PS5’s Blu-Ray Player Better Than Xbox Series X In 4K Video Comparison

The PlayStation 5 scores a point against the Xbox Series X this week, as an in-depth comparison on of each system’s Blu-ray player revealed that the PS5 has better, smoother 4K playback than its competitor. The differences are not as noticeable when the consoles play Blu-ray discs at normal speed, but there’s no denying the discrepancies when contrasting the frame-by-frame playback.

The PS5 and Xbox Series X have remained in competition with each other since their launches in November. In terms of launch day sales, the PS5 outsold the Series X/S by nearly double, giving the Sony console an big head-start. When it comes down to performance, power, and specs, the competition is much closer. Both consoles are capable of 8K resolutions and 120fps gameplay, each have 16 GB RAM, and they each have 4K UHD Blu-ray players. The Series X is just a bit more powerful with a 12-teraflop GPU, while the PS5 has a 10.3-teraflop GPU. The Series X also has a larger 1TB SSD, but it has slower processing than the PS5’s 825GB SSD. In short, choosing between the PS5 and Xbox Series X mostly comes down to personal preference.

However, for dedicated videophiles, PS5 seems to be the way to go. YouTube channel HDTVTest ran several comparison tests on the two consoles’ Blu-ray players and a copy of the 1997 film The Fifth Element. First, the consoles’ display colors were tested,  and the PS5 was found to have a higher chroma bandwidth, as the chroma channels “rolled off” on the Xbox Series X. Additionally, the PS5 renders gradations better than the Xbox Series X, and the console outputs 12-bit YCBCR444 in comparison to the Series X’s 10-bit RGB. In other words, the Series X colors consistently appeared darker.

HDTVTest also checked the PS5’s and Xbox Series X’s playback quality. While 4K playback was not perfect on either console, the Series X skips a few frames before resuming normal playback when fast-forwarding and rewinding. The Series X also had a noticeable “stutter” in its frames every 45 seconds or so, which caused the Series X to skip frames and jump ahead of the PS5 when playing The Fifth Element. Considering how close the consoles otherwise technically are in terms of Foxconn-produced hardware, it’s nothing short of astonishing to see that the Sony console’s Blu-ray players is of measurably higher quality than Microsoft’s.

As previously mentioned, the differences between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X’s Blu-ray players probably will not matter much to the average console owner, but the skipped frames may prove to be annoying to eagle-eyed tech buffs. Of course, by the time the next generation of consoles come around, Blu-ray may not even matter. The Xbox Series X and standard PS5 may be the last disc consoles, depending on sales of the digital-only PS5 and Xbox Series S.

Source: HDTVTest

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Elise Nelson
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Elise is freelance writer with a love of indie mystery and horror video games and all things Mario. When she’s not spending hours typing away on her laptop, she enjoys practicing her ukulele, petting all the dogs, and redesigning her Animal Crossing island for the 800th time.

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