LG - UBK80 - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player - Black

I genuinely appreciate that this LG 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray player has no frills and no gimmicks. It focuses only only playing whatever disc is inserted. There is no WiFi and there are no Smart apps cluttering the menu. Insert a CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, or 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray and it loads and plays quickly. You can also play content from a USB drive (if you so choose). My only minor complaint is that the player is about 17 inches wide - which is too wide for a lot of media cabinets. For me, this means that the player must sit on top of the cabinet. It is slim enough to fit under my HDTV, but then it gets in the way of my soundbar. Make sure you measure your cabinet/shelf before you purchase so that you can plan on where it will sit. NOTE: If you want access to Dolby Vision, WiFi, or apps (such as Netflix) you have the option of spending about $50 more to purchase the LG UBK90. But honestly, so many devices already provide access to Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, etc that most users will probably appreciate the simplicity and lower price of this UBK80. PROS: + Very Simple Menu / User interface: Plays 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray disc quickly & easily. + Loads discs quickly (which is something that is often an issue with Blu-Ray players). + Ability to download updates through the wired internet connection (you do not need to plug in a USB drive) + Backwards compatible: Can play Audio CDs, CD/DVD ROMs, DVD, Blu-Ray discs etc. + Comes with a full function remote that is able to power on your TV's and adjust the input & volume level. + Does support 3D content - Although 3D HDTVs are no longer produced. + Able to play content from a USB drive. CONS: - No WiFi connection - No smart features / apps - 17 inches wide (which does not fit in many media cabinet shelves) - No streaming option for Music. You can only play files from a disk or a USB drive. - Difficult to control without the remote (as the face of the player only has Eject, Play/Pause, Stop, & Power buttons. - Does not support Dolby Vision - Has only 1 HDMI output - Does not come with the required HDMI cable (or with audio or Ethernet cables).

In a time where it feels like every video device on the market is capable of playing Netflix, and other streaming services, LG has chosen to make this 4K UHD BluRay player simply a... 4K UHD BluRay player! This is a no frills, does one thing and only one thing player. It also does this one thing fairly well. Insert a disc, wait a couple seconds, your in the movie's menu. Hit play, watch and enjoy. It is very quick and simple to use. LG has gone with a very clean and simple box layout. Just the essential buttons on the front for play, rewind, eject, stop, fast forward. There is also a USB port for plugging in a USB drive to display videos of photos. I found the internal video player supports most video files. mp4, mkv, mpeg2, avi, it plays them all with ease. It does not however, support PGS subtitles, this is limited to the blu-ray disc drive only. You need SRT files for such playback if you are one to be looking to play these types of files and subtitles. Video quality seems to be on par with the UHD standard. Colors and HDR playback looked great and well presented on my LG C8 OLED. LG has made a huge omission however by not supporting the Dolby Vision standard with this player. Given my TV supports Dolby Vision along with HDR10 (and some others) I am only able to watch HDR10 tracks from my DV bluray discs. This will not worry most people as most discs today are in the HDR10 format and most TVs still do not offer this support. For myself personally, this is a massive oversight and this player will not be staying in my main AV cabinet and will likely make it's way to a secondary bedroom TV. My other gripe with this unit is the power LED. When off, the LED is red. Great, I have no issues with this. However, when powered on, this LED goes green!!! I have an open media cabinet and when watching a movie with all of the lights out, and with the infinite blacks of my OLED, to have a green light illuminating below is ridiculous. They should have omitted the "ON" light and have it completely off. LG did this with their TV, soundbars, etc... why not with this player?? Most people won't care about this either, but to any videpphile and home theater enthusiast, this is a complete deal-breaker. Granted, tape, or a closed cabinet fixes the problem as well, but annoying none-the less. There is an ethernet port on the back for updating firmware. This unit does not have wireless so you need to hard wire to update it, or, download the updated from LGs website, put it on USB drive and plug in a USB drive to the front port. Overall this is a solid, no frills player. It does what it is supposed to do, and does it decently. This is no reference grade, 100% color accurate player, this lacks more advanced features such as Dolby Vision. Lacks wifi capability and has an annoying green LED light that is always on when watching movies. For these reasons I will likely not recommend this to any of my friends as most of them are theater / quality nuts like I am. If you are on a budget, don't aim for reference grade anything, and just want something simple and overall solid, this is a great player for you.

