LG discontinues all UHD Blu-ray and Blu-ray players

[b_scott]

https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.ph...&id=1733902062

[Torgon]

Well, that sucks. I love my UBK 90 player. I see people complain about disc not playing in theirs and I've never had a problem. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles as some others, but at least it plays all of my UHDs without issue. The only issue is it won't let you FWD or BWD properly with DVDs. Sometimes it freezes up. But UHDs; no problems. I may go buy another for the future on case mine dies, lol.

[Wendell R. Breland]

At one time I owned 3 LG Blu-ray players but they were replaced several years ago by Oppo UDP-203, Sony UBP-X1000 and Sony UBP-X800. Don’t remember any major problems with the LG.

LG Blu-ray 5-¼” disc drives are the pits. ASUS drives are not much better. My Pioneer drives have proven to be very good. Just wish I had purchased more of the Pioneer BDR-211UBK drives when they were available.

[Telemachus]

Don't think anyone still buys their players not a surprise

[ntotoro]

No issues with my UBKM9 after the last firmware update (bought it about three years ago). It even plays unfinished DVD's that my Panny pukes back out LOL! Doesn't have the image quality or upscaling quality of my Panny, but is a solid player.

[CSM101]

My brother had a lot of issues with his LG 4k player. Bad luck maybe? He went with Panny 420.

[Katatonia]

I have an LG 4K player (region free hardware modified) that was given to me as a gift.

The Remote and Menus/Interface on it sure are less than ideal compared to my Sony though.

It's not too surprising they are discontinuing them, but then again it seems like most manufacturers still doing them aren't really releasing any new or updated players these days.

[Cremildo]

Rather concerning. I've only had LG Blu-ray players for the last 15 years, and my only UHD player is LG as well.

[Telemachus]

If there's a fire sale on these models I might have to pounce

[LexInHD]

I am certain that they won't get price-adjusted for clearance, but who knows.

[HDTV1080P]

This is bad news for the Blu-ray format, I wish LG would have waited until January of 2025 to announce all 4K Blu-ray players and 2K Blu-ray players are now out of production (Personally, I prefer Sony and Panasonic players over Samsung and LG. I never bought a Samsung or LG Blu-ray player since they did not have the features I wanted). Both LG and Samsung are South Korean companies and now no more Blu-ray players made or engineered in South Korea. The good news is that so far Sony and Panasonic both make 4K Blu-ray players and Sony still makes 2K Blu-ray players (two Japanese companies). Also for the high-end players we have the Chinese company Magnetar making the UDP900 and UDP800 which has build quality so good that they might last 30+ years.

https://magnetar-audio.com/bluray-player-udp900/



Many times, in this forum I have suggested that Sony stop making 2K Blu-ray players and 4K upscaling players and only make native 4K Blu-ray players. If Sony only made a selection of 2 to 5 different models of native 4K Blu-ray players, it would stop consumer confusion. Since the players would play all optical video discs and connect to any display with a HDMI input with upscaling or downscaling to any resolution between 480i and 2160P.

Streaming is clearly winning the format war. But as long as both Sony and Panasonic continue to make players there is hope. But the rental market for optical discs was lost nationwide when REDBOX and Netflix stopped renting discs. Most consumers rent and purchase movies digitally using streaming now but at lower 4K video bitrates and with lossy audio.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

This is bad news for the Blu-ray format, I wish LG would have waited until January of 2025 to announce all 4K Blu-ray players and 2K Blu-ray players are now out of production

What possible difference would it make for LG to wait three more weeks before issuing this announcement?

[danny24]

When Sony and Panasonic stop making 4K UHD and Blu-ray players feel free to press the panic button. However I think that is where we are headed sadly. Eventually people that want a newer 4K disc player will have to buy a premium one online (example Magnetar, Reavon, etc) or a new or used one second hand. It's inevitable.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by danny24

When Sony and Panasonic stop making 4K UHD and Blu-ray players feel free to press the panic button. However I think that is where we are headed sadly. Eventually people that want a newer 4K disc player will have to buy a premium one online (example Magnetar, Reavon, etc) or a new or used one second hand. It's inevitable.

Might not happen. But before that happens I would like to see both Sony and Panasonic stop making DVD players and 2K Blu-ray players and make 100% 4K Blu-ray players (models low priced, medium priced, and high priced). Getting tired of seeing store shelfs with Sony and Panasonic DVD players and 2K Blu-ray players when 99% of the TV’s sold by Walmart are 4K models. Also, 4K Blu-ray players connect to any display with a HDMI input and also playback DVD discs and 2K Blu-ray discs.

People buying 4K OLED displays from LG are not going to be buying a 480i LG DVD player, they will instead be streaming at 4K with lossy audio.

[Fang Zei]

Originally Posted by Vilya

What possible difference would it make for LG to wait three more weeks before issuing this announcement?

Maybe because it just looks bad going into the holiday season when a lot of people tend to buy discs.

How many people who aren’t physical media types (but maybe know someone who is) will read this news and think to themselves “oh, that random season of tv or movie boxset I was going to get for so and so seemed like a good idea, but if physical media is going to be dead soon anyway then maybe I should spend that money on some other gift idea.”

At least I’m guessing that’s what was meant by the “wish they’d waited three more weeks” comment.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by Vilya

What possible difference would it make for LG to wait three more weeks before issuing this announcement?

In the 20th Century it was common for companies to wait until the first or second week of January to announce negative news about products going out of production. Very odd to do this during the holiday season in December.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

In the 20th Century it was common for companies to wait until the first or second week of January to announce negative news about products going out of production. Very odd to do this during the holiday season in December.

Even if that was true, and I do not know that it is, it still does not make any difference whether LG made this announcement now or next month. The result is the same, regardless.

[ij72]

Originally Posted by LexInHD

I am certain that they won't get price-adjusted for clearance, but who knows.

Best Buy did already, a couple of weeks ago. Think the UBK90 was less than $75.

Saw it when I was debating on a Panny UB9000.

[HDTV1080P]

Originally Posted by b_scott

https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.ph...&id=1733902062

Thanks for the article, however that article has some errors. Sony did release a new 4K Blu-ray player in the year 2019 called the Sony UBP-X800M2.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=316337

Quote

“LG has not launched any new optical disc players since 2018, when it introduced the UBK80 and UBK90 UHD Blu-ray players. This same is true for other major brands such as Panasonic and Sony.”

[Spud_Almighty]

What a bummer. Hopefully this is not a sign of things to come.