Don't forget to change your DVI setting on the Oppo back to what you want it to be after the firmware upgrade. I think mine switched from 720P to 480i or p after the upgrade.

Once I figured it out and switched it back to 720P, the picture was great.

The firmware update will result in reverting the DVI to 480p. Keep in mind there are now four DVI settings:

480p, 540p, 720p, 1080i -- the resolution will appear in a box on the upper left of the screen.

Paul

Don't forget to change your DVI setting on the Oppo back to what you want it to be after the firmware upgrade. I think mine switched from 720P to 480i or p after the upgrade.

Once I figured it out and switched it back to 720P, the picture was great. LOL! I did the same thing. Had "Not Supported Mode" on the screen, went through the entire "OH CRAP! What did I do wrong now" thing, until came the dawn, and I rotated through the DVI resolutions until I got to 720p. Everything OK (insert BIG sigh of relief here). I think it defaulted all the video settings too (brightness, contrast, etc.). I'm about to go into DVE to see.

There is a bug in the Oppo (not sure if it is with the new firmware or existed before) where I cannot navigate to the previous chapter.

The problem occurs on a specific chapter of a specific disc. Pressing the previous chapter button returns to the beginning of the current chapter; pressing it again does the same. It will not go back to the previous chapter no matter how quickly I press the chapter button the 2nd time.

Coincidentally, on this chapter, the audio does not kick in until at least 10 seconds after the video starts playing.

Anyone else see a similar problem?

Previous "chapter" or previous "title and chapter"?

I reported to Oppo Digital that the DV971H will not change to a previous chapter if that chapter is in a previous title. Otherwise, previous chapters can be accessed. If there is only one chapter for each title, then the player will not be able to access any "previous chapter". I have another player that works this way as well.

I have noticed that there is a slight delay until audio kicks in when accessing next or previous chapters but it's nothing like 10 seconds, maybe a second at most, sometimes, it varies from disc to disc. This issue has been reported as well.

Paul

I just successfully updated my Oppo. However, I can't recall what audio settings I had previously (I know, I should have written them down beforehand.). :)

I'm outputting the Oppo's audio to my Yamaha RX-V2400 via the Oppo's coax digital out. Do I still need to do the Oppo's Audio Setup and Speaker Setup pages? If not, do these pages' settings have any impact on the digital audio out? If I do need to do these setups, which settings do you recommend?

Thanks.

Jim

Everyone please remember that when you firmware upgrade a device like this, it generally resets everything back to factory defaults. Please write down all of your settings before the upgrade, then reset them after the update. There is no point in comparing the picture to what you had before until you set it back exactly the same way.

Please bear in mind that, except for a few defects near the top, these issues are relatively minor. The Oppo is already an amazing player for the price. Aside from the macroblock enhance that may affect your display when playing badly encoded disks, the picture over DVI is spectacular.

CURRENT DEFECTS:

Image does not fill the entire frame. There is a 3-4 pixel border all around the image in all DVI resolutions.
The MTK zooms have problems with jaggedness.
DVI "Wide/SQZ" mode is losing horizontal resolution on 4:3 DVD material with 1x zoom. This may be because the Mediatek chip squeezes the image for the analog outputs before the Faroudja chip scales the image for the DVI output. Full resolution is restored as soon as you zoom in. It would be better for the Faroudja chip to handle the pillar-boxing in "WIDE" mode.
When the sharpness is set any higher than "Off", saturated colors bleed on their vertical edges. For example, in the Oppo's setup menu, the yellow selection bar looks ragged on the left and right edges, with a band of blue/magenta next to those edges. The same effect can be seen on the Avia DVD Hue and Saturation Bars - the colors bleed into each other, and into the black text. Oppo's DVD-DL317 Mini DVD Home Theatre System (powered by the same Mediatek chip) has a fine-adjustment for sharpness, and as you increase it, the same weird colors begin to appear around menu lettering and saturated colors. So it must be a Mediatek problem.
A/V sync becomes progressively worse when fast-forwarding Divx files. Some Divx files with VBR-mp3 audio work fine for the first few seconds, and then audio becomes intermittent (video remains OK).
Some languages are not recognized and displayed in the subtitle and audio track options. (e.g. Portugese, on the R4 Brazilian version of LOTR).
Uneven color saturation over the component connection. Red and Green are about 15% high.
Will not pass "blacker-than-black" over the component connection. WISHLIST:
Ability to read the 4:3 "letterbox" flag to automatically zoom the image to fill the screen. The player already reads the 4:3 "pan and scan" flag to automatically pillarbox in Wide/SQZ mode.
854x480 DVI support for projectors like the Infocus 4805.
Ability to reposition subtitles on the screen. Helpful for disks where the subtitles normally fall in the black letterbox bar, which is a nuisance for front projection users who mask their screens.
Ability to convert the black pillarbox/letterbox bars to an adjustable shade of gray, to reduce burn-in on plasma displays.
While displaying DVD stills, the pause button sometimes causes a chapter-skip or causes the player to temporarily stop responding to remote commands (particularly in the Avia test patterns).
"Jacket_P" Support. When a DVD with "Jacket_P" info is paused for a while, the player would display the movie's splash screen instead of the Oppo logo.
Faroudja's "macroblock enhance" bug. Macroblocking appears on some DVD’s as an artifact of heavy MPEG compression. It looks like patches of moving/pulsating off-color blocks, and is most often seen on background walls and floors, in mist, and in fade-in/fade-out scenes. It is normally very subtle, but for some reason, the Faroudja chip exaggerates it. This bug appears to be very display dependant, so it only becomes distracting on some displays. Panasonic recently worked with Faroudja to reduce this problem to some degree in their player, but there seems to be no significant improvement over the Oppo. Apparently, it cannot be fixed altogether, so it remains a trade-off with the use of this otherwise fantastic de-interlacing and scaling chip.
Comments welcome. Please bear in mind that Oppo Digital is doing a tremendous job of addressing firmware defects (and reasonable requests) from fussy consumers like us. If your issue is listed here, don't badger Oppo with calls or complaints - they will be fixed in due course.