This is a good 4K BD player at it's core, but outside of playing BD's, 3D BD's and UHDBD's, it doesn't offer much more. This comes as a shock, seeing as how most devices today, are equipped as a smart device. When I first opened the box and read the instructions, I was surprised to discover, that this UHD player doesn't have access to the LG App Store.. In fact, this player doesn't have any apps at all. That's not an entirely bad thing though.. While, there are no apps, this player does let you stream media over your local internet. Not only that, but there is also a USB port that lets you play a very wide selection of media files. The LG UBK80 even plays FLAC files for High-Res audio. Another surprise was, this player is not WIFI enabled. It does have an ethernet port for connecting to the internet for software updates and BD live content, but that makes for a nuisance if your player isn't located near a router. After I connected everything and set up the wired network, I decided to take it for a spin. I popped in Wonder Woman UHD Blu-Ray and pressed play..I will say, I was extremely impressed with how fast this player loaded the movie, it loaded almost instantly! The picture quality was very crisp and colorful, everything you'd come to expect from watching a 4K BD. The sound quality was good too, Dolby Atmos really comes to life on a 4K BD. Overall, I would say that I am pretty happy with the LG UBK80 as a stand alone 4KBD player. It's a straight forward 4KBD player, that loads very fast and looks good. Although, if you're looking for an all in one streaming multimedia player, this might not be for you. PROS: Very fast loading times. Good picture quality. Easy to set up and operate. USB port for multiple media playback. FLAC HIGH-RES playback. CONS: No WIFI (Hard wired only) No built in video apps or App Store.

I had to do this review in two stages 1) with a 1080p 3D TV and 2) 4k HDR tv. I think it is great that LG kept the 3D functionality with the 4K setup as it is a really good blu-ray player for 1080p quality. I'm assuming that the market is moving towards limiting the need for DVD, Blu-Ray, and 4K Blu-Ray players as the technologically advances it is backwards compatible. However, 3D died in 2016 (no new tv's have sold with 3D feature)...so thank you for giving me hope or just rubbing it in that is dead? For 3D purposes I used my 7 year old LG 55LW5300 3D TV Full HD, @ 24p frame rate. TV Still works great and was made even better by this new blu-ray player. Watching Avatar 3D definitely noticed a crisper picture and better motion versus the Panasonic 3D player that was rated best at the time and still using today. The LG UBK80 is very basic in its use...disc content only. Your TV is already smart if its a 4K from the past year or so and to have a disc device smart seems a little redundant as there are better options if you are looking for smart capability. The UI is the same as the cheapest LG DVD player you can buy, or the Blu-ray Player that I had 8 years ago. That's not necessarily a bad thing as it's easy to navigate and very simple to get to settings. You can get customize the features to do 24p if the disc and tv support it and a few other settings. It does have a LAN port so the Blu-ray online features can be accessed. Pretty much the only purpose is for the previews. Blu-rays have a neat ability to update previews, so when watching an older movie you can actually watch a new preview for a yet released movie or other ad content relative to the today date. May be able to do a firmware update as well didn't look closely enough. But not necessary as it also has a usb port. Hooking it up to an LG 55U6100 4K HDR TV it had superb picture quality. At this point only been streaming 4K HDR content and I can definitely see a difference in it, no to mention for me lately Netflix sound has been a bit off, and so I am also getting the higher fidelity sound and higher quality picture. I used Hacksaw Ridge for my content and I did have to tweak the settings just a bit on the tv as it was a little too dark for my taste in a couple scenes. A group of men are sitting in a circle in a mortar crater, its at night, and in the distance are burning fires in barrells. The flames while not in focus drawing attention to the men, doesn't bloom around those images. Its hard to see the mens faces, but the whites of their eyes show up and the reflection of light from the sweat and oil on their skin. It is a really dark scene, one used for tests such as these. Now, most of what I spoke about has to do with the TV, but because of reading other reviews about this TV, I know the Blu-Ray player is allowing it to reach its potential. For the price this is a great Blu-Ray Player for both 4K HDR and 1080p/3D viewing. I don't think you can go wrong with this choice. And if its a smart functionality you want then I'd suggest going with a dedicated player, you will get a better experience. As the saying goes, "right tool for the right job." A quick note on size its a bit bigger and thicker than I would have thought it would be this far into having 4K Blu-ray on the market, but it could be a cooling feature for more air movement. I never heard the disc spinning in quite scenes, but my ears may have been buzzing still from the sound of war.

