Does Panasonic RP 91 still have the best Picture

Best picture now is the Sony dvpn999es. Looks better than the new Pioneer Elite DVD47AI. I compared them side by side on plasma and dlp... Tom

You are aware that you need to recallibrate your display each time you change DVD players. Most people do not do this. That may alleviate the "softness" which you are experiencing. Or it may not. You can use the AVIA setup disc or a sound and Vision callibration disc for this. Both are available at places like Best Buy and Amazon.com.

Rkuryl is right. The MPEG decoder in the RP91 is the player to beat, IMO. The RP82 has the same MPEG decoder, and has the same, slighter worse, or slightly better picture than the RP91 (depending on who you ask). Also the scaling of the RP91 is really excellent. Which is important if you have non-anamorphic discs as Rkuryl noted. The deinterlacing of the RP82 will probably be slightly better. So it really comes down to whether scaling or deinterlacing is more important to you. That, and the $200 or so price differential.

Definitely check the avsforum.com forums. Lots of videophiles hang out there!

I'd consider the Philips DVD963SA before the Q50. The 963SA is just out and is supposed to be excellent (in the same league as the Panasonic RP82). I think it's selling for $399-499 at some places.

It's an older model but yes it seems like this is still the player to beat. I have one being used with a Pioneer PRO520 and it's really great. The only other player that seems to be close is the Panasonic RP82 but I'm pretty sure it's been discontinued. You would think by now that other manufacturers would be able to catch up. This just has not happened yet. The RP91 also has the ability to fill a 16:9 screen with non-anamorphic disks. This feature is nice and I've used it a few times. It also has no chroma bug which the Pioneer players DO HAVE. I've read lots of info on some of the new players out and it still seems like the RP91 does the most things RIGHT. Denon has some new players out which some say the image is better than the RP91 but users have reported tons of problems with disks freezing, etc.

You can do some research over at AVS forum.

Hope this helps.

Take a look here:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/main.html

Pioneer Elite DV-47AI DVD Audio, Multi-Channel SACD, DVD Video Player just came out for $700, and lots of mods for the audio on these.

Cheers