There are tons of people who have your oppo player, it’s a good player and does a good job upconverting.
They can buy a PS3 for 400 w/5 free blu-rays, and/or a Toshiba A2 for 200 with 5 free hd-dvd’s and have just as good or better upconversion as your oppo AND the ability to watch hd movies, no contest.
For 500 the Toshiba XA2 is generally considered the best upconverter of them all in addition to being a hd-dvd player.
Why tell people to wait for a war that most likely will never end and currently has no end in sight? If you want to get in cheap you get the A2 with 5 free movies, it’s like you’re only paying 75 for the player. It’s not like your 200 dollar investment is going to explode if blu-ray wins, your 400 dollar ps3 isn’t going to explode either if hd-dvd wins. You’ll still have your movies and player, companies are making dual players now too.
If you have a hi-def TV you are NOT seeing it at it’s OPTIMUM if you don’t have blu-ray or hd-dvd. Also you DO NOT have to buy 100-125 monster hdmi cables either, monoprice and blue jean cables have hdmi cables for less than 10 dollars (yes, they’re just as good, people with 25K + theatres use them, no need to waste money)
Like I saiud, I refuse to become a pawn of the format war. It is not going to last forever, they NEVER have and one of the formats WILL LOSE, leaving multitudes of people with obsolete product. No the OPPO 981 is not true HD, but it is close and for now, anyone buying into the HD format war is wasting their money. As it is HDDVD already proved it is incapable of delivering everything TRUE HD audio and video has to offer. The latest TRANSFORMERS HDDVD is proof of that. The audio is limited because the format does not have enough space to put true HD audio on the disk. No thanks, I and multitudes of others will wait for the war to end before sinking hard earned money into next gen DVD.