I've got a Panasonic AE900 projector in my media room with an Oppo DVD player. Looking to hop on the HD bandwagon, and was wondering what player you would recommend for this setup. The AE900 is capable of 720p/1080i so a lot of the newer players designed for 1080p would seem to be overkill at the moment, no?

I have this projector and I recently upgraded my A1 to the XA2 for the following reasons:
- Futureproof: I might upgrade my projector soon to a 1080p
- Picture quality: the XA2 has an even better SD upscaling quality than the A1
- Overall quality: built quality, loading time, etc

If you decide to keep your AE900 for a while, go for either a G1 (if you need 5.1a) or the A2/A20. If you think you might upgrade and you want the very best quality, go for the XA2.

FYI: a used G1 can be found for around $200, a A2 for $325, A20 for $370 and XA2 for $520.

Good info. Does the 5.1a you mention refer to the standard DD/DTS, or is that some next-gen 5.1 audio format I haven't heard about?

5.1a = 5.1 analogue outputs. You need this if you want the uncompressed sound formats (like Dolby TrueHD) and your receiver/amp/proc doesn't have a HDMI input (and obviously, it has 5.1 analog inputs )

If you don't use 5.1a/HDMI, you get downmixed surround sound through the digital outputs (DD/DTS). The sound quality is still great though.

Thanks. My oldish JVC receiver uses coax/optical for DD/DTS.

In that case, if you don't want to spend the extra $ for the XA2, I would go for the 1080p A20 (the extra $45 over the A2 is worth it IMO).