I picked up this dvd player earlier today and put it through the paces. First things first, this model has the ability to upconvert to 1080p. It took me about twenty minutes to enable it (the documentation leaves a lot to be desired), but once I had it, I was pleased. The picture was noticeably less jagged on my 46 inch Sony Bravia V-2500. If you don't have a 1080p capable television, then it also outputs 1080i, 720p, and 480p/i, but there are probably cheaper options out there for those resolutions. The player has the ability to read tons of formats including: DVD-+R/W DL and DVD-RAM. Of special importance to me was the AVI playback. It played every mpeg-4/divx based file I threw at it. Including ones made with Qpel, gmc, nvop and bvop. The processor inside was able to keep up with high motion AVIs at 1080p. Pros: Upconverts normal DVDs to 1080P/i, 720P. Great Mpeg4 support. Front Panel Display for chapter time remaining etc... Dozens of options that I have barely begun to experiment with: Including color modes, filters, sound processing It is pretty easy on the eyes with a nice black finish Cons: Price, about a $100 No optical sound output Manual is terrible, but eventually understandable No OGM, WMV or MKV support (But I wasn't expecting any) No PAL support... this does kind of suck For those of you who do purchase this, to turn on upconverting you need to go into the Functions menu, not the settings. Press functions like 3 times and you will be there.
