You will need an HDMI receiver to listen to uncompressed PCM on the BR / HD disks unless you use the 7.1 analogue inputs. The PS3 is HDMI output only.
One other ‘option’ is to pick up a Toshiba HD-X2. It does an incredible job of up-scaling SD/dvd’s plus it plays HD/dvd’s. This particular model was in a recent shoot out by some guys at AVS. They put it up against a $5000 stand alone video processor (Crystalio 3300 / CII) and it did as well as the VP with a whole battery of tests.
The Oppo’s are great little players too. I was screwing around with the 971 a while back comparing it to my stand alone VP (DVDO VP-50). Sending my projector 720P output from both onto a 104” screen did not have remarkable differences. Definitely not enough to make me feel as if the three grand I dumped on the VP was worth it for up-scaling purposes only.
If you go with the 970, don’t expect it to output anything above 480P via component if the display devise is HD compliant. I’m pretty sure there are ways to hack the player to bypass this, but I don’t know how to do it.
The 971 is DVI output. You will need a DVI / HDMI cable if your display is HDMI. Don’t use the component outputs on this machine. It does a horrible job with component output.
The 981 is HDMI output.
