Panasonic's 2019 4K Blu-ray players offer HDR10+ and Dolby Vision

Panasonic has launched two new Blu-ray players at CES 2019, the DP-UB150 and the DP-UB450, offering upgraded specs and promises of better performance.

Both new 4K Blu-ray players support the latest version of HDR (high dynamic range) picture technology, HDR10+. This latest spec uses dynamic metadata, allowing the brightness to be adjusted on a frame-by-frame basis, rather than set for the whole film or TV show. The result, in theory, is subtler gradients and more detail.

The more expensive UB450 player also supports Dolby Vision, another version of HDR, ensuring you can get the very best out of Dolby Vision content.

Both the UB150 and UB450 can also passthrough Dolby Atmos, ensuring you can get the latest, room-filling Dolby sound provided you have a system that can decode it and a suitably accomplished sound system.

Panasonic's 2019 Blu-ray players can play 4K, HD and 3D Blu-rays, deliver 4K videos and images from a camcorder or camera, and playback high-resolution audio. DSD, FLAC, WAV and AIFF files are supported, as well as lower-resolution MP3 and AAC tracks.

Twin HDMI outputs are on board again this year, ideal if you want to separate your audio and video channels. There's a digital coaxial output, too.

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CES 2019 news and highlights

Joe is the Content Director for What Hi-Fi? and Future’s Product Testing, having previously been the Global Editor-in-Chief of What Hi-Fi?. He has worked on What Hi-Fi? across the print magazine and website for almost 20 years, writing news, reviews and features on everything from turntables to TVs, headphones to hi-fi separates. He has covered product launch events across the world, from Apple to Technics, Sony and Samsung; reported from CES, the Bristol Show, and Munich High End for many years; and written for sites such as the BBC, Stuff and The Guardian. In his spare time, he enjoys expanding his vinyl collection and cycling (not at the same time).