Every once in a while something comes along and you say to yourself;'This cant be true. Its just too good.' Well, thats what this review is about. Its a DVD player made by a little known brand called Oppo Digital. This little company has decided to take on the big boys and they are doing it with style. Its called the OPPO OPDV971H Digital HD-Ready Up-Converting DVD Player. For around 200 dollars (US), you get what can only be described as a sweet little player. Its very unassuming at first. Its footprint is standard for stereo AV equipment, but its only about an inch and a quarter tall. No flashy panel here, just a small discrete display which tells you what you need to know. One thing to note, the front power indicator is a beacon in the night and it can be distracting. Fortunately OPPO built a dimmer set into the on screen display. This is one player that you really should read the manual for. The player is ready out of the box and usually comes flashed with the latest firmware. The firmware is user upgradeable too. Or you can send it back to OPPO and they will flash it for you. In looking at the firmware history, you can see they are listening to their audience as many of the flashes are for performance and features.

Now I could sit here and do a copy and paste of the specs for this machine, but its not worth your time. Any consumer worth their salt will click on the OPPO link and go read for themselves. Go read it. Its worth it.

What I would like to do is provide you with an out of the box experience. This is consumerism at its best.

The package arrived as they said it would on Friday afternoon. I had the two kids with me so things were a little slow, but it still only took 10 minutes to plug it in. The HDMI cable is included along with a DVI to HDMI converter. This is a nice touch because it will be a cold day before you pay anything less than 50 dollars for one at Best Buy. It was plugged into my TV, a 60 inch Sony Wega. It should be noted that the player only outputs in DVI. It is not a pure HDMI player, so you will have to bring your sound over. You have a choice of formats to bring it over with. They are Digital Optical SPDIF, Coaxial SPDIF and 5.1 channel. You should be pretty much covered. I used the optical SPDIF and connected to my stereo.

When I fired up, I was immediately splashed with the OPPO logo and a peculiar blue background. Its right there, in your face. I hit the OSD and was rewarded with an easy menu that was broken into logical categories. The manual was clear and not long winded. I adjusted the DVD out to 1080i and set my stereo settings. One other thing I did which was not factory default was to turn on the TrueLife option. This is important. You need to check to see if this function is on. You may also want to check to see if the noise reduction for video is on. I left mine off.

Then I put in a movie...
Treat yourself nicely and put in a recent classic. I dropped a copy of "Serenity" in and stood back. I must say it was quite striking, but not until I really started looking. Subtle variations in things like fabrics, facial textures and motion were all noticably improved. Naturally I began sampling movies...

After running through about 15 DVD's and being very pleased at finding new details I began to wonder about other details like formats and such. So I ran it through every format I could think of except for Divx6. Surprisingly, it played everything I threw at it. Region 3? Sure. PAL? Sure.

Then it was time for the acid test. I have an original copy of the Special Collectors Edition of Tombstone. One day it ceased to play. All examinations of the disk revealed no flaws we could see. It simply wasnt there. Even my computer could not read it. Since the disk is OOP, Im out of luck. So I put it in and was absolutely amazed to see that it could access the chapters and main menu. Grinning very widely, I put it back on the shelf determined to lounge on a Saturday and watch it again.

Pros:
Upconversion to as high as 1080i from DVD source. Multiple sound options and a good menu. The ability to play from any region and format. Superior video processing via the Faroudja's award winning DCDi deinterlacing and scaling technology. Firmware updates available directly from the company. Best of all, a company that actually care about their product and is willing to listen to it's customers.

Cons:
No pure HDMI output so you will have to run audio cables. Getting to know the player requires reading the manual. Its not a bad read, but some folks dont like to read manuals.


So do I like it? YES! Its been a great addition to my collection and I can enjoy my movies like never before. The jaggedness is gone and it still moves clean and clear despite being scaled to 60 inches. The one thing I noted was that it was an extreme shock to go back to broadcast television. It makes you realize the garbage that passes for broadcast quality. If you have a HD ready TV and have not bought in, this player will probably seal your fate.

Who is it good for? Collectors and people who really love their movies. For the DVI input in your LL projector, this thing rocks! If your TV has either a DVI or HDMI input, you really should consider this player. You should be aware that if your television already does upscaling, you probably wont see much of anything, but Televisions like that are a bit rare.

To sum it up, this player is for your eyes what a total body massage is to you.
It's that good.

SamuraiJack

do you plan on testing it with your DIY PJ? I'd like to see comparisons between an upconverting DVD player and FFDshow w/ zoomplayer or theaterteck, etc.

SJ are you a salesman because if I did'nt already own one after reading your comment about the OPPO I'd be ordering one now , all the picture on my plog is fromm the OPPO ,it is a great piece of equipment .

RR

Hows it look at 720p thru a 17" PJ??? Your answer will enable oppo to sell one more player!

