CBS News
The best Blu-ray players in 2024 make it easy to catch up on your favorite shows
Physical media is far from dead. In fact, it’s a better time than ever to own your favorite TV series and movies, given that they often disappear from streaming services in the blink of an eye. So if you’re someone who collects Blu-ray discs for your home theater setup, you’re going to want to start with a great Blu-ray player first.
A great Blu-ray player can make all the difference when it comes to getting the most out of what you watch. With the advent of 4K and HDR, they’ve evolved to deliver crisp, crystal clear picture and sound quality. So no matter what you buy on Blu-ray, you can enjoy it to the fullest at home with the right player.
But which Blu-ray player should you bring home? Whether you’re a casual viewer or a dedicated film fan, we’ve rounded up some picks.
The best Blu-ray players in 2024
Best Blu-ray player: Panasonic DP-UB820
If you’re looking for the best Blu-ray player for most users, look no further than the Panasonic DMP-UB820. This player has a nice balance of features, performance and value. That makes it the best choice for just about everyone who needs a Blu-ray player.
It has full HDR support for vibrant colors, sharp textures and accurate black tones. Even when you play standard, non-4K Blu-ray or DVD discs, this player’s upscaling ability sharpens and enhances picture quality so it’s almost like seeing your favorites come to life in a new way. It also has Dolby Atmos support so it can fill your room with loud, clear sound.
Aside from connecting it directly to your TV or stereo system, it can use Wi-Fi for video streaming and even has a dedicated HDMI audio output for even higher-quality sound. That means it should mesh well with just about any setup you have going on in your living room with little muss or fuss.
Best premium Blu-ray player: Panasonic DP-UB9000
If you want the absolute best in home entertainment and have an elite home theater setup, the Panasonic DP-UB9000 is the ultimate 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player. Yes, it’s pricey, and that’s because it’s for the most elite cinephile. That’s why everything about it says “luxury” in many ways.
The heavy metal build and premium design make it clear that this player is in a class of its own. It supports all the key HDR formats, including HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, and Dolby Vision. You can also count on it for fantastic audio quality. With high-quality DACs, two-channel and 7.1-channel analogue outputs as well as support for Hi-Res Audio, this player has you covered in terms of audio. To top it all off, the DP-UB9000 comes packed with plenty of smart features.
This level of performance doesn’t come cheap, so you’ll absolutely be paying a pretty penny. But if quality is of the utmost importance to you, this is the Blu-ray player of your dreams.
Best budget Blu-ray player: Sony UBP-X700
Don’t want to spend an entire paycheck on a Blu-ray player? You don’t need to. The Sony UBP-X700 is an affordable player offers an impressive array of features and performance that belies its budget-friendly price point.
Its exceptional picture quality may come as a surprise, given that this player is so afforable. But whether you’re watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster or a classic film, this Blu-ray player can offer a great-looking picture that you can be proud of, even if you’re watching only top-of-the-line 4K releases.
It supports multiple HDR formats, including Dolby Vision and HDR10, ensuring that you can enjoy the widest possible range of 4K content. While it doesn’t support HDR10+, this omission is hardly a dealbreaker considering the player’s affordable price point. Despite not being marketed as a hi-res audio player, the UBP-X700 can even play high-resolution audio files and supports various formats such as WAV and FLAC.
For less than $200, you really can’t do better than this Blu-ray player, so be sure to grab it if you want to have high quality at a low price.
Best Blu-ray player and console combo: PlayStation 5 Slim
If you need to play Blu-ray discs but want a multifunction player to handle it, you can’t go wrong with a PlayStation 5, namely the PS5 Slim, which means you can play movies as well as video games from the same device.
As a 4K Blu-ray player, the PS5 Slim is a great space-saving option for anyone who loves video games, movies and TV. It lets you enjoy your favorite movies and TV shows in high definition, then switch over to the latest and greatest games without having to get up and change the disc out given the PS5 Slim’s spacious hard drive.
You don’t need a remote since you can use the included DualSense controller, and given that there are tons of new games always releasing in tandem with films and TV, you can kill two birds with one stone with this device. Plus, you’ll have more space free, without having to have both gaming console and Blu-ray player.
CBS News
Crime-solving techniques may have solved centuries-old art mystery
Crime-solving techniques applied to a medieval illuminated manuscript in Paris may have solved a centuries-old puzzle – the true identity of a leading Byzantine painter who injected humanity into the rigid sanctity of Orthodox religious art.
A contemporary of Giotto, considered the father of Western painting, the artist conventionally known as Manuel Panselinos was equally influential in a totally different tradition that’s largely overlooked in the West.
