OPPO DV-980H 1080p Up-Converting Universal DVD Player with HDMI and 7.1CH Audio
by OPPO Digital
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List Price: Our Price: $150.00 You Save: $19.99 (12%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of OPPO DV-980H 1080p Up-Converting Universal DVD Player with HDMI and 7.1CH Audio
Customer Review: Great product!!!! (Oppo DV-980)
Summary: 5 Stars
After researching many articles and reviews online, I decided to patiently wait a year or two before buying one of the now over-priced Blu-Ray players. Many videophiles recommended exercising patience since some of the up-converting DVD players will play regular DVD's in quality that is pretty close to HD quality. A large number of reviews on various sites recommended the OPPO as the one of the best of those up-converting DVD players.
I phoned the company for clarification on some of the features and, amazingly, were informed that due to our new LCD TV being a smaller model (40"), I did not need to buy the model that was priced at around $200.00. The DV-980, priced at about $30 less, would do just fine! They also gave me a number of tips regarding the set-up. Any questions I had about their customer service were answered with that kind, efficient and helpful call.
The price at OPPO was the same as through Amazon, and the free shipping and excellent ordering service I have always received here at Amazon encouraged me to buy here.
I am more than pleased with this great component! First of all, the packaging was excellent and it came with an included HDMI Cable, (Price THOSE little puppies separately!). An easy-to-understand manual was provided and access information to their customer support was given. Even this "Old Grandma" found it a snap to get the OPPO hooked up and running.
Our new LCD 1080 TV, even with no HD programming subscription, gives us much better TV viewing. But our BEST viewing now is when we play any old rental DVD or one of our own old DVD's on the OPPO. The picture is amazing! I am sure that with a Blu-Ray and an OPPO up-converting DVD player hooked up to two TV's side-by-side you could see a slightly better picture on the Blu-Ray, but trust me, it would be a small difference! (And one not at all worth the major difference in price!)
I'm so glad I listened to other reviewers who recommended this product! Please add my name to the growing list of endorsements for the OPPO DV-980H
Customer Review: Overhyped
Summary: 1 Stars
Almost a year ago I bought this to replace my Samsung 1080p upconverting player, which started stuttering (probably because of dust accumulation). I have recently replaced OPPO with a brand name player. So here is what I can tell from my year long experience.
Image quality-wise I did not notice any difference with the Samsung. Not that I compared them side by side but I could not tell any changes unlike after replacing OPPO with a better player. My only issue with Samsung was flaky HDMI - it would often fail to sync if I've turned player on before the TV, the TV would display "Searching for video signal" until I cycled power on the player. OPPO has the same problem. It could be specific to my TV but other HDMI devices I have don't exhibit this behavior. Samsung could handle widescreen disks better though - for example OPPO could only show widescreen Titanic on my 16:9 TV either with black bars on all FOUR sides of the image or with bars AND cropped sides.
Movies image quality is okay and might be considered superb if you replaced an older non-scaling DVD player with an analog connection but I fail to see what got other reviewers excited. Maybe OPPO gives a better picture over analog outputs than other players? I did not use those, only HDMI to a 1080p TV.
It fails miserably on cartoons - jagged lines, broken motion but so did Samsung.
There are other minor technical glitches - once in a couple of weeks it would reset TV aspect settings and switch from bitsteam to stereo PCM audio output and on some DVDs it would get stuck in menus.
I gave it one star because it did not offer any noticeable image quality improvement over a player half of its price. I did not have any use for the additional features like SACD playback and 7.1 output so they do not justify the price premium for me. To see a real improvement I had to go for a player twice the OPPO's price and I don't regret it. I would be much happier though if I did not buy into the hype and skipped OPPO all together.
