Could you guys really be any more pretentious? How many people don't have HD or BD and use an Oppo 981 on their HD monitors for image quality? How many thousands have titles that they wish to continue watching on their HDTV sets? If you want to complain about the functional particulars of firmware interface, I'll grant you that. But IMO the two things that are most important are the HD ability and upconversion capability, the other peccadillos are secondary. I put in a disc and I watch it, my system is set up fine and I don't fiddle around trying to trip it up whilst watching, I just watch. So a player that is an outstanding SD player and also an outstanding HD player is a great choice. And as it relates to this
original thread I am saying that in relation to the low end HD player mentioned, there is an XA2 that is very good and is much cheaper than the higher end BD. How bout we agree to disagree.