Gary

We're thinking about moving this defect list into the first post of Paul Bigelow's Oppo FAQ/Braindump thread, to make it easier to find. What do you all think? It may mean the eventual demise of this thread, as many of us will migrate to his thread.

Gary

Any confirmation that the audio sync issue is definitely fixed? And the subtitle bug?

Just updated mine and all looks good. Big thanks to Oppo for actually listening and acting on consumer feedback, and ongoing commitment to improving an already excellent player. Thanks to the beta testers here, too. Couldn't have been done without you :) Was nice timing as I only received mine yesterday. Can report that Oppo's exporting division is up to par with their customer service. Arrived in the UK within 3 working days, and they're even clued up enough to assist with easing our stingy UK customs import tax laws ;) Also noticed mine was region free out of the box. Perhaps Oppo are only setting the players they export out of the US/Canada as multiregion OTB?

Just been doing some testing and seems to be lapping up anything I chuck at it from my eclectic collection. Seems as happy playing my old, poorly pressed and degraded Hong Kong DVD's as it does multiple XVID's on unfinalised DVD+RW's. Great stuff. One thing I did notice is that there was no auto or manual aspect ratio control on DIVX/XVID's. I have lots of fansubbed anime TV series' that are in the 4:3 ratio, and the Oppo just stretches them on a 16:9 display. I know the Mediatek chip is quite capable of auto-aspect ratio control and pillowboxing on MPEG4's, so hopefully Oppo will yet implement it.

The only other fixes that I personally still see as essential on the video side of things now are 480p and BTB through component. Would love to see Ogg Vorbis audio support sometime too, but realise that's perhaps just my overly wishful thinking :) That said, if you're listening Oppo, there's no license fee and it's easy enough to implement...

Nice report OmenII. 480p over component will not be possible in this player (hardware issue).

Gary

Any confirmation that the audio sync issue is definitely fixed? And the subtitle bug? No, the subtitle bug has not been addressed yet. We still need to scrutinize the performance of the audio sync. But PLEASE always check the source DVD before blaming the Oppo for sync problems.

I've found that the easiest way to check a sync problem, is to wait a little while to verify the problem and to confirm that it wasn't just a bad voiceover... then hit the rewind button and watch the same scene again. If the sync problem is still there, it was likely recorded on the disk. If the sync problem positively disappears, then it's more likely to have been caused by the Oppo's Faroudja processor.

Gary

Previous "chapter" or previous "title and chapter"?

Honest, I'm not sure, but I think it is previous chapter. The disc is Peter Gabriel Growing Up Live and the problem occurs during a chapter of the main movie. For all other chapters, there is no problem with navigation. Once you hit this chapter, you cannot go back. Also the audio delay is at least 10 seconds, which is very strange.

StevenA01, re. the subtitle bug - 80% of my 1000+ DVD collection consists of subtitled foreign films, so I'll be giving it a good going over during the weekend in that respect, and will report back.

Cheers Gary, and thanks for the info re. 480p over component. Any idea why it's a hardware issue? It'd be a shame if that's definitely the case. The Oppo's almost spoilt for choice when it comes to capable deinterlacing solutions! Must say that component 480i into my direct view telly looked pretty poor in general. And MPEG4 playback looked markedly poorer than my Pioneer DV-470 which uses the same Mediatek chipset. Wonder whether Oppo/Winbase have somehow bodged their component video implementation on a hardware level. Seems almost a shame to waste those nice gold-plated RCA's...

Damian.

For the benefit of all...

The Oppo logo has a white-ish highlighted border all the way around the extremities of the image. The vertical edge enhancement in the old firmware made the left and right borders a brighter shade of white. If you have a projector, you are SUPPOSED to see the white lines around the logo. Don't overscan to get rid of them, because you'll lose those pixels on a DVD.

So jriihi, that means the image on your Z3 is perfect at 720p (in all your test cases, including the Oppo logo). And 720p is what you should be feeding your projector.

Gary

OK. I'll wait to hear from others using the Benq 8700+. The surprise with the latest firmware, using the settings for Truelife=On CCS=Off and Sharpness=Off is that when I set DVI for 720p the borders now match what I see with other sources. I do get the very slight whiteish effect in this mode, that is not seen with other DVI settings.

Gary: maybe you can further explain this white border bit; what is it and why would it only seem to appear on 720p (which happens to be the native res of the Benq). Since the Benq has no capability for overscan adjustment (in fact there's not much room for any real spacial adjustments) I know it's not something I've done.

I'm eager to put the new firmware through its paces before I get on a plane and vacate for a week. But it sounds like this has been a big step forward for Oppo. Hell they even allowed me to turn off that nuisance of an angle flag, dontcha' know.