Before I leave my review I want to first address a few things that may help you decide if this unit is right for you. 1.) KNOW WHAT YOU ARE PAYING FOR: If it doesn't say say it in the specs tab then don't assume you're gonna get it. This is a base unit, and if you want a 4k player that does more then you are going to need to spend more. My wife bought this unit for me befor Christmas. I found out and realized she paid $160 after protection and tax. I told her to take it back. This is a base unit and refused to pay that much for it. Then, I was surprised to see, this unit went on sale to $99, so I said NOW we should go get it. $99 is the right price for this unit and should have never cost more than that... EVER!!! I kinda feel bad that people actually bought this for more than that, but $99 is the right price. 2.) OTHER REVIEWS: I saw someone else's review who said without WiFi this unit is of no use... Well... Ummm... Thing is this player does not come with any apps & you can't install any apps so you don't need an internet connection unless you plan to do an update. I hooked this up for the first time; ran an Ethernet cord to the unit; checked for updates; & unplugged it. Worked great for me. "INTERNET IS NOT NEEDED FOR THIS MACHINE." 3.) YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR: You really need to think about what you are asking for in a budget unit. When they fill up low cost players with WiFi & software like streaming apps they DO NOT up the processing power. That is how they remain budget machines. If you buy a budget machine with all the bells and whistles that means the manufacturer crammed a lot of junk into an under powered unit that takes a LOOOOOONG time to do anything. If I got an all in 1 unit with WiFi, Apps, etc. I wouldn't spend any less than $350. I don't want an over packed "Slow-Mobile" that is gonna let me go cook dinner while it loads Netflix. So those are some things to think about before you buy this or any budget machine, and I don't want to see anyone else complain that they bought this machine and "DIDN'T KNOW IT COULDN'T....WHATEVER!!" This machine simply plays Discs from the tray and media from a USB... THAT'S IT!! The Actual Review: This machine does EXACTLY what I wanted. I only needed a 4k player. This unit fit the bill and does a great job at it. Was very happy the first time I hooked it up and played my first 4k movie on it. Great little unit. - The picture quality is FANTASTIC, - Set up is very easy, (Select your language and you're done.) - The interface is straight forward and simple, (If you can't operate this machine the state has a helmet for you.) - Fast machine. (Since they didn't cram a bunch of junk in this machine all the processing power goes to playing the movie. Load times are fast and quality is great.) I have 1 Con. No Dolby Vision, I would like THIS machine with Dolby vision but unfortunately that comes on the next model up. The UBK90 is essentially the same machine as the 80. No added power to the hardware, but it has WiFi, streaming apps, & Dolby Vision. A majority of that extra cost goes toward the royalties to install Dolby Vision on that machine. The rest of the stuff they crammed in there is to make you think you are getting added value when it will only slow the machine down. I'll pass.

The LG - UBK80 4K Ultra HD Hi-Res Audio Blu-Ray Player is a great disc player that delivers superb quality regardless of the media type you are playing. This includes standard DVDs on a 1080p TV but it makes much more sense to purchase this unit if you have a 4K TV and 4K Blu-Ray discs. It should be noted that although this device has an ethernet port, it only seems to be for firmware updates and it does not have WiFi, built-in apps, or any other “smart” features. It is purely a disc playing device which actually makes sense since most 4K TVs already have “smart” features and it would be redundant to have these things built-in to this device. It would have unnecessarily driven up the price so I would say leaving these sorts of features out isn’t really a negative aspect of this product. Disc loading times seem to be about what I expected: it’s not lightning quick but it’s also not unbearably slow. The UI is pretty basic but it gets the job done so it isn’t really a negative and it actually makes the device relatively easy to operate. There is a USB port on the front of the device which can be used to play digital content but the main function of this machine seems to be playing actual physical discs. Since this is the case, it is best suited for those with a large library of discs already or someone who is planning on starting a large library of disc-based media. If this sounds like you, I highly recommend this product and hope you enjoy the sights and sounds as much as I do!

I was looking for a basic bluray player (not necessarily a 4k player) for my bedroom setup. I stream content with my Intel NUC pc connected to my 1080p samsung TV. Just needed something basic to watch DVDs and standard bluray discs. But I needed something with an optical digital audio output to run into my Peachtree powered monitor speakers. After searching every standard bluray player on the shelf, none of them had a digital optical output. This player was the most cost effective unit with the necessary digital optical audio output. Works great for what I needed, even if I didnt need the 4k feature. The price was great at $99.99 also. The only downside is that the device has a fairly large footprint. I was hoping for something more compact.

This player is a base model feature wise. No bells or whistles, No clock or digital display, no apps or video programs for streaming. It comes with a nice remote. So simple Grandma could set it up and use it. It's very slim and compact. It doesn't take up much space which is nice. If you're just looking for functionality to pop in a movie and watch it, this is a great player for you.