I saw a post from Andrew on another thread about the DVD player he has and thought I'd start one about that subject.
My son got me an OPPO OPDV971 and this thing is great. I've yet to find a movie format it won't play (mpg, Divx, of wmv). It can also be made region free by a few clicks of the remote. It also does HD upconverting and has DVI and HDMI connectors and cables. The firmware can be easily updated by downloading a file,burning it to a CD, and then throwing it in the player
All that $199, check it out:
http://www.oppodigital.com/opdv971h.html My one gripe was the original remote that came with it. It had tiny clear buttons with the names of the functions printed under the buttons. My son had the same model but a different remote, so I went to their site and got the easier to read remote by just paying the $5 shipping fee.