Walk into any electronic shop across the Island & you will notice number of deals going on on Blu-ray players. A good brand player will cost about $150 -$160, which is a decent price for now. But the question is, is it worth buying a player unlike a dvd player which had become to be more of necessity?
Some of the questions one should ask before spending money are:-
1. Do I have a high definition television? Blu-ray disc record movie a 1920 X 1080 resolution and to get this quality you need to have a 1080p television. Not just a HD ready which have highest resolution of 1280 X 720 pixels. I know many people have ended up buying HD ready TV thinking they are getting the best bargain. But reality is they now have a flat panel TV and have upgraded themselves from 720 x 576 which is standard definition tv. Until & unless your tv is 1080p you will be watching downgraded picture. The high definition satellite decoders not necessarily have 1080p output, actually they are 1080i. Google to find the difference.
2. Do I have a good surround sound audio receiver? Good quality sound is 50% of the movie enjoyment. Try watching a horror movie with sound on mute, I bet that you will never feel scared as when you watch it on a 7.1, 6.1 or a 5.1 surround sound. As Blu-ray disc have high data carrying capacity, unlike DVD which has maximum of 4.7 GB, audio is recorded in lossless format. Normally, audio output is in two different format Dolby Digital & DTS. It is upon the viewers discretion which one to use. If you are going to plug you blu-ray player directly to TV then your movie watching experience is will be that less as the TV sound can never match those of dedicated receiver connected to perfectly synced speakers & bass.
3. Are blu-ray disc easily available? In Bahrain, I have hardly come across any blu-ray rental shop unlike DVD which you can buy for half a dinar. This may be due higher cost of blank blu-ray disc & recording hardware. There was a time when even DVD were not easily available but today its everywhere. No more will you be able to find video CD, VHS tapes are as extinct as the dinosaurs. Purchasing online is not a real answer to the solution.
If you are fine with the above and still want to get the player there is still a matter on increasing internet bandwidth & speed. Having a very good internet connection which runs on anything more than 4Mbps can actually work wonders by pulling stuff off the net using Apple TV or Google TV. Its cheap to rent a high definition movie or shows from here & best part is its is legal.
For those who are more internet savy can actually invest in high capacity (2 TB) external hard disk or HDD Media player would be worthwhile. The players have all types of connection from HDMI to composite, component, SPDIF (fibre optic), RJ45 (lan connection), USB etc. Get all your media online using torrents & play directly on media player or your computer.
Conducting a thorough research online as well as in local market actually saves you from purchasing low end products and wasting your money.