But nothing is known of his life, and scholars now believe Panselinos was just a nickname that eventually supplanted the real name of the man for whom it was coined – likely Ioannis Astrapas, from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.
The art of Byzantium, that decorates churches across Greece, Serbia and other Orthodox countries, stands out for the stark formalism of its elongated, glowering saints, quasi-cubist mountains and doe-eyed Madonnas.
Work attributed to Panselinos, from the late 13th and early 14th centuries, is considered the finest produced in an empire that straddled Europe and Asia and endured from the fall of Rome until the capture of the imperial capital Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
Art historians had long suspected that the name – Greek for “full moon” – could have originated as a nickname for some member of the so-called Macedonian School of painting, based in Thessaloniki.
Recent research by a Greek monk and linguistics scholar linked “Panselinos” with Macedonian School painter Astrapas. Now court handwriting expert Christina Sotirakoglou has matched lettering on a manuscript tentatively attributed to Astrapas with characters on a church painting in northern Greece, long seen as Panselinos’ best work.
Father Cosmas Simonopetritis, a former senior administrator in Mount Athos, the semiautonomous monastic community where the Protato church stands, says Sotirakoglou’s and his own research “clearly prove” Panselinos’ real identity.
“Panselinos was a real person, and (the name) was just the nickname by which Ioannis Astrapas became known,” he told The Associated Press.
Constantinos Vafiadis, a professor of Byzantine art in Athens who was not involved in the studies, said he found merit in the nickname theory and Astrapas link, even though it appeared more than one painter had undertaken the Protato project.
“I agree with attributing part of the paintings to Ioannis Astrapas,” he said. “But again there remains much ground for future research into that person, because other Mount Athos monuments from the same period have not yet been sufficiently published.”
“Panselinos” – a role model for generations of painters – and his contemporaries are associated with a renaissance of kinds in Orthodox art that revived forms and techniques inherited from antiquity. Facial expressions acquired a deeper humanity, and greater attention was paid to proportion and depth of field in composition.
Father Cosmas said Astrapas was an “extremely gifted painter … with vast knowledge who harmonically combined the ancient, classical world with Orthodox Byzantine spirituality.”
“And that … makes his work unique worldwide,” he added.
Artists’ signatures were not common at the time, although some survive from members of the Astrapas family. There are none by “Panselinos.”
The trail started with earlier research linking Astrapas with the artist and scholar who wrote and illustrated Marcian Codex GR 516, an early 14th century Greek handwritten text treating subjects from astronomy to music theory. Among the painted illustrations was a full moon.
“For me … that was the main proof,” Father Cosmas said.
With a name found for the hand that produced the manuscript, the next step was to check its style against writing on the Protato painting, traditionally linked with “Panselinos.”
“Mrs. Sotirakoglou, who is a handwriting expert, filled in that blank,” Father Cosmas said.
There was one problem: Women have for more than 1,000 years been banned from entering Mount Athos.
“I was forced to study the Protato paintings based on photographs,” Sotirakoglou, who works as a court consultant on identifying or authenticating handwriting in criminal cases, told the AP.
“(The work) was very difficult, because the writing on the wall paintings is in capital letters, and the painters subdued their personal handwriting to conform” with the traditional format, she said – rather like anonymous letter-writers’ attempts to disguise their true style. “The Marcian codex is written in very small lower-case letters.”
The first clue came from the Greek letter Phi, the English F.
“It’s a Phi that stands out, and is similar” in both the manuscript and the Protato painting, she said. “Matches also followed with other letters, T, with its proportions, which is bigger, covering the other letters and is topped with a curve, the proportions of the K.”
“But when the Phi was revealed, the code of the writing was broken and the job became much easier,” she added.
Father Cosmas said that during his administrative duties on Mount Athos he attended services at the Protato church on a daily basis.
“That’s where my desire was born … to explore the mystery around the name and the identity of Panselinos,” he said, adding that he thinks the artist “has now acquired his true identity.”
CBS News
For millions of Americans, it’s taking months to find a new job as labor market slows
The unemployment rate might be near a historic low, but it’s taking longer for hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans to find new jobs, signaling cracks within a once-hot labor market as employers continue to cope with the impact of higher borrowing costs.
About 40% of the 7 million people who were out of work in October, or roughly 2.84 million people, have been looking for work for more than 15 weeks, an increase of 20% since a year earlier, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than half of those job seekers have been on the hunt for new employment for more than 27 weeks, or about half a year.
A drawn-out job search is increasingly common in the labor market today as companies hold off on hiring, especially in some industries such as tech and professional services, ZipRecruiter chief economist Julia Pollak told CBS MoneyWatch. It’s a far cry from the heady years of 2021 and 2022, when Americans switched jobs at high rates in search of better pay and more fulfilling work, a trend termed “The Great Resignation.”
