Blu-ray

  

Buying Guide

  

Also in this section: Introduction | Buying your Blu-ray | Top Ten Blu-ray Players | Jargon Buster

What should I consider before buying?

With the demise of the HD DVD format, the main buying decision involves choosing which Blu-ray player to buy. It is worth noting that Sony offer an unusual option with their latest PS3 games console which comes with a built-in Blu-ray player.

Remember that you will need an HD Ready TV to gain the benefit of the extra sharpness and clarity a Blu-ray player can provide. See our HDTV guide to get more information.

All Blu-ray players are currently Profile 1.1 or Profile 2.0 (see previous section for details). Profile 2.0, also known as BD Live does provide access to interactive features from the internet, but unless you really must have the latest technology, raw picture performance is the most important aspect of a Blu-ray player.

It is also worth noting that Blu-ray recorders are starting to appear. Panasonic currently offer the DMR-BS750 and DMR-BS850 with storage capacities of 250GB and 500GB respectively.

Panasonic DMR-BS850 Blu-ray recorder

Blu-ray players have the ability to play your current standard DVD collection, and you may have come across the term Upscaling in relation to Blu-ray players.

What is Upscaling?

Your old DVD collection was designed to be viewed on a CRT screen, and as such was encoded at the lower quality 576i resolution. Because your High Definition TV was designed to display material in either 720p, 1080i or 1080p resolution it uses sophisticated 'scaling' technology to take a video source and scale it to fit the screen, or 'upscale'.

Blu-ray player manufacturers have taken the upscaling concept a step further by adding detail to an upscaled source to create sharper more detailed images, enhancing the perceived quality of, for example, your existing standard DVDs.

Of course, sophisticated upscaling algorithms are making an educated guess as to what extra detail should be added. Although the extra detail is essentially 'made up' the results can be surprisingly good, and can give your old DVDs a new lease of life.

Upscaled image

Our selection of Blu-ray Players

The next section contains a top ten list of Blu-ray players which in our opinion offer the best combination of performance and value. If you can, visit your local retailer and compare a few players side by side. You can take some of your old DVD's to compare the upscaling abilities of Blu-ray players you are interested in, any retailer worth their salt will accommodate you.

While most people agree that Blu-ray offers exceptional picture quality, choosing a piece of kit can be a subjective business. We are all different and you may appreciate certain aspects of performance to a lesser or greater degree than us.

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