This guide draws on a recorded test of 12 Blu-ray players, eight of which remain on sale, checked against three discs played on a 65-inch UHD television. The two lead picks are not simple disc players. They are recorder-players built around broadcast television reception, each with an internal hard disc for storing recordings, and each available with a choice of tuner: one version takes a cable (DVB-C) tuner, the other a satellite tuner. Every other machine here, including the plain players covered further down, is a conventional player with a disc drive and no tuner or hard disc at all. That distinction, recorder against player, is worth understanding before anything else, because it is what separates the leading picks from the rest of the field.
What follows is recorded testing, translated. Nobody at Truthful Reviews has put these players through a test of our own.
Recorder or player?
Most Blu-ray players sold today are simple: one drive, and it plays Blu-ray, DVD or CD discs, and nothing more. The winning DMR-BCT760 from Panasonic goes further, adding a built-in hard disc - sold in 500-gigabyte, one-terabyte or two-terabyte capacities - onto which footage from a camcorder, say, can be copied before being burned to a Blu-ray disc.
The bigger advantage, though, is the built-in TV tuner. Broadcasts can be recorded straight onto the hard disc as they air and burned to a blank disc afterwards, so a favourite series can be archived permanently and played back on other equipment. Panasonic sells the recorder in two tuner variants, told apart by their model suffix: the DMR-BCT760 tested here takes a cable tuner, while the otherwise identical DMR-BST760 takes a satellite tuner; both come with the same choice of hard-disc sizes. A recorder like this costs more than a plain player, so anyone with no need for the recording function is better served by one of the disc-only players covered further down this guide.
Blu-ray, DVD and UHD Blu-ray
Against DVD, Blu-ray remains a clear step up in picture and sound, the catalogue of films available is vast, and players themselves are inexpensive enough that buying a DVD-only machine makes little sense any more. Costlier machines add disc recording or, as with the lead picks here, a built-in hard-disc recorder.
Ultra HD Blu-ray goes a step further again, but the players cost more, a UHD television is needed to see the benefit, and the range of discs on the format remains modest, so standard Blu-ray keeps the advantage for most buyers for now. Nearly every current Blu-ray player can upscale pictures to UHD resolution, and every machine in this test does so. Picture quality across the field sits at a uniformly high level, with only marginal gaps between machines - a brand-name player is a fairly safe purchase on that score alone. Where models genuinely separate is app range, network features and everyday handling.
The picks
Top pick — Panasonic DMR-BCT760 (cable tuner) and DMR-BST760 (satellite tuner)
Running on a fast, well-proven processor, the Panasonic combines a Blu-ray player, hard-disc recorder, disc burner and set-top box in one case without the control layout becoming any harder to use, and picture and sound quality reach a high standard throughout testing.
Its twin tuner catches two different HD channels at once over cable while a third is watched live, though channel choice is then constrained by which transponder each sits on; a secondary aerial input supports only the older DVB-T standard rather than DVB-T2 HD, which testing found made it unusable for terrestrial reception. Set-up is quick - choosing a country and running the fast channel scan finishes in about three minutes - and the resulting channel order is sensible, with HD public-broadcaster channels placed first. Switching channels is fast, and picture quality impressed even on the standard-definition private channels that often look soft elsewhere.
Recording is started from a dedicated remote button, either for the current programme, a continuous recording, or a block booking in 15-minute steps up to four hours; an eight-programme on-screen guide lets a lead-in and lead-out be set so a film's start is never missed. The 500-gigabyte drive holds around 75 hours of HD recordings. A "keyword recording" mode stores up to sixteen search terms and automatically records anything in the schedule that matches them, and recordings are gathered into a filterable video menu. A rare SCART socket even allows an old VHS recorder to be connected for digitising tapes. Live television can be paused and resumed at any point, and the machine burns its recordings straight to DVD or Blu-ray through a simple menu: pick source and destination, build a list, trim and rename titles, set a quality level, and it burns unattended.
