Blu-ray vs. DVD: When and What to Buy
Blu-ray discs are expensive and harder to find, DVDs in contrast are everywhere and cheap. Here's some informal guidelines that we personally use to get the best value movies we can.
For the last 10 years DVD has been the dominant format for watching movies at home, however Blu-ray is snapping at its heels and provides a better picture and sound experience for HDTV (High Definition TV). Below I’ll try and relate our advice on which is better and when so you can use your money wisely.
Before we start we need to state the below isn’t scientific: it’s our opinion. Also, somethings don’t fall into the categories easily so you’ll need to apply judgement before progressing (for instance if Star Wars: A New Hope came out on Blu-ray tomorrow would I buy it? Damn right I would!).
At the moment we’re working on building a simple tool to help you with the below – but until that’s ready here’s the questions.
For each Blu-ray you’re thinking of buying simply answer the questions and add up the values from the “Score” column depending on whether you answered yes or no. The total score you get is then a measure of whether you should go for a Blu-ray or stick with the DVD.
| Question | Yes | No |
| Do you have a Blu-ray Player or a Playstation 3 console? | 1 | 0 |
| Is your TV 40″ or over? | 1 | 0 |
| Do you have a High Definition TV? | 1 | -1 |
| Does your TV support 1080p (aka FullHD)? | 1 | 0 |
| Is the Movie an Animation? | 0 | -1 |
| Is the Film a major film from the last decade? | 1 | 0 |
| Is the Movie an Action Film? | 1 | 0 |
| Is this a “classic” Movie that’s been released on Blu-ray? | 1 | 0 |
| Is the Blu-ray under £15?/$20 | 1 | 0 |
| Will you watch this movie a lot in future? | 1 | 0 |
Total: _______
If you scored over 3 then this is at best a candidate purchase for a Blu-ray, if you scored 4 or over then it’s definitely to be considered.
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