5 out of 5
Blu-ray Players…
How to Choose
“How to Choose “is our latest blog series at Hifi Gear. We hope to help you make the right decisions when purchasing Hi-Fi and Home Cinema products. There are so many choices of components available, all seemingly containing great reviews, it is often hard to determine whether or not your existing components may mix with the newer additions, or if your brand new set-up is really suited to your needs and ideal requirements. We hope to help you with these blog entries by looking and delving deeper into what every component does, as well as being able to determine a suitable choice for you.
When looking into a Blu-ray player it is vital to remember that this format is much higher quality than that of the DVD. Blu-ray discs can have a mighty 52Gb of capacity, meaning that any content does not have to be reduced in quality on order for it to fit onto the disc. A DVD has to have its content compressed because of the size of the disc’s capacity; a small and unflattering 4.7Gb. This just illustrates how much compression is formulated to fit all the content onto the disc.
Blu-ray became available in 2009. Since then the format has been expanding ever since. Originally available with standard 2D playback, 3D has just become one of the latest additions to the ultra-capable format. When looking into Blu-ray players you might wish to consider if you would want to take advantage of the readily available 3D technology. However, in order to do so fully, a 3D television and 3D interconnecting HDMI cables would be required, in addition to essential 3D viewing glasses. Without the rest of these components, the 3D illusion will not work. A new television, HDMI cables and suitable viewing glasses might just be a little too far an investment if you are mainly just interested in viewing a standard Blu-ray disc.
Blu-ray is also an ideal candidate for listening to high definition audio. A majority of movies available on Blu-ray feature HD audio codecs from both Dolby and DTS. These two codec companies ensure that their surround-sound coding is delivered in the very best quality possible. However, in order to take advantage of surround sound, an AV receiver and surround speaker package is essential. If listening to the audio through a television set, the stereo tracks will only be audible and you won’t experience that atmosphere and the whole enjoyment of the added sound effects contained on the entire movie soundtrack. Also, if you have already built a great DVD collection over previous years, you can avoid upgrading to Blu-ray disc’s counterparts if your chosen player permits up-scaling of DVD discs. This means that your DVD can now be crisper, more defined and have its audio enhanced to a much greater and a much more satisfying level of quality than originally possible.
All blu-ray players are regionally coded, so that Blu-ray discs purchased in USA for example, will not play correctly until the blu-ray player has had it's software modified to multi-region compatible.
If you are adding a Blu-ray player to an existing set-up it is best to consider some main factors to help you choose and ideal candidate. If your current system has a specific brand flowing throughout, it is best to return to this manufacturer for an integral continuation in quality. Every brand has its own unique quality and this can be either diminished or lost if you choose an unsuitable match to your existing system. If you are going to choose an alternative manufacturer, it is best to research through reviews of both professional critics as well as those of everyday users too. In further research, demonstration is also ideal too. We can help by giving advice and demonstrations in our fully equipped demonstration rooms.
Finally, if you are an avid film fanatic you might be interested in a new type of Blu-ray player which allows you to connect to the internet to download extra special features that aren’t available on the release of the Blu-ray disc you might be watching, for instance the Pioneer BDP-LX55 . This means new and unseen material might be viewable from the comfort of your own living room, entitling to more value for money from your collection as well as all important entertainment.
The next article will look at connection of your Blu-ray player to your display device through the fantastic, the sometimes bewildering, HDMI cable.
Hifi Gear Sales Team