StevenA01, re. the subtitle bug - 80% of my 1000+ DVD collection consists of subtitled foreign films, so I'll be giving it a good going over during the weekend in that respect, and will report back.

That's kind of like my DVD collection, which is why I have a vested interest in this problem being fixed before I invest in the Oppo. :)

I only have about 30 subtitled foreign films (mostly Chinese or Korean), but I haven't had any problems with any of them.

We're thinking about moving this defect list into the first post of Paul Bigelow's Oppo FAQ/Braindump thread, to make it easier to find. What do you all think? It may mean the eventual demise of this thread, as many of us will migrate to his thread.

Gary

At this point, I think we should keep all the posts in one thread, instead of having two large threads going. I am all for it.

Gary: maybe you can further explain this white border bit; what is it and why would it only seem to appear on 720p (which happens to be the native res of the Benq). Since the Benq has no capability for overscan adjustment (in fact there's not much room for any real spacial adjustments) I know it's not something I've done. That logo is an MPEG-compressed image in the Oppo's memory. The white border could be intentional, or just a compression artifact. Theoretically, you should see it in all resolutions, but if your projector is NOT displaying it's native resolution, it will be scaling that image. The scaling process may introduce a small amount of overscan that cuts off the white border.

Gary

At this point, I think we should keep all the posts in one thread, instead of having two large threads going. I am all for it. Paul will be looking into that possibility. I'm off on vacation till Monday.

Gary

If I order the Oppo player directly from Oppo tomorrow, will it come with the latest firmware or will it just be an off the shelf unit that has not been updated yet?

Curtis

From the Oppo Digital support site:

"Orders shipped on and after June 30, 2005 from the OPPO on-line store are loaded with the latest firmware, OP971-8-0628."

Sounds like you'd be OK!

paul

Paul, thanks for that information. I just placed my order. I hope I made the right decision to pair this player up with my Pioneer PDP-5050HD via DVI-HDMI connection.


Curtis

I hope so too! Just remember there is the 30 day 100% money back guarantee, if it doesn't work out.

Paul

OK, I hate to bring this up again, but I updated the firmware and was messing with the Oppo and my 4805 once again today.

It seems the "undercanning" that many of us are getting... is still there. I know I posted earlier that the underscanning that I thought I saw was not there when I tested the Oppo last night, but as I was playing with it today, I noticed that I had the "overscan" option on my 4805 turned on, so it covered up the black borders when I did the test last night.

I tested it again with the "overscan" option off (we want overscan off so that all 4 sides are not cropped so we can get the full picture). I did the "blank" test where I had my projector project a blank screen and I compared it with the Oppo's menu and there is definitely some underscanning going on with the Oppo on all 4 sides. I've done the pixel cropping test on AVIA and it passes, cropping nothing on any of the 4 sides. However, it is just not filling the screen.

So this time, I went ahead and tested the DVI on my HD Box and compared it with the DVI results from my Oppo. The HD box (Scientific Atlanta 3250HD) filled the entire when watching 720p and 1080i. I compared the blank image and the 720p/1080i output and they match up, unlike 480p, 720p, 1080i from the Oppo.

Although I did just update to the newer firmware, I believe the new firmware IS NOT causing this issue (I just wanted to make that clear). It has been there since the beginning (I would assume).

So this is what I think is happening. Oppo has set their DVI output so that there is no pixel cropping, and that it will fill the whole picture display with the idea that most displays have some sort of overscan. I know that practically all of my old standard crt displays exhibit overscan. Most projectors have no overscan, showing the entire picture (many of which have options to turn overscan on like the 4805). Maybe this will explain how the Oppo fits perfectly when I turn overscan on and has borders around with overscan off.

I guess for now I will turn overscan on when using the Oppo but I would prefer to leave it off.

Ja Phule,
Your possible explanation makes sense, but the 4805 owners seem to have issues more than other FP owners. I also remember a member (don't remember if it was a 4805 owner or not) reporting the image being distorted (squeezed or flattened).

I don't think Ja Phule is right with that explanation. The Oppo's 720p output, when connected to a 720p (native) projector shows NO underscanning at all. So I doubt that Oppo Digital has purposely set the DVI output to underscan.

Gary

I'm just getting just a small amount of underscanning, I'm not getting any squeezed or flatten looking picture, everything looks great other than the fact that the Oppo does not fill my display entirely, though my HD Box at 720p/1080i fill my picture entirely.

I think it's very much possible that many people aren't seeing any sort of underscanning on their display due to their display's overscan. Most crts and rptvs that I've seen have a small amount of overscan. Many projectors have no overscan. One thing that I've noticed in the the front projection forum are new owners complaining about the weird, small thin lines above their image when watching SDTV, they don't see this on their old crts due to overscan, which is not covered up on front projection.

Just wondering if anyone else would like to see a 768P setting in the next firmware? I understand there are other issues but I was curious to know how many out there have 1024 X 768 displays that would like to see a 1-1 ratio, meaning no black bars and not having to adjust the image on the set.

I like this player for everything except that and the other quirks. Most of the others I can live with.

Anybody else for this?Alex I too am interested in this resolution
I too am very interested in this (and so is anyone else with a 1024X768 display - cabable of 768p-input (DVI)). Why is it not in the wishlist?

I too am very interested in this (and so is anyone else with a 1024X768 display - cabable of 768p-input (DVI)). Why is it not in the wishlist?

