I'd say it depends most on the source material. A Blu Ray disk has greater capacity than a DVD and so for a program or movie of a given length of time, it has room to store a higher definition (more clarity and sharpness) version compared to a DVD. That is, IF the production company chooses to put a higher definition version on the disk. An old DVD movie, for instance, will most certainly have a lower definition image than a newer movie on BR.

You can buy a 6 foot long HDMI cable from Monster with all kinds of impressive (and nonsensical) specs for $59.95. Or, you can buy one from cables.com for $5.95. Or, you can get one free in the box your player came in. Or you can use a component connection with RCA plugs. So long as the cable, the plug connections and the plugs are in good condition for all the possibilities, neither you nor your TV set will know there's any difference between them.

Thank you Snidely, I will put the other cable on and see if it still takes over the formatting. It may not be the cables, maybe the player.

You absolutely want to use HDMI. cable quality makes no difference as it's a digital signal, not like audio/analog cables.

You can change format using your player, you just need to find the option in the menu. Cables will not change this.

Component would be next choice (but now you need a audio cable for digital audio as well). Under no circumstances use anything other than those two.

My TV has 4 or 5 different formats. With the DVD play I only have wide screen and auto which doesn't do anything. My last DVD player did not do that so I thought it might be the HDMI cable.I did find the option but it is different with every movie and I don't want to go through the hassle, sometimes I opt for another option just to find the first better, so I change back and forth sometime.

The comment from pprioroh answered your format question (which I'd ignored in my reply):

"You can change format using your player, you just need to find the option in the menu. Cables will not change this."

Thank you all.