When I was in Junior High, I had a small business on the side installing mute switches into the Mattel Electronics games. That way, we could keep playing in class without being given away by the shrill beeps being emitted by the games :)
"The competition for Blu-ray players is the latest generation of DVD players that can generate a high-definition picture from a standard-definition disc"
This is totally false. There is no "latest generation of DVD players" that can generate a high-definition picture from an SD disc. They can upconvert the 480 lines to 1080 lines, but so can your TV.
No matter how you slice it, you're still stuck with 480 lines of original resolution. You can't make something out of nothing, and while upconverting standard DVDs can make them look slightly better, they are in no way, shape, or form anywhere near HD quality. Not even close.