Customer Reviews

Oppo DV-981HD Universal DVD Player with HDMI, 1080p Up-Converting, DivX & SACD

5 star:		(248)
4 star:		(62)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Unbelievalbe picture quality like all other reviewers are saying. Changing the player to Region 0 (all region) is easy: 1. Press Setup on remote control to access the setup page, 2.Enter 9210 on the remote 3.A service menu will pop up, 4. Select a region: 0- 6 in region code. 0 is all-region. Press Setup on remote again to exit. It should play all region and PAL discs. Hope that helps.

(added 12/18/07)
I've been using this player for a year now and I still LOVE it. My friend gave me a DVD with several movies in AVI and an XVid formats. Typically, I would have to watch these movies on my PC. I was pretty psyched to find that Oppo will play the files. When I popped in the disc, I see a blue menu with all the files. The player decodes each selected file and it had no problem playing 3 out of the 4 AVI files. For some reason, one of the AVI files won't play. The XVid file played fine. The quality of these compressed AVI files, as you can imagine, isn't great. But depending on the source of the AVI file, the output quality to a 46" HDTV is almost as good as a DVD and much better than VCD or VCR quality.

We do movie reviews very frequently, so having a high quality DVD player is very important to us. As you probably know if you're into DVDs, the resolution on a DVD is higher than regular TV can show, but less sharp as a high definition TV. That's why Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs are coming on the market, to provide true high definition quality.

However, many of us with high definition TVs have a substantial library of regular DVDs that we still wish to watch and enjoy on our higher quality systems. In many cases these are DVDs that may never be released in a high def format, or personal videos that are simply not in high def format. That's where upconverting DVD players come into play. They help to convert the lower quality signal on a DVD into a high def level of quality, as best they can, by interpolating the existing signal and filling in the details.

We've tested several upconverting units as they get released, and to be honest in most cases the TV did a better job of this task working with a regular DVD player, vs having a DVD player that tried to do that task for the TV. So we approached the test of the Oppo DV-981HD with some trepidation. Would it really work well?

First off, the packaging. We were VERY impressed with how this came shipped! I've got to say it's one of the best packed electronic items we've ever seen, and being game reviewers and electronic gadget fans, we get quite a lot. Kudos to the shipping team for this. "Brilliant", says my boyfriend.

The unit itself is extremely nicely designed. We have several other slim items in our shelves and this really takes the cake. The lights and displays are still easy to read, but the height is extremely short. Perfect for people short on space. It stays nice and cool, too.

The remote has great, glowing buttons that make it very easy to use in the dark. The fast forward / reverse buttons have a great range of speeds. We've got probably 8 remotes on our table and this really stands out as being one of the easiest to use.

All of this wouldn't matter if the picture was awful. But we were really impressed with how *lovely* this made regular DVDs look on our high def TV. Blacks were lush and deep. Colors were vibrant. On a title screen with metallic letters, the regular DVD player had them looking lifeless and flat - but with the Oppo they really did look three dimensional and metallic. Facial textures in particular were extremely nice. Yes, it's still not *true* HD - but that's not the point here. You get a HD player to play HD discs. This is for handling the library you already have of DVDs.

You really do get spoiled - if you're going to watch your existing DVDs, why not watch them with the highest quality image that you can? This will make it harder to test out other upconverters in the future.

Now, this unit isn't 100% perfect in every day. Case in point - the menus. These have got to be some of the worst looking menus I've ever seen on a unit. The letters are kludgy and fuzzy looking. Some menus have options off the bottom of the screen - but there's no scroll bar or other indication that there are more items down there. You just have to page down and see if anything happens.

Also, while I'm reviewing DVDs I often want to get a screenshot of an image to use. When you hit "pause" on this unit, the pause icon stays on the screen. With pretty much every other DVD player I've seen, the pause icon vanishes after a few moments. Not here! I'm also not overly fond of the logo floating around on the screen - but heck, you just turn that off. The tray itself is super thin and fragile, to go with the thin design. However, our PS3 and Wii all have a simple insert slot which works perfectly. Why didn't they use that here?

Really, I can airbrush out the pause lines from my screenshots, so really the only thing I'd want them to switch for a new version is to make it trayless. For an enhancement, we really would love to see a unit with a hard drive recorder as well, so that we can both play DVDs as well as record shows. This combo would make this our primary entertainment unit. Still, until then, this is a fantastic buy for anyone who has DVDs they'd like to watch. Highly recommended.

