Another Movie Guide

Blu-Ray For Less – How to Do It

High definition at home is all the rage – from HD channels with your cable or satellite TV service to watching blu-ray discs. Since this is new technology, however, it can get expensive very quickly. High definition discs can carry much more information than DVDs

There are a number of ways to save on these high quality discs from online DVD rental packages, to sites that offer the discs for less and using exchange shops. Before getting to those though it’s worth noting that watching HD discs has a number of up front costs.

To watch blu-ray films and TV shows you’ll need a HD or HD ready TV and a blu-ray player. You can tell whether you TV is HD ready by the number of pixels that the screen has – check your television’s paperwork.

Players that play high definition discs are now available for under �100 but note that you can also play them using a PlayStation 3 console, which is why some games rental websites also offer blu-ray discs to their members.

If you’ve paid those up front costs its likely that you’ll be looking to save when it comes to building up your new disc library.

One way of doing this is to go for blu-ray rental using an online DVD rental website.

These are good because they charge customers the same amount of money whether they rent normal DVDs or more expensive blu-ray discs. They also have the advantage of carrying almost every new definition disc available in the UK since they’ve been around for longer than the high definition discs so they’ve started their libraries from scratch.

That depends on the website involved – for example, Lovefilm carries all of these discs. It’s also possible to save money on expensive discs by using online shops that sell the discs at well below their recommended retail prices.

These sites are also useful because they’ll tend to include reviews from users – these can be good for blu-ray because some are better quality than others because of the process used to put the discs into high definition.

The third way to get high definition for less money is to use second hand shops, also known as exchange shops. These can be widely found on high streets and tend to offer discs at half price or even less, though there is the risk that they’ll be damaged.

Julia Cook is a staff writer for a website that helps users to compare the UK DVD rental market. The site can also help users to compare pay monthly game rental packages.