Most ppl maybe dont have 1024x768 resolution displays. Example: I have 720p (1280x720) resolution projector i use with oppo.

I don't think Ja Phule is right with that explanation. The Oppo's 720p output, when connected to a 720p (native) projector shows NO underscanning at all. So I doubt that Oppo Digital has purposely set the DVI output to underscan.

Yeah i see no underscan on sanyo plv-z3 with overscan set to 0. HDMI setting set to L2 (but thats probably only colorspace setting).

Is there any chance the audio delay will be raised to more than 50ms in the next firmware?

Also, I still have shimmering in 1080i mode on my Mits WS-48515.

Ja Phule,
I own a 4805 myself and have been waiting -eagerly- for the shimmering and other issues to be resolved and go ahead with the Oppo (BBK here in Europe).

Let me try to understand your issue. Is there any cropping with the combo 4805-Oppo? Any pixels lost and if so how many? Or just the image appears slightly smaller? In the latter case, I assume the image is not squeezed or anything but just smaller? In which case a bit of zoom wouldn't it solve the problem?

Apologies if the above assumptions sound a bit amateur but I am still struggling to be honest with the term "overscan" and I do not understand Ja Phule's issues 100%.

Dear friends, please let me understand better, I really want to go for a player of this price/value and the Oppo looks ideal but this one thing. Ja Phule, would you recommend against it with the problem you have for feeding a 4805?

Thxs!

I installed newest firmware and watched one movie with it (James Bond 007: For your eyes only). Maybe its combination of sharpness off with css off that makes picture even better. Atleast with 720p resolution.

Good that oppo fixed those issues/added options to get maximum pq out of this unit :)

2:2 sequence is very important, PAL DVD flagged in FILM won't play correctly without it.

I would like to know if you can "Anamorphise" a movie with this player ?
Like ... I don't know : Titanic, From dusk till dawn ... which are not anamorphic.
I have a Samsung HD931, the "easyView" button allow to "zoom" but the result in 720p is terrible.

So I have to watch those movies in a letterboxed way : a 1.33 screen in the middle of the 1.78 screen, and the movie picture in the center of everything.
Let's say the picture is reduced to a small thing. (CRT projector user)

I will buy this player as soon as I can.

Ja: Thanks, that's what I thought. The problem is, my guess is that the dual conversion (D/A - A/D) and letting the Marantz do everything with a component feed is worse than having the OPPO do the deinterlacing and feeding the Marantz the digital 480P and having it do just the scaling.

deus-ex,

The DV971H will perform an "anamorphic" zoom and will enlarge the non-anamorphically enhanced widescreen DVD to mostly fill the screen. Unfortunately, the quality of the picture because of the zoom decreases significantly, in my view. I've only seen one decent zoom and that's in the Momitsu V880 and it decreases piccture quality as well.

I believe an anamorphic Titanic is going to be released this year.

Paul

I too am very interested in this (and so is anyone else with a 1024X768 display - cabable of 768p-input (DVI)). Why is it not in the wishlist?

It's not in the wishlist but 768p has been suggested to Oppo Digital and is under consideration.

Paul

"WISHLIST:

3. 480i/576i over DVI.

Comments welcome. Please bear in mind that Oppo Digital is doing a tremendous job of addressing firmware defects (and reasonable requests) from fussy consumers like us....

Gary"

I would note that 576i (PAL) digital (DVI) output is a built-in function of the Faroudja FLI2300/1/10 series chip which the 971H uses. This being the case, we can hope that it should be a simple software/firmware patch to turn on this feature in the OPPO 971H. On the other hand, 480i (NTSC) digital output is not a built-in function of the Faroudja FLI2300/1/10 series chip; so implementing it would be substantially more difficult.

rob lawlis

What are the recommeded video settings in the OPPO menu now that the new firmware is out? I turned everything off that I could and left evrything else at 0.

Actually, the picture settings at default after firmware update isn't a bad place to start.

DVI - your choice
Sharpness - OFF
CCS - OFF
TrueLife - ON
Brightness - 0
Contrast - 0
Saturation -0

Paul

Ja Phule,
I own a 4805 myself and have been waiting -eagerly- for the shimmering and other issues to be resolved and go ahead with the Oppo (BBK here in Europe).

Let me try to understand your issue. Is there any cropping with the combo 4805-Oppo? Any pixels lost and if so how many? Or just the image appears slightly smaller? In the latter case, I assume the image is not squeezed or anything but just smaller? In which case a bit of zoom wouldn't it solve the problem?

Apologies if the above assumptions sound a bit amateur but I am still struggling to be honest with the term "overscan" and I do not understand Ja Phule's issues 100%.

Dear friends, please let me understand better, I really want to go for a player of this price/value and the Oppo looks ideal but this one thing. Ja Phule, would you recommend against it with the problem you have for feeding a 4805?

Thxs!

Sorry if it seems like I'm saying that the Oppo and 4805 combination is bad. The Oppo is a fantastic player, best player I've ever had. I'm just nitpicking on a very very very small issue I have with the player.

There is NO cropping with the 4805 and Oppo over DVI. The issue I (and a few others) have is kinda like the opposite. I'm not losing any pixels, but it seems like there's a small border around the whole image. Yes I could zoom in a little more to get rid of it, but this means it will crop the image for my other sources. The solution right now for me is to just to turn on the "overscan" feature on the 4805 and it seems to cover up the border around the image.

