My Sony LCD reports when it gets a 1080p/24 signal - Iron Man would have been outputting at 24p.
This makes sense. Much like DVD's, Blu-rays should have a lower audio level to allow for more dynamic range. CD's and TV will be louder at the same volume setting.
This is very true - my Panasonic BD30 was "fast" for a Blu-ray player when I got it in late 2007, but it is significantly slower than the BDP-83 (which is comparable to the 983H and 980H for those tasks that are common to all three platforms). Even for tasks unrelated to Blu-ray, it's a substantial difference. I can press "eject" on the BD30 when it is in standby, walk all the way across the house, find a disc on the shelf, walk all the way back, open the case, and remove the disc before the tray opens. On the BDP-83, the tray will open in about 11 seconds (not enough time to get a disc case off the shelf in the same room and get back to the entertainment center). You will find that for loading BD titles, there will be a fair bit of variation in load times due to the way each disc is authored and how each disc's unique BD-Java software is written.