Suhit Gupta
12-28-2005, 06:01 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.oppodigital.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.oppodigital.com/</a><br /><br /></div><i>"This includes support for DVD-Audio playback, full control of the True Life features of the Faroudja video processing, and a brand new remote! This player offers the standard upscaling resolutions of 480p, 720p and 1080i. The Faroudja chip seems to be set up appropriately, and they have updated the player to include processing for 2-2 based cadences with their Video 2 setting. If you are in the market for a budget DVD player, with a DVI output, and which has exceptional video performance, the 971H definitely meets these criteria. This player passes below-black, has no pixel cropping, and there are no signs of Y/C delay. I personally can’t wait to see what Oppo has in store for us next. Congratulations to Oppo Digital on making a great player even better!"</i><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/benchmark-photos-oppo-971.jpg" /><br /><br />I was in the market for a great DVD player last week and I honestly couldn't find one that had all the features I wanted, within my price range. Then I stumbled upon some <a href="http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=124">reviews at hometheaterhifi.com</a>, specifically <a href="http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_7_4/dvd-benchmark-part-5-progressive-10-2000.html">this guide to evaluating them</a> (long read but really worth it). Anyways, after reading a number of reviews, I found out about this company by the name of Oppo that has put out a new DVD player - OPDV971H. They are apparently a big Korean company but are testing the waters in the US with this player. And wow, it can honestly do everything. Plus, the picture quality is absolutely fantastic over DVI. The only downside is that it only puts out an average picture quality over component and doesn't support HDMI. So I started looking around for a price for the player and was even more surprised to find that it is a sub-$200 player (was totally expecting it to be in the $2-3K+ range). Anyways, I should be getting it in today so I hope to be writing a more detailed review soon.