New Oppo Dv-980h Player !

[viperdream26]

Hey everyone,

Looks like OPPO has released a new upscaling DVD player called the DV-980H. Looks to have similar (probably slightly better) video quality than the DV-970HD model, but with some added features:

-USB 2.0
-HD-JPEG
-BLACK IN COLOR
-1080p SUPPORT
-DSD (FOR SACD) OVER HDMI
-HDMI 1.2a OUTPUT
-7.1CH AUDIO OUTPUT

https://www.oppodigital.com/dv980h/

Cheers,

-DB.

[Sehnzeleid]

Not HD.

[dugpa]

Well, kind of since it upconverts, but yeah, I tend to think upconverting players belong in the DVD section since they're not true native HD. The fact that this section is called "High-Definition DVD" of which there's no such thing certainly doesn't help the confusion.

[Iguana Man]

Viperdream26 may be MrSmith.

[chlngr1970]

I tend to agree, this belongs in Hardware...

j

[viperdream26]

Sorry didn't realize this didn't belong here.

-DB.

[dizzlle01]

whats the difference between this one and the 981hd. The 981hd is priced at 229.99 while this is priced at 169.99

[viperdream26]

The difference:

DV-980H - Mediatek Chip for upscaling/deinterlacing
DV-981HD - Faroujda Chip upscaling/deinterlacing

The Mediatek is the best way for the price to avoid macroblocking enhancement issues (mostly with RPTV's, especially DLP's).

-DB.

[Pirate]

Do you own this player, Viper?

[dizzlle01]

Originally Posted by piratehunter

Do you own this player, Viper?

This Dvd player looks like its not out yet. Its still on preorder on the Oppo website. Im going to wait for reviews before deciding between this and the Oppo 981HD

[Pirate]

As some of you know, I've not been impressed with Oppo, but I'm always on the lookout for a better universal player. So I'm interested as well.

[viperdream26]

While OPPO says it's on pre-order they HAVE begun shipping them already. Perhaps they have their reasons for placing them on that status.

And YES, I do have a DV-980H. (I did a local pickup, since I live nearby to their Mountain View facility.)

-The picture quality looks slightly better than the 970, which is expected since it's only an improved version of the Mediatek chip.

-The PAL -> NTSC conversion is much smoother than what the 970 could do. Not QUITE as amazing as the flawless full-on "2:2 pulldown" the 981 does, but it looks perfect to me! Great this time for even the moderate PAL user.

-The tray itself is a solid unit versus the thin & flexible one from the 970/981.

-Also the tray ejects fully this time around & you can grab the discs from the side OR by putting your finger through the middle as before.

-The HD-JPEG feature is beautiful. The original 970 would internally resize images to 640x480 & then upscale them to a given resolution. But the 980 displays them in full hi-def glory!

-Also the speed of the USB2.0 when used with my 2GB memory stick is unbelievable! Where the 970 could only do perhaps 3 Megapixel images, the 980 will quickly load images of insane resolutions, such as 4000x2000 !

-The sound should also be better, but it's up in the air as to how much better than the 970/981 it really is. Can't wait till this thing is reviewed by someone like Stereophile magazine like the 970 was in their May 2007 issue. OPPO tells me the unit has a re-designed circuit board, a new MTK chip customized for their use & far beyond what other manufacturers have down with it, an improved Cirrus Logic DAC, & finally higher grade materials (i.e. capacitors.)

-The HDMI 1.2a with support for DSD (as opposed to DSD to PCM conversion for SACD's) is nice....but less than 10 receivers or so on the market support it & it's a matter of debate on whether the pure DSD really sounds any better.

Anyway, love the unit. Let me know if anyone has Q's.

-DB.

[Pirate]

Have you watched actual PAL DVDs? How does it handle the speedup? Also, will it allow you to set the player to "multi" so no conversion is needed?

[viperdream26]

Originally Posted by piratehunter

Have you watched actual PAL DVDs? How does it handle the speedup? Also, will it allow you to set the player to "multi" so no conversion is needed?

YES, I've watched actual PAL DVD's & they look great. The quality is an improvement over the OPPO 970, but not necessarily as perfect as the OPPO 981. Hence, great for the moderate PAL user.

