Remember, they are sometimes referred to as a blu ray dvd player, but they are the same thing. As of this writing, all of the current models are backwards compatible and will play both blu ray movies and DVD movies too.
Chances are you already own a dvd collection. Whether it is just a handful of titles, or a library of hundreds. You might even be concerned that your investment in DVD technology is so substantial that you have no interest in upgrading to blu ray.
Well, one of the greatest features of every player is what it can do for your DVD collection too. Maybe you are not ready to invest in a whole new library of movies right now. In fact, if you have your DVD player connected to an HDTV, the picture looks pretty great anyway. So what's the point? When you add a blu ray player to your home theater system, it will upscale, or up-convert the resolution of the DVD to take full advantage of the High Definition capabilities of your HDTV! It's not quite high definition, because DVDs are not recorded that way, but the technology in the player can significantly improve your viewing experience without even putting in a blu ray disc. That is why these devices are sometimes called blu ray dvd players.
So even if you are not ready to invest in a high definition movie library, adding a blu ray player can improve your current DVD library, and if you rent movies, you can enjoy hundreds of blu ray titles from Blockbuster, Netflix, or your local video store. Once you see the picture quality of blu ray, you will really appreciate the investment in your high definition TV even more!
Today's blu ray players can do more than just play back movies. Depending on the title you are viewing, you can access interactive content that allows you to see the movie making process with picture in picture commentaries and behind the scenes material that you can see on screen while the movie is playing. Many titles offer a feature called 'BD Live', which allows you to download additional bonus content from the internet that is related to the movie you are watching!
Many of today's players are also compatible with blu ray 3D which will add the ability to playback content in 3D when connected to a compatible 3D HDTV!
