Answered Xbox vs dedicated player

pjanjua

Can any xbox owners who have a dedicated player offer some views on the actual difference between the dedicated 4k player and the xbox ome s 4k player?

Need another player but dont want to fork out £300  on a new player when i have been offered a free xbox one s as part of my phone upgrade with EE. Am i better off looking for stand alone player and getting a better contract

I have managed to find one review on what-hifi that really goes to town on berating the player capabilities but other reviews that have said its as good as all but the most highly rated players at 2 or 3 times the cost

Been to local currys and was refused, due to "staffing and hassle", to get a demo of the 2 side by side

Any views would be appreciative

RRRuss

The Xbox is decent picture quality wise but I've had a few issues with some discs stuttering and having audio sync issues - noticed it last night on Magnificent 7 which plays without issues on my Sony X800

The controller isn't ideal but you can get the media remote for it for £18 or so

Generally when watching a 4K disc I'll reach for the Sony every time. That said, I do have issues with Netflix on the Sony but don't have the same issues on the Xbox.

Also, some people, myself included, have issues with fan noise on the Xbox. It's ok now it's in a cabinet but previously on an open rack the fan noise was excessive and not something I could live with to watch films tbh.

Sorry that it's not a definitive answer but if yiu want guaranteed big free, quiet 4K playback from a BD then I'd get a dedicated machine. That said, if you get lucky with a quiet One S then quality wise it's the same.

pjanjua

Cheers for the info....I may just get it anyway if its no good i can always sell it on to help towards a dedicated player

Waynej

Value of the Xbox is great, but yes - I too get that annoying stutter, seems to happen once per disc. Not sure if there's some dodgy Xbox's about or if they all have this issue.

That aside, the biggest advantage for a dedicated player would be for a dedicated HDMI audio output, which is something the S, nor the X, looks to be offering. Only really appeals if you don't want to upgrade your sound system to a 4K/HDR compatible one.

pjanjua

Output would be direct to a 4k tv wo no troubles there. It was more so about thw quality of the overall picture and audio output.

Like i said i was a little wary having had no previous experience with Xbox as i have always had Playstations and not being able to actually demo 4k on the xbox one s.

Seems picture quality is nothing to frown upon and as its the back room which doesnt get used as much now i have converted my garage... i was thinking might just go ahead with it anyway.

Cheers for the info though as i was just begrudging spending another £300  on another player that wasnt going to get frequent use

Waynej

Yeah, the Xbox is super appealing for the price  point. Obviously if you're into films more than games then a dedicated player is the best choice. Still, for less than most dedicated players the Xbox One S offers 4K HDR disc playback, HDR gaming and Netflix/Amazon in 4K/HDR - but your TV probably does that anyway. It's just the infrequent video stutter that can be annoying on the 4K discs.

I keep hoping it's something that can be fixed with a firmware update.

Beezy

I was in a similar mind as yourself and ended up buying a one s for £180 off the classifieds here. Have only watched a couple of UHD films on it but the quality to me is great, I did have a stutter or two last night when watching fantastic beasts as others have said. There is some fan noise that comes from it but I just turn up the soundbar so it can't be heard.

I do like gaming as well and having only had a ps4 this generation the option to play the xbox exclusives and have a UHD player both in one was what swayed me over paying more for just a dedicated player. Well worth it in my opinion

Lostsoul 301281

A bit late to this discussion, but I thought I'd give my input after switching from using my X1 to my dedicated blu-ray player.
It wasn't anything to do with picture quality or performance, and more to do with certain features not working on X1, plus having to keep switching out discs between gaming and watching blu-rays.

The feature which wasn't working was discs not continuing from where I left off when watching TV boxsets.
When watching something like Sons of Anarchy, which uses a "season mode" that allows you to pick up from exactly where you left off when stopping, and even allowing a continuous playback between discs(skipping from one episode on disc 1 to the next on disc 2 allows you to skip having to go through menus etc. on disc 2).
Features like this, which work on my dedicated blu-ray player, don't seem to work on Xbox One.

MacReady

I made the switch from using my XBox One S to a Panasonic UB700 for a couple of reasons.

The first, main one, was that every UHD I played would, at least once during playback, seem to stutter for a second or two whilst the sound carried on and then the picture would catch up. It was only for a second as a I say but, after a few movies, it really started to bug me.

The other reason was that, after demoing a UB900, I realised that the upscaling of SD BD's was better than on the XBox...and I still have a lot that I watch.

Ironically, the UB700 got rid of the stutter problem but seems to have an issue of it's where there is a very slight frame jump once or twice during watching

Misguided

Hi, I use an Xbox as a media centre (just the normal one not xbox one s) and noticed some issues with Dolby Atmos. The content played on bluray using bitstream pass through from the bluray player is fine but when using the dolby atmos setting for Netflix I have noticed the signal does not change down from atmos. Basically whatever is played on the xbox or using the pass through feature is shown as atmos regardless of the source material, the xbox is not upscaling the source to atmos it just making my amp think atmos is being played when only the front two channels are being used (in the case of stereo). The problem is as there is an atmos signal being received by my amp it does not try to upscale it to prologic or dts x so I lose out on some sound features my amp can do (Denon 2300). The way round this is to switch the xbox back to outputting 7.1 or 5.1 when atmos is not being used or don't use the passthrough feature.