DVD players work like CD players and other types of laser disc players - they all follow the same basic principle. For DVDs (and CDs), music or film data is recorded onto the discs in a series of `pits`. These cause less reflection when a laser beam is trained on them, than the other unpitted disc areas. When the laser is tracked over the DVD disc, it reads the pits from the inner to the outer part of the disc, following a spiral pattern - much like an old record. The bright and dark areas of the DVD are translated into digital ones and zeros and this data is processed within the DVD player to create information - both visual and sound - which is then sent to the television. Voila - you have a film!

Like all technology, DVD players are developing and improving all the time. There is much talk currently of HD - or High Definition - TV, and Blu-Ray television, which gives fantastic picture quality. However, HD is still a relatively new concept, and as such the newest televisions and DVD players are expensive. For people who aren`t quite prepared to shell out on a first generation HD DVD or Blu-Ray player, there is an option to `upscale`. This basically means scaling up DVDs to very high image resolutions, so that the television doesn`t have to. The benefits are fantastic picture quality, and higher performance than traditional DVD players.

When choosing which DVD players to choose for your upscaling, there are several new products out there which could be of interest. It`s worth doing your research first to work out what your budget is and what features you are seeking, but once you`ve spoken to the retail experts, you should be able to find the products that suit you. For example, some good products to start with are:

The Oppo DV-981 HD DVD player - this performs almost as well as some rival players which cost around 4 times the Oppo`s price. It`s a real bargain and a great starting point for new users. There is also another good Oppo model to look at the DV-970HD, which provides excellent performance and high spec features for just a little more money.

If you have a larger budget, you may wish to consider the Denon DVD-2930CI. It has fantastic and greatly superior image quality, but the price is certainly high!

For style points, the Samsung DVD-HD960 is a great option as it looks fantastic - it offers a very high upconversion spec of 1080points, and offers excellent image quality with really powerful HD performance - whilst being affordable.

Before shelling out however, remember to do your research and remember the currently, upscaled DVD players can`t convert images into true HD images just yet - however, they work extremely well with plasma and LCD TVs.