Perhaps a dumb comment on my part by I assume that you have connected the player to the TV with an HDMI cable since it ONLY does upconverting over HDMI and the player configured accordingly. It also should be noted up until the Panasonic came out(BD-35/55) the consensus of opinion among the reviewers was that the Blu-Ray players that they had reviewed to that point(including the latest Pioneer models) didn,t do a particularly good job of upconverting standard DVD's. Perhaps, if you can, try to get a hold of both the Blu-Ray AND standard DVD versions so you can compare them on the SAME player(Your Pioneer). This will give you a better idea as to how your player is performing in comparison. Unfortunately, the reviewers haven't been particularly kind to the new Pioneer models when it comes to assessing their overall performance and value. My last three DVD players have been Pioneer Elite models but when I went to my retailer to compare the Panny BD-55 with the Elite 05FD, once I got past the "looks", I was quite shocked to see that the "Panny" outperformed the Pioneer in every way for a little more than half the price.
