Anyone have the Oppo DV-981HD upconverting universal player yet? I'd be interested in hearing your reaction to its performance, both video and audio. Especially multi-channel music.
GC: Mine just arrived today from Oppo! It works wonderfully so far. I ran it thru a series of test using my favorite DVD benchmark test the HQV Technologies HQV Benchmark DVD evaluation tool. It essentially passed every darned test at 480p, 720i, 720P, 1080i and 1080p. Pretty impressive indeed.
In addition, I use the Harmony Universal Remote 880 and the Oppo settings from my older Oppo 970HD are the same codes as needed for the Oppo 981HD. So no reprogramming was needed in that swap.
DTS and Dolby 5.1 play well. PCM stereo is perfect. I did not hook up for SACD yet but expect that to work as well.
The zoom mode on the DVD 981HD is super. You can nudge up a letterboxed DVD by minute amounts. This is a marvelous feature and is better that the TV monitor controls.
I am impressed so far. No jaggies at all. Clean picture. Virtually no noise even with the noise filter OFF. I tried my scratched DVD test on a fairly nasty old DVD and it rides thru the blemishes without any hesitation. Nice nice nice.
Do you guys think the OPPO will get you to the next step? By that I mean when the HD format war is over and you can finally safely) purchase HD material? As for me, an upsampling player is in my future. I connected a cheapo GO player via component, set to 480p and noted quite an improvement.....Sony 60" SXRD. I think the OPPO feeding my set in 'native' will be the best I can do for now. opin? I simply don't want to junk out 3 grand worth of DVDs