Good info, thanks. It's not really an apple to apple, point taken. Just a brief moment of impatience on my part. I am ready to upgrade my 720 DLP to a 1080P TH58PZ800U-Viera-58-Plasma and get a blueray player! So looks like that may happen sometime in March/April. If you can make a comment I would be interested , How’s the load time?

I'm holding off on performance details until the NDA is lifted (which should happen once the EAP launches), but it's safe to say "fast."

I just received the email from OPPO this am (same one you posted yesterday). I signed up early on; maybe I will be one of the random lucky "50".

I think we are all sitting here with everything crossed hoping to be one of the lucky 50.
One thing though, if they get the 70% yes vote another 100 names will be drawn.
Then if that release that garners a 70% yes vote another 200 names will be drawn so the odds keep getting better!!!!!!

I don't know that they'll scale up to an additional 200 EAP participants - if we get to that point, they are likely to use input from the second wave of EAP folks (numbers 51 through 150) to help determine when to pull the trigger on the official release.

I got my email on the EAP as well, and hoping to be among the "lucky ones". I will keep my 990 and use the Oppo for all the decoding functions instead of the difference in $ for the new 997.
Just can't justify right now during these cautionary economic times.

Unfortunately for Oppo, their timing will not end up being the best for releasing a new product.

It's hardly ideal, but I think their target audience is likely to generate a fairly healthy sales volume. The $499 price is lower than I think most beta testers were expecting, which helps, and judging by the AVS thread there are a fair number of folks who have been saving their pennies specifically for this player since last fall.

By the way, folks, once the EAP kicks off officially the NDA on beta testers will be adjusted. Discussion of ongoing testing will be off-limits, but discussion of everything relating to features and performance of player and the EAP firmware will be allowed. With that in mind, I'm going to try to have a first-pass review ready to post when the NDA is loosened and will simply update it later once the EAP ends and the official product launch takes place.

Thanks gonk, your reviews are always insightful.