Player choice with audio concern?

[acritzer]

Well, my other thread is a bit of a jumbled mess at this point so I decided to start a fresh one with my new questions.

So:
-I have an Onkyo HT-R520 (no HDMI), but does have multi-channel analog.
-Interested in either a panny 55, or sharp 21u. Both seem to have multi-channel output for lossless sound.

1) General comparison between the two players?
-Will they both decode the HD audio for me?
-Obvious concerns, pic quality, load times, firmware issues, etc.

2) After reading a LOT of the old school receiver thread, is the tweaking going to be especially difficult to pull off the lossless HD sound? I am already familiar with setting speaker distance, dB level etc...but have no idea about PCM, bitstreaming.


Thank you!