Thanks to both of you for the advice. Charles, in answer to your sugggestion to consider getting a progressive player now, here's what I'm thinking... I'm not opposed to getting a progressive player at all. It's just that I won't be using the progressive capabilities on this player for at least a few year. Thus, all of the press and discussion about which player has the better progressivee capabilities to me is irrelevant except for future use considerations down the road. Hence my focus on capabilities for interlaced and not needing to pay extra dough for the latest progressive features. But, if there's a great progressive player out there (with great interlaced video) and it's price is not out of the ball park compared to great non-progressive players, then I would certainly consider it. As for buying prrogressive now in case I upgrade my TV in the future, my thinking is that in several years the payers will be much more advanced and cheaper than they are now so it's not a major concern. Also, I see no sense in spending extra dough now to get DVD-A or SACD capability in my DVD player when it's unclear where those formats are going--I also have no interest in listening to my music CD's in multi channel. I have a killer Sonic Frontiers Power 3/Line 3 & Revel 2 channel system and that's the way it's going to stay for music.
In a nutshell, my dilemma is...do I just get a $300 DVD player to tide me over for now (relative performance of the progressive capabilities unimportant to me but ok if they're there; audio going straight to my Theta Casanova proc)? If so, which one? Do the new $300 progressive machines have equal or better interlaced video quality compared to the used former greats in the $300 to $800 price range?
My other choice is to go out and spend $1,000 to $2,000 on a high end player. My fear in doing the latter is that I won't get any benefit for that extra money spent given my set up.
In a nutshell, my dilemma is...do I just get a $300 DVD player to tide me over for now (relative performance of the progressive capabilities unimportant to me but ok if they're there; audio going straight to my Theta Casanova proc)? If so, which one? Do the new $300 progressive machines have equal or better interlaced video quality compared to the used former greats in the $300 to $800 price range?
My other choice is to go out and spend $1,000 to $2,000 on a high end player. My fear in doing the latter is that I won't get any benefit for that extra money spent given my set up.