Homedad, I did try component, and it looked awesome. When I cycled back/forth from component to HDMI, I thought the component looked better. Granted, I calibrated my component signal with my new AVIA and have not calibrated the HDMI/DVI input.
The bad thing is you can't use regular DVD's via the component signal, they don't get upconverted. This was part of the reason I purchased the player.
I also thought the sound was awesome, lots of action from my surround and rear qs8's.
Lorenzo, if your serious let me know, maybe we can figure something out.