Anne

Okay I have a question. Always being the last in on anything (hey, I'm slow), I've noticed that alot of dvds are coming out in Blu Ray and some are HD. I have a HD television but not dvd player. Also, I've noticed the Blu Ray dvds have more "special features" (i.e. interviews, etc) than the regular versions.

So my questions are this:

Can you play a Blu Ray dvd on a regular dvd player? What makes Blu Ray so special? Is there a special Blul Ray dvd player?

Also, can you play a HD dvd on a regular dvd player?

And can you play a regular dvd on a HD dvd player or Blu Ray dvd player (in case I buy one)?

I know this is alot, but I wanted to find out from the "experts". I appreciate the help.

Anne

pinata242

Both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are new technologies and cannot be played on your existing DVD player.

You'll need new players for Blu-Ray and/or HD-DVD.

They are competing formats and aren't compatible with one another so you'll need a player for each (or a dual-format player that is expensive and crappy).

However, both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players are backwards-compatible with your existing DVD collection so you wouldn't technically need your old DVD player anymore.

Michael Corvin

pinata answered everything so as an owner of both, I'll address this:



What movies are you looking at? Pirates of the Caribbean, and the just released Cars and Ratatouille are the only Blu-ray movies I can think of with 'substantial' features. All of which are Disney titles. Most BD discs are bare bones like 1998 DVDs.

HD-DVDs by comparison usually have something decent in the features department.

bboisvert

I'd also point out that there's an "HD Talk" forum here, where you can read existing threads which will likely answer most of your questions.

The Bus

For what it's worth, the cheapest Blu-Ray player is about $399 (PS3). Blu-Ray will let you watch movies from WB, Disney, Fox, Lionsgate, and Sony.

The cheapest HD DVD player is $99-$199 (depending on model, the A2 or A3). HD DVD will let you watch movies from WB, Universal, Paramount / Dreamworks, and Weinstein.

Right now, if you buy an HD DVD or BD player you will also get 5 free movies by mail, and there's usually sales where you get other movies as well (in the box or at the store).

The main reason you'd want either/both of these is that you get to see your movies in high definition.

RockyMtnBri

I'll chime in with the fact that I have a Blu-Ray player (Sony PS3) and just this past weekend I got a HD DVD player. The good thing is that my PS3 is in one room and the HD DVD player is in another, so both rooms have hi-def DVD sources. If you check my signature links (specifically the DVD Af one) you'll see that I have almost 50 Blu-Ray discs to my 3 HD DVDs. I will be getting Shrek the 3rd on HD DVD as well as any other Universal/Paramount/Dreamworks titles I don't own.

I would have stayed Blu-Ray only if not for two things:

1) The $99 Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player sale that happened last weekend
2) Transformers

If Transformers had come out Blu-Ray I'd have it. It was the "killer app" for me.

BuckNaked2k

You'll read some folks posting that one format or the other has superior PQ or AQ, when in reality, both are virtually indistinguishable from one another on those points.