I feel your pain of retail electronic woes. I have them all the time with studio updates, etc.
To my knowledge, Blue-Ray discs can only be played on a Blue-Ray player and not on a DVD player. I'm sure a Blue-Ray player would have analog outputs, but with that type of resolution and clarity, it's best to have it hooked up to a digital TV via an HDMI cable. Over the past two years, with getting a few flat screen TV, two years ago, and getting a HD Tivo player, I've gotten all too familiar on how you have to get all the elements just right.
The good thing, if you newer DVD player has a digital output, you could get great resolution plugged into a HD TV. Such TV's almost always have an HDMI input, and hopefully two or more, so you can get multiple digital inputs, without having to go behind the scenes and switching the cable out from say digital cable, to digital DVD or Blue-Ray player. Mine has one input, and that is a drag.
Anyway.... Happy Holidaze. Maybe tell Santa what big boy toys you want and see what happens. ;-)
