[Vonner]

Here are my initial impressions. I got the player today along with Ratatouille, 3:10 To Yuma, and Lost: Season 3 (as previously mentioned). I don't have all the cords in all the sizes that I need for my final hook up, but for the initial test I have the video being feed via HDMI to the TV and the audio via coaxial bitstreem to the AVR.

I popped in the Ratatouille disc for an initial impression (I will watch the feature later tonight) and selected the short "Lifted". I was impressed with the video and the audio as far as that goes. It was very crisp. I'll have to compare it to the SD version upconverted via the XA2 at some point.

As for the player itself, like I said, I haven't played with it too much. I plugged it in and did some quick set up via the player menus. From and cold start the player powered up fairly fast and opened the disc tray instantly. That is a change from the XA2. The XA2 take a minute or so to power up and open the disc tray from a cold start (after it's running the XA2 it responds within seconds). The big difference was when I put a disc in. On the XA2 it loads and starts playing quite a bit faster that this one. Upon closing the tray it was at least a couple of minutes before I got anywhere. Again, this was just one test. It may be better.

I'll know more after I can get it hooked up as I want it (probably 5.1 analog outs) and test it with a few more discs.

One more quick thing...it's got an ugly mirrored front. They should have stuck with black like the rest of the player.