Philips DVP5990 vs Pioneer DV-610AV

I am going to buy a DVD player and my selection came down to Philips DVP5990 and Pioneer DV-610AV. From what I have read both players shouldn't have any trouble playing DivX or Xvid. They both have Mediatek 1389 chips (Philips DX, Pioneer EX). The only difference between the chips should be that the EX chip supports SACD and DVD-Audio. Am I right to think that both players should have comparable picture quality?

According to FAQ for Pioneer DV-610AV the pioneer has "PureCinema Progressive Scan video".
Does philips have something like that? I intended to connect the player to my AV-Reciever via HDMI and then with HDMI to TV. But now I have doubts. For connecting the pioneer should one use HDMI or component?

Side note: On DVD player I prefer ease of use over picture quality, as long as the picture quality is good. Because now I use PC to play movies and it is not very comfortable solution. My TV is plasma Loewe Xelos, with native resolution 1024x1024, which means that whatever I feed it with, it has to resize, therefore I would like to let TV do any resizing and upscaling.