I really am just dissecting this issue because it seems 4805 and other projector owners are seeing it.

Is it difficult for OPPO ( or any company) to design firmware that adds resolutions (854 X 480) for the InFocus 4805? The 4805 has been the bang for the buck champ and the OPPO DVD player seems a perfect match. I bet half the 4805 owners would consider buying the OPPO if they knew that it integrates perfectly with the 4805.

I would note that 576i (PAL) digital (DVI) output is a built-in function of the Faroudja FLI2300/1/10 series chip which the 971H uses. This being the case, we can hope that it should be a simple software/firmware patch to turn on this feature in the OPPO 971H. On the other hand, 480i (NTSC) digital output is not a built-in function of the Faroudja FLI2300/1/10 series chip; so implementing it would be substantially more difficult.

IIRC, the Toshiba 592 is able to output 480i over HDMI and it uses the Faroudja 2310.

Is it difficult for OPPO ( or any company) to design firmware that adds resolutions (854 X 480) for the InFocus 4805? The 4805 has been the bang for the buck champ and the OPPO DVD player seems a perfect match. I bet half the 4805 owners would consider buying the OPPO if they knew that it integrates perfectly with the 4805.

Last I heard, the Oppo might need hardware modifications (possibly a new chip) in order to do this.

One more happy 4805 / Oppo owner

Just want to say that I had no problems getting DVI to work (using IF 10 Meter cable)

This in complete contrast to my total frustration with a Bravo D2.

Now if the Tour de France were in HD...

...on my LCD TV is 1366x768. What is the best DVI setting for the OPPO....720P or 1080i? Thanks guys.

First off, many many thanks to all of you who have contributed to this thread-especially GSB and Paul-and to Oppo for listening to all of you. I'm extremely wet behind the ears in the HT arena and lurked (researched) in the Flat Panel forum for many months before buying my NEC42VR5 (excellent choice); lurked (researched) in the DVD Recorder forum for many weeks before buying a Pioneer 420H. My next purchase a HDMI or DVI DVD player landed me here.

I wanted a digital connection for a couple of reasons--I wanted the best possible picture from a DVD; Both of my panel's component connections were being utilized and I wanted reassurance that my NEC DVI input was operable before the set got too old. :-)

I never heard of Oppo before this thread and now I can say that I happily own one. I received it about 3 weeks ago and connected it to the NEC via DVI and cycled through all the output resolutions, noticing very little difference in PQ between them (I was surprised that the NEC accepted 720P). I know, I know--I've read all the arguments for native versus scaling up and back down again--but I settled on 1080i merely out of my own ignorant stubborness ("If broadcast 1080i is stunning, then DVD upconverted to 1080i will be too"--DUH--Like someone else in this forum aptly put it..you can't squeeze more info out of 480i DVD than it contains. Now I see the light). Back to 480p and grumbling :-)

HOWEVER, this I can say--the Oppo over DVI at 480p was (prior to 0629) notably superior in PQ than any component 480p connection I have ever had. Might be the Oppo...might be the digital-connection but it is definitely better and...then came the 0629 firmware which I installed last night. Well, I'm too technically challenged to understand what Oppo did but WOW--at 480p my jaw hit the floor. Thanks Oppo. Thanks Paul. Thanks GSB. Thanks to all of you for helping me along in getting a fine, fine DVD player.

I can scarcely express how happy I am with this player's performance post 6/28 firmware. When I popped SWE4's Darth Vader Entance scene and there were no jaggies on his helmet, I was ecstatic. When I checked SWE2's library scene and saw no shimmering, I was knocked out. The menu options are great (I do True Life ON, CCS OFF, sharpness OFF), and the new resolutions are nice as well.

This truly is the best region-free upsampling player $200 can buy.

Thanks Oppo for listening and responding to customer feedback so well!

StevenA01, re. the subtitle bug - 80% of my 1000+ DVD collection consists of subtitled foreign films, so I'll be giving it a good going over during the weekend in that respect, and will report back.

You shouldn't have a problem with movies that are fully subtitled, so long as you go into the disc menus and choose English subtitles before playing the movie. The problem is that the Oppo defaults to having the subtitles OFF, even on discs that normally default to them on. This is most problematic on movies that are partially in (non-subtitled) English and partially in a foreign language where English subtitles should be prompted.

The issue is partially, though not fully, addressed in the new firmware with a subtitle setup option labelled "Auto". When I chose this and tested Kill Bill Vol. 2, the movie played just as it is supposed to, with no English subtitles for the majority of the movie but English subtitles appearing during the Chinese language dialogue of the Pei Mei scene.

However, the "Auto" function is flawed when playing English language movies that are meant to default to no subtitles at all. Unfortunately, "Auto" triggers full English subtitles in these cases, which you must manually shut off.

I leave my Oppo set for subtitles "Off" right now. This can be a real nuisance when watching a movie that you may not realize in advance has some partial foreign language scenes in it.

...on my LCD TV is 1366x768. What is the best DVI setting for the OPPO....720P or 1080i? Thanks guys.

If I understand correctly, you should set it to 720p which is the closest 1:1 mapping with your 768p display. What I'm not sure of is if you get better resolution since your display is 768p which is slightly higher than 720p.

