Never mind--it is an AC connection (~180v). Duh, I put a meter on it and everything became clear. The polarity of the "replacement" display leads threw me. I tried it all the same and the original display worked more/less fine. There were some loose connections where the ribbon cable connects to the display board and caused this problem here... Fiddling with it I thought it had been resolved, but by the time I got it reassembled, I still can't count on it to display reliably. It's OK as I'm going to use it remotely.

I was encouraged by my success with Tony T's (not our Tony) xPLRio.net and it's ability to support >2500 titles or whatever that limit is.., and by it's ability to sync with other player, but mostly by its ability to be controled by a web interface. This will allow me to use this unit from a remote location and still control it whether the display works or not.