Maxman Gives Some History on DVD Players

What’s up fellow home theater nuts?

Yep you guessed it the Maxman is kickin today off with a little bit of DVD info for ya. As you know there is a wealth of technical information out there, so much that we could go on and on and on but as usual we’re gonna do our best to keep it simple and accurate for your sake as well as ours.

The First DVD Players

DVD players first came onto the scene in the mid to late 1990’s. Fast forward to today and boy oh boy have we seen some serious advances. I mean you walk into an electronics store and you just get dizzy from all the options you have.

A good place to start would be to know what type of TV the DVD player is going to be used with. Standard Definition (SD) or high definition (HD) once you know this it will narrow your search down a little.

So if your TV is SD (Normal everyday TV not HDTV) then it’s pretty safe to say that a standard DVD player will do. “Yeah but what is standard” I hear you say. You will get a pretty good idea of what is standard as you look around.

At the very minimum your DVD player should have both S video and Component video outputs (for picture), it should also support multiple disc formats as well DVD/DVD-R/DVD-RW/CD just to name a few also JPEG & MPEG file compatible is handy if want to view pics or movies from your digital camera..

It should also have a digital audio output such as “Toslink” or AC-3 as it was called in the old days. This ensures you have digital audio to go with your digital picture.

So those are just some of the options available to you.

High Def

What is that I hear you say. But Maxman I have a HDTV. Ok hold your horses I haven’t forgotten about you folks.

For you HDTV lovin folks out there all of the above options are available to you plus a heck of alot more.

What type of disc format will you be watching your movies on? DVD or one of the new HD formats such as Blu-ray or HD-DVD. If you want a true high definition movie experience then Blu-ray or HD-DVD is definitely the way to go however just know that the war still rages between the two relatively new technologies and neither has been declared the winner yet.

It has become a battle similar to the one fought by VHS and Beta many many years ago when home video first came out.

If you can’t make up your mind LG has produced a Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo player which will also play standard DVD movies.

If you decide you want to wait until the raging war is over and the prices fall, then an Upconverting DVD player is the perfect way to go. What is this? You ask.

In a nutshell an Upconverting DVD player gives you a higher definition output to your HDTV from a standard DVD. Now the quality of the picture you see from one of these players depends on your HDTV. You will get a great picture but don’t expect it to be true high definition cause it won’t be.

But don’t despair there is more you can do to get as close as you can to that hi def picture without having it. That’s kind of like letting a child sniff a candy and then taking it away. What a tease! Make sure the Upconverting DVD player has a HDMI input as well as your HDTV.

What an HDMI connection does is it transfers the digital video and digital audio signal from player to TV with out any change in signal quality giving you a smoother richer image from your standard DVD discs to your HDTV.

So as you’ve probably figured if you don’t have HDTV then don’t bother with an Upconverting DVD player.

Well my fellow movie aficionado’s I hope this make your research a whole lot simpler.

Remember Maxmans motto “Maximum value minimal confusion”