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What 4K player to buy
Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2025 8:53 pm
by ionut_anghel
Hi guys.
I have recently started making my own 25GB / 50 GB / 100GB Blu Rays.
Started putting a couple of 4K movies on triple layer Blu Rays.
I can open them just fine on my PC with MakeMKV and also with VLC.
Problem is that my Xbox does not read them at all.
I read that Xbox will struggle with triple layered Blu Ray (although it can perfectly run any 4K movie off the market) so I decided to buy a dedicated 4K player.
Went out and bought Panasonic UB154EB - the cheapest one.
Now this one can read about half the 4K I made myself, which is a bit disappointing.
I am currently using Ritek 100GB discs, and the ID on them says VERBAT-IMf-000 (so I guess good quality ?)
Can you guys recommend a good 4K player that will read anything I through at it ?
Is Panasonic UB820 the one ?
Re: What 4K player to buy
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2025 1:27 am
by MartyMcNuts
ionut_anghel wrote: ↑Fri Sep 12, 2025 8:53 pm
Hi guys.
I have recently started making my own 25GB / 50 GB / 100GB Blu Rays.
Started putting a couple of 4K movies on triple layer Blu Rays.
I can open them just fine on my PC with MakeMKV and also with VLC.
Problem is that my Xbox does not read them at all.
I read that Xbox will struggle with triple layered Blu Ray (although it can perfectly run any 4K movie off the market) so I decided to buy a dedicated 4K player.
Went out and bought Panasonic UB154EB - the cheapest one.
Now this one can read about half the 4K I made myself, which is a bit disappointing.
I am currently using Ritek 100GB discs, and the ID on them says VERBAT-IMf-000 (so I guess good quality ?)
Can you guys recommend a good 4K player that will read anything I through at it ?
Is Panasonic UB820 the one ?
Yeah, no. Pretty much all players, except maybe the oppo clone? will not read burnt triple layer discs either at all or not very well. They are different to official pressed UHD discs. Writing to optical media is soooooo 2007!! Far cheaper and better to store movies on a hard drive or NAS.
Re: What 4K player to buy
Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2025 6:41 am
by ionut_anghel
I little bit of an update:
Trying to watch "The Revenant" in 4K, disc which I made, on my UB-154.
Basically I have to cycle open/close tray about 5 times to get it to work.
I get the "disc is incompatible" error (which seems to be quite common on Panasonic), and after the cycles boom, it just works.
Re: What 4K player to buy
Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2025 4:24 am
by outlier
I'm not clear on what you're putting on the disc. If you're just putting mkv files on the disc then I think Sony does a much better job than Panasonic when it comes to handling mkv files (e.g., which codecs are supported and actually playing them properly). I can't speak to how well any handled burned discs, but overall that approach just sounds a lot more expensive, time consuming, and problematic compared to using an external hard disk that's a few (or several) TB in size.
Re: What 4K player to buy
Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2025 7:48 am
by ionut_anghel
Thanks for the replies.
Basically, I am burning my own 4ks because I want to see them on the bookshelf
I also want to play them raw and uncrompressed straight from disc (I can do the same from my NAS which I have, but I prefer the physical contact of getting up, browsing what I have, picking something and putting it in the player).
Given the above, I am lookig for a player that can read triple layered discs that are "home made" and I am struggling to do so with my UB-154.
Was asking if someone has the same hobby as me and if they can recommend something better.
Thanks to the guy above that gave me something to work with.
FYI - I am not burning .mkv files, but the whole structure of the discs (backups basically).
Re: What 4K player to buy
Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2025 11:47 pm
by MartyMcNuts
ionut_anghel wrote: ↑Tue Sep 16, 2025 7:48 am
Thanks for the replies.
Basically, I am burning my own 4ks because I want to see them on the bookshelf
I also want to play them raw and uncrompressed straight from disc (I can do the same from my NAS which I have, but I prefer the physical contact of getting up, browsing what I have, picking something and putting it in the player).
Given the above, I am lookig for a player that can read triple layered discs that are "home made" and I am struggling to do so with my UB-154.
Was asking if someone has the same hobby as me and if they can recommend something better.
Thanks to the guy above that gave me something to work with.
FYI - I am not burning .mkv files, but the whole structure of the discs (backups basically).
Good luck with that! I doubt you will find any player that can play them with any sort of consistancy.
If you want to see the movies on the bookshelf, BUY THEM. We do not condone piracy here.