It’s Totally Still Worth Buying a Blu-Ray Player in 2025

Even from just these a handful of options, choosing the right Blu-ray player for you can be a struggle. Browsing each doesn’t help when you’re reading gibberish. These are the features you need to pay attention to, explained for even the tech illiterate.

HDR: High Dynamic Range (HDR) is the tech that makes your TV’s contrast really pop. The colors are more vivid, and the darks become more legible with HDR on. HDR10, HRD10+, Dolby Vision, and Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) are all different forms of HDR. HDR10 is the standard, so anything aside from that is going above and beyond.

WiFi and Bluetooth: Some Blu-ray players can connect to the Internet. WiFi compatibility sometimes, but not always, equates to being able to use streaming services directly from your DVD player. Some WiFi players support streaming apps, while others don’t. Additionally, some Blu-ray players have Bluetooth support to allow you to route the audio through your home speakers or headphones.

Hi-Res Audio: High-resolution audio is defined as any audio file with greater than a 44.1kHz sample rate or higher than a 16-bit audio depth. This means audio files that are as lossless and uncompressed as it gets. Within the category of hi-res, quality can vary, but—in general—it’s the best at replicating the exact sounds as they were recorded, the way the mixers and artists wanted you to hear them.