Yes, it is that much better, but only on an HDTV. Unless your tube TV is HDTV (yes, there were a very few of those built), Blu Ray won't give you any additional benefit. That is assuming that the Blu Ray player will even work with your TV at all. One reason is because optical disk players are rapidly being replaced by streaming video. Even so, I still use my Blu Ray player from time to time, mostly for home videos on DVD or to play the occasional DVD or Blu Ray movie. As others have opined, a flat panel HDTV is really worth considering. The over the air broadcasts are stunning, much better than cable TV or the old pre-HDTV standard definition broadcasts. You can get a really good one on Amazon for a little over $200. Ten years ago, I paid $1700 for a flat panel TV that was not nearly as good. Times have changed in TV land, and very much for the better!
I have a Blu-Ray player that also will play 3D versions and has Netflix and some other things like Wi-Fi built in. I paid about $80 about 2 years ago for it. The money you save on the electricity going to a LCD TV over that tub TV will be worth it also.
Even though we have all HD stuff and surround sound downstairs, we still primarily watch standard def cable on my old tube TV upstairs. Blu-Ray is fine and good but we had to turn the motion smoothing settings down because the soap opera effect was really bad. It was like watching the actors walking around a movie set in real life. It didn't look like a movie at all and was very distracting. The funny thing though is that most programs I watch on our HD TV are old black and white movies from TCM on the DVR.
Yep....the 'Munkster' has a huge point here....Flat slim TVs have revolutionalized moving....ha,ha... The thing I most enjoy about getting the Blu-ray has been the apps....now I stream movies through my phone and mirror them through the Blu ray player to the TV....Also now I watch YouTube and Vimeo through the BR player all the time....I definitely use the apps more than I watch DVDs or Cable...
