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High definition video player buyers guide

Thomas Bartlett- 10/06/2009 11:31:02

Tags: Blu-ray, high definition, personal video recorders, PVR

High definition content is increasing, and so too is the equipment for delivering it to your TV. We examine the many HD videoplayer options on offer.

Over the last couple of years, the Australian lounge room has gone high definition. You will be hard put, if you go to any of the major electronic retailers, to find an actual standard definition TV, except in the very smallest sizes (ie. 38 cm!)

All real TVs start with at least 1024 by 768 pixels of resolution, and these days full high definition - 1920 by 1080 pixels - is becoming commonplace.

Parts of this article go into this stuff a bit more deeply, but essentially, what's of interest is that these TVs deliver real benefits from the multitude of high definition players that are available. Here, we are going to guide you through what they do, and what you should look for to get the best value and performance.

Four flavours

To get a high definition picture you need a high definition source. This has caused enormous amounts of confusion. Not all digital TV is high definition, but some high definition material can be found on digital TV. Here we'll talk about free-to-air-digital TV, but note that now Pay TV providers are delivering high definition programming. You won't get much choice in players, so talk to your Pay TV provider about that.

TV

For free-to-air, you will need a HDTV receiver to get high definition TV. That receiver may be built into your TV (almost certainly will be, if you've bought it over the last two or three years). Otherwise you may have a separate unit - the proverbial 'set-top box'. This may be a plain ol' vanilla receiver, or a receiver with a hard drive for recording HD televisions.

Most LCD and plasma televisions are equipped with tuners for HDTV reception, with forthcoming models integrating DLNA and Ethernet connectivity for accessing SD and HD video from the web over a home network

Discs

For discs you will need a Blu-ray player. We know, we know, various equipment vendors tell you about how there upscaling 1080p DVD players produce a picture as good as Blu-ray. They are wrong. We have compared dozens of Blu-ray discs to their DVD equivalents, and in every single case the Blu-ray disc has been better. In almost all of them, it has been obviously better.

Why wouldn't it be? A Blu-ray has five times the amount of information in the picture as a DVD. No electronics can re-create that from nothing.

Upscaling DVD players improve picture quality from ordinary DVDs, but cannot generate all the extra detail inherent in video that is natively high definition

Multimedia

Currently the laggard but coming up fast, there is high definition multimedia video. This may be sitting on your computer, or out there somewhere in internet-land. Increasingly, equipment is allowing this to appear on your high definition TV. For the most part, this equipment also does other stuff: primarily, receive HDTV as well. So keep your eye out for these additional multimedia functions when checking out specific products.

Wirelessly connected to a home network, Apple TV allows you to rent or purchase a selection of high definition TV shows and movies from the Apple TV library. Purchased content resides on the networked PC for viewing anytime, and can be copied to a portable player.

DIY

Finally, wandering through an electronics retailer the other day we noticed that some leading-brand high definition camcorders were selling for under a thousand dollars. Yes, you can create your own high definition material. But your HD camcorder doubles as its own player, otherwise you will need to use some other device to copy your recordings to a disc or computer.

AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) camcorders capture video in 1920 x 1080 resolution and, equipped with HDMI ports, can send HD footage directly to full HD television.

Page 1 of 4  Next - HDTV: It's more than just high definition  

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In this article

• High definition video player buyers guide
• HDTV: It's more than just high definition
• Blu-ray choices
• Resolution evolution