If you have a rear projection TV, you may want to consider the DV-980H instead. I have a Sony KDS-60A3000 rear-projection TV. In the forum on avsforum in the Sony KDS-XXA3000 thread, a user posted this message from Oppo customer support:

"LCoS in the SXRD systems is still prone to macroblock enhancement errors. It is not as pronounced as DLP, but it still exists. For this reason, we never recommend the use of the DV-981HD for RPTV, as there will likely be blocking errors.

Secondly, the previous generation SXRD displays did not respond well to the output of the DV-981HD due to bad handshaking errors with your display and proper colorspace. This causes some users to see "green push".

For your display we would recommend the use of the DV-980H. This player will produce the cleanest, sharpest picture on your RPTV display.

Best Regards,

Customer Service
OPPO Digital, Inc.
453 Ravendale Dr, Suite D
Mountain View, CA 94043
Service@oppodigital.com
Tel: 650-961-1118
Fax: 650-961-1119"

There are lots of excellent reviews of this player here already. I'll try not to repeat the many comments indicating this is an excellent DVD player. In general I agree.

I recently bought a Panasonic 50-inch plasma (720p resolution) from Amazon and I bought this player to go with it after reading excellent reviews here and on Cnet.com as well. I wanted an upconverting player and I also wanted a region-free/PAL DVD player so I could play DVDs from Asia and Europe without problems.

My older DVD player is a 5-year-old Sony progressive scan unit which only outputs 480p resolution. The first thing I did when I got the Oppo was pop in my Criterion Collection DVD of Kurosawa's "Ran". I borrowed the same DVD from a friend so I could compare the Sony directly to the Oppo. (It wasn't a perfect comparison because the Sony only has component output, while the Oppo is using HDMI output).

I was somewhat surprised to find that the differences between the two players were noticeable, but small. The Oppo -- upconverting to the higher 720p resolution over HDMI -- delivered slightly better detail than the Sony, which of course was putting out 480p resolution through the component connection. I doubt whether someone who wasn't looking specifically for the differences would have noticed.

Still, I give good marks to the Oppo for a slightly better picture.

Overall though, my advice is that if you don't care much about region-free/PAL playback, and you aren't a big stickler for the absolute best picture, and you want to save some money, you will probably be completely satisfied with the current upconverting DVD players from the big brands such as Sony, Panasonic, etc. which cost about 1/3rd of what this player costs.

As well, note that this player isn't the most user-friendly in some ways. What you have here is a good example of how Chinese product design has not caught up with the rest of the world in terms of refinement and ease of use. The remote is poorly designed with tons of small buttons and tiny print. I have a programmable Sony remote (model RM-VL600, very inexpensive, here's the Amazon link: 8-DEVICE Universal Learning Remote) and I "taught" the Oppo commands over to the Sony remote so I don't have to use the Oppo and I can use just one remote to control the DVD player, TV, and sound system.

Probably the most bizarre omission in the software of the player is that if you stop a DVD from playing and then turn the player off, when you turn the player on again it does not remember where you stopped the DVD. I rarely have time to watch a DVD all the way through in one sitting, so this is very annoying to me. Most strange is that if you EJECT the DVD, and THEN turn the player off, it DOES remember where the DVD was when you ejected it. So there's no question the player has the capability I'm talking about. Problem is, this adds to the wear and tear on the tray opening mechanism.

I emailed Oppo and they responded to me within a day - and on a Sunday no less - telling me the workaround for this omission: hit the Eject button and then immediately hit Power to turn the unit off. If you do it quickly enough that the tray does not open before you turn the unit off, then you've dodged the problem of the wear and tear. When you turn the 981 back on, it will load the DVD and show onscreen "Resume from saved position". Hit Play to continue where you left off.

Once again, a programmable remote is a big help here; I programmed my Sony remote to send the Eject command and also turn the unit off with one button. That workaround works just fine.

All in all though, who wants to go through all this trouble just to make a simple DVD player work the way it should? That's Chinese software for you. A good example of the fact that they do little actual, daily-use product testing in China. It's not a customer-friendly society.

On the plus side, here's a little noticed advantage of this player: on many DVDs, it will skip past the FBI warning and such and leap directly to the main menu, or to playing the movie itself (it depends on the DVD). Here's how you do that: put the DVD in the player and press play. As soon as the player recognizes it as a DVD and says "DVD-Video", hit the Stop button, then the Menu button. You may have to hit the sequence twice for it to work. On some DVDs this does not work, but it's a nice feature.

I would give the player 5 stars if the software were more user-friendly. As it is, it's a good player for those who want the best-quality picture for much less than the cost of a super-top-quality player from a major brand. Kudos to their American distributor, however, for excellent customer service. I hope they work with the Chinese manufacturer to make this DVD player all that it could be.

