John,
A great BR player should: 1) extract raw 1080P/24 data on the disk and force a 1080P/24 output 2) up-convert SD reasonably well 3) decode ALL audio formats and convert them to Multi-channel PCM via HDMI 4) utilize good DAC’s and output 7.1 channel analogue 5) be network upgradeable 6) have fast start up times and disk load times 7) not buggy
Currently, none do all well. There are several that do MOST well, but there is always a sacrifice.
If you can put 1 – 7 in order of importance to you, I’ll rank the players currently available for you. On the horizon, the Panasonic BD 50 looks as if it will be the player to buy. Denon also has two BR players coming to market very soon. Unfortunately, they are very, very proud of them. One will even come with the Silicon Image Realta chip set, which is arguably the very best chip available for SD scaling and deinterlacing.
