Blu Ray is the latest and now the standard technology for high definition video that over took the HD-DVD technology of high definition movies and players. With the invention of Blu Ray disks comes not only the superb picture quality of high definition, but also a new durability and life span of the disk itself not before seen with DVD disks. Choosing a Blu Ray player will mostly depend on your personal budget as prices range form budget to super expensive.
Basically a Blu-ray setup is fairly simple and straight forward and includes 3 main things with a fourth optional component:
1. Blu-ray Player
What's the difference between progressive scan and interlaced video modes?
There are two types of video outputs, progressive scan and interlaced. Interlaced creates a good picture and uses a small bandwidth by drawing every other line of the picture on one refresh period and 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. Progressive scan delivers a cleaner and smoother picture quality but also uses more bandwidth. But, with Blu Ray Players fast optical bandwidth is much less of an issue than it was with DVD players.
You will need the best cables and connectors as appropriate for your television, learn more at Blu Ray Cables and Connections Guide
2. Blu-ray DVD Movies
All though Blu-ray DVD players can play the traditional DVd format, the best high definition experience comes from watching Blu Ray format movie disks. 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.
Blu-ray Disks:
Blu Ray movie disks have region codes same as DVD movies, which means that a region-encoded disc will only work in a player of the same region. But, there are a very large number of Blu-ray movies being released without region encoding and that means that you can use them regardless of where you purchased your Blu-ray player.
3 Regions of Blu Ray:
- 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
Optical Rot and Blu Ray Disks:
Great strides and advances have been made in technology over the decades to develop special coating material to better protect optical discs from the inevitable decay. Blu-ray discs are coated to keep any "optical rot" conditions away as long as possible, and so Blu-ray discs should last much longer than DVDs did.
3. Television
You do not need a high-definition television for Blu-ray player, but overall, the video quality that Blu-ray is capable of showing is optimal on a high-definition television.
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.
Is a high-definition television needed to use a Blu-ray player?
No! 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.
However, the picture quality is much better with a high definition television, because with it you will get the optimal 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.
4. Optional Home Theater Receiver
Blu-ray players come with a variety of optional outputs, including a variety of audio outputs, from basic stereo outputs that can plug directly into the 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 will enable you to get the best possible sound from your Blue Ray player.
Learn more at: Blue Ray DVD Player Features Guide