Just for reference, I'm including the information about how to make the player region-free as well:
1) Press "Setup" (on the lower left of the arrow buttons on the remote). 2) Enter the numbers 9210 on the keypad above the arrows. 3) A new menu comes up. 4) Press the number 0 to make it region-free. 5) Press "Setup" again. 6) You're done!

Are you gun shy from having lost platform wars of the past?

Perhaps you bought into Betamax, MiniDisc, or maybe even a Rio right before the iPod launched? I'm certainly ready to let BluRay and HD-DVD battle it out until one's left standing! But this could take awhile... In the meantime, get yourself an Oppo Digital upconverting DVD player ASAP! These are The Best Value on the market today. But you already know that which is why you are reading this, isn't it? And you know there are other upconverting players out there...

But Oppo is the clear victor in today's marketplace. I recently acquired a Sony 46" XBR2 LCD and love the image I get with HD broadcast across my Verizon FiOS service. Just stunning. I sought similar results with DVDs and after much research I had about settled on the Oppo OPDV971H, which is their highly rated upconverting player (up to 1080i) - be sure to check with Audioholics and HomeTheaterHiFi sites for reviews and ratings buzz. Fortunately I was smart enough to visit the Oppo Digital site to find this newly released player that stretches the previous technology all the way up to 1080p!

We've had ours a couple weeks at this writing, and is it ever worth it! First of all, unboxing this feels high-end as it is both wrapped and protected quite well in the shipping box. Set up was a breeze, as this comes with HDMI connectivity, including a gold-plated cable. Even switching over to 1080p upconversion was simple. The remote is nice, much nicer than the older versions that have been panned so badly. Build quality, while not Fort Knox, is still decent for the price point, and the black finish is a nice change over past players. I like the blue lights, but for those that don't, they can be dimmed or turned off.

On to the important stuff. The image is quite simply stunning. Oppo has made great use of the available DCDi technology from Faroudja. As my wife and I tested various DVDs from our collection, we got so caught up in the viewing experience that we found ourselves watching whole movies when we intended to just view snippets. From our latest DVD additions, to Pixar animation, to the Three Stooges B/W, to collections of old B/W silents of Buster Keaton, the output is very impressive.

Other nice features include all of the various disc formats that are handled. Specifically, it will convert between NTSC/PAL, and also play most audio, video, and picture formats.

Finally, Oppo has a reputation for being a customer responsive company, and has made their players software upgradeable, and with this, have addressed previous concerns raised with their past players. Another example with this unit, is the new remote which is a direct response to customer feedback.

The Good/Great:
1. Image Output Quality is stunning
2. 480p/720p/1080i/1080p upconversion
3. HDMI cable is included
4. Price
5. Customer Service
6. Upgradeable
7. Excellent Audio capability (added 2/1/2007)

The "Okay":
1. Oppo logo sceensaver (it can be turned off)
2. No component video output (but it truly was not intended for this purpose. Oppo intends it for use with HDMI or DVI interface)

The "Bad"
1. None at this time

Stop searching and buy now, you've found the Holy Grail of today's DVD players!

***Updated 2/1/2007***
For starters, with another months' experience with this player, I want to emphasize that we are VERY, VERY pleased with this unit. The video continues to impress -- I don't want to mislead, it won't make a miracle of a rough transfer, but for sound standard def DVDs the upconversion is INCREDIBLE. What we've had further experience with that has been equally stunning is the audio performance. This unit handles it all (CD, SACD, DVD Audio, etc) very impressively, and as a result I must re-emphasize the value quotient. Short of Bluray and HD-DVD, this unit will handle virtually any disc in your collection. Thanks Oppo!

(Also available direct from Oppo)

There are so many great reviews on this unit I'm not sure I can add a lot, but I am so impressed and pleased that I wanted to underscore how awesome this product is.

I have a Denon DVD player that upconverts to 1080p that cost over $400. I've had it a little over a year and it has been acting up (not good for such a young unit). I needed something to connect to my Samsung 46" LCD HDTV so I started researching various units and happened upon this unit on Amazon. I have never heard of Oppo, but after reading the reviews and mentioning it to a co-worker who emphatically said "Buy it! You won't regret it!" I decided to go for it.

If packaging is any indication of the quality and care a company puts into its products, this is no exception. Packaging, while having no effect on the product itself is impressive. The unit is even encased in its own fabric, soft-lined sleeve.

PLUS, it comes with an HDMI cable saving you at least $100 on a decent one. To tell you the truth, I have a $150 Monster HDMI, which I just moved to another TV and used the one Oppo included. Can I tell the difference? Nooooooooo. Save your money.

