Oppo Digital OPDV971H, DVD player with upscaling

Let's face it; no matter how much you spent on that HD display, you're still going to be watching a lot of standard resolution programming and recorded media for quite some time (especially since the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD wars are far from over). So, if you're going to watch those DVDs on your HD set, chances are you're going to need to invest in a DVD player that can at least make them look better through upscaling. DVDTalk has the goods on the Oppo Digital OPDV971H, whic offers good upscaling, DVI outputs, good deinterlacing, and a price of just $199. And considering what you've probably already spent on your home theater setup, that price probably sounds pretty good for a box that should tide you over until you've replaced all of your current DVDs with HD versions.

[Thanks, Michael]

[Peter @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Can someone explain how upscaling makes DVDs look better? I just don't understand how doing such a thing could "improve" the video that has already been encoded at standard resolution. Well I'm sure it works I just dunno how.

[bacon_skoda @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

most HD sets also have upscaling.
so meh.

[Cal @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

well, an upscaling dvd player will make it look better as long as the scaler in the dvd player is better than the one thats in your tv. I think you'll only see the benefits of this in tvs with fixed pixel resolutions like lcds and plasmas rather than CRTs because it will scale up to the native resolution of your tv. The Faroudja video processor in this machine has a good rep.

[~Angel~ @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I've seen a definite improvement in using a Zenith DVB-318 on my HD CRT in my bedroom. It has a Faroudja chip as well.

http://www.digitaltechlife.com/2005/05/14/one-of-the-best-purchases-ive-made/

[Ian Jardine @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I have just purchased a Sammy HL-R6168W and hooked a Sammy HD 950 DVD player into it. This player internally upconverts the native DVD 480P signal to 1080i and passes it along to my HD TV via dual HDMI cabling. The Sammy TV upconverts from 1080i to 1080P. The result is an absolutely brilliant picture which I can't tell apart from a pure HD broadcast. Part of the trick here is to note that the signal never leaves the digital realm so upconversion has no signal loss. I paid $175.00 for the Sammy DVD Player. I highly recommend it. The Oppo is also very well regarded.

[Jeff @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

"Can someone explain how upscaling makes DVDs look better?"

It does usually get you better sharpness. I don't know if it's an actual effect of the scaling or if it's something that's actually done separately during the scaling, but it does work.

I have my cable box upscale all my 480i content to 1080p. It does look sharper. (It doesn't necessarily look *better*, because it's still a crap, compressed standard cable signal, but it looks sharper.) I use my PC to view DVD's and I have it also outputting at 1080i. I don't notice a huge difference on DVD's but it's still there.

Some people who have HTPC's run ffdshow to apply all sorts of filters during the upscaling process. This will let your PC sort of emulate a really good scaler chip and will also give you total control over the process. Some people swear this gives you the best quality of all. I haven't really messed with ffdshow - you need a really powerful PC to do anything better with it than what I've got now - but I'd like to at some point. Apparently it does make a difference even over a good scaler chip.

[Tsunamii @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Oppo are very, very, very high regarded in the AV world. In many tests the only ones beating them are in the 3k range.

[JS @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Big deal. As Angel mentioned previously, Zenith/LG did this TWO years ago at the same price point! Early firmware versions of the 318 would allow upscaling over component output, something that none of the current DVD players will do.

[LD @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Only $199 you say?

Funny, I just paid $116 at Best Buy for my upscaling LG.

[Chris Heinonen @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

The Oppo is pretty much regarded as the best upscaling DVD player you can buy outside of the $3,500 Denon 5910. Your LG might be cheaper, it also has a really big problem with Macroblocking, and lots of pixel cropping, and really poor video levels. For $200, nothing beats the Oppo player.

[AppStar @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

"For $200, nothing beats the Oppo player."

Nothing beats the catchy tune on Oppo's website!
http://www.oppo.com

[AppStar @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

"For $200, nothing beats the Oppo player."

Nothing beats the catchy tune on Oppo's website!
http://www.oppo.com

[James M. @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Engadget should pay more attention to what folks are doing with home made HTPC's. A serious case could be made that an HTPC with optimized ffdshow filters now wrings out the highest quality possible out of a DVD and that improvements will only happen with the introduction of HD-DVD's. Yes, it takes a powerful PC (and there isn't a version of ffdshow for the Mac, sorry).

[joseph @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I just did a little in-home comparison last night between the Oppo and my non-scaling DVD player on my 50" plasma. NIGHT and DAY difference. Even older poorly encoded movies looked better. Star Wars looked great. And The Incredibles... OMFG it looked good.

[AppStar @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

"Engadget should pay more attention to what folks are doing with home made HTPC's."

The first thing I thought when I looked at that unit was, I wish I could make an HTPC out of that case, it's perfect!

[lupinstel @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Those who buy the LG DVB418 beware. I went through 2 of them before I gave up. Right out of the box they would skip, freeze, and play the audio out of sync. If you are determined to keep your LG, the website www.lglearn.com may help you (it is LG's hidden customer service website that has firmware updates). None of LG's new firmwares fixed my problems, but good luck. After returning 2 LG's I went and bought an Oppo, and have had no problems since. As others have mentioned the Oppo contains higher end chips, and has been rated as high as other far more expensive players. If you buy an Oppo and want it region free press "setup" on the remote, press "9210", press "0", than press "setup" again.

[Galley @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

My roommate has the Oppo. Fantastic unit, and great image quality.

[JDuB @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

How does this compare to say a network player like the I-O Data AVeL LinkPlayer2?? Ive heard quite good things about these players. Or is this a more apples to oranges comparison?

[Pip @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

It wont do the upscaling through the component connections.

How useless is that? Considering component is still the most widely used connection due to early adopters, I find this absurd.

[Brad @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

What the summary fails to mention is that this player also:

- Is region-free
- Outputs HDCP-free DVI
- Can play DivX-encoded files off of CD-R and DVD+-R media

And of course, it has the Farjouda upscaler, which its penchant for enhancing macroblocking, will usually do a better job than your HD set.

Combine all those features, and there's no other player like it for $200.

Granted, it's not perfect. Some people report audio sync issues, and the Oppo people have been releasing firmware updates for other niggly bugs and features. All in all, though, it's a pretty nice player.

[purple_marker @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Is there lower version that does 1080i to Component out? or another player? I'm beginning to like this Oppo, though.

[simmons @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

As Brad mentioned a few comments up, this Oppo DVD player will indeed play "DivX-encoded files" -- or probably any other kind of MPEG4 video files. A friend of mine bought one of these recently, and I took some ffmpeg-encoded MPEG4 files over to check them out. It does seem to play them very nicely. This is as opposed to the low-end Philips DVP642 that I had for a few days, which choked on my ffmpeg-encoded videos. (Perhaps the Oppo has a superior buffer area and wider tolerances.)