HD DVD Buying Guide

  

Also in this section: Introduction | Buying your HD DVD | Hi Def Hardware | Q & A

What do I need to consider before buying a High definition DVD?

 

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 the new 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 algorithums 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.

The next section contains a quick guide to current Blu-ray hardware options.

> Next: See Hi Def Hardware