This unit has a sleek, low profile form factor. Well constructed and pleasant blue lighting. It will fit in the tightest of spots and being half the height with more functionality than the Denon, one gets the sense that Denon needs to welcome in the new millenium.

As for operation... it has been working flawlessly for over a month. I appreciate the ease of use, luminescent remote buttons and the picture quality is better than what the more expensive Denon put out. I can rarely tell the difference of such things even side-by-side, but this unit's quality is definitely noticeable. As an added bonus, the 32x fast forward and rewind is GREAT. I am tired of these high-end units (like the Denon) that give you a *whopping* 4x.

And, how about the customer service? Well, I didn't need it through any fault of Oppo. I being wiring challenged thought something was wrong with the unit at first. I called Oppo, *almost* had to wait, and had a very helpful person on the other end. Very patient and helped me figure out what was wrong. And, you know what, sent me another HDMI cable 'just in case.' Wow.

Listen, before you buy any other unit, do a side-by-side comparison of this unit and its features. You will find the Oppo has more features and is less than half the price. Some cases 1/4 the price. Ask yourself, "do I really need to pay another n dollars just for a name?" I decided the answer was no and haven't looked back. In fact, I would guess Oppo will become the standard by which all others are compared and they will be THE name.

RESULTS:

Comparison to Sony DVP-NS71HP (same as 75HP)

Both players look amazing and do a fine job of upconverting/scaling your legacy DVD collection for display on the Sony LCD (Full Pixel mode).

During the THX Contrast setup the OPPO showed a slight green tinge on the 2nd block in from the upper left where the Sony did not. Hue and Color changes on the set did not affect it, nor did the Saturation or RGB Range choices offered on the OPPO.

The THX Brightness setup showed with the OPPO having a slightly brighter picture than the Sony that equate to about 1 notch on the Brightness scale (51 on the Sony = 50 on the OPPO). Some of the gray blocks had a slightly green tinge again on the OPPO that was not evident on the Sony.

The THX 16:9 Aspect Ratio set showed better on the Sony with the OPPO having distinct jaggies around the circle where the Sony was smooth.

The sample playback scene on the THX setup showed very well on both players (jaw dropping in fact) with a slight edge to the OPPO for shadows and a decidedly better treatment of edges when the scene stops going to the Sony for not having jaggies (stair steps) like the OPPO.

For Kill Bill I used the duel scene near the end of the movie (Scene 16 on the menu) to audition both players. The OPPO again with the green tinge evident in the snow where the Sony shows a bluer cast (which would be more accurate for snow). The details imprinted on Lucy's robe (Kimono?) was quite evident on both players as was the shine of the blade in the close-ups. The snow falling was exquisite in detail on both players. Both players displayed a slight bit of jumpieness during the scrolling of the credits at the end.

For Battlestar Gallactica the opening credits were a good source of comparison as I had the same images on two different DVDs that I could quickly flip source between. The Sony showed a slight edge in detail as you pan over the water toward the city. There is a fade scene of some text and a cylon robot's head the OPPO handled better with fewer jaggies and the text faded smoothly with no interlacing type gaps in the image. The OPPO also showed the text of "49,284 Lives" in a more uniform way without looking like it was a shadow font. However this was all during frame advance, and completely undetectable during normal playback speed.

The remotes are vastly different. The Sony offers some controls the OPPO lacks such as skip fwd/back with will move about 15s for easy skipping of credits or to repeat a scene. And the OPPO offers some features that the Sony does not, like bookmarks (separate from the A>B loop thing) and On Screen Display of the motion controls that can be operated via the cursor controls (neat but not that useful).

The layout of the buttons on the Sony are easier to maneuver in the dark (neither remote is backlit) and fit better in the hand. Both offer a Slow Play feature but the Sony has sound with it while the OPPO does not. The OPPO also combines both fwd/back on one button which makes it harder to change direction.

The OPPO offers more intermediate levels of Zoom and even offers a couple of Zoom Out positions where you can shrink the image on the screen.

Many of the buttons on the OPPO cycle thru their functions (and return to the starting point after several presses) where the Sony has more buttons dedicated to specific functions or directions and only have 2 or 3 levels to cycle thru. One quirk about the Sony that is annoying is how sensitive the cursor buttons are, often causing one to overshoot the target with anything but the lightest of touch.


CONCLUSION:

Both players offer superb image quality and will extend the life of your DVD collection on your HDTV. I honestly could not tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on the screen. I'm sure there are scenes on some DVDs that will be better under 1080p but I did not find them in my auditions. For the extra $100 the state of the art video processing from the OPPO was wasted on me. In fact, I liked the more natural looking images from the Sony. Plus the remote was the kicker... better control, better ergonomics. I'll be requesting an RMA from OPPO and sticking with my original purchase of the Sony. For what it's worth the OPPO does come with a higher quality HDMI cable than the Sony.

