The most common rebuff when people are asked why they haven't yet switched to Blu-ray seems to be that Blu-ray and DVD are basically the same and the difference in quality is negligible. These are no doubt the same people who then go home to watch X-Factor on a 17" square TV and read The Sun newspaper over a Kebab Pot Noodle.

The truth is that high definition viewing will, at some point in the near future, become the standard much in the same way that widescreen TVs replaced square ones and DVD replaced VHS. Analogue TV broadcasts are being killed off one by one in favour of digital signals and Blu-ray will slowly become the nation's favourite way to watch movies at home.

Blu-Ray discs, striking from a hidden Playstation 3, have won their first victory against the evil HD-DVD discs.

Analysts predict that over 100 million Blu-ray discs will be sold in 2009, so why are there so many people still sitting on the fence? True, you need a decent HD TV and a Blu-ray player to get the best out of what HD has to offer but the good news is that Blu-ray prices in general have dropped sharply in the two years since it beat HD-DVD to become the HD format of choice. It took at least twice as long for DVD prices to start going down so the recession has, in that respect, been beneficial for Blu-ray sales.

One way to save money when upgrading from DVD is to purchase the Playstation 3 as it has the advantage of playing games and movies in full HD 1080p resolution (more on that in a moment). Perhaps most importantly the PS3 is backwards compatible and thus allows users to play their old DVDs and (most) PS1 games on it (older, 60gb PS3 models from 2007 can also play some PS2 games), so if you're not quite ready to buy a new TV and a player at the same time then you can use your new PS3 with your old TV in the mean time.

Playstation 3 console (newer, slimmer models are available)

With a HD TV, old DVDs and games will even be upscaled by the PS3 to make them look better than ever (better than a regular DVD picture but not as good as Blu-ray - somewhere in-between). The inclusion of a Blu-ray laser by Sony in their PS3 is essentially what helped Blu-ray win the HD war with HD-DVD.

If you're wondering where Blu-ray gets its name it's down to the fact it uses a blue-violet laser to read discs. A DVD player uses a 650 nanometer red laser to read a disc whereas Blu-ray uses a shorter wavelength 405 nanometer blue-violet laser that allows a Blu-ray disc to store almost six times more data than a DVD.