Blu-ray Player Review

Blu-ray players come of age

While there are many good places to find reviews of Blu-ray players, CNET is among the most up-to-date and comprehensive. The site's reports don't have as much detail as video-enthusiast magazines or websites, but because CNET tests more Blu-ray players than most others, it has good scope. ConsumerReports.org reviews  more Blu-ray players. However, while testing is competent, discussion about individual players is brief.

Other reviewers don't cover as many Blu-ray Disc players, but they do offer reports that are comprehensive and detailed. These include Home Theater magazine, BigPictureBigSound.com, PCMag.com, Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity and more. Finally, Amazon.com, AVSForum.com and BestBuy.com are great destinations for feedback from owners.

Blu-ray Disc players need to be hooked up to a compatible HDTV to see the full benefit of their increased resolution. If you don't own or plan to buy an HDTV, see our report on standard-definition DVD players.

Reviewers tell us that many current Blu-ray Disc players are more capable and easier to use than their predecessors, though some players are a little sluggish at startup. Most are also quick and responsive when it comes to playing movies and navigating disc menus. Blu-ray players can also play standard-definition DVDs, which means your existing DVD collection will be playable if you choose to upgrade to a Blu-ray player, and many do at least as good a job of scaling DVDs to HDTV resolutions than typical DVD players. Prices for Blu-ray players have significantly declined in 2011, and they promise to continue to fall.

While Blu-ray Disc players priced at $150 or below are now commonplace, and sub $100 and even sub $50 players have entered the market, you'll also find lots of players commanding prices that exceed $200 -- sometimes by hundreds of dollars. While some players command their premium by producing picture and sound quality that's technically excellent, in many cases features are what set these players apart.

Experts largely agree that when it comes to Blu-ray Discs recorded at 1080p resolution (the majority), even budget players often perform like champs -- or at least close enough that all but the most eagle-eyed videophile will be hard-pressed to find very many faults. Performance with other discs can vary more. For example, while every Blu-ray Disc player can also play back DVDs, those with better signal processing technology do a superior job of upscaling those discs -- to the point where DVDs can look almost as good as Blu-ray Discs, albeit minus some of the fine details.

Manufacturers are also stuffing all sorts of goodies into their higher range Blu-ray players to encourage buyers to trade up. One of the big features is Internet streaming -- the ability to access the Internet to view all sorts of added content, such as movies and music from partners such as Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Pandora, Slacker, YouTube and others. Some players can also fetch and display content (videos, music files, photos, etc.) from a connected personal computer.

Another big feature is support for 3D Blu-ray Discs. Last year, that feature was found only in top-end Blu-ray players. Now, it's common, and only budget players lack 3D capabilities. For owners -- or potential owners -- of a spiffy 3D TVlike the ones profiled in our reports on LCD TVs and plasma TVs, getting a Blu-ray player that can play back 3D discs is a no-brainer. For those who have yet to commit to 3D, having that feature in your Blu-ray player won't hurt picture quality or anything else, but you also won't get any benefit. Without a 3D display, Blu-ray Discs -- including 3D ones -- will simply play back in 2D.