Now that i've sorted out the overheating/freezing issue (no thx to DTV) Im loving the 5k...i know ive heard people rave about the upgrading chip but it wasnt til recently when i couldnt get some titles in BD that I rented the standard Def versions...the Reon chip is pretty amazing, its nearly as clear as BD to me

Is our player one of the few players that utilizes this chip? Is it b/c of pricing?

Correct on both counts. So far, the only players I'm aware of using Reon are Samsung BD-P1200, BD-UP5000 and Toshiba XA2. Reon's big brother Realta (SP??) chip is used in a few high end receivers (>$1000).

i went through a 3 month phase when my player was freezing where i really regretted getting this player - not to mention samsung customer care has been useless to me (had to hav one unit replaced already)

but with the latest firmware answering the major issue about bitstreaming audio, resolving the freezing issue by moving my DTV box away from the 5k, and the unexpected surprise of how well this upconverts SD DVD, i've finally concluded I made the right choice even though HD DVD is obsolete. :)

Yes, having tried a few DVDs in the machine now, I'm pleasantly surprised by the upconversion. Put simply--it rocks!

Yesterday I tried one of my kids DVDs (a VeggieTales to be precise).

What I had noticed with that title on my Tosh A35 is that the intro stuff (that is the same on every disk) had lots of jaggies, while the main feature seemed to upconvert fairly well. The intro stuff seems to have been animated earlier when computer animation wasn't quite as good, and uses less colors to produce the 3D effect.

Anyway, with the UP5K there were absolutely no jaggies throughout--intro or main feature, it looked great. Gotta like that Reon.