Handling shows Panasonic's experience: the control layout has barely changed across generations of these recorders, menus are colourful and respond instantly with no lag, and there are dedicated buttons for Netflix and for the internet app menu. Networked by cable or Wi-Fi, it adds Maxdome, Netflix, Amazon Video, YouTube, a browser and Twitter as built-in apps, with more available through its own app store; it mirrors phone and tablet screens over Miracast, acts as a DLNA client and renderer, and can redistribute live TV or its own recordings to other screens around the house. The one weak spot found in testing was the companion "Media Center" remote-control app, which had worked well on a separate recorder previously but would not accept sign-in on this unit at all, however many times the password was reset or the app reinstalled - a problem other users report too.
Blu-ray playback itself is excellent, scaling confidently to UHD with sharp, dimensional images; sharpness, noise, colour and luminance are all adjustable, alongside six picture modes, and the remote allows 10-second skip-back and 60-second skip-forward jumps. Supported audio runs from WAV, FLAC, MP3, AAC and WMA up to high-resolution DSD files at up to 2.8 MHz. Whichever tuner is fitted, the combination of recording, burning, strong disc playback and thorough multimedia extras makes this Panasonic pair the standout all-rounder of the field.
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Also considered — Panasonic DMP-BDT384 and Sony BDP-S6700
Two plain players, without recorder, tuner or burner, stood out enough to be named alongside the winner, sitting below it mainly on price rather than on ability.
The Panasonic DMP-BDT384 carries over its stablemate's well-worked control concept, a wide range of apps and a picture that convinces, minus the hard disc, tuner and burner - it cannot match the winner for breadth of function, but is priced well below it. Two USB sockets take photos, music and video, it works as a DLNA client and renderer, Netflix has its own remote button, Miracast mirroring works without trouble, and format support runs from AAC and AVCHD to Xvid, WAV and WMA. Search Amazon UK · Search Amazon US
The Sony BDP-S6700 is a solid, straightforward player with a good app range, network features and Bluetooth, turning in sharp, punchy pictures from a compact case with an accessible front USB port. Its apps - YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, Netzkino, Opera TV, Rakuten TV and a news app - run reliably, if a touch slower to start than some rivals; beyond Blu-ray, DVD, CD and SACD, file support spans DSD, FLAC, AAC, ALAC, WAV, MP3, Xvid, WMV, AVCHD, MPEG2 and MPEG4. It upscales to 4K at 24p, motion is smooth and colours read naturally, and the remote can overlay playback information - resolution, frame rate, chapter, time and bitrate - on screen. Search Amazon UK · Search Amazon US
Also tested
Panasonic DMP-BDT167 - an inexpensive, reliable disc player with colour-accurate, sharp Blu-ray pictures and attractive DVD-to-HD upscaling, let down by Ethernet-only networking, no digital audio output and no display. Search Amazon UK · Search Amazon US
Panasonic DMP-BDT184 - closely related to the BDT167 in a slightly larger case, adding UHD upscaling for both DVDs and Blu-rays and access to network drives, while sharing its sibling's lack of separate audio outputs and Wi-Fi. Search Amazon UK · Search Amazon US
Sony BDP-S3700 - the smaller sibling of the BDP-S6700, nearly identical but upscaling only to HD rather than 4K, and dropping Bluetooth and SACD support along with 2D-to-3D scaling. Search Amazon UK · Search Amazon US
Sony BDP-S1700 - a compact, inexpensive DVD and Blu-ray player with good picture quality but a thin equipment list: no display, no Wi-Fi and no UHD upscaling, topping out at 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. Search Amazon UK · Search Amazon US
How they were assessed
Picture and sound quality were judged on three Blu-ray discs, including one chosen for fast-moving action sequences, played on a 65-inch UHD television, with particular attention to how well each player upscaled the image; app range, multimedia features and everyday operation were assessed alongside.
Verdict
Decide first whether recording matters. For catching cable or satellite broadcasts onto a hard disc and burning them to disc afterwards, the Panasonic DMR-BCT760 (cable tuner) or DMR-BST760 (satellite tuner) is the one to look at: a recorder, burner, Blu-ray player and multimedia hub in a single case, let down only by a companion app that would not sign in during testing. If disc playback alone is needed, the Panasonic DMP-BDT384 carries over the same handling and a similarly wide app range without the recorder or tuner, the Sony BDP-S6700 is a capable, Bluetooth-equipped alternative, and the simpler DMP-BDT167 and DMP-BDT184 cover the budget end of the same range.
For the screens and speakers these will sit alongside, see our 4K TV guide, OLED TV guide and soundbar guide.
