Got my dad a Panasonic DMP-BDT500 for Xmas/Birthday as a replacement for the Sony S5100 which had to be returned for his birthday. This allowed me to do a comparison, since both machines were set up and played for a couple of days.

The Panasonic is genuinely leagues ahead to my eyes and ears, and is a brilliant player. The picture is exemplary, with excellent definition, natural colour tone and flawless motion handling. The sound is meaty and musical, yet refined enough not to be irritating (and I'm easily irritated by hi-fi).

Good media handling and reasonably responsive. Even has a dedicated Netflix button and Netflix picture quality in Super HD is excellent. Has lots of tweaking and adjustments for those who wish to play, and mostly in a useful way, the lip sync adjustment is very useful, and there are user preference profiles in case different people have different sound/picture prefs.

The remote is also brilliant and the touch pad actually works.

HC: 861v4/ID40/LPS, DSP5000, DSP5000VC, DSP3100, SW1600, HD621, Oppo BDP-105, Sony VPL-HW55ES
2-Channel: Oppo BDP-105, TEAC VRDS-7/Trichord Clock 3/PSU, 551, Quad 303, Harbeth Compact 7ES-3, Kimber cables, Russ Andrews mains and supports.
Previous Meridian: 5000C, 5200SL, 7200.2, 6000, 562V.2, 568.2mm, 800v4, 808.2i, 818v2/v3, 861v8, 502