The job market has since weakened under the strain of the Federal Reserve’s restrictive monetary policy, with the central bank boosting borrowing rates to their highest point in 23 years to combat inflation, Pollak noted. While inflation has rapidly cooled in the past two years and the Fed began cutting rates in September, the burden of higher borrowing costs has caused consumers to pull back on buying cars and homes, impacting key sectors of the economy, Pollak said.
The job market today reflects “low hiring, low firing and low job-switching,” Pollak noted. “It’s this ‘big stay’-type of situation — it’s great if you have a job you like, and it’s not great if you don’t have a job.”
Employers in October hired 12,000 workers, a jobs report that marked the slowest month for hiring since December 2020. As the anemic number reflects, businesses were weighed down by Hurricanes Milton and Helene as well as labor disputes such as the Boeing machinists strike.
Leading up to the November 5 election, a majority of American held a dim view of the strength of the U.S. economy, a factor partly credited with helping President-elect Donald Trump claim victory. While much of voters’ anger was focused on inflation, the job market also played a role in their views, with the unemployment rate inching up from a pandemic low of 3.4%, and with some workers saying their pay hasn’t yet caught up to inflation.
Since the election, though, voters’ views of the economy have improved, especially among Trump supporters, CBS News polling has found.
November’s jobs report
On Friday, the Labor Department will release the November jobs report, with economists forecasting 207,000 new hires last month, according to financial data firm FactSet. The jobless rate is expected to hold steady at 4.1%, near 50-year lows.
“The broader thread in the labor market has been a slow, gradual cooling, and the question is whether after accounting for these quirks if that will still be evident” in Friday’s data, Pollack noted, referring to businesses recovering after the storms and the labor strikes.
Employers cut almost 60,000 jobs last month, an increase of 27% from a year earlier, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The automotive and tech industries had the largest numbers of layoffs last month, the group said.
“The automotive industry is currently experiencing significant challenges, including potential tariffs affecting U.S. automakers with overseas factories, intensifying competition from Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers, and shifts in government subsidies for EVs,” Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a statement.
The job market and interest rate cuts
The slowing labor market helped sway the Federal Reserve’s decision to begin cutting rates in September, which marked the central bank’s first rate cut in four years. The Fed followed with a second rate cut in November, and a majority of economists are forecasting another reduction at the central bank’s December 18 meeting.
According to BNP Parabas analysts, the job market may be in a period of uncertainty partly due to the election.
“In September, an Atlanta Fed/Duke University survey found that 30% of businesses were paring investment plans due to uncertainty about the then-upcoming election,” the analysts wrote in a recent research report, noting that they are predicting another rate cut this month.
They added, “Though we suspect that pre-election uncertainty played a role in restraining hiring of late, this report (due on 6 December) may be too early to reveal a clear unlocking of previously postponed hiring. Uncertainties about tariffs, immigration and fiscal policy remain.”
Even so, some economists are paring their forecasts for the pace of the Fed’s expected rate cuts in 2025, citing President-elect Trump’s plans to impose tariffs, cut taxes and deport millions of illegal immigrants, which could, if enacted, reignite inflation.
CBS News
Professional poker player pleads guilty to massive bettor fraud scheme
Professional poker player Cory Zeidman has pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection with a yearslong sports betting scheme, authorities said Wednesday.
Zeidman, 63, was arrested in connection with the $25 million scheme in 2021. He pled guilty in a federal court in Long Island, New York, the United State’s Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York, said in a news release.
The poker player helped run an organization that placed national radio advertisements to lure bettors in New York and Florida to use their services for sports betting advice, according to court documents. Zeidman and his partners used fake names and high-pressure sales tactics, and falsely led clients to believe the organization had access to non-public information about things like player injuries and “fixed” matches. In reality, the information was fake or based on public information, according to court documents.
The bettors were charged “exorbitant fees” for the information, according to court documents, and told that it allowed them to gamble on college and professional sports with little to no risk. Over more than 16 years, Zeidman and his partners collected $25 million in fees, CBS Sports reported in 2021.
Zeidman pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, as well as forfeiture and restitution of approximately $3.6 million, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.
Zeidman, who lives in Florida, has amassed $690,146 in career earnings as a professional poker player, CBS Sports reported.
Sports betting has surged in recent years, since a 2018 Supreme Court decision opened the door for states to legalize the activity. Since then, 39 states have done so. Americans have spent more than a quarter of a trillion dollars on sports betting, 60 Minutes reported in June.