Oh, and by the way, Panasonic also use the 'shutter glasses' technology; so, nothing new here. Although they would like you to believe it is something new, it is in fact the same technology that Mitsubishi and Samsung are using FOR YEARS already! The only difference is that we are talking about HD instead of SD, but the rest is old news/technology. Their press release stating that only Plasma-TV's are capable of 3D is just simply not true!

Quote: "toss those silly two-color glasses in the trash to get with this stereoscopic solution".

Please get your facts straight: two-color glasses ARE stereoscopic. In fact, all stereoscopic systems require glasses (or, refrased, all 3-D systems with glasses are stereoscopic). It is only the AUTO-stereoscopic systems that do not require glasses, but they require a whole lot of money and are not yet mass-produced.

The best known steroscopic systems are:
1.) Two-color glasses (red and green/blue) have the worst color-quality, but they are for home use and compatible with every TV. Therefore, all released 3-D Blu-ray discs feature this system.
2.) Polarized glasses (like Imax) require two pojectors; not for home-use.
3.) Shutter glasses, require only one display, but with higher framerates to alternate left and right eye frames (like the Mitsubishi and Samsung 3D-ready displays); for home use, but requires 3D-capable display.

Just my $0.02

Many, many posibilities:

Some (software) region-free mods need updates when the firmware is updated. Some don't need updates (so far), like the LG200, the Oppo83, the HDI Dune Center, the HDI Dune BD Prime, etc. These are your cheapest option.

Hardware mods (or complete modded players) do not need to be updated when new firmware is loaded, but these are a little more expensive. Many mods/modded-players can be bought from BluRayMods.com (or one of their worldwide distributors), JVBDigital.com, and some others.

In any case, but even more expensive, a HTPC/laptop with BD-player or BD-burner in combination with Slysoft AnyDVD-HD will always do the trick (subscription based nowadays).

By the way, some mods are yet largely unknown (harware/software?), like the Momitsu modded by HKflix. Some players are/were region-free OTB (Out of The Box), like the Australian Kogan (sold out). Personally, I'd stay away untill all the info is out there.

All depends on the price you want to pay versus how easy you want your player to be (and other factors that might be relevant for you).

Yes, I knew it, here it is (available in the UK under the name Clux):

http://www.cypuk.com/index.php/Audience/V1.3-HDMI-to-HDMI-Repeater-with-Audio-Decoder/flypage.tpl.html

This device looks very familiair. Is it about the same as the Clux?

@rdclark:
A well designed BD-player incorparates B.M. and alignments (like the Pioneer 09), no need to do that again. When going forward with BD-live (profile 2.0 and beyond), decoding needs to be done in the player anyway with the PCM send to this box. An all digital version (7.1 s/pdif ouputs) would have been even nicer though, but that's impossible to license, I guess.

Quote: "both units feature a dedicated 2-channel analog audio output"

Bummer, no 7.1 analog.

You're right. I didn't quite get the comment "Plenty of modern cell phones have HD-quality screens on them" either. AFAIK, the smallest HD screen (and with that I mean full-HD, not HD-ready) in a consumer-level product is a 15.4" lcd (actually 1920x1200). Unless I missed a smaller 1080 display, I think this woul dmake for a rather BIG cell phone ;)

The HDI Dune's also play MKV files (and do streaming, and internal or external storage, and recording(!), and all audio formats over bitstream and decoding, and, and, ...)

By the way, thanks Jeff C! MultiAVCHD seems to work with EVERY BD-player; great!

Do I smell another $500 million fine for preventing fair competition and monopoly-misuse?

@Tama:
Ever wondered why European countries adopted/included the American NTSC-standard (about 90% of the applicable electronics) many years ago already (plus the SECAM system, by the way), whileas America is still not adopting the European PAL-standard (10% or less)?

(hint: think along the lines that less than 7% of people from the US actually HAS a passport, and is able to have a look outside the US (if they wanted), according to a study a few years back)

Example: the EU-version of the Panasonic BD-players plays both PAL and NTSC discs, while the US-version of the exact same player only plays NTSC discs...