player, it will download and play the video at the same time. So if your internet connection is too slow, the video playback will stop momentarily if you don’t have enough data coming through. UHD: UHD (Ultra High Definition) is another name for 4K video resolution. It’s equal to 3840x2160 pixels. This is the newest type of video resolution available, so there isn’t much programming yet available. Ultra Blu-ray: An Ultra Blu-ray optical disc will play back video at a UHD (or 4K) resolution.
Upscaling: When a Blu-ray player plays a video stream of a lower resolution, the process of increasing the resolution to fit the TV screen is called upscaling. The player uses software to add pixels to the video stream to make it appear as though it’s a higher resolution. Q. Should I buy an Ultra Blu-ray or a traditional Blu-ray player? A. Remember how slowly people migrated from standard definition resolution video to HD resolution at home? You can expect an even slower migration from HD to 4K/UHD video. After all, most people are pretty happy with the quality of HD programming. And the jump from standard definition to HD was quite a bit more pronounced, in terms of quality, than the jump from HD to UHD.
So, you could choose to pay a premium for an Ultra Blu-ray player (such as the Philips 4K Ultra and the Samsung 3D in our product list) to ensure your player will have more longevity. Just understand that there isn’t a lot of UHD video available to play on it right now. Or, you could stick with traditional Blu-ray for now — both Sony products in our product list are excellent traditional players — and wait for prices of Ultra Blu-ray players to drop and for more programming to become available before making the switch.
Q. Can I play my DVDs and CDs on a Blu-ray player? One of the best things about optical disc players is that they are “backward compatible” with older video technologies. So you won’t have to jettison your DVD collection to make the switch to a Blu-ray player. You can play those DVDs on your new Blu-ray player. Q. What is the best way to connect a Blu-ray player to my TV? A. As long as you have an HDMI cable and an open HDMI port on your TV, you’ll be ready to go.
HDMI is the best way to send the video from the Blu-ray player to the TV, because it can carry the large amount of data required for HD programming.