As the new High Definition DVD Players slowly start to appear what factors should a potential buyer consider?
Price
All theses decks are First Generation in the UK and as such are mainly being bought by the early adopters. Current prices seem a bit high, particularly for Blu-ray. Prices should fall this year as the market fills with new players. If you decide on the HD-DVD format the Toshiba HD E1 is a bargain. Still want a 1080P HD-DVD player? then wait for the newer Toshiba EP10 due for release in the coming months offering full 1080P playback. Blu-ray competitors in the budget player department are also due soon from Panasonic and Sony.
Format, Blu-ray or HD-DVD?
The jury's still out on which of the two competing formats will win the day. Both formats can deliver great pictures, but they are incompatible with each other. Our feeling is that other dual-format machines will appear later this year and make format choice a non-issue.
Some manufacturers are probably considering dual-format decks now, but to acknowledge this would undermine the launch of their own format. Current UK availability of HD movies is another issue. HD-DVD Movies seem to have a slight advantage at the moment, with only a small selection of Blu-ray discs on release in the UK. However this situation is changing fast. Check the Discs page for full listings of HD-DVD and Blu-ray Movies.
Functionality
User friendliness should be one of the more important issues in deciding which machine to buy. A well designed operating system can make the difference between pleasure
and pain. Slower operation than with standard DVD players, (such as disk load times), seems to have been an issue with some of these first players.
Quality
We will not recommend individual machines until UK versions have become available for review, but all these machines are going to deliver superb picture quality with only minor differences in performance. 1080p is the highest quality output from most players. However the 1920x1080p screens needed to get the best from this resolution are still quite expensive. Although very welcome, 1080p offers only a relatively small improvement in quality over 1080i on small to mid size screens, with most viewers seeing little difference.
Conclusion
At HDVR we welcome the new arrivals on the Home Entertainment front, but it's still early days yet, so take care otherwise you may end up on the wrong side of the Blu-ray / HD-DVD divide.
HDVR.CO.UK - Listing all available and upcoming UK High Definition DVD Players - Blu-ray & HD-DVD - © Copyright 2007 HDVR. All rights reserved. All trademarks acknowledged. Product photos copyright of the respective manufacturers
LG unveils the World's first dual-format player
LG Electronics put on display the worlds first Blu-ray and HD-DVD capable player, the BH100 at CES 2007 in Las Vegas. It offers 1080P output through HDMI and upconversion of standard definition DVD to 1080i. More
