It is safe to assume the old DVD player is connected with three RCAs so it will hook up just fine on the one of the HDTV's auxillary ports. Both of mine did. Even the VCR (play only) did on the computer room set. If an owner is to buy something new ignore the lingering DVD stock and purchase a Blueray. DA

You do not need a Blu-Ray DVD player, however, if you have a ten year old DVD player you will notice a difference with either a standard definition up-converting DVD player, or a Blu-Ray DVD player, which will up-convert standard definition DVDs to 720p/1080i/1080p standards through interpolation. Your television will also up-convert the standard definition signal, and look quite good, but the DVD player can perform a better conversion while the video is still in it's original MPEG2 video format. BTW - Quite a few of the older titles being released on Blu-Ray today are still only standard definition formats up-converted to HD formats by the studio prior to the Blu-Ray authoring of the disc - and basically using the same technology as your DVD player or television.

If only a small percentage of buyers chooses one of the new player formats, how long might this "war" go on? For all practical purposes, only a couple of years, maximum. It only took a year until Philips started clearing inventory of its Digital Compact Cassette players. The competition, from Sony, MiniDisk, has hung around longer but in no way could be considered a commercial success. More recently, DVD-A(udio) battled it out against Sony's SACD format to be high-fidelity "king of the hill". Buyers stayed away in droves and both formats are on life support. The rush for quarterly earnings at most companies quashes most notions of continuing to improve an unpopular format for several years before giving up the ghost. Now if you're not a hit out of the box, you retool in a year or so and try something else. Between Paramount and Universal declining to sell BluRay and the pr0n industry voting largely for HD-DVD (because it's cheaper to produce HD-DVD content than BluRay content), I think BluRay is not long for this world. It may continue to be a niche format for the PS3, but you'll likely never walk into Blockbuster and see an entire wall of BluRay disks.

Hi, M. Thanks for the suggestion. I discovered that the Sony plays DVDs, but the VHS side doesn't work. That's okay, as I'd already decided to get a new DVD player. As for my VHS tapes, I converted most of them to DVD myself, using a Panasonic DVD recorder (DMR-EZ37V). I did this some years ago, and have no idea if the unit still works. But I'll try it. If not, I guess I'll take the remaining tapes to Sam's Club. But I'm back with more questions. Once concerns space around the TV. I just discovered that the manual recommends at least 4 inches of space on all sides. My 32" set is set in a corner armoire. It has about 4" of space on top and about the same on the bottom, but very little space on the sides--less than 1/4". The good part is that most of the back of the armoire is cut away, and because it's in a corner, not flush with a wall, there's a lot of air circulation that way. Do you think this is okay? I'll post a picture. The other thing is the new DVD player. I was interested in a couple of Samsungs, but I know I'd find it irritating that they have no light to indicate the power is on. Then I looked at some other models from other manufacturers, but most, including the Samsungs, have streaming capability. This seems like overkill to me because, as you can see, I've installed a Fire Stick on the TV. I also don't need 3D. I could get one of these models anyway, but I'd rather not pay for features I don't need. I can pay a lot less for a non-Blu-Ray DVD player. I seriously doubt any of my DVDs are Blu-Ray. Other than being able to play Blu-Ray discs, is there any advantage to getting a Blu-Ray player? Thank you for taking the time to read!