When my sisters and I were little, my mother bought us movies on VHS. Then as I grew up, we switched to DVDs. Now my mother is faced with the same question that I'm sure many of you might be asking: should I make the switch to Blu-ray? My mother has heard that the quality is superb, and she doesn't want to keep collecting DVDs for her grandchildren if they're going to go the way of VHS. But when she called me a couple of weeks ago, she wasn't sure about what she needed - would her current disc player and TV suffice?

So during my last visit to see her, I took a quick look at her system to see if she was ready for Blu-ray. Turns out, my mother uses the built-in disc player on her original Bose® 3.2.1® home entertainment system (latest model pictured below), which unfortunately can only play back DVDs.

I explained to her that DVD players can't read all of the information packed onto Blu-ray discs, so she would need to buy a Blu-ray player. But luckily, a Blu-ray player will also still be able to play her DVDs. So when she does decide to make the switch she won't have to get rid of her current DVD collection, and can simply start buying any new movies on Blu-ray. A Blu-ray player will even be able to make her DVDs look a little better on her TV thanks to the player's built-in upconversion.

But what about her TV? My parents own an old rear-projection TV, and a peek behind the entertainment center told me that it didn't have any HDMI inputs. This is a big problem, since Blu-ray functions best when the player is connected to the TV via a single HDMI cable. It's really the only way to take advantage of the high-def 1080p picture and high-resolution sound coded on the discs.

She could use the component video connection on her TV and possibly get resolutions up to 1080i, but she doesn't have a suitable audio connection. Also, most Blu-ray players have to down-rez a high-def signal when it's sent to a TV via component video, so in some cases, her Blu-ray discs wouldn't look any better than her DVDs.

At the very least my mother would need a new HDTV with HDMI and a Blu-ray player to take advantage of the higher image quality that Blu-ray has to offer. It looks like DVD will be around for a little while longer though, so there's currently no rush for her to completely upgrade her home theater system. But with prices on both HDTVs and Blu-ray players lower now than they've been, it still might be a good time to make the switch.

For more information, check out some of our articles and videos on Blu-ray players.