We have a HDTV and a sony blu-ray dvd player. There is a HUGE difference. Blu-ray produces crisp, beautiful, lifelike scenes. its almost like looking out a window it looks so real.The Blueray quality is more vibrant, and the colors look a lot better.Up-converting DVD players scale DVD images to pseudo-HD resolution (and can remove some artifacts). A good up-converting DVD player can give a picture from a well mastered DVD that is very close to Blu-ray quality, especially on a 720p HDTV viewed from slightly further than optimum HD viewing distance.