I'm assuming that the DVI cable will plug straight into the DVI port on my Samsung 730b?

Yes, the DVI will plug directly into the Samsung. Good thing cause thats the panel Im going to use for my Pro Build!

Salesman. Yes, but I was blessed with an hourly wage and a minor percentage so I could break down the good stuff and really get the customers what they wanted. As a result, if I find something I think is really worth it, then I sing about it...

Its like a Dyson vacuum cleaner...Nothing beats it.

PS. watched "Over the Hedge". You could see the hairs on the faces of the animals. Not the big ones, the little tiny ones that are all rendered individually....great picture.

heheheh over the hedge,, ohhh gawd,, soooo funny,,, love it

I am assuming, when connected to a 17" monitor, with 1280x1024 resolution, that one would set the output to 720p. I am also assuming, if the output type is set to widescreen tv, the resolution sent from the OPPO would be 1280x720.

What will the image look like on the 17" monitor? Will it be stretched to 1024 tall, or will the monitor auto center the image and leave "black bars" on top and bottom? Or is this an "it all depends on the particular monitor you own" answer? If it matters, I am using a BenQ FP71V+.

Does anyone who owns one of these OPPO players have any experience with trying to display it on a 5:4 aspect ratio monitor? What output setting do you use (16:9 or 4:3)? Does it stretch the image at all?

Thanks,
Pirin

Found out something pretty cool this weekend. You can eject the disk, clean it up and put it back in and it will resume from the spot you were on...very handy for kids movies etc...

I know some will do this, but my previous player would loose track of it. Its just very handy to know. Its really handy if your kids like peanut butter...

SJ I would like to know if this Oppo will let you do brightness- Contrast adjustments when it's in 720P progressive mode?
My current Samsung dvd player doesn't allow any adjustments in progressive (720P) but allows it in 480i.

If I get a chance I will check for 720 and 1080.
I seem to recall messing with it when I was on 1080i. Seems like it will let you do almost anything the buffer on the play circuit is huge...

Okay I tested it last night. You can pretty much do whatever you want in any resolution. The only thing you cant do is switch resolutions on the fly. You have to stop the playback first, but you can just hit play after you change and it will resume from where you stopped. Tested it the "Patriot" superbit version last night...I could change settings in all resolutions. Oddly enough, it was hard to see the difference between 1080i and 720p, but it was there...
I think it might be because I have the noise reduction set to level 1 ( lowest). That helps a lot with reduced copies. I always buy and edit my kid's movies. There is nothing worse than making them watch 10 minutes of "Coming soon to video and dvd..". BTW it handles every writable I have thrown at it as well and even a homemade vcd of variable bitrate.

Hope this helps.

SJ

Will this dvd player do upscaling to 720p or 1080i via component, or is the component output restricted to 480p?

I think I already know the answer to this, but I just wanted to check from someone who actually owns one.

BTW, if this dvd player will not upscale over component, is there any dvd player available that will do this besides the helios hvd2085? I've read so many mixed reviews regarding that dvd player, I'm not sure if it would be a good buy or not, and since I have no DVI or HDMI inputs, I was trying to see if there was another option available.

The Oppo will not upscale over component. There are some dvd players that will but you have to use amenu hack to enable it. The Oppo you can't hack. I believe Samsung was one of the them. There are threads on this particular issue at AVSFORUM.

Thanks for the update Samurai. One question, do all of the video outputs work simultaneously? If possible, can you test that out for us?
If so, it would be cool, as a person could run the DVI to the PJ, component to HDTV, and S-Video to regular TV. That's 3 TV's receiving the same movie output.
I doubt it would work, because it would be 3 different signals for the DVI (720/1080i), YPbPr (480p), and S-Video (480i), which most likely would create a conflict.

Still, your tests would prove it all. When you have time and the "OPPO"-rtunity , I would appreciate it!

Under normal circumstances I would be laughing right now, but this isnt a normal player.
I will see if I can get at least two sources running at once. In theory it would work. If it does then I will offically declare this as the 'Best Toy of the Year."...

Thanks for the effort Samurai. We'll see how it pans out.

Hi

Of course the Oppo is nice VS any other player... But if you don't watch a lot of divx, and also the oppo is limmited in the quality of these.. means: if it's higher, it will not play.

You should look for a scaler unit. I just grab a Centerstage cs-1 and it's very very incredible ! the improvement on my projector is far away from any difference from the oppo vs other dvd player...
and with a computer source, it's wonderfull. Have a look, because, it's only 2 time the price of the Oppo.. and it give you better results.

Where did you purchase a Centerstage CS-1 for only twice the price of an Oppo dvd player? Most places I have seen the centerstage goes for at least $1500. . .

Sounds like a severe discount, maybe even five fingered...
Opcod has posted several posts like this in the past few hours so Im thinking maybe somebody is just a little bit "enthralled" with his new toy...

