HDR, or Dolby Vision? From my research, anything less than the Panasonic UB820 either has missing features, or longevity issues.

Even still, 180 euro is well above the under $40 you can lots of DVD and even Standard Blu Ray

Personally, I grabbed a MakeMKV compatible UHD optical drive from eBay for $150, and just remux my discs to Plex… and then use CoreELEC on the Ugoos AM6B+ to ensure proper Dolby Vision and Lossless Audio support…. but I know that’s not exactly a mainstream option.

Amazon has 3 for $33 sales a couple times a year. I just got Wicked (2024), F1 and Sinners in 4k for $11 each.

When 4K players cost $500 to get something considered “good but not great”… yeah no wonder no ones buying

Early 2000s to mid 2010s movies shot digitally? Sure. Film shot movies, especially on 35mm or larger, absolutely look better in 4k. Especially when they’ve been restored from the negative and converted to HDR for a 4k release.

There’s a lot of older movies out there where the UHD Blu Ray is the definitive version to own, looking significantly better than any prior version (and will likely never look better).