I have been out of the country for several months and am not up to date on the latest developments. I would like to buy a Blu-ray player and after reading the discussions in this forum I gather the best choices are the Sony BDP-S550 or the Panasonic DMP-BD50(or the PS2)for my 990/7500 system.

My friend is going with Sony and he is vastly more knowledgeable than I but we need onboard decoding with an Outlaw amp as I understand it so I am wondering which of the two is best for use with my system.