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What to look for in a Blu-ray Player

Blu-ray players have taken over from DVD players and if you are a home cinema enthusiast they are a must have item. Blu-ray brings higher quality video and audio to HDTV owners. If you don't have an HDTV then it is best to stick to an ordinary DVD player.

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) set certain standards when Blu-ray first appeared on the market. However, because the manufacturers were keen to launch Blu-ray players, they were allowed to implement certain features over a period of time. The early Blu-ray players were Profile 1.0 players. This required support of the Java programming language that makes interactive features possible as mandatory, but there was no requirement for onboard memory so many Profile 1.0 players would struggle to do much more than play a movie. Manufacturers are no longer allowed to bring Profile 1.0 to market. Profile 1.1 or Bonus View players followed. These included at least 256MB of memory and adds secondary audio and video decoders to allow for such features as picture-in-picture. All players since October 2007 must meet these standards as a minimum. Profile 2.0 or BD-Live adds an internet connection and 1GB of storage. These features give a