I have had my Oppo since December and have applied all the firmware with success but, I am having an issue that I can't seem to solve. I previously had a Panasonic DMP-BDT320, enjoyed it, with no issues and was fine until I started reading all of the reviews of the Oppo and Decided to give myself an early Christmas gift. IMHO I think the picture of the Oppo is... softer, for lack of a better word, the detail, clarity and pop I expect is simply not there on Blu-ray, and SD content is improved minimally. Some will say the Panny added sharpness and therefore artifacts but honestly there was no ringing or other artifacts that were noticeable and the only issue I had was motion judder on medium pans which may or may not be the players fault, although this is somewhat better with the Oppo. I actually had to set the sharpness to +1 to get closer to what I would expect but still this wasn't as sharp as the Panny ultimately and anything over +1 added slight ringing. My display is a JVS RS25U. On SD content I had to adjust further, maybe it was the transfer but Saving Private Ryan looked close to awful, especially the first scene with Ryan his white shirt looks ridiculous. I had to lower the sharpness to -1 and change the noise reduction to +2.
My issue is that I have a feeling of deja vu, back when 480p started becoming mainstream in homes, I put up $400 for a Pioneer Elite DVD player because like all a lot of us, I wanted the best available to me, which was supposed to be a big step up from my Sony at the time. However once I got the unit home I was unimpressed in comparison, the picture was "bland" to me and upon calling the dealer, he explained that I might need to adjust to watching a "proper" dvd player with correct flesh tones. So I said fine and ended up sticking with it but always had a nagging in the back of my head, or buyer’s remorse. I am sort of feeling the same way here, I have had my projector ISF calibrated and everything and all I did was a swap players so it’s not the display. Also this issue I think I am experiencing here is less subjective, where color is something each of us might see differently and is ultimately up to the viewer preference in light of standards, focus and clarity is less so and should be relatively uniform, which is why this is bugging me so much.
I would like to first find out if it is something I have setup wrong, I have tried running hdmi audio and video separate to the preamp and pj respectively as well as the single hdmi always with the display running through HDMI 1, anyhow no difference was noticeable. Am I running the HDMI through the correct output? I have the settings on the player at 1080p/ 24hz (Auto)/ 4:4:4.
Secondly, I would like to know is this what I should expect and am I expecting something that can't be delivered, which is possible but like I said I felt the previous player delivered on the clarity but slow/medium pans were an issue.
Thirdly, though not likely, could this simply be a result of expecting something to be good so everyone ( i.e. reviewers) jumps on the bandwagon almost regardless of actual performance, thereby motivating someone like me to buy, but because I am not biased, feel a little disappointed?
Lastly has anyone else experienced this or does anyone have any suggestions to help? Because, I ultimately feel it is something with my settings or setup, I will try to post comparison pics later.
Any help is greatly appreciated, I am just trying to get Blu-ray to look properly sharp first, SD is a whole other disappointment that I will have to deal with, I just feel like for the money and positive reviews, this thing should look distinctly impressive almost out of the box.
PCM indeed can be transmitted via 5.1 as well as 7.1. Given that PCM is uncompressed audio, it is, by definition, high resolution. There are even a few BD discs with 7.1 LPCM audio: 