Customer Review: Give your Standard-Def DVDs New Life
Summary: 5 Stars
Until the HD/Blu-Ray hi-def DVD format war is resolved and the prices of those hi-def players and discs become sane, the Oppo DV-980H is an excellent choice and the price $169 is most reasonable (good quality HDMI cable is included!) I purchased this player directly from Oppo in early August 2007 (Amazon wasn't offering it at the time, so I paid an additional $12 shipping charge.) The upconversion to 1080p is outstanding (HDMI connection required. Fortunately my Sony 40" HDTV has 2 HDMI inputs.) I would say that on a standard def 16:9 DVD the picture quality at 1080p is about 60-70% of what you would get in hi-def. It is NOT hi-def, but it is as close as you can get without paying outrageous prices. It also will play other Region coded DVDs (with an easy hack.) The only issue I have encountered is that some DVDs that are 16:9 letterbox are not upconverted to full screen (the letterbox is constrained to 4:3 pillar box.) Don't know why this is. This happens on older DVD versions of 2001 (menu is full screen, but not the film itself), Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and a 16:9 version of A&E's Nero Wolfe. Other older letterboxed DVDs display just fine. (Is there some coding on the DVD preventing upscaled display? One of Life's DVD Mysteries, I guess.) Completely unrelated to the player's performance is Oppo's impressive packaging of the player. Somebody really cared about quality from the packaging on up. This player performs as advertised (can't ask more than that.)
Addendum Jan 3, 2008:
I purchased new special edition of 2001 and it plays great. Don't know what the issue was with the older release.
Addendum Jan 5, 2008:
It appears the high-def DVD format war is drawing to a close with Warner announcing, conveniently timed to just after the holiday shopping season, exclusive support of Blu-ray. Of course, until Blu-ray hardware and software costs drop substantially, the Oppo is still a good buy.
Customer Review: LOVE THIS DVD PLAYER!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased this DVD player because I'm sorry that Sony won the format war and now we're stuck with Blue Ray. Thanks to the recession Blue Ray player prices have started to come down, but I wasn't about to spend $300 for a player just for the privilege of spending another $25 each to replace all my existing DVDs. Enough ranting, now for the matter at hand ...
I LOVE this player! I purchased it after reviewing up-converting players online. It was highly rated and did not disappoint. Product was boxed well and arrived with a beautiful black slip cover as well if you decide to store/transport the unit.
This player has loads of features, but let's get to what matters ... the picture and sound. The picture quality is STUNNING! Let me say first of all that i've only seen Blue Ray disks demoed at stores and the picture looks great, but watching my old standard format DVDs on the OPPO player is like seeing them again for the first time. Watching them again on my Samsung 46" LCD TV via the HDMI cable is like a brand new experience. I watched the entire Star Wars series again in the first week after getting the player and I saw and heard things in the movies that I never noticed before.
Even though I'm listening through the TV speakers or via wireless headphones, I notice that the sound is much better ... more balanced and very clear. Yesterday I watched "The House of the Flying Daggers" again ... what a spectacular piece of cinematography. I think every one should use that movie as a standard for testing their home theater system. The colors and the sound is just spectacular!
By the way, I think it plays multi-region disks. I went to a seminar where the instructor recorded some video in PAL format to a mini-dvd. Came home, popped it in and it played beautifully.
My recommendation ... BUY IT!!
Customer Review: Nearly Perfect
Summary: 5 Stars
It has style, and it works!
The Pros: Owning this for nearly a month, the Oppo DV-980H can only be described as near perfect. Outshining my previous Panasonic, Toshiba & Denon players the DV-980H video is near flawless, even on my 32" JVC with a 1024x768 CRT. There is no Chroma bug, jitter or flawed color pallete. Signal strength is awesome using the S-Video connection, preferred for CRT TV's. It correctly plays discs the other players I've had could not.
Audio is superb with excellent separation, range & response on either the TOS or discrete outputs. Signal strength is again excellent. Those with a SACD or DVD-Audio collection will appreciate the HDMI or Discrete outputs. Since I use the Discrete and TOS they are the only ones I can comment on, but I can say it is best described as "Opulent audio bliss!" through a Yamaha RX-V 740 with 6.1 surround. Performance surpasses the Yahama & Marantz CD player's I own.
The casing is matte black with a matching faceplate and blue VF Display. The front USB port allows HDD/Flash devices for audio playback of your music collection. The settings menu is VERY, VERY extensive for player configuration to match any TV/Monitor and Amplifier/Receiver type. The device itself runs cool tempratures even sandwiched between a Cable DVR & Power Correction Unit.
The Cons: The carriage is slightly noisy during transport but silent (yes, silent) during playback. The display is a bit small.
As an Electronics Specialist for a major retailer I see a lot of equipment pass by me, it is a shame we do not offer Oppo products as my DV-980H is the first to satisfy my extremely demanding nature. Rest assured I'm requesting Oppo be introduced to our product lineup.