Sony UBP-X700M 4K Ultra Blu-ray Disc Player

Great Little Unit. I have had this item for about 6 months now and I have to say I am reasonably satisfied with the unit. I have seen other reviews that state the unit has issues with playback etc. I have never hooked up the unit to the internet, and only use it to play discs and have never had a problem with it.

Affordable 4K player. This 4K player has crystal clear picture quality and plays regular Blu-ray discs, too. I’ve watched several new 4K movies on it and enjoy seeing the improvement in quality and clarity, especially with the older movies that have had the 4K treatment. It’s easy to use and affordable!

WiFi isn’t working properly, turns on & off thus freezing the picture. This is basically a great machine. I purchased two as gifts. This particular machine has a built-in WiFi which is a great feature when streaming. I am returning it because the WiFi isn’t working properly, turning on & off, thus freezing the picture. Maybe it was damaged in shipping. Thus I decided to return it to Amazon & purchase it locally.

Excellent 4k Blu-Ray for a reasonable price. It works great right out the box (plugged into a Sony STR-DH590). Sound and audio are top notch.First complaint is the user interface is too crowded and counter-intuitive … crowded with Internet streamer tiles and other media options … JUST LET ME GET TO THE DISC MENU AND PLAY THE DISC I INSERTED! Second complaint is remote control is too small and button layout makes no sense. Cannot operate by feel in the dark … must turn on light and STUDY the button labels to get to what you need.

EXCELENTE TECNOLOGIA. RECOMIENDO ESTE MODELO. SOLO HUBIERA DESEADO QUE FUERA MULTIREGION EN SU CODIGO “ALL”

Set up was easy and the picture quality is great (though no better than 4K disc players from Panasonic and LG).
The Home Screen is not ideal. It’s covered with streaming apps (that will never be used as I have a seperate streaming device) and one needs to click through all of them to get to the settings menu that one WILL need to access often if you are using this player with a Sonos soundbar.
Because of Sonos’ unfortunate and weird relationship with DTS, most of my blu-ray discs’ audio will not be heard if the normal audio setting of “Auto” (aka bitstream) is used. The Sonos S2 app will read “unsupported format” for DTS encoded audio. Since most blu-ray discs are DTS audio encoded, one needs to also turn on the “BD Secondary Audio” audio setting. This will provide audio from the blu-ray disc to the Sonos soundbar but NOT in its original encoding channel format.
For example, the “Birdman” (2014) blu-ray disc is encoded with DTS 5.1. However, when “BD Secondary Audio” is “on”, the soundbar only receives “Stereo PCM” (2.0 channels) from this Sony x700m player. Also, with this audio setting “on”, Dolby Atmos audio encoded discs (i.e. “Dune” 2021) are only output as “Stereo PCM”, or 2.0 channels.
Dolby Digital 5.1 audio encoding is output as Dolby Digital 5.1 with the “BD Secondary Audio” set to “on” or “off”.
There is a third audio setting option which is to set all discs’ audio to output “PCM” instead of “Auto” (bitstream) and then all discs (dvd or blu-ray) with any number of audio channels are all output as “Stereo PCM”.
This was all confirmed first by reading the Sonos S2 app “now playing” screen as well as going to the Sonos S2 app’s “About My System” screen and reading from there what type of audio the soundbar is currently receiving (i.e. Atmos, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 2.0, etc).
One can also hear a BIG difference when a DTS or Atmos discs’ channels are all compressed into just stereo. Everything is compressed, “wooly” sounding and far less clear than when output as 5.1, 5.1.2 or however the original audio mixer had intended it to sound.
Non UHD 4K Sony blu-ray disc players handle DTS disc audio a bit differently and also better than this 4k UHD Blu-ray Disc player does.
Of course this ENTIRE audio settings stupidity and the need to constantly change the disc player’s audio settings would NOT be a problem if Sonos simply decoded all DTS audio formats like ALL of the rest of the soundbars and AVR receivers I’ve used in the past do (soundbars from Polk, Yamaha, Samsung, LG, etc. and AVRs from Denon, Yamaha, Marantz, Onkyo, etc).
This is all Sonos’ doing and they could correct it at anytime, but until they do, this UHD disc player will not meet my current needs. Bummer.

The new Sony UBP-X700M 4K Ultra HD Home Theater Streaming Blu-Ray DVD Player was easy to set up and use, especially with utilizing the accompanying remote control. The Blue-Ray DVD picture displayed on my 60-inch 4K wall-mounted TV is brilliant and outstanding for the money spent.

The parcel came in good condition, glad that it did.Took me a while to set up, as I forgot it uses a 2 pin power plug, so I have to get a adapter to fit it.Plays the Blu Ray Disk really well, the visual is a lot more contrasting with the right settings and with crisp audio.It’s basically a blu ray player for region A blu ray and region 1 DVD for those who are curious.Overall its a good purchase, I mainly needed it to play blu ray disks, and I have been using it to play media stored on my external hard drive as well.

Do Not Buy – Read This Before You Decide. 3 things:1 – The UBP- X700M 4K units is garbage and don’t last very long without an issue. Mine started immediately in June 2021 with audio sounding like a scratchy vinyl record, but when reversing the disc about a minute and re-playing, it may go away, it may not. Also had some video freeze ups that when played on other units, not a problem – usually with 4K discs but audio issues also with regular blu-ray discs now and then.2 – Amazon replaced the first with a second unit in July. That one lasted about 3 months before the same issues began. Amazon replaced the second unit with a third one in December. The third unit played an area of a disc where the second unit couldn’t, but 10 or 11 days later, the third one started with the same issues. After contacting Amazon, Amazon is willing to take the third unit back and allowing me to call it quits with Sony.3 – When dealing with Sony directly as each of these units have a manufacturers warranty for one year, it quickly became ridiculous, including by what Sony techs wanted me to do in trouble-shooting with the settings. I worked in broadcast master control and engineering since the 70’s and I know a lot about electronics. Sony tech people are either clueless or they play people like they’re idiots.What in Hell a setting change in the video display section: changing Auto One to Auto Two has to do with the optical reader malfunctioning is beyond me.Sony has become as bad as Samsung, and that’s not saying much.But the story of the Samsung 2020 Series 7 and Series 8 TV’s is for another review under Samsung.In closing, Sony has become garbage and Sony tech support is ridiculous, making me change settings that have nothing to do with the optical reader problems and Sony just wanted me to play around with a unit after these ridiculous setting changes, try to contact them again for more setting changes, repeat, repeat, repeat.You’ve been warned, but if you still have courage, make sure you get an extended warranty – and make sure your extended warranty is refunded back to you when you end up going through what I went through.When it comes to real customer service, Amazon has to be the top rated retailer as well.I’ve dealt with many big box retailers, and no one compares to Amazon – and no, I am not paid to say that.I mean it !!