While the industry giants slug it out in a format war, Retrevo says the latest crop of high definition DVD Players includes some very good DVD Player values. Retrevo looked at Blu-ray and HD DVD Player user reviews, expert reviews, and important features to select DVD players from the leading TV manufacturers including Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, LG and Panasonic.

Andrew Eisner, director of content at Retrevo, says, "We can understand why you might be inclined to wait until the dust settles but frankly we're not sure a winning format will emerge anytime soon.

A more likely scenario will be a price war making it harder to resist the ultimate home theater experience. If you've never seen a high definition DVD played on an HDTV set, you're in for an eye opening experience."

Retrevo picked the most important DVD player features you should look for when shopping for a Blu-ray or HD DVD player. You can check out their list here. You can also use Retrevo's DVD player Product Advisor to help select the player that's just right for you.

A Few of the Best Blu-ray and HD DVD values on the market.

Toshiba HD-A3 is a very affordable entry-level player that limits resolution to 1080i. You can find in for as low as $200.

The Toshiba HD-A30 goes for $100 more than the HD-A3 and supports 1080/24 and HDMI 1.3 with the Deep Color enhancement. The Toshiba HD-A35 adds HDMI pass-through and audio that supports high bit rate audio 7.1 channel audio but Retrevo thinks the HD-A30 is the best value.

The Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray player features 1080p/24, HDMI 1.3 and costs around $350. It gets high marks for image quality but there are scattered reports of reliability issues. The good news is that firmware is upgradeable.

The Sharp BD-HP20U Blu-ray player in addition to having the latest features offers a Quick Start feature that speeds up the loading processing from a very long one minute, common in most players, to 10 seconds. You can buy it for a little over $500

Sony just started shipping the Sony BDP-S500 which is selling for just under $700 along with the high-end $1300 Sony BDP-S2000ES.

Coming Soon ...

Panasonic's DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player will be one of the firsts, if not the first Profile 1.1 player. It does 1080p/24 the latest HDMI 1.3. Reviewers give the video quality high marks but dings for lacking high end audio codecs and port for network firmware upgrades. It's expected to sell around $500.

Dual Format Players

Players that support both formats cost more than buying two players but pundits assure us that significant price drops for these players are around the corner.

The LG BH200 will save shelf space but not money. It plays both formats and can be purchased for $800.

The soon-to-ship Samsung BDP-UP5000 is expected to sell for under $1000 and will support all the features from both formats including BD-Java and HDi which are the latest standards for enabling interactive menus, gaming, commentary and networking features.

Match Your HDTV to the Right Player

Unless you already have a 1080p TV with HDMI 1.3 or are planning on upgrading to "Full HD," you might be able to save some money and still have a great viewing experience. Some of the lower end players like the Toshiba HD-A2 are limited to 1080i resolution yet have been on sale recently for as low as $99. At the same time there are some great values in HDTV LCD TVs and Plasma TVs like the Olevia 437v.

Retrevo is a source for HDTV buying information and more

Retrevo is the best site to find, buy or use all the latest electronics. Retrevo's AI-based information processing technology finds the most relevant reviews, articles, manuals and other product information for all popular gear and gadgets like cameras, camcorders, cell phones, laptops, HDTV, MP3 players and more.

Retrevo's search results filter out annoying commercial listings or "spam" and then categorize the results so consumers can easily find exactly what they are looking for whether it's pricing, deals, reviews, top rated items or product documents.

Retrevo also finds links to hundreds of DVD Player manuals and reviews for almost any DVD Player from top manufacturers such as Toshiba, Sharp, Samsung and Panasonic.