Time to pull the trigger on BluRay?


I am woefully ignorant about where we are with bluray. Is it time to buy? If so what are the SOTA players? I assume these players will play DVD and perhaps some other formats. I vaguely remember hearing that there are some features/quality issues still being worked out. Please educate the ignorant.
Thanks.
bflowers
I thought I might post my observations as I recently bought a Panasonic bd-35. The HD looks great, but the SD up conversion going to my 1080p 100" projector is okay at best. It does not compare in any area to my Toshiba HD-A30 with the more advanced up scaling. If you have a lot of DVDs a better upscaler is still a good idea IMO. BTW, the sound is great out of the Panasonic.
I recently got a sony bdp s550. The picture is very good on my 51" crt rear projection tv, but what really blew me away is the sound. Way better placement of things happening in the surrounds and fronts.You might call it holographic.
I am decoding the sound in the player and sending it straight through my anthem avm50 via hdmi.
Very pleased!!