oh, its the oppo deck then! i had forgotten the model number for it. well, if they do offer a trade-in program then maybe it wont be too bad a price

No trade-in, but the 970HD has held its resale value very well because of a hacked firmware version that lets it upconvert via component with copy-protected DVD's.

oh, they decided not to offer a trade in program?

I've not ever heard them talk about a trade-in program. I could have missed it, but I follow them pretty closely. Seriously, though, that 970HD that you bought at least a year and a half ago (since the 980H replaced it in the summer of '07) for $150 will sell on the used market for at least $100, possibly closer to $120. You'll probably want to sell it somewhere with an OPPO-aware audience, like Audiogon - and it may sell even better if you point potential buyers to the component upconversion hack thread at AVS in case they have an HDTV with no DVI-HDCP or HDMI inputs.

hmm, that might work...on that oppo thread...i have yet to hook the 950 up or really look at the book yet, so dont know the answer to this question. could i just buy a blu-ray for blu-ray and use the oppo for "normal" dvd's??

Yes, you could. You'd want to use the multichannel analog input for Blu-rays, and you could use coaxial or optical digital for DVD's.

i apologize for asking you all these questions but i just get real confused with all the different wiring possibilities and stuff. so when you say use coax or optical digital for the oppo, how does that translate to wiring? such as "connect this to that" ?

Let's say that you have both a Blu-ray player (we'll use the BD50 as an example) and the 970HD. Here's the quick list for audio setup:

• six analog audio cables (left, right, center, left surround, right surround, and subwoofer) from the BD50 to the 950.
• coaxial or optical digital audio cable (whichever one you want to use) from the 970HD to the 950.

Video will depend on your display. If you can, you would want to run HDMI from both players to your TV (just skip the 950 in this case).

ah hah!! so i can skip the 950 then for the hdmi cables! if that is the case, why do people want to upgrade the pre/pro if it doesnt have hdmi if you can route the video via hdmi and skip the 950?

They want to connect HDMI to the processor because it can carry audio - replaces those six analog cables we were just talking about...