There's two items you need to be aware of when buying a new DVD player in today's digital era.

Blu-Ray and DivX

Blu-Ray

Blu Ray is to DVD as DVD was to VHS. It means bigger, better and clearer movies and is essential if you want to take advantage of your new HD TV. Playing your regular DVDs through HD TVs won't do squat. You need a next gen DVD player to really see the difference.

Blu-Ray is Sony's attempt at dominating the format and is up against HD DVD as it's rival (see Betamax v VHS for similar wars). However, by the time you read this you'll have seen Blu-Ray has pretty much won. It outsells HD DVD by 3-1 in UK and US, 10-1 in europe and 100-1 in Japan.

Why?

1.Blu Ray is 4 times the size of HD DVDs and can do so much more.

2. Because of the Playstation 3. PS3 has the Blu-Ray built in and if you are to buy a Blu-Ray player this is the machine you want. With the PS3 you can go online, play games etc and is one of the cheapest Blu Ray players out there.

DivX

When you talk about music now you refer to MP3s. Well DivX is how movies, tv shows etc will be discussed in the next few years. Whether downloading or streaming, chances are the format is DivX and there are now a number of DivX players available for you to watch DivX on your home TV rather than your PC.

There's a few DivX players out there that allows you to watch them from a memory stick which is great. However, the quality isn't great. The best player I found was the latest Phillips that sells for £40 and is a bargain! It's upgradable too and allows current DVDs to be upscaled to 1080i.

The PS3 also plays Divx with its latest software download and does it wonderfully.

Conclusions

This is by no way an advertisement for the PS3 but at present it stands out as the true next-gen video format of choice. Blu-Ray and DivX support (not to mention gaming and wireless internet)  proves this is the item that will allow you truly take advantage of your new HD TV.

THe PS3 and Phillips DivX player are two items you need to consider if you want a next gen DVD player as they're set to be the standard for the next 5 years at least.