I have heard these stories about HDMI before,various units having handshake issues.I am still unsure about which player to get,Home Theatre Magazine has a story this month about ths Sony,Panasonic and the Samsung 2nd gen players.They felt the Panasonic had the best audio and the video performance was close.They also felt the PS3 was still the best deal,but that does n ot work for me as i need 5.1 analog outs for high def audio.The new Pioneer looks interesting as it also is network compatible,however it is a little more money,$999 cdn.A local store had it on sale last week for $849 but the sale was over before i heard about it.

bill