To be able to use the new audio formats (Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, and DTS-HD) as well as the discs that have uncompressed multichannel PCM, you will need a player with a 5.1 channel analog output and onboard decoding of those formats. One option that you may be able to find at a nice price is the Panasonic BD50 - it doesn't have a 7.1 analog output (which the BD55 and Sony S550 do offer), but the 950 doesn't have a 7.1 input anyway - and otherwise it is as full-featured as those two players. The layer change on standard DVD's won't be as fast as the 970HD, but the DVD scaling and deinterlacing should be pretty close (my 980H had an edge over the older BD30, but the differences between 970HD and BD50 should be reduced).