A Blu-ray or HD-DVD player will give you access to one of the new formats and will give you access to CD and standard DVD (except for Sony's BD player, which doesn't play CD's), but you're looking at more money ($400 or more for HD-DVD, closer to $1000 or more for a decent Blu-ray player, or $500 to $600 for a PS3 plus $25 for a remote control that isn't a game controller). For either format, you'd want to get a player with multichannel analog outputs (which rules out the Toshiba HD-A2 and the PS3 but leaves all of the others in play) to get access to the new audio formats.

Another option is to get a good upscaling DVD player now as a DVD and CD transport and wait for the HD format war to move a bit farther forward. Under that approach, good players can be had for $150 to $250. One that is often mentioned online is OPPO (either the $150 970HD or the $230 981HD that I\'m using these days ). Players like this will give you access to DVD-Audio and SACD and will help wring the most possible potential out of your existing DVD library. With LG starting to sell a combo HD-DVD/Blu-ray player (assuming they can get the iHD support to the point that the DVD Forum will let them officially claim HD-DVD support), we can expect our options to improve on the HD front this year. A combo player (or even a combo/universal that included support for DVD-Audio and SACD) would help provide some protection against getting on the wrong side of the current format war.