The BD50 is a pretty decent candidate. The only observations that I can offer are that (1) the UniPhier chip (which is also used in my BD30) is not the greatest for handling standard DVD playback and (2) the multichannel analog output is apparently 5.1 only, so if you have a 7.1 setup there are a few choices to be made there. Personally, I have found the BD30 to be a very strong player (excellent BD picture quality, quick disc load times and player start-up times compared to the rest of the stand-alone players on the market), and the BD50 takes that platform and adds onboard decoding of all the new audio formats and Profile 2.0 support. I don't think the BD50 presents a "host of caveats" - certainly a few, but you can find a few caveats for any piece of consumer electronics, especially this early in the life cycle of a new format. Josh is a bit harder on the BD30 than I am, so it's not surprising to see his feelings carry over to the BD50. I agree with him that the standard DVD performance is merely fair, but I'm also comparing it to some of the better standard DVD players around (including OPPO's 983H). The BD30 would do as well as or better than any of my non-OPPO players.