I have the "pre-Oppo" king of upconvertion DVD players, the Panasonic S97, and it now sits in the back of my home theater, on my stack of unopened Bass Shakers for when I EVER get to the customer furnature in my theater, but that is another story. I am "flying solo" with my A2 ($98 Walmart special from the first Friday in November). I really like it and have only had 1 issue so far, but it seemed to be more of a scratched disc than anything else. I do keep it updated on firmware, which is easy. (BrotherBob, I could send you the current firmware CD like I did the last one, but I wouldn't be able to do so do to a business trip and vacation until January 2nd. Let me know.)
Anyway, I have a Sanyo Z3 front projector (720p) at 104" and I can tell a difference between SD (upconverted) and HD movies. On a smaller screen you would think that the difference would be less noticable, but it is still a factor. I've hooked up my player to a 55" 1080p LCD TV at my in-laws. (Yes, they didn't listen to me about viewing distances, and what resolution is really needed.) Anyway, I know that it is 1080p, but there are resources that show that at normal distances, you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on screens less than about 60". Anyway, you could tell the difference in upconverted SD movies and the same movie in HD. Most of the things you will see differently is less grain (unless it is supposed to be there for extra "gritty" feel that the director wanted), less blocks, less "jaggies", etc. Basically the flaws introduced by compressing a movie down to fit a standard DVD. Even the best upconverting player doesn't know what is supposed to be there and what is a compression introduced "block" or blocky image. It upconverts everything, errors in the compression and all. And when it does, it is dealing with limited SD information.
Here is another situation, I really like the first Matrix movie. I watched it on HD-DVD last weekend. I never quite realized how "pitted" Morpheus' (Lawrence Fishborn's) face was. You saw every little detail that is lost on even an upconverted SD version of the same movie. And I was a BIG pusher of upconverted DVDs for years on this forum.
So go HD, get your free movies, and have a great upconverting SD DVD player.
As for the long boot/load times, you will see that for some time in the future. A chunk of it is supposed to be because of the wonderful copy-protection built in to the HD formats that require extra "hand-shaking" with the player and display device. I don't know how much of that is true, but that is what is said in home theater magazines and such.
Of course, I don't mind because my HD-DVD player is booted up faster than my Sanyo Z3 projector, so it really doesn't matter to me. Even the projector is ready way before anyone is when they want to watch a movie. We've got popcorn to make, other food and drinks to get situated, people to get settled in to their seats, etc. At my house, people aren't waiting on the equipment, the equipment is waiting on the people.
