There have been some comments off and on since even before the 970HD arrived earlier this year about this player. The info you got from them matches what I've seen batted around at AVS: the 971's replacement will retain the 971's Faroudja processing but move to an HDMI output and add support for SACD along with the DVD-Audio support already offered by the 971. I've been keeping an eye on it since it could potentially replace both my Yamaha universal and my 971 as a single solution for me. If the launch goes anything like the 970HD's did, we'll hear something official about it from Oppo when they have the first batch ready to ship and they add it to their online store.