Using Video Game Consoles as Blu-ray Players vs. Purchasing a Blu-ray Player

[samadams12pack]

So here's a question that has been on my mind for a while. I plan on eventually getting both the Xbox One and the PS4 for my home theater setup (I want the PS4 while my girlfriend wants the Xbox One) and I've wondered if it is even worth purchasing a Blu-ray player just by itself. I will only be purchasing Blu-ray and DVD titles that are region A and/or region-free and I am a film buff who loves to watch thousands of films. Should I not purchase a Blu-ray player in lieu of just playing my Blu-ray discs on either the Xbox One or PS4 or should I purchase a Blu-ray player by itself?

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by samadams12pack

So here's a question that has been on my mind for a while. I plan on eventually getting both the Xbox One and the PS4 for my home theater setup (I want the PS4 while my girlfriend wants the Xbox One) and I've wondered if it is even worth purchasing a Blu-ray player just by itself. I will only be purchasing Blu-ray and DVD titles that are region A and/or region-free and I am a film buff who loves to watch thousands of films. Should I not purchase a Blu-ray player in lieu of just playing my Blu-ray discs on either the Xbox One or PS4 or should I purchase a Blu-ray player by itself?

If you're not contemplating on upgrading to 4K in the near future, you can use the your game consoles as a blu-ray player. But if you do want 4K, then yes you would want a standalone Blu-ray player.

[Rayjaymay]

The Xbox One S is also a 4K Blu-ray player.

[samadams12pack]

Originally Posted by slimdude

If you're not contemplating on upgrading to 4K in the near future, you can use the your game consoles as a blu-ray player. But if you do want 4K, then yes you would want a standalone Blu-ray player.

Well my TV is a Samsung MU6070 58-inch LED 4K TV, but I have no interest in purchasing a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player to play those discs. Does putting a Blu-ray disc in either a Xbox One or PS4 affect the storage on the console?

[albertbj]

I have no experience with the Xbox One or PS4, but I used my PS3 as my primary Blu-ray player for several years, and it served me just fine. However, I eventually decided to get a stand-alone player because I didn't want to risk wearing out the BD drive in the PS3. So, that may be something to consider. As for storage, when I was using my PS3 to watch Blu-rays, there would sometimes be some data that would get stored on the hard drive, but the amount was usually negligible.

[Chloenator]

Originally Posted by Rayjaymay

The Xbox One S is also a 4K Blu-ray player.

This is true. However, I did buy a standalone 4K player to play my 4K movies on. I wanted to use my Xbox One S for gaming and not wear out the laser playing 4K discs on it as well. I wanna get as much life out of my Xbox One S as possible.

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by samadams12pack

Well my TV is a Samsung MU6070 58-inch LED 4K TV, but I have no interest in purchasing a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player to play those discs.

But don't you want to get the optimum picture quality from your 4KTV that also features HDR and HDR10+? If you don't stream your movies and other 4K content, a 4K Blu-ray player is a must have, with your 4KTV.

Originally Posted by samadams12pack

Does putting a Blu-ray disc in either a Xbox One or PS4 affect the storage on the console?

albertbj has answered this question for you.

[dickdarlington]

Originally Posted by Chloenator

This is true. However, I did buy a standalone 4K player to play my 4K movies on. I wanted to use my Xbox One S for gaming and not wear out the laser playing 4K discs on it as well. I wanna get as much life out of my Xbox One S as possible.

I have both a Xbox One S and a Xbox One X and here’s how many times I’ve used the disc drive on it for gaming: 0.

Even if one didn’t download games digitally, the only time you’re using the drive is when it’s installing the game for the first time. Every time after that it’s just checking to see if the disc is in the drive to make sure you can open up the game. The use of the drive itself is miniscule. The same applies to Sony and the PS4.

This is why there have been rumblings that future consoles will ditch the disc drive because it’s become almost unnecessary. Microsoft adding 4K UHD support to the S and X is what gave them a competitive edge over Sony as the PS4 Pro opted to keep the standard Blu-ray disc drive.

[SixSpeedSamurai]

I use my X for movies and with the exception of one Transformers movie, it's played everything just fine (it was probably doing me a favor really LOL).

I play a lot of games, and I do prefer discs, but I have a good amount of digital from sales and Games of the Month.

[steve_dave]

My PS3 was my trusty Blu-ray for several years until I got the One S.

Now the One S is my primary player and while it does the job it has quirks:

The user interface is limited, you can’t access the color buttons without more button presses than necessary. This makes enjoying some special features difficult.

Audio is limited to either whatever the XBox is set to or if you use HDMI, it’ll send the audio over for the receiver to decode. But optical is limited to whatever the XBox is set to.

The DVD upscaler is horrible compared to my PS3. 1080 to 2160p upscaling is fine.

The controller is too big and sensitive to use for browsing media. You’ll want a remote.

4K discs are limited to HDR10, Dolby Vision is for Netflix only. (for now)