I bought this dvd player for my Samsung lns-4095d 1080p. I have to say when you switch the player to 1080p, it's like taking off on an airplane.
I love it, my wife loves it and my cat is now watching dvds with us.

Why buying a Oppo 981 vs. Sony or Samsung hd960???

1) It's black
2) it has up to 1080p upconversion using NTSC or PAL Disk
3) It takes 110V US or 220V Europe, so you can travel with it. It comes with a slick black carry bag (oppo branded)
4) it's Region Free, ask for region code 0 !!!!!
5) it has a NTSC / PAL convertion tool build-in, so you can watch dvds from any zone (pal or ntsc disk) on any TV (pal or NTSC) !!!!
6) it has optical/coaxial output for dolby digital or DTS
7) it has 5.1 channels output
8) HDMI gold cable is included
9) Remote is nice and slick
10) Customer service is just the BEST

ok, now the bad,
1) no component video output
2) the screansaver looks so cheap it's not even funny
and that's it.

So don't look further that this one. Just the Best so far!!!

Wait for Blue Ray or HD-DVD palyers or buy the OPPO... ;-)

A lot has been written here about the wonderful video up-conversion of the Oppo DV-981HD.

And it's all true.

The Oppo DV-981HD does render a magnificent, color vibrant picture in 720P and 1080P for standard DVDs, but that's really just the beginning. For home entertainment enthusiasts this player brings a lot more to the table than just a pretty picture. This extremely versatile player excels in delivering exceptional hi-end audio playback in a variety of formats. HDCD and redbook CDs sound great, but this player really shines with the SACD and DVD Audio formats. It's a great feeling to finally be able to take any disk in your audio/video library and know the Oppo DV-981HD is going to deliver without breaking a sweat.

Leveraging your audio/video software investment is really what the Oppo DV-981HD is all about.

So five stars and two thumbs way up for Home Entertainment with the Oppo DV-981HD.

And that's the prettiest picture of all.

I've owned a Samsung 40 inch LCD TV for a little over a week now. When I viewed my first DVD through a standard Sony DVD player, I was immediately disappointed with the picture. The image would sometimes pixilated around the edges, especially during fast movement. Well, my friend told me about "upconvering" DVD players which would upgrade them image from standard definition to near HDTV quality. Until about a week ago I did not even know that "upconvering" DVD players even existed, and I was immediately skeptical. Conventional wisdom tells us that the image can never be better than the original source material. Well, I'm happy to say that I was wrong.

After a little research I decided to forego the retail stores and order an Oppo DV-981HD online, because the buzz surrounding these machines is so overwhelmingly positive. The buzz is well deserved. The picture quality is simply breathtaking. First, I put in my highest quality DVD, Revenge of the Sith, and I was totally blown away. The explosions are more vibrant. I can see particles that were not visible before. Every little mole and bead of sweat is clearly visible on Ewan MacGregor's face. There is absolutely no pixilation on fast action scenes. Now, my HDTV service is not hooked up yet, so its impossible for me to make a fair comparison between this and real HDTV, but I can't imagine the picture quality being much better.

I also tested my lowest quality DVD, which is a film of an airshow which I shot with a digital camera at 640 x 480 and only 15 FPS. Even this low resolution picture looked great on the Oppo, while on a traditional DVD player the image is so pixilated that its virtually unwatchable.

If you have an HDTV, you're going to want one of these. I've invested literally thousands on my DVD collection over the last 10 years. Who wants to start all over and start replacing your favorite discs with HD versions of the same films? Not I. The Oppo DV-981HD solves this problem. Now I can watch all my favorite movies in the best picture quality possible without another sizeable investment.

If you go on the company's website, they'll show you how to make it region free. It even will convert PAL to NTSC, and vise versa. If the picture quality weren't already enough of a selling point, it will also play any disc made anywhere in the world.

Update: I had to try a DVD from another region to make sure it worked as Oppo states it would, so I bought a Rory Gallagher DVD on Amazon.uk that's not available in the U.S. (PAL, region 2). It played without a hitch. This is great. Now I can buy and watch DVDs that would not normally be available in the U.S. market. I've already ordered "Azumi 2" and "Conan the Destroyer Special Edition". And "Pans Labyrinth", which is only now hitting U.S. theatres, will be available on UK DVD next month. This alone makes this DVD player worth the price, in my opinion.