Originally posted by Josh Z " I leave my Oppo set for subtitles "Off" right now. This can be a real nuisance when watching a movie that you may not realize has some partial foreign language scenes in it"
_____________________________________________________

Also, you might never know that subtitles were used, thinking the director intended you to hear a foreign language and not understand what's being said. Is it that OPPO made a mistake or the subtitle glitch simply can't be corrected?

It's not in the wishlist but 768p has been suggested to Oppo Digital and is under consideration.

Paul

Please Paul - let's convince Oppo to add 768p support. I have a display that supports 1280x768p.

Thanks - Dan

Please Paul - let's convince Oppo to add 768p support. I have a display that supports 1280x768p.

Thanks - Dan

I have yet to see a DVD Player using the Faroudja FLI-2310 scaler / de-interlacer to offer 768P. It's my understanding that it is not supported by the chipset.

Thanks Goldenhand. I'll try that.

Cheers Gary, and thanks for the info re. 480p over component. Any idea why it's a hardware issue? It'd be a shame if that's definitely the case. The Oppo's almost spoilt for choice when it comes to capable deinterlacing solutions! Must say that component 480i into my direct view telly looked pretty poor in general. And MPEG4 playback looked markedly poorer than my Pioneer DV-470 which uses the same Mediatek chipset. Wonder whether Oppo/Winbase have somehow bodged their component video implementation on a hardware level. Seems almost a shame to waste those nice gold-plated RCA's...

Damian.

Oppo can not do 480P over component because the Faroudja FLI-2310 de-interlacer / scaler is implemented solely on the DVI output board. It has no connection to what takes place in the component signal path. Absolutely a hardware issue.

Please Paul - let's convince Oppo to add 768p support. I have a display that supports 1280x768p.

Thanks - Dan

My understanding, from another forum, Oppo is already considering this.

I think this is a very display dependent technology. I am skeptical that going to a native 768 over 720 is going to result in anything signifcant.

Updated my firmware last night and tested AOTC, LOTR FOTR, Incredibles, Spiderman 2 (Superbit), and SW ANH, all were amazing. The improvement is simply awesome.

Big ups to Paul, Gary, and others for their contributions to this thread.

Also, you might never know that subtitles were used, thinking the director intended you to hear a foreign language and not understand what's being said. Is it that OPPO made a mistake or the subtitle glitch simply can't be corrected?

They're still working on it. I'm confident that it's just a programming flub and they'll have it fixed in a subsequent firmware.

Hello,

What other program will work to do the Oppo upgrade? I used the free software on the site on two different computers and it wont burn without errors.

Thanks for you reply,

rmlowz

Hello,

What other program will work to do the Oppo upgrade? I used the free software on the site on two different computers and it wont burn without errors.

Thanks for you reply,

rmlowz

Burn the CD with DVD Decryptor (also free). It'll write this file in the iso write mode. That's how I've been able to do it. Nero gave me problems.

Oppo can not do 480P over component because the Faroudja FLI-2310 de-interlacer / scaler is implemented solely on the DVI output board. It has no connection to what takes place in the component signal path. Absolutely a hardware issue.Well, if the FLI-2310 can't do the honours, the Mediatek chipeset is quite capable. Has it ever been confirmed that the FLI-2310 simply can't be situated on a component-out path under any circumstances, or just not 720p/1080i upconvert over component? Just wondering, as the Panasonic S97 offers 480p through component using the same chip. Unless the MEI board covers that area...

Hello,

What other program will work to do the Oppo upgrade? I used the free software on the site on two different computers and it wont burn without errors.

Thanks for you reply,

rmlowz

As a past tech and PC enthusiast, for all you having problems burning this file, either have cheap/bad media, an out dated burner or some type of software conflicts. It really isn't this much trouble or any special way to copy this file to a CD. If there is any problem, I'd first re-download the file, and then try a different cd (another brand) and the next easiest step would be to make sure your cd burner has its latest firmware. Most cd burner’s firmware adds media compatibility and helps ensure good copies for many types of brands and speeds, amongst other fixes. Other than that, there should be nothing special about this process. Using burnatonce has worked just fine. It is too easy. Hope this helps some.

Actuallly, the best thing to send to this display is probably 480p. This way the picture will only be scaled one time (that is the whole point). If you set the player for 720p, the player will scale it up to 720p, then your display will have to scale it again up to 768p. For a clear picture, you should avoid scaling as many times as possible. Scaling once to match your fixed pixel display is always the best way to go. Anyway, I think you may be asking for MB problems with two scalers interacting with each other.

If I understand correctly, you should set it to 720p which is the closest 1:1 mapping with your 768p display. What I'm not sure of is if you get better resolution since your display is 768p which is slightly higher than 720p.

I should be receiving my OPPO 971H today. I will be pairing it with a RP-CRT: Tosh 65HX93. It will replace (or supplement) and Onkyo DV-CP500.

From everything I've read in the two main threads, the OPPO should be a good player. One issue that concerns me is macro blocking enhancement.

Can some folks post what DVDs I should check (and maybe where in DVD) to see if this will be a problem with this player paired with this display?

I have AVIA, plus LOTR - FOTR EE and TT EE, Harry Potter, Windtalkers, Harry Potter (all). as well as others.

The Tosh 65HX93 can do both 1080i and 540P.

Thanks,
Rick

I should be receiving my OPPO 971H today. I will be pairing it with a RP-CRT: Tosh 65HX93. It will replace (or supplement) and Onkyo DV-CP500.

1st check if you have latest June 29, 2005 firmware and if not upgrade to that.

