Oppo DV971H DVD Player Review

[jcPanny]

Oppo Digital has new firmware update

HomeTheaterHiFi.com retested the Oppo Digital player with the latest firmware update. It scored even better than before and passed all the tests on their benchmark.
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=124#Oppo%20DigitalOPDV971H%20(DVI)

It is great to see an entry level product with upgradable firmware and this type of engineering support. The same can't be said about many high end audiofile players and receivers.

 

[mikey d]

i recieved my oppo today.
i plugged it in using their dvi to hdmi cable and a optical cable i have.

the very first thing i noticed is that the tray seemed flimsy.

I poped in my DVE disk and it looked and sounded good.

I had to run and pick up my son, after getting home to configure it
I started getting video errors. I did the usual un plug, plug it backin, rerouted the vid cable slightly. I have tons of verticle lines showing.
I move the dvd player off of the DVR/Reciever thinking maybe it was a heat problem and it started working again just fine, untill i put DVE in to set everything up.

Dont know what the problem is, gonna call support tomarrow.
Oh the new remote is a little nicer than the pics i saw of the old one
and i did check, my firmware is current.

 

[mikey d]

I got it working. I had to reset everything to defaults, I set it to 1080i then powered it off for a few min. Once i turned it back on and configured it with no further problem.

I ran DVE through it and was very pleased. Unlike my old player there was little need to correct for any color push. Very minor corrections were made
from my tv's factory settings. That made me happy with my tv also

The black level this player displayed on my tv was preey incredible.
I put in gladiator which plays in a letter box style, the blacks in the movie matched the letterbox bars.

I was a little confused with the adio settings
I wasnt sure if i should go with LPCM or Raw
or if i needed to set its data rate to 48, 96 or 115 i think it was.

I went with the higher datarate and Raw. It seemed to sound better.

I did notice some macroblocking in Donnie Darko special Eddition and in Little Nemo. It wasnt bad but noticable.

overall im happy.
The video quality is a MAJOR step up from what i was using. Its more comparable to HDNET or HDDiscovery in picture quality than the average DVD player.