great stuff guys, now that the format wars are over i'll sit tight and wait for a blue-ray player that is a little more consumer friendly $$$ that is. I'll continue to use my toshiba hd-a3 as an upconverting player (as well as the hd-dvd player, for the few i've been able to buy.)I thiink 08 is going to be an audiophiles year.

Sony has just announced two new players.
For those of us that own the 990 the BDP-S550 will be of particular interest due to it's 7.1 analog output for DTS HD- Master Audio and DTS HD High Resolution audio.

Here is one of many links on the subject.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=1041

thanks for the hit butchgo. I tend to lean toward the sony line when it comes to players. Not quite sure why that is exactly. I guess it probably has more to due with my good fortune with sony thus far than anything else. Anyway, it looks like this summer is really going to be heating up huh.

E'pin Sen Ob,

The next few months are going to be interesting that's for sure.

I am going to wait until all of the specs are out on both the Panasonic BD50 and the Sony S550.
They both seem to have what I want in a Blu-ray player but, like you, I tend to be very loyal to the Sony brand.
I have had such good luck over the years with their product that I have a hard time buying anything else but the Panasonic looks really good at this time.

I think it'll be interesting to see what Oppo Digital offers in Blu-ray. I think the Panasonic and Sony will both be great players, but when it comes to Sony, I feel their is always a premium for the brand name.

yeah it's definetly slow!what do you mean by the new formats?

97db-

That antenna in your sig? Several years ago, I bought a Radio Shack outdoor UHF/VHF antenna (very similar looking to the one you reviewed) for $21....I put it on my roof via chimney mount ($8 or $9); I live in Cranston, R.I, about 50-60 miles from Boston. I get every single HD station in Boston clear as a bell....the moral of the story is that height and direction are key to reception.

Blu-ray and HD-DVD include support for three new audio formats: Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD. Blu-ray also allows uncompressed multichannel PCM tracks. DD+ and the basic version of DTS-HD ("DTS-HD High Resolution") are lossy compression algorithms similar to Dolby Digital and DTS, although not as compressed as those older formats. TrueHD is a lossless compression (using the same MLP compression technology as DVD-Audio), as is the lossless form of DTS-HD ("DTS-HD Master Audio"). Neither the BD30 nor the S300 can decode those three new formats, so all you can do us rely on the Dolby Digital or DTS core tracks in those cases. The BD30 does allow bitstream output of these formats over HDMI to a compatible receiver or processor, which the S300 does not. Multichannel PCM tracks on some Blu-rays can of course be played back via multichannel analog output or HDMI in both cases. (See my HDMI FAQ ...)

Your last part of your post is so true...
My antenna is facing right at a hill!

I just thought it had to be an exceptional antenna to get all the channels that my other one couldnt with the situation I was in!