I ordered mine today, and it shipped today! hopefully i'll get it tuesday since i did expedited shipping.

i look forward to seeing what the player can do based on all said here.

i use to use a Denon 2200, and to me it was pretty darn good, so should be interesting to see how much better the Oppo performs!

i'll be hooking it up to a Sony GWIII 50WE610 via DVI, so i'll try out both 480p, 720p, & 1080i and report back, but like Lite said it might be best feeding it 480p and let the tv do the final conversion...

although..... the player is already doing 480i -> 480p, then the TV would do 480p -> 768p. wouldn't that be the same amount of conversion as letting Oppo do 480i -> 720p, then my tv doing 720p -> 768p?

correct me if i'm wrong, but the Oppo doesn't to 480i -> 480p -> 720p right?
it just does 480i -> 720p (or 1080i) correct?

Well, if the FLI-2310 can't do the honours, the Mediatek chipeset is quite capable. Has it ever been confirmed that the FLI-2310 simply can't be situated on a component-out path under any circumstances, or just not 720p/1080i upconvert over component? Just wondering, as the Panasonic S97 offers 480p through component using the same chip. Unless the MEI board covers that area...

Excellent point, omen II. The Mediatek should probably be utilized on the Oppo to offer 480P over component. However, I think those who are looking for a component signal from the Oppo are missing the whole point of the player to begin with. It goal from its' original design was to be a high quality DVI player. If the Oppo were to offer 480P over component using the Mediatek chipset, it would be similar to a Pioneer DV-588A, which can be had for significantly less than the Oppo.
A DVI or HDMI connection is really the only way to fully appreciate this player.

If by some chance one wants a really inexpensive MediaTek player with 480p component, the Terapin TT-1800 should fit the bill.

Paul

although..... the player is already doing 480i -> 480p, then the TV would do 480p -> 768p. wouldn't that be the same amount of conversion as letting Oppo do 480i -> 720p, then my tv doing 720p -> 768p?

Deinterlacing and scaling are two different processes. Going from 480i->480p is not scaling; it's just a matter of interweaving separate fields into a complete frame.

correct me if i'm wrong, but the Oppo doesn't to 480i -> 480p -> 720p right?
it just does 480i -> 720p (or 1080i) correct?

The scaling process is based on whole frames. In order to go from 480i->720p, the interlaced fields must be deinterlaced to 480p first and then scaled.

If your TV is 768p natively, you are probably best off setting the Oppo for 480p output (though it couldn't hurt to test it out multiple ways). That way, the DVD player deinterlaces and the TV scales. If you set for 720p output, the DVD player first deinterlaces then scales to 720p, then your TV scales from 720p->768p. Scaling a video image twice increases the likelihood of mathematical errors. It's almost always better to do all of your scaling in one step.

Agreed, AlieniceT. No doubt 480p via. component is really just an afterthrought for folks buying the Oppo. Where it'd come in handy for me, however, is having DVI hooked up through the projector for primary viewing, and 480p component into the neighbouring direct view telly for DVD extras and DIVX/XVID's. 480i will substitute of course, but just seems a bit of waste given the Mediatek is perfectly capable of providing if called upon. And I could free-up some rack space by offloading my Pioneer DV-470 then, too... :)

jriihi,

Yes, I already have the CD ready. I'll hook it up, check firmaware version then upgrade if it isnt the latest.

Thanks,
Rick

Deinterlacing and scaling are two different processes. Going from 480i->480p is not scaling; it's just a matter of interweaving separate fields into a complete frame.



The scaling process is based on whole frames. In order to go from 480i->720p, the interlaced fields must be deinterlaced to 480p first and then scaled.

If your TV is 768p natively, you are probably best off setting the Oppo for 480p output (though it couldn't hurt to test it out multiple ways). That way, the DVD player deinterlaces and the TV scales. If you set for 720p output, the DVD player first deinterlaces then scales to 720p, then your TV scales from 720p->768p. Scaling a video image twice increases the likelihood of mathematical errors. It's almost always better to do all of your scaling in one step.

One thing that was cool with the Bravo D2 is that you could specify custom settings to scale the DVI to right in the player.

Is there any chance this could be done in a future firmware upgrade with the Oppo?

I have a JVC DLA-HX1 projector which has a resolution of 1400 x 788. I feed it 720p over DVI and think this gives it the best picture.

Per your recommendation, you would suggest 480p and letting the projector scale it, rather than having the Oppo scale from 480p to 720p and then the projector upscale again to 1400 x 788. In theory, this makes sense, but I think the picture is better with 720p from the player.

Anyway, this is another case where allowing a custom resolution setting for the Oppo could output exactly my resolution of 1400 x 788, if allowed.

I wonder again if this could even be possible with the current Oppo hardware through a firmware upgrade, or whether it's physically impossible? This custom setting would obviously solve mine and all the other "non-standard" resolutions.

I should be receiving my OPPO 971H today. I will be pairing it with a RP-CRT: Tosh 65HX93. It will replace (or supplement) and Onkyo DV-CP500.

From everything I've read in the two main threads, the OPPO should be a good player. One issue that concerns me is macro blocking enhancement.

Can some folks post what DVDs I should check (and maybe where in DVD) to see if this will be a problem with this player paired with this display?

I have AVIA, plus LOTR - FOTR EE and TT EE, Harry Potter, Windtalkers, Harry Potter (all). as well as others.

