Well folks, I have finally been able to try the Bravo player with the Piano 3100. I bought a DVI-D (5 M) cable from Pacific cable (good stuff). These are my initial impressions for people who may be considering this player for the Piano 3100 or 3200.
The connections:
-Optical for audio (did not want to mess with the issues of coax)
-Component and DVI for video
-Disks part of AOTC and LOTR
After messing with the options was able to set the component settings (it defaults to composite) appropriately to get a decent picture. In DVI, I was able to output both 480p and the DVI gateway. I could not see the difference between the two but went with the 480p setting. I was surprised that the 3100 accepted it. The picture while extremely sharp and saturated, was not complete. The image was off-center (moved to the right) and was missing 5% from the right. I tried everything and checked with service at Piano, and was told that the DVI in the 3100's limits the image to 800x600. Therefore, the 48 of 848 missing information is the 5% lost. I guess they overcame this limitation in the 3200 but I am not sure.
While, I have barely watched a complete movie, my first impression is that if you can live with the missing image you are rewarded by a great picture and the limitation is the projector and not the player. I have not done enough comparisons with the component to determine how much better the image is, but will post when I complete my observations. If you are sitting on the fence considering a Samsung you will still be faced with the same limitation of the partial image being lost (over DVI) with the 3100. I hope this helps some of you piano users in your consideration of this player.
