Sony announces a Blu-ray player option for customers on a budget-- the UBP-X500, a lower-cost alternative to the likes of the UBP-X800 and UBP-X700 capable of playing 4K UHD Blu-rays as well as regular Blu-rays, DVDs, CDs and Super AudioCDs.
It even has a hidden talent in the shape of built-in intelligent upscaling, allowing it to scale 1080p images to 4K. It can also play media stored on USB stick in a variety of audio or video file formats, including DSD, FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AAC and MP3 on the audio side, and Mpeg 2, Mpeg 4, Xvid and WMV on the video side.
Dolby Atmos passthrough is included for connection with compatible surround systems, as is True HD audio support. Another addition is HDR, if only through the HDR10 format, meaning no Dolby Vision HDR.
Connectivity is as basic as it gets-- x1 HDMI, ethernet and USB, together with wifi.
The UBP-X500 should be available in European markets now.
