My PS3 just died...so I have a couple choices

You are missing the fact that you can get a player for less than $80 that will put a PS3 to shame.

It all depends on the features you need. If all you want to do is play 3D BluRay discs, SD DVD discs, stream Netflix, and output digital audio (HDMI), then all you really need is a Panasonic 220 or Sony 590. The advantage of the $500 players such as lower end Denon and Oppo 103 are better build quality (if that's important to you), universal player capabilities (SACD and DVD-A), and high quality audio DACs for excellent analog audio out. Even better is the Oppo 105 or higher end Denons, with even better audio DACs, but they are quite expensive (>$1000).

A few years back I had on loan the denon 1611 and the philips 9600 player to compare to my fatty 60gig PS3

here is a short sumary.

http://www.avforums.com/forums/blu-ray-dvd-players/1386079-ps3-vs-denon-1611-philips-9600-bd-player.html

now I'm not saying mdavej is wrong but the ps3 is a pritty good player.

Now, this x-mas my 'old' multiplayer, the marantz dv6400 started to acting up, and while the fatty is still going, I thought now is the time to look for a new player. for bd / cd , and let the fatty rest a bitt.

So after some back and forth I landed on the panasonic bdt 500.I looked at the marantz and denon line up, and the plan was , same as I did a few years ago , but this time , get the CA 651 player to see if it would give me a better PQ.
But I could not justify the price for the CA on my budged , so I settled for the Panny and I'm happy with the sound and PQ it gives me. Compared to the ps3 it has the upperhand, it has some more Picture tweeks in the menu wichm, if you don't go overboard with shaprness etc gives a razor sharp image. More details in dark than ps3 can give, and more details on faces f.eks, and the ability to make a panning( fast action scenes etc) stay sharp .

The 3d, hugo ,tintin and Dredd, looks like a million dollars, I never cared for 3d, but after the panny got in the house I have bought a few extra glasses and more 3d movies. 2 ch sound, listening to cd is also great. It feels a tad more open than the the marantz player. Like removing a thin tissue from the tweeter's. One can discuss the remote, I'm not a hughe fan of it, but there are so many others one can buy if one dont' care about the slide pad style reomte . And aslo the player beeing a 'short' style one, so you have to have it on top in the rack may be a draw back.

I'm curently feeding the picture and sound from hdmi out 1 to my receiver , but I will try to hook it up so it feeds picture only directly to my tv from output 1 and sound only to my yamaha from hdmi out 2 to see if I can squeese out some extra detail. Dont' think so though.

can't beat that :-)