Peter and Gonk:

Thanks for your insights. The forums have been buzzing over this player for some time and based upon your experiences during the beta test phase the hype is justified. Now folks will be actually vibrating with anticipation! It may well be the holy grail of disc players. One additional note: I've seen a number of posts from folks who are anxious to combine the BDP-83 with the 997. Based upon some of the initial info on the 997 it appears there are overlapping features. I'm curious how they will work together and allow the customer to take advantage of each unit's best features. Maybe that's another thread.