Cambridge has taken the covers off its first 4K UHD Blu-ray player, the CXUHD (or, more properly, the CXUHD - although how easy that model name is going to be to correctly reproduce we'll find out).
The CXUHD supports playback of 4K UHD Blu-ray discs and, in addition, HEVC, H.264, VP9 4K and Hi10P video decoding for use with user-generated content from camcorders, smartphones and the like. The CXUHD's pair of USB 3.0 ports, ethernet socket and integrated wi-fi also make playback of networked, hard-drive or stick-stored content simple. HDR is supported, as is Dolby Vision.
On the audio side, the Cambridge features pass-through for Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS:X and Dolby Atmos formats.
There are a pair of HDMI outputs (2.0 and 1.4), plus an HDMI input for connecting Chromecast, Apple TV or similar.
One feature the CXUHD has dispensed with is any DAC circuitry. On the rationale that most AV amplifiers feature digital-to-analogue conversion processing, Cambridge has decided to design out internal DACs and do away with the signal interference they can introduce.
The CXUHD goes on sale next month, priced at £700. We imagine we will have defaulted to calling it CXUHD by then.
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