Are you looking for an upgrade to make to your home theater? If you're still using a DVD player, then now may be the right time for you to upgrade to Blu-ray, especially because Blu-ray players are now more affordable than ever. This Blu-ray buying guide will help you determine how to buy a Blu-ray player that will fit nicely into your existing home entertainment setup.
When your home theater includes a Blu-ray player and movies on Blu-ray disc, you'll get the following advantages over DVDs:
1080p picture resolution: Any movie buff with a high-definition television will want a Blu-ray player to be able to get the incredible picture quality that an HDTV is capable of. Blu-ray players can send your high-definition TV a picture with resolution as high as 1920 by 1080 with a progressive scan output as well as a handful of resolutions lower than this. DVD players, by comparison, generally only support up to 480p resolution. If you've ever watched high-definition TV, then you know the difference that added resolution makes: the colors are brighter, and the picture is vivid and crystal clear.
A variety of audio tracks: You can expect any Blu-ray disc and Blu-ray player to support Dolby Digital and DTS audio tracks, for use with audio receivers with decoders for these formats, as well as linear PCM audio tracks for use with a multi-channel connection. If you plan to just use a basic stereo connection to your TV, you can expect nearly any Blu-ray player to have the connection for this; the audio track for this connection is generally just a down-mix of one of the other audio tracks. Blu-ray players and discs may also support other high-resolution or lossless audio formats, although support for these formats varies from player to player and from disc to disc.
Greater storage capacity on the discs: While the largest DVDs generally held about 15GB, Blu-ray discs hold almost 50GB -- with even larger formats in the works. That extra capacity means that Blu-ray discs can hold high-quality video, higher quality audio tracks (and more of them) and more of the extras that you've come to expect from DVDs, like bonus scenes and director commentary.
Backwards compatibility with DVDs: While it takes a Blu-ray disc to fully realize the potential of your Blu-ray player and high-definition TV, you don't have to worry about your DVD collection falling by the wayside -- nearly all Blu-ray players will play DVDs, too.
A basic Blu-ray setup is fairly simple. It just takes the following:
A Blu-ray disc player: Once you get a Blu-ray player, you're almost all the way there.
Blu-ray discs: Even though your Blu-ray player will be able to play your existing DVDs, you won't get the full quality of Blu-ray until you use a Blu-ray disc. The large capacity of the optical Blu-ray discs is what lets them store the extra data that is needed for that Blu-ray quality.
Your existing television: Even if you don't have a high-definition TV yet, you can still use a Blu-ray player -- but it won't have the video quality that Blu-ray is capable of showing on a high-definition television. The quality will generally be about as good as a DVD player with progressive scan, depending on what kind of video connection your TV has.
An optional home theater receiver: Blu-ray players have a variety of audio outputs, from basic stereo outputs that can plug direction into your television to optical audio outputs that send 7.1 Dolby Digital or DTS signals to your receiver. So, while a home theater receiver is not necessary, it's how you'll get the best possible sound from Blu-ray.
Ideally, you'll want to use the highest-quality connection possible from your Blu-ray player to your television. If you have a high-definition TV, this means HDMI.
Note: Your high-definition TV may have either an HDMI connection or a DVI input. Either connection can get you 1080p resolution -- the only significant difference is that, if you use an HDMI input, you won't need to use a separate cable for the audio signal. You can expect your Blu-ray player to have an HDMI connection on it, so make sure to get either an HDMI-to-HDMI or HDMI-to-DVI cable, depending on which connector your high-definition TV has.
If you don't have a high-definition TV, then you'll still want to use the best possible connection. If you're not sure which connection to use, then be sure to use the highest connection type on this list that your TV supports:
HDMI or DVI: These are the only connection types that will get you 1080p resolution, which will give you the best possibly picture quality from Blu-ray. Unlike a DVI cable, an HDMI cable will also carry the audio signal, making HDMI the simplest way to connect your Blu-ray player to your receiver or HDTV. Generally speaking, you wouldn't use a DVI connection unless HDMI wasn't an option.
Component: Also sometimes called Y/Pb/Pr, this is typically your best option for non-high-definition TVs. You can sometimes use this connection with high-definition TVs (such as if your high-definition TV doesn't have a HDMI or DVI input) to get 1080i or other lower-resolution video signals. With a non-high-definition TV, this will get you 480p resolution (which is what you got from a DVD player with progressive scan, when you used it with component cables).
S-Video or other connections: If HDMI, DVI and component are not options, then S-Video is your next best choice, followed by the basic 'Video Out' connection. These cables will generally just get you 480i resolution (standard-definition TV quality).
Do I have to have a high-definition TV to use a Blu-ray player?
Not at all! Nearly all Blu-ray players have a variety of video outputs -- HDMI, component (also sometimes called Y/Pb/Pr), S-Video, down to the basic Video Out connection. Keep in mind, however, that without a high-definition TV, you won't get the 1080p resolution that Blu-ray is capable of. But if you use a component connection, you can still get video quality as good as any progressive scan DVD player.
What's the difference between progressive scan and interlaced video modes?
Regardless of the resolution of the picture, a video signal will be output as either progressive scan or interlaced. Interlaced video has been used for decades because it can create a good picture using a relatively small bandwidth. An interlaced picture essentially draws every other line of the picture on one refresh period (which is a small fraction of a second), then draws the rest of the lines on the next refresh period. Progressive scan, on the other hand, draws all lines of the picture each refresh period. This gives the picture a cleaner, smoother quality, but it does it at the cost of using more bandwidth. Fortunately, with the large storage capacity of Blu-ray discs and the fast optical technology of Blu-ray, bandwidth is less of an issue than it once was.
Does it make a difference if my high-definition TV is LCD, Plasma, OLED or some other technology?
Regardless of the technology behind your high-definition TV, as long as it has an HDMI or DVI input, then you can connect your Blu-ray player to it and get fantastic 1080p quality.
Do Blu-ray discs have region codes like DVDs do?
They do. Currently there are three regions with Blu-ray, which are roughly divided as follows:
Region A: East Asia (not including Mainland China or Mongolia), Southeast Asia and North and South America
Region B: Africa, Southwest Asia, Europe (except Russia) and Oceania
Region C: Central Asia, Mainland China and Mongolia, South Asia and central Eurasia
Keep in mind that a region-encoded disc will only work in a player of the same region. However, a very large number of Blu-ray discs are being released without a region encoding, which means that you can use them regardless of where you purchased your Blu-ray player.
Do Blu-ray discs suffer from the "rot" conditions that earlier optical discs sometimes demonstrated?
Great strides have been made over the past few decades to develop materials and coatings that protect optical discs from the inevitable decay. Rest assured, your Blu-ray discs are coated to keep any "optical rot" conditions at bay for as long as possible, and your Blu-ray discs should last even longer than your DVDs did.
Wasn't there a competing standard called HD-DVD?
In the early days of Blu-ray, these was another standard called HD-DVD that offered quality similar to Blu-ray but with slightly different technology; as is often the case, a "format war" had to play out before one standard took hold. Nowadays, few (if any) new releases will be available on HD-DVD. Stick with Blu-ray to get the best home theater experience for years to come.
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