Blu-Ray
“New” Panasonic 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray players, what are they then?
31.08.2026 • 12h31
You have asked us many times this summer about the new 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray players highlighted here and there on the web. It is true that, for this back-to-school season, Panasonic is reorganizing its Blu-Ray and 4K Ultra HD player lineup. While the audio-video processing features remain strictly identical, the Japanese manufacturer is removing VOD streaming functions, resulting in a change of naming for most of its players.
At a time when connected televisions (Smart TV) and multimedia boxes (Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, Chromecast...) reign supreme over access to [abc]SVOD[/abc] platforms, maintaining and updating [abc]streaming[/abc] applications on a physical player is logically losing its relevance.
End of streaming, but physical performance retained
Panasonic has clearly understood this and announces an evolution of its player range. The only technological change made to these new series lies in the outright removal of video-on-demand ([abc]VOD[/abc]) streaming features.
This technical modification will in no way be detrimental to consumers. Indeed, these applications built into the players had become redundant and were hardly used anymore by Home Cinema owners, who favor the interfaces of their televisions or their operator boxes. Above all, the brand is using this overhaul to send a strong message to film enthusiasts: it continues to firmly believe in the physical media market and plans to keep its players in its catalog. Decoding performance, like that of the famous HCX processor used in the high-end models, remains of course unchanged.
The details of the new model numbers
To formalize this hardware change, the manufacturer is updating the commercial references of its devices (the letters “EF” or “EG” giving way to the endings “AF” or “AG”). Only the entry-level and mid-range 4K Ultra HD players (DP-UB150 and DP-UB450) undergo no change. Here is the list of changes made within the Panasonic range:
- Panasonic [abc]Blu-Ray[/abc] player DMP-BDT167EF replaced by Panasonic DMP-BDT167AF
- Panasonic Blu-Ray player DMP-BDT168EG replaced by Panasonic DMP-BDT168AG
- Panasonic 4K [abc]Ultra HD Blu-Ray[/abc] player DP-UB820EFK replaced by Panasonic DP-UB820AFK
- Panasonic [abc]4K[/abc] Ultra HD Blu-Ray player DP-UB824EGK replaced by Panasonic DP-UB824AGK
- Panasonic 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray player DP-UB9000EG1 replaced by Panasonic DP-UB9000AG1
- Panasonic 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray player DP-UB9004EG1 replaced by Panasonic DP-UB9004AG1
Note: the DP-UB150EF-K and DP-UB450EG-K 4K Ultra HD players remain unchanged