DISQUS

Don Steffy · 12 months ago

Louis, is it important to get a player that supports Blue-ray Profile 2.0 (BD-Live)?

Mona N. · 12 months ago

Hi Don, Yes, it is, since Profile 2.0 enables Internet downloads. Player pricing has gone down, so you can find one with Profile 2.0 around the $250 range. Just to give a quick idea, here are the players from Tiger Direct: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/categor...

Hope that helps!

calebelston · 12 months ago

If you are looking for a solid player we have reviewed many of the top options and feel the Sony BDP-S350 is fantastic. And it also is profile 2.0 compatible with a firmware upgrade via the internet.

http://www.kallow.com/home-entertainment/bluray...

Caleb
Kallow

Mona N. · 12 months ago

Thanks for the info - do you think PiP is a must have feature?

logicalextremes · 12 months ago

I question the "boost" in resolution that a Blu-ray player can give to a traditional DVD. There are only so many bits there (480p) and a player can't create data from nothing. DVDs really do look pretty darn good on a large HDTV, particularly via a digital (HDMI) connection. I'm not aware of anything a Blu-ray player can do to improve traditional DVD output quality that a good modern DVD player can't do. It comes down to which chunk of hardware has the best algorithms, and most consumers have little desire or knowledge to get to that level.

Mona N. · 12 months ago

I am not an engineer, but I would guess it has to do with output and the HD signal. Even if the resolution is 480, if the player continuously (progressively) scans lines of 480, wouldn't the picture be better?

logicalextremes · 12 months ago

480p (progressive) is the best a conventional DVD will do, but older players without a digital output will be sending this to the TV on an analog component (or, worse, composite) connection. This analog connection is generally inferior to an HDMI connection (one factor is that it goes from digital data to analog signal, then gets converted to digital again in the TV). But newer DVD players with an HDMI connection should give comparable performance to a Blu-ray player (with an HDMI connection), with regular DVDs. The settings on the player and the TV can be optimized to take advantage of whichever has better scaling hardware.

Kurt · 11 months ago

There is also a feature called upscaling, which attempts to take a SD source and scales it up to HD resolution. This will result in a better picture than simply blowing the SD image up, as algorithms can help "fill in" the information between the pixels, of course it is nowhere near as good as a true HD source (some people claim that upscaling dvds is just as good as HD but I disagree with them.)

I have a panasonic dvd player that can upscale, as well as a ps3 and they both play dvds quite a bit better than a standard non-upscaling dvd player.

However. HDTVs upscale too. But they cannot do as good a job with an analog SD signal as an upscaling dvd or blu-ray player.

Phil Glockner · 12 months ago

There are a number of ways an upscaling DVD (including Blu-Ray) player can improve the picture quality of a standard DVD. The easiest is simple line-doubling, but this alone would just make everything look a little blockier. However, if you look at another issue with DVDs, called 3 to 2 pulldown, that gives an upscaling DVD player a little more information to work with since alternating frames have different information. Combine that info and you have a higher-res picture.

Of course, most decent LCD and Plasma TVs also do this automatically to an incoming video signal. So a good upscaling DVD player has to have a couple of extra tricks up its sleeve, such as sub-pixel interpolation, edge enhancement, 120hz frame rate compatibility, etc.

Overall, Blu-Ray players will have more of these technologies than your standard upscaling DVD player simply because Blu-Ray itself makes use of more of these technologies than standard DVD.

logicalextremes · 12 months ago

Good additional detail, Phil. I think the takeaway for most consumers is that it's not a simple yes-no answer. The last couple percent of video quality improvement to be extracted from a standard DVD depends on the specific TV, DVD player, and Blu-ray player combinations being considered. But in practice, they will all look about equally great to 90% of the population.

Richard Lawler · 12 months ago

Where does opting for HD downloads = two hour wait? At least via a PS3 or an Xbox 360, you can probably start watching with no hitches within 10-15 minutes, less time than it probably takes to go to the store. and you don't have to put on pants. cable VOD? 0 start time. 1080p vids on a Vudu will cost a few hours, butthat's just one case, if its something off of Netflix, we're only talking about a few seconds.

Mona N. · 12 months ago

User feedback from forums, Richard. Not everyone has FiOS and or fast connection. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=how+long+d... But beyond that, data caps are around the corner. I don't know about you, but there is NO WAY I am paying overage to telecomm companies.

Kurt · 11 months ago

6. Does your son have an HD camcorder and burns his home movies to DVDs in the AVCHD format thus preserving the high definition, and considers downconverting to crappy DVD sacrilege against his creativity?

Answer: If yes, then you will need a Blu-Ray player to watch them. OR a PC with a normal DVD drive and the right software.