Not sure about Investment into 4K :/

[Vilya]

Visit the Panasonic 4K player threads; you will find several examples of people having problems with these players. I am not speculating about what percentage of people are having issues, but not everyone finds the Panasonics to be trouble free.

If I were to buy one, I would get an extended warranty with it and only buy from a retailer that has good customer service.

[ij72]

Yeah, there's plenty of reports in various movie threads of Panasonics having issues, as well. They're UHD players - ergo, they suck (to be fair, they're having to read so much data crammed in such a small area).

Some models may just suck slightly less.

[Telemachus]

All UHD players have issues, it's finding the right model that doesn't give you issues. As someone who owns a Sony and a Panny, Panny is way better for Ultra HD playback.

[DKLou]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

All UHD players have issues, it's finding the right model that doesn't give you issues. As someone who owns a Sony and a Panny, Panny is way better for Ultra HD playback.

This is fair - Ive been lucky and rarely had any issues with my players but none are perfect. What I suggest, if possible, is for people is to deploy a two-player setup in your main viewing area. I have:

1) A Sony BDP1700 strictly for blu-ray/1080p playback.
2) A Panasonic 820 strictly for 4K playback.

This means each player has just one job & cuts down on usage for both. I also have backup players for each format just in case. Not every one can or will do a two-player setup but I like it myself.

[bhampton]

In my own experience the Panasonic players are far more reliable than the Sony UHD BD players with the exception of the PS5 which played and disc that would not play in my Panny. (I ended up replacing the disc which also solved the problem.)

[Necril]

Originally Posted by bhampton

My first UHD BD player (and my second) was a X700 and I had a handful of discs and nothing but trouble. In fact I gave up on UHD BD and decided to start buying DCs and using my ATV4K for everything. Eventually I reconsidered and purchased another X700 but it was only a little better and then I started doing all the online suggestions to try to make this player work like disabling features and adding USB storage and there are a lot of suggested ways to make this particular player work. Sony even tried a few times to "fix" it by offering the X800 and the X800(seriously for real this time M2.)

Have to make a small correction here: X800 was not an attempt to "fix" anything, but was in fact released as a higher quality alternative simultaneously or slightly before Sonys entry level 4k player X700. X800M2 was not a fix either(atleast publicly), but an updated model that included, as a new feature, Dolby Vision support.

But that aside, it's clear that Sonys 4k player line-up has issues: some players work out of the box like a dream (some people I know well have X800M2 models like this, so I don't consider the user ratings just a marketing scam), while some work barely or not at all. I believe some of the issues may be user related (as in people not following the instructions to leave enough space around the player to ensure proper airflow, or are trying to play damaged or greasy discs). But as even the X800M2 may in some cases (my own player included) need an external fan to function reliably, one could say that the X700 in particularly is poorly designed, as it has even worse built in ventilation than the X800, and as such more likely to have overheating issues.