The Best 4K Blu-ray Players to Complete Your Home Cinema Setup

You want to make sure your 4K Blu-ray player will be able to give you top picture and sound quality, so here’s what you need to consider when picking one up in 2023:

Budget

You will pay around £200 to £300 for a 4K Blu-ray player from Panasonic, Sony or LG – three of the trusted brands still pumping out these devices. The most affordable on our list costs £160 so it’s possible to get 4K without paying the big bucks, but if you want a player to pair with a home theatre setup – think multiple external speakers and a large 4K TV – spending between £800 and £1500 is entirely possible.

Port selection

Have a look on the front and back of the Blu-ray player to see what ports you will have available. You will always get at least one HDMI port that’s used to wire it directly to your 4K TV, but some players have two and this is so you can separate video output and audio output. Video out should be at least HDMI 2.0 and this goes into your telly, while audio out goes through your home theatre (or AV) receiver. What does that mean? You can use it to get the best sound quality possible.

Will you hear the difference if you already have a banging 4K telly? Possibly not. Staying on audio for a second, you may also see ports for coaxial audio – to send sounds via an external speaker system – or optical audio, which connects to an amplifier or soundbar. Aside from HDMIs, check for an ethernet port that can be used to connect the player to your router – this gives you the best signal when streaming. Most 4K players have wifi built-in, but this may not always be stable enough to enjoy screenings without interruption.

HDR

This stands for High Dynamic Range. There’s a lot of TV jargon here, so let’s break it down. HDR boosts the contrast of your movies, so the black sections are darker and the white sections are brighter. Why? The picture quality looks better defined, and with much more depth. Whether you notice a big difference will always depend on the quality of your 4K TV, as models with better brightness show better HDR results. Only 4K Blu-rays show this effect, you won't see it when using standard 1080p Blu-rays.For the sake of your sanity, here are the three main types you will see on the box and need to look out for. HDR10 is the common standard and applies to most 4K tellys, but there are also two slightly better types: HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. These make the results of HDR even better as they adjust the quality frame-by-frame of the movie. Not every 4K TV or AV receiver handles all three, so check your specs before you buy. And… breathe.

Don’t forget, you will want to keep money aside to actually buy some 4K Blu-rays, and these usually sell for between £12 and £25. Not sure where else to pick up the latest movies, TV seasons and documentaries in high res? Here’s where you can buy them:

• Buy 4K Blu-rays at Amazon
• Buy 4K Blu-rays at HMV
• Buy 4K Blu-rays at Music Magpie
• Buy 4K Blu-rays at Warner Bros
• Buy 4K Blu-rays at Zavvi

As you can probably tell, we love physical media here at Esquire. Popping a disc into a top 4K Blu-ray player may not be as convenient as scrolling through the vast library of movies on Netflix or Amazon Prime, but cinephiles and audiophiles always get the best viewing experience and sound quality using pairing a top 4K player with a high-end 4K telly, and letting the soundtrack boom out from an external speaker system.

Aside from resolution, there are other pros to physical movie media. First, you actually own it, rather than relying on a streaming service to host it (often temporarily) and second, your internet connection suddenly going down without warning won’t ruin your evening.

But we are not about to claim streaming is bad. While they may charge more for the luxury, most of the big platforms offer 4K content, and you can’t argue that after a long day or work the last thing you may want to do is mess around with audio cables or hear the faint hum of a Blu-ray player in the background. You will see debates about bitrate and compression, but when it comes down to it, sometimes convenience wins.

Here’s the good news: you can have the best of both worlds. Most 4K Blu-ray players have streaming services like Netlflix and Prime built-in, so let’s all just get along.

Thankfully, not for 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays – discs will work regardless of where you bought them and any 4K player accepts any 4K Blu-ray disc. Nice and simple.

Region codes are used for standard 1080p Blu-rays and DVDs. This restricts the movie from playing when used in a different region than it was made. For example, a DVD bought during your weekend in New York won’t play when you get home to the UK.

Want a lesson in region coding? You’re in the right place, but let’s keep it brief. Standard 1080p Blu-rays come in Region A (Americas), B (Europe and Middle East) and C (Asia, Russia, rest of world). DVDs are classed in pretty much the same way, from regions one to eight. What does this mean for you? When you’re buying a 4K player, consider if you want it for non-4K Blu-rays or DVDs. If so, make sure it’s labelled as “multi-region.”

Yes, all 4K Blu-ray players will also play standard 1080p Blu-rays, DVDs and CDs, although they won’t magically make your image quality suddenly become on the same level as a 4K disc, regardless of what upscaling claims are made on the box. You will be disappointed if you try to watch a 4K disc using a 1080p player. That doesn’t work. The same goes if you plug a 4K player into a 1080p TV, the image will work, but it’s downgraded to match the resolution of the telly. A 4K Blu-ray player needs a 4K TV.