Also, it handles the speedup beautifully.

Lastly, YES you can select the TV output to NTSC, PAL, or AUTO (basically "multi".)

-DB.

[Pirate]

What kind of display do you have viper? One of the issues I've had with Oppo is that VDI/HDMI picture size error that surrounds the image with a border. My projector has very little overscan, so this was a very annoying bug.

[viperdream26]

Originally Posted by piratehunter

What kind of display do you have viper? One of the issues I've had with Oppo is that VDI/HDMI picture size error that surrounds the image with a border. My projector has very little overscan, so this was a very annoying bug.

I'm aware of the underscan issue you bring up (regarding the 970) and it HAS been fixed, as confirmed by myself & also directly from the words of OPPO Digtial. Also, I have used the 980H now on several displays, incl. a 42" Panasonic Plasma (768p) & also a 47" Vizio LCD (1080p). Works great !

[Pirate]

Thanks, Viper.

[EM3]

Got a spare I could hold on to for a while. With the different chip set I could use it with my Samsung DLP. Now if I only needed a new player.

[Sehnzeleid]

I'm very close to ordering one, anyone else have this player have impressions on it?

Viper, how has it been since you last posted here?

This review really sold me:

DVDTimes: Oppo DV-980H

Oppo vs Oppo

Based off this reputation, a lot of people are looking into Oppo DVD players already, so it's first of all worth comparing the DV-980H to their other current model, the DV-981HD, which is slightly more expensive but performs differently and has a different set of features. The most notable difference between these two Oppo players is related to how they handle video. The DV-980H performs all of its video-related operations on a single chip, which is used to decode the compressed MPEG-2 video from the disc, Deinterlace this video, and then Upscale it. The more expensive 981 model includes this same chip, but only uses its MPEG-2 decoding function, thereafter sending the decoded signal onto a more specialised separate chip for deinterlacing, scaling, and other optional trickery. You might think that the lack of a dedicated video processing chip will markedly hurt this player's performance - and that is normally the case - but Oppo's engineers have outdone themselves and as a result, the 980H is actually superior in some ways to the more silicon-heavy 981HD.

Sure, if you were to look at Benchmark ratings, the 980H would rank lower than the more expensive player (Oppo themselves mention this fact), because the 981HD can do a better job of dealing with trickier content, like Interlaced TV shows. That, however, isn't the whole story. The 980H excels in areas which statistics alone don't pay attention to, meaning that some may fail to notice that both players have their own strengths and weaknesses, despite the limitations imposed by the 980H's one-chip design. That alone speaks volumes for the ability of Oppo's technicians. Notably, it includes cleaner scaling than the 981HD, which results in a clearer picture with less ringing around edges.

I also hear the 981 still exhibits the macroblocking and green color push of its DCDi processing. My Denon 2910 really, really exhibits this on my Sammy DLP, so I want to get away from DCDi...

[Derb]

Originally Posted by Sehnzeleid

I also hear the 981 still exhibits the macroblocking and green color push of its DCDi processing.

MBB is the worst & most noticeable issue with any upcon. DCDi sucks!!!!!!!!!

I've tried Samsung, Panasonic & Sony upcon players but have yet to try out Denon or Oppo. Other than region free, I see no reason to get Oppo.

[Sehnzeleid]

Ordered a 980H.

[Sehnzeleid]

Received it late yesterday.



It came packed very nicely and was easy to hook up to get started. The player is actually slimmer and has less depth than the Toshiba HD-A35. The initial boot time was about the same as the Denon, like 10 seconds or so. The set-up menu was mostly configured correctly. I just changed TV Display to 16:9 Wide/Auto and Color Space to YCbCr 4:2:2. I did notice some lag between commands if I got too anxious with button pressing. Also annoying was having to stop the disc everytime I wanted to enter Set-up or change the resolution, these two options are available during playback with the Denon.

It produces a 720p picture that immediately looks superior to my Denon, Toshiba, or PS3. The picture is very "solid" with no artificial color bias. Clarity and sharpness is also there as much as DVD can muster. To the point I caught myself looking at certain things on-screen and forget the movie. I did notice a bit of digital noise in backgrounds at times (w/ Diary of the Dead), but this is just DVD after all and I haven't used any test patterns yet to get Contrast/Brightness correct. I also need to watch some more interlaced stuff since the player is known to be so-so with that material.