CenterStage CS-1's mfr is 1995.00.

Divx would naturally be limited since its been crushed to a point of compression beyond anything you would see on DVD. Garbage in garbage out. You can extrapolate pixels till the cows come home but you need a basic amount of information to make anything worth while...

BUT! I played a copy of Screamers that had been crushed to 699MB on it a few days ago and it was still good looking. Scaled onto a 60 inch HDTV many formats loose their luster...

mmm try 350meg avi's on 100"


scarey pic?? hehehehhe

The going price for a Centerstage CS-1 is $350-400 on Ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Focus-Enhancements-Cen...1QQcmdZViewItem

Hehe..

So with the CS-1 i whant you to discovery the true ! hehe..

I spend about 2 month searching on this specific device and try an old faroudja also. But for the price and all the function, it's very very efficient. Of course, the product was not made anymore, but i got mine in perfect like brand new box and the unit is it also. Try ebay many time to find one..

But for me, on my 15 inch now and my not really finalized 17 inch, the difference was soo huge. I'm very happy ! And i try a standard divx and a movie, and it's ok, it look fine. And i have many dvd recorder in SP+, it's better than HQ mode, because from the satellite, it's only a vcd feed that everybody have..

Also, with a real dvd , very efficient.

So again, if you watch only divx... the oppo can be good, but if you will keep your dvd for a long time, go with this unit, the quality is incredible.

The S2 has Hdcp but I never see them on EBAY ?

Tried it on a a9x12 screen...The pixelation was like constantly shifting LEGO...

SJ, can you speak to the HDCP issues with this player?

For instance, I assume it has HDCP enabled on the DVI out. What modes can be achieved on the component out? For at least DVD content, would this solve Yoshuaspawn's HDCP issues regarding his new 15.4" WUXGA?

This is from their FAQ on the OPPO:


You have to remember there is a huge difference between HDCP and HD capable. HDCP stands for High Definition Copy Protection ( AKA High-bandwidth Digital-Content Protection). It will actively stand in the way of you intercepting the HD stream to another device, or playing HD content from a non permitted device. Whats worse is all devices in the chain have to be HDCP compliant. Since he has an HDCP monitor, it is looking for the signal from the player before it will allow the signal to come through at 1080 or 720, otherwise it will give him either a violation or error message and refuse to play. But if he dumbs it down to 480, he will get it.

This "perk" is courtesy of the MPAA, RIAA and Intel...

You should read this article before you move forward on any purchases. Its a little dated, but its very straightforward.

SJ

PS. I should also mention that I havent read yoshua's thread yet, so I might be 100% wrong.

Thats 10.6" WXGA Weldon & SJ
The controller does not support the picture police(new meaning to 'The Fuzz') and their hasty HDCP blanket solution.
Thank you for mentioning, i was curious about how the oppo compared to the Helious. I read somewhere that OPPO makes the Neodigits products. Per Jonjardan's recomendation im looking at the Helious, because its one of the few players to pass 720p/1080i over component and VGA outs, as well as the HDMI.
Thank goodness for asian companies that really could "give two" about HDCP.

Not to mention 1080p

Thinking of buying one of these.....do I have to have a HDCP DVI compliant monitor in order to view things at 1080i for my PJ?

What monitor are you using/planning on using? I looked around a little, but only found 20+" monitors, or monitors that were only 1200 x 720.

samuraijack, it's the Oppo DV981HD now . This one upscales 480p to 1080p using DCDi™ / FAROUDJA.

The only thing is, as far as I can see, no component or component upscaling

Havent been to their site in a while since this thing is a tank! This thing even makes Xvid look good.

As far as I know they still offer mine and the 981. Hard to beat it, but there is one by Helios out there that stacks up well.

Hey Jack, I'm running the OPPO 971 with my new 10.6 . What's your opinion on 720p vs 1080i using dvi? I almost liked the 1080i better but I know the 10.6" doesn't natively handle 1080i without downscaling.

Also, what oppo video settings to you tweek (sharpness etc..)?

I've been tweeking the brightness and contrast just a little, I also turn the noise reduction on low.

Just curious.

Noise reduction is on lowest setting, all faroudja enhancements on and I usually run at 720P. Since we sit back about 20 feet from our TV, 720P SEEMS to look better. I am very tempted to go with a new oppo that can do 1080p...
One thing I did notice after I tuned the payer was that the darkness varies greatly from standard signals. I had to drop mine down a bit, then back up after a reallt dark movie. Also the Surround signal seems to be very loud from the rear channels as compared to other sources. but a little tweaking and life is very good.

For the money, I cant fault this thing in the slightest...

My only tweak about this player is that when you turn it on, if there is a disk in the machine, it can take a long time to eject it because the player insists on filling the buffer before ejecting.

SJ

Is this the true life and CCS?