best blu-ray

Oppo BDP-105: Not your average Blu-ray player

Even by Oppo's high standards the BDP-105 is an extraordinary Blu-ray player. Sure, it's loaded with up-to-the-second features -- 4K upscaling, 2D-to-3D conversion, and a high-quality USB 2.0 digital-to-analog converter -- but what really makes the Oppo special is the sound. Pop the cover and look inside and you'll see why. Most of the 17-pound component's chassis space is devoted to the audio circuitry. That's nice, but the audio advantages will be completely irrelevant if you connect the BDP-105 to your receiver with a HDMI cable (the digital-to-analog conversion would then be handled in … Read more

Top 40 must-have Blu-ray discs

Apologies for being a little tardy on updating our long-running list of must-have Blu-ray movies, but here it is, refreshed for 2013. This month's updates entries include "Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection," "The Avengers," "Finding Nemo," "Jaws," "Lawrence of Arabia," and "Titanic."

Though my face is at the top of the column, the list was compiled with input from editors John Falcone, Matthew Moskovciak, and David Katzmaier, who look at a lot of video content in their day-to-day testing of products. We also keep an eye on AVS Forum's Blu-ray picture-quality and audio-quality threads, and have always appreciated the site's tiered rating system.

This list is not set in stone, and we'll be adding and removing discs as new ones come out. As always, feel free to make comments and suggest your own personal favorites. They may get added to the list in the future. … Read more

Top 5 Blu-ray players

We're moving away from watching video on discs in general, but Blu-ray is helping stem that erosion somewhat. Hmm, doesn't sound like a very compelling argument to get on the Blu-ray bandwagon, until you consider that the best Blu-ray players are also streaming powerhouses that move you into the future of watching. Here are our Top 5 that deserve a place in your home video stack today and tomorrow.

You can find all of CNET's reviews of Blu-ray players here.

25 best concert Blu-ray discs

We've put together a few roundups of top Blu-ray discs, but for some reason, trying to do a list of the best concert Blu-ray discs was more challenging. Part of the problem is that music--and musical tastes--are such personal things that it's hard to declare something the "best" or "top" when it's more than likely that a lot of people will think the pick is bad because they simply don't like the artist or band.

That's totally understandable, so I apologize in advance if some of these picks don't appeal … Read more

Sticker shock: PlayStation 3's unfair Blu-ray advantage

Sure, I and the rest of CNET's home-theater editors think the PlayStation 3 is the only Blu-ray player really worth buying today. But no matter how we feel, it's easy to spot why other machines have an uphill battle trying to unseat the PS3 from its Blu-ray throne: Sony's sticking it to the competition, literally.

Take a closer look at all those stickers on the front of all those Blu-ray discs in your local Best Buy and you'll see what I mean. There's the Blu-ray disc headline and then the fine print message, "For … Read more