A pleasant surprise was HDMI audio pass-through actually working. No matter how I set up the Denon it just wouldn't pass Dolby and DTS to my receiver via HDMI, only multi-channel PCM. With the Oppo I just set the HDMI Audio option to Auto and I had Dolby and DTS from the receiver.

The PAL picture quality was good on the pre-loaded firmware, but I noticed some shimmering lines with camera movement on a few discs. I updated the player to Oppo's Beta firmware (via USB, very easy and took no time) and afterward the same discs exhibited no shimmering. Very excellent.

I haven't tried out any DVD-A or SACDs and haven't played around with the USB abilities, but so far this player is definitely worth $170.

Crappy shots of the player in action:

[EM3]

Cool and thanks for the update. I have often though about getting an Upcon player for the house. Don't forget the region free code at your fingertips.

[Sehnzeleid]

This player is continuing to impressive the heck out of me on the video-end (interlaced video does look pretty bad on this player though), but testing out a few SACDs in DSD mode is a big, scary letdown.

It could be my Onkyo 805, but when being fed DSD from the Oppo the subwoofer emits an ugly flat thudding. The receiver "pops" through the speakers when first receiving the DSD signal and takes a while to lock in and actually hear something. Also something really strange happened when turning on my TV the receiver froze for a second and the subwoofer emitted a loud thud. When it wasn't freaking out and with the subwoofer turned off the sound just wasn't as good as my Denon or PS3 60GB with SACD (converted to PCM) anyway. Popping the same SACD in my PS3 right afterwards confirmed something is amiss with the Oppo or the Oppo/Onkyo combination since usual great SACD sound reappeared with the PS3.

So screw utilizing SACD on the Oppo, despite the coolness of having "DSD" and "DSD Direct" displayed on my receiver.

Also here's a pic with the tray open since I was curious so far it extents out before I bought it, I didn't find out, so here it is for the curious:



Another annoyance worth mentioning is that the tray's disc inlay is the same thickness as a disc, so you're stuck having to make sure the disc is properly in place before hitting close.

[Sehnzeleid]

I've been digging around to find some DVDs I've owned for awhile now and continuing to be impressed. Interlaced video does look bad, the worst performing (in this respect) player I have. The more frenzied the movement the worse the interlace combing artifacts get (watch some music videos), extremely obvious. Though like I said before progressive video and "mild" interlaced video generally looks great to excellent. DVD still looks like DVD, but the player seems to have a knack for making even average DVD transfers look surprisingly good and like I've said it puts my $620 more-expensive-than-this-Oppo Denon 2910 to absolute shame...

Here's few shots of Desperado from the old El Mariachi / Desperado Double Feature with the bitrate averaging a low 3-4 megabytes a second on a single layer/double-sided disc:





Looks better in-person, but you get the idea.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Sehnzeleid

It could be my Onkyo 805, but when being fed DSD from the Oppo the subwoofer emits an ugly flat thudding. The receiver "pops" through the speakers when first receiving the DSD signal and takes a while to lock in and actually hear something. Also something really strange happened when turning on my TV the receiver froze for a second and the subwoofer emitted a loud thud. When it wasn't freaking out and with the subwoofer turned off the sound just wasn't as good as my Denon or PS3 60GB with SACD (converted to PCM) anyway. Popping the same SACD in my PS3 right afterwards confirmed something is amiss with the Oppo or the Oppo/Onkyo combination since usual great SACD sound reappeared with the PS3.

Likely having bass management & audyssey disabled is what is causing your audio issues with DSD Direct. Those two things are a heck of a lot more important than DSD vs PCM.

[Sehnzeleid]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Likely having bass management & audyssey disabled is what is causing your audio issues with DSD Direct. Those two things are a heck of a lot more important than DSD vs PCM.

Direct and Pure Audio work perfectly otherwise...

[Sehnzeleid]

I know you guys are getting sick of me but I was playing around with my cam and snapped this pic, I thought it turned out well.



This thing is making me second guess my Blu-ray purchases.

[Sehnzeleid]