recommend a new dvd player

My panasonic DMP-BD30k has been great!

How you connect to the projector might not be as important as how you connect to your receiver/pre for audio. One of the big pluses for blu-ray are the new lossless audio formats, TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, and uncompressed PCM. These have to be transferred to your rig by either analog outs or transferred digitally via HDMI as toslink/coax will not work. If digitally, then you have the choice of decoding either in the player or at the receiver/pre. So you have to make sure that either the player or your receiver/pre can decode both TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. PCM is universally handled in almost all cases. Finally, if the decoding will be handled by the receiver/pre, then the player must be capable of bitstreaming TrueHD and DTS-HD MA.

I know that's a lot of boxes to check. But it's important for either retrofitting it to your current system or looking toward future upgrades.

The next thing you have to ask yourself is how important it is to you to get stuff like internet interactive features that use future blu-ray online features. Many players at this point are not BD-Live (profile 2.0) compliant. This doesn't affect audio/video playback, but will affect the ability to connect to the internet and use additional supplementary features. If having all the bells and whistles is important, then you might want to wait until this Christmas season when all the new players should be released and another round of deals should be surfacing.

Also, be aware that many of the new receiver/pre releases include upconversion. For example, Onkyo actually uses the much talked about Reon chip (included on the best upconverting players) on several of its products. So if you might be upgrading to take advantage of the new blu-ray audio options anyways, it might be better getting upscaling capabilities in a receiver/pre since that will allow you to upgrade all your video sources.

As far as I know, the PS3 does not have 5.1 analog outouts, so you will not get any of the new formats with your current reciever. You would need HDMI.

And almost all, if not all DVD and Blu-Ray players, will not upconvert with component outputs, only with HDMI. Again, you would need a different reciever, and HDMI inputs on the projector.

cheddar wrote: »

Actually, as long as the DVI port is HDCP compliant, then it should work just like an HDMI port without the audio (since HDMI is DVI with the audio). You just need a cable with HDMI on one end and DVI on the other. These are easy to get. Then you could plug everything into a new hdmi receiver/pre (when you get the funds, of course) and let it handle all the switching duties. I currently use this set-up to switch everything and route it to the DVI port on my HDTV.

Not sure if he has a DVI port, but that would work as well.

bikezappa wrote: »

well i never ever play games so the ps3 has little interest but i do understand it plays dvds well.

Is the panny DMP-BD30K good with upconverting SD DVDs

It does alright. I ended up returning my Oppo 980H as the panasonic did better than the Oppo with SDVD. FWIW.