Okay well the information I have given you indicates that the BD85 has better video for Blu rays which is what I was getting at.
Chris Boylan is no doubt an expert on BD players, and specifically with Panasonic. He posts often at AVS.
Though now that I read your link, I find it funny that he thinks Baraka as a stunning transfer, or specifically an "excellent reference for detail and color precision". This transfer is known for its excessive DNR and EE.
I've asked specifically about color reproduction with BDPs. The answers I have received were that they are 99.9999999% identical with BDP playback.
There are a lot of things that are more important than chroma resolution. Just ask Stacey Spears.
Do you even know if your player or display will deinterlace better?
Do you even know what chroma rez your TV handles? And per input?
But, I know too little. As do you. It's complicated. A lot of devices or inputs on display will convert multiple times. It usually has to do with upconversion whenever you see discussions. Whether to deinterlace first or not, etc. I don't think the Pana players can output 480i. So, you are expecting (hoping) that the player will deinterlace better than your display, as far as DVDs.
Anyways, I would bet you good money I wouldn't be able to tell between the two players, and I'm saying that using a JVC PJ in a light controlled room with an enormous screen. A much better investment for my own situation would be towards reducing color saturation.
Even Boylan said 1080p improvement with the chroma is subtle, and I expect he is saying that only with unrealistic test patterns, not real world material. Like I said already, when you talk about this stuff, it's usually with upconversion, and the below quote from your link is no exception (and again I'd probably just get the Oppo if this really mattered to me):
Rather than follow the standard process of upconverting the chroma (color) signal from the compressed 4:2:0 stored on the disc to 4:2:2, then de-interlacing the 480i DVD signal to 480p and doing additional color processing, Panasonic has chosen to apply the deinterlace processing first, which gives the video processor more color information to work with when doing the chroma upsampling from 4:2:0 to 4:2:2 all the way to 4:4:4. What this means to the layman is that the DMP-BD85 is able to provide full color detail for each and every pixel in the 1920x1080 pixel progressive output, restoring details that are lost in the video encoding process. This leads to cleaner edges and superior visible detail in the video signal. According to Panasonic, the improvements in chroma processing apply not just to 480i and 1080i material, but to 1080p material as well (though the improvements to 1080p discs are much more subtle).
