Help...DVD player confusion!

I feel bad posting this, but after all my reading on this site, I'm not very clear on what is the best player for my purposes! Here's the plan:


I need a universal player, that I will have modded for SDI output, but will initially use 480i into my Lumagen Vision scaler. Short-term, 480i performance is important. I use a Electrohome 8500 FP CRT, so the whole DVI/HDCP thing is of no use to me.


Audio is very important and it would probably be wise to choose something that has a hi-res digital connection medium for multi-channel audio for future application (my Halo processor doesn't have it yet, but I hear its coming!) Not a deal-breaker however.


I had narrowed it down to the Denon 2900, 5900, 3910 or Pioneer 59Avi. The usual suspects!


The 5900 adds better audio and IEEE 1394 over the 2900, however the 2900 has no layer change delay and no macroblocking (although I believe that won't be an issue for either 480i or SDI.) Is there a difference in 480i performance between these two?


The 3910 is essentially a 5900 but adds HDMI and looses some weight. Is it really a toss-up between a 5900 and 3910?


The 59Avi is similar to the 3910 from a connection standpoint (although I'm not sure if their implementation of iLink will work with all manufacturer's implementations??)


End result.......does one of these really standout as the way to go, given my setup and intentions????


Any opinions with specific experience would be greatly appreciated!!!