Is the Oppo worth the extra money?
I have a 720p 50" Panasonic plasma.
Thanks.

Most DVD players are pretty much the same these days in that price range. Oppo get away with tweaking without it upping the price dramatically by not having their players in retail stores.
The 981 will give you the best picture of the three currently on the website.

I can't play them on the Toshiba HD-DVD, and my old JVC region free player looks a bit rough on the 50" Plasma....

There's an unadvertised diagnostic menu and a key sequence that turns it into a region-free player. I did it to mine but can't remember the exact commands. You can find them online, of course.

And also why there are a couple aftermarket companies that will mod it for $600 to compete with $2000-3000 DVD players (because it is such a solid base to start).

Buy one.<ul><li><a href="http://forums.audiworld.com/htelect/msgs/18088.phtml">Make Oppo region-free</a></li></ul>

just that you get a perfectly acceptable upconversion, which probably won't be noticably worse than the Oppo, plus you can watch HD-DVDs AND you'll get 5 free HD-DVD movies. The HD-A2 is for sale at $230 right now.

Plus once you've watched a few HD-DVDs all your DVDs, whatever they've been upconverted by, will look crap.