ideas on good dvd player

[cheapskete OCer]

can anyone send me in the right direction for a good dvd player for about $150 ii would like to get good playback quality from it, thanks

[no. 5]

How about an Oppo DV-970HD?

[avaserfi]

How about an Oppo DV-970HD?

I second an Oppo. Great quality for the price!

[j_garcia]

How about an Oppo DV-970HD?

How about an Oppo 980H for just a little more? :D

For what TV? Note that these are upscaling players and for most commercial material they only upscale via HDMI.

[louthewiz]

But the 970 can upscale via component video as well with hdmi with a very easy mod.

[cheapskete OCer]

its for a friend use my 360 right now, he has a 65" mitshubishi diamond series tv and it has a hdmi input

[cheapskete OCer]

ok you were right its only 19 dollars more for the 980 and it upscales to 1080p finally some 1080p for my sxrd, i was looking for my friend but now im goin to have to get one too, does anyone have one of these 980s is it worth upgrading from the picture im getting off my 360 via components

[j_garcia]

Does the 360 upscale? If not, then yes the 980 will look better. Between the PS3 and the 970 and 980, they are very close, but my 980 easily looks better than my MSRP $1000 480p DVD-2900.

[cheapskete OCer]

only to 480p on dvds

[obscbyclouds]

only to 480p on dvds

You can't go wrong with the Oppo's. I was using a 360 for dvd playback until I bought my Oppo 981, now I can't even watch a disc using the 360, it has lots of artifacting and lacks good reproduction of dark material. I don't have a 980, but I'm willing to bet it'll look a good deal better than the 360.

[cheapskete OCer]

the 981 is for HD DVDs right

[obscbyclouds]

the 981 is for HD DVDs right

No! The 981 is for regular ol' DVD's only. It's an upscaling DVD player, not an HD-DVD player.

[j_garcia]

All of the Oppos are upscaling DVD players only. They don't have any HighDef players for either format at this point. I'm not sure if they will or not, but that would be very interesting to see which they chose or if they did both...

[cheapskete OCer]

so what are the differences between the 980 and the 981 besides 60 bucks

[obscbyclouds]

so what are the differences between the 980 and the 981 besides 60 bucks

Basically, the 981 uses a better video processor. They say the 981 will score higher on test benchmarks. Here's Oppo's comparison page. http://www.oppodigital.com/dv981hd/dv981hd_comp.html

[cheapskete OCer]

thanks for the link, it looks to me like the 980 has a few more features including 7.1 output or is that gimmicky i do have a pioneer 1015tx thx 7.1 reciever
and all the speakers needed

[mazersteven]

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-HD-A2-HD-DVD-Player/dp/B000IJV4BC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-2687002-8460017?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1188349310&sr=8-1

[cheapskete OCer]

thats another option but, how does its standard dvd upconversion compare to the oppo and it doesnt display 1080p? not that, thats a huge deal but i have a 1080p tv dammit i want to use it, and im not buying into blu ray or hd dvd but if that player upconverts standard dvds aswell as the oppo why the hell not, but then again the to formats piss me off and id rather not contribute to either of them

[j_garcia]

The A2 is good according to most, but not as good as the 980 or 981 based on what I have read. Your set probably has its own scaler, so if you feed it 1080i from the A2, you should still be able to get 1080p; just not natively.