4K UHD Blu-ray Playback on PC Desktop is officially dead in 2021?

[mande2013]

I was just wondering. Would having PowerDVD 20 and an external UHD drive nullify the need for a set-top box UHD player if I could just connect my laptop to a 4K television and watch discs that way? Besides, PowerDVD is de facto region free since one can reset the number of allowed region code changes for 'regular' blu-ray very easily. I'd need to spend about 350 bucks for a set-top box UHD player that allows region free 1080p blu-ray playback whereas an external UHD drive along with PowerDVD 20 would altogether cost about 250. For the record, I currently have a mid-2015, 15 inch MacBook Pro retina and would be using PowerDVD 20 via Windows. It doesn't have a native 4K display but is compatible with external 4K displays as far as I'm aware.