How to pick a Blu-Ray or DVD Player - The Basics

So you have some spare cash around huh?  You want to watch some movies and TV shows that are available on the shelf at every store, but what's right for you?  What do you need in a movie machine?  Well, hopefully this article will help you out.  This article is the first of two, in the next article, I will discuss some features of these players and why they might be important to you.


First off, what kind TV do you have?

• If you have a flat screen TV like an LCD, LED, Plasma, or DLP Projection you almost certainly have an HDTV which would benefit the most from a Blu-Ray player.
  

• On the other hand, if you have a older, plain old standard TV (usually the big, heavy kind with curved screens - aka "CRT"), you won't benefit at all from the Blu-Ray player, so you should save a bunch of money and go with the DVD player.  I haven't seen CRTs on sale in a couple years, so if you purchased a TV recently, chances are you have an HDTV.

• NOTE: some mid-range CRTs are HD capable and would benefit from a Blu-Ray player, but these are pretty rare compared to the other two kinds discussed here.  You can check to see if you have one of the HD CRT TVs by looking at the screen and the depth of the TV.  If the TV is deeper than about 4-6", the screen is flat, and your TV is 32" or less diagonally, then you have one of these rare CRT HDTVs!

So that's the end of the story right?  Not quite...
You may think, that's the end of the basics, but really, you have to consider another factor if you really want to save some money, the size of your TV.  Say you have a 32" LCD HDTV - that's a beautiful, nice flat screen TV you have there.  You should get a Blu-Ray player right?  WRONG.  I would say this depends on personal preference mostly, but on a 32" (or smaller) HDTV, you probably won't notice the difference between a DVD and Blu-Ray player hooked up to it.  In this case, you may still want to get a Blu-Ray player for some of the more advanced capabilities; however, purely from a picture quality standpoint, the two kinds of players will be pretty much the same.


Okay, so is this the end of the story?
Yes and no.  Despite all the points in this article, you will want to check out the "How to pick a Blu-Ray or DVD Player - The Features" article that will be posted in the same category soon.  Why?  Well, because electronics are a big market of supply and demand, you may find that you get a lot more features in a Blu-Ray player, and you will be paying about the same as a fancy DVD player (even less sometimes). 

So the point is:   it is important to go out there and compare features and prices for yourself and pick out the best player for YOUR situation.

Thanks and catch you again next time!