DVD Player Review

Time to switch to Blu-ray?

Many reviewers have relaxed their coverage of standard DVD players in favor of high-definition Blu-ray players. Blu-ray players have dropped in price, and the technology has matured to the point that experts say the time to make the move might be here. Blu-ray is also backwards-compatible with standard DVDs, meaning a collection of discs won't become obsolete if you decide to upgrade. If you're interested in a high-def player, see our companion report on Blu-ray players.

But DVD players still have their place. For one thing, Blu-ray makes little sense if you don't own (or plan to soon buy) an HDTV. Additionally, even if you do own an HDTV, Blu-ray players are sometimes outperformed by their standard-definition counterparts when it comes to playing regular DVDs. That's especially true if the player is being used to scale the DVD video to HD resolutions.

Among those still reviewing standard-definition DVD players, no one reviews more models or stays more current than Consumer Reports. That said, we do wish that the discussion of individual players were more detailed. CNET does not review nearly as many standard DVD players, but the discussions are far more informative. Two British reviewers -- TrustedReviews.com and What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision -- also cover lots of DVD players. Though there are some minor technical differences between players available in the U.K. and the U.S., the opinions are valid. Other sources -- such as Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity and Ultimate AV magazine -- occasionally subject standard-definition DVD players to rigorous review, but they concentrate more on high-definition and luxury DVD players. Amazon.com and BestBuy.com are good places to read owner-written reviews.

According to the professional reviews we read, most standard DVD players fall into a narrow performance range between very good and excellent. If you have a standard analog TV, reviews tend to agree that an inexpensive basic DVD player should be fine. If you plan to upgrade to HDTV in the coming months, though, you have more choices.

Many current DVD players can scale (upconvert) the relatively low resolution of regular DVD movies (about 720 pixels by 480 pixels) to match the higher resolution of an HDTV. While initially expensive, prices have dropped to around $65 for good upconverting DVD players, while great performers cost a bit more. The very best upconverting DVD players can deliver an image that won't have the fine detail of a high-definition DVD but will otherwise rival it in most ways. However, those DVD players can cost nearly as much as the least expensive Blu-ray players. You'll also find a class of reference-quality DVD and universal players (so called because they can play standard-definition DVDs and virtually all types of audio discs -- but not Blu-ray) that deliver superior performance, but at prices that are so high that the incremental improvement is not worth the cost for most buyers.