The Tosh 65HX93 can do both 1080i and 540P.

Thanks,
Rick

Check out the first scene in Palpatine's office in SWE2. That red wall is a great field to look at for macroblocking.

I'll tell you what though - you will see this in almost every other Faroudja deck in existence, including $2000+ models. SD-DVD has simply reached its limit in terms of quality, unless we all want to have our movies split across 2 or 3 discs.

For $200, post 0628 firmware, Oppo is the player to beat for price/performance.

Thanks, unfortunately, I dont have any of the Star Wars DVDs. I do understand it is common problem with Faroudga, I'm just hoping it isn't magnified or "enhanced" by my display. If it is, it probably means I'll be dropping back to a DVD player with a different chip set (and probably lower price).

Thanks,
Rick

Excellent point, omen II. The Mediatek should probably be utilized on the Oppo to offer 480P over component. However, I think those who are looking for a component signal from the Oppo are missing the whole point of the player to begin with. It goal from its' original design was to be a high quality DVI player. If the Oppo were to offer 480P over component using the Mediatek chipset, it would be similar to a Pioneer DV-588A, which can be had for significantly less than the Oppo.
A DVI or HDMI connection is really the only way to fully appreciate this player.

Better yet, next player (likely HDMI based), should be just that. Advertise it as HDMI/digital only and then there can be no issues with component with 480p capabilities. Also, might be a little cheaper to implement. I understand as a first player, it allows all buyers to have the option to buy this player with some of it's cool features, but I think if one chip can't handle all progressive resolutions, they should just eliminate the option, plus having different PQ, depending on the connection is no good either.

Deinterlacing and scaling are two different processes. Going from 480i->480p is not scaling; it's just a matter of interweaving separate fields into a complete frame.



The scaling process is based on whole frames. In order to go from 480i->720p, the interlaced fields must be deinterlaced to 480p first and then scaled.

If your TV is 768p natively, you are probably best off setting the Oppo for 480p output (though it couldn't hurt to test it out multiple ways). That way, the DVD player deinterlaces and the TV scales. If you set for 720p output, the DVD player first deinterlaces then scales to 720p, then your TV scales from 720p->768p. Scaling a video image twice increases the likelihood of mathematical errors. It's almost always better to do all of your scaling in one step.

ah yes... i was not thinking at that time..... i totally agree now.

i'll just try both and see what looks best...

One thing that was cool with the Bravo D2 is that you could specify custom settings to scale the DVI to right in the player.

Is there any chance this could be done in a future firmware upgrade with the Oppo?

The Faroudja chip does not allow for custom resolutions. The Bravo has a more flexible scaling chip, but it's deinterlacing quality is lousy.

For those who are having a problem burning the firmware as an ISO I would suggest the following. These instructions have never failed for me.

1. Download the new firmware and place on desktop.

http://www.oppodigital.com/Download/Firmware0628.iso.


2 Download free program "Burn At Once 0.95.5" This free utility is just for burning ISO
files................

I tried this method and it went without a hitch. After downloading Burnatonce, I checked the box that is supposed to make Burnatonce the default for all ISO files. Then, when I downloaded the firmware, Burnatonce automatically booted up and already had the ISO file loaded. I changed the setting to 8x and hit the "write" button and in about 30 seconds, the disk was done. When I loaded the disk into the Oppo, and pushed play, the disk door opened after about 5 seconds. I was afraid that something had not gone right but I took the disk out and left the tray alone anyway. Sure enough, in about 2 minutes, the door closed and an "upgrade complete" message showed up on the screen. I went into the 9210 menu and found the 0629 firmware loaded. All in all, it took about 10 minutes total.

Now....what is CSS and Truelife? I have Truelife turned on and CSS off. What are they supposed to do?
Javry

Ja Phule,
Your possible explanation makes sense, but the 4805 owners seem to have issues more than other FP owners. I also remember a member (don't remember if it was a 4805 owner or not) reporting the image being distorted (squeezed or flattened).

I'm the one, and I was :eek: :eek: :eek: wrong :eek: :eek: :eek:

There's obviously some underscanning on the 4805 when using the Oppo but ***everyone***: there's no stretch or any distorsion.. The correct aspect ratio is preserved !

I was making comparisons with xp30's 480i, which looses some pixels. When I realized that 480p doesn't, I made my a/b and the AR is just fine. The projected image of the Oppo is just smaller.

I just zoom in now...and I can sleep well.

So.....4805 owners......BUY THIS PLAYER !!!!
If Oppo is able to do the 854x480 thing...It will blow away HTPC !!!

Javry,

CCS -- Cross Color Suppression -- can be used when high frequency luma information is wrongly identified as chroma by the video decoder. It can keep the boundaries of adjacent bright colors sharp-looking.

TrueLife -- enhancement that adds detail and depth to the picture without introducing ringing, thus giving a lifelike viewing experience.

While CCS could have a case for on or off, in the Oppo's implementation TrueLife should be left ON. When TrueLife is turned off it looks as if DCDi was turned off - resulting in jagged edges, moire of closely spaced lines, etc. It might be fun to turn it off to see the effect to see how much it works but that's about it.

Paul

So for the next firmware update, remove the Truelife on/off option. :)

Nah, the default is "ON" so no problem. It does make for a good demonstration when one wants to see what excellent motion-adaptive deinterlacing can do.

Paul

"While CCS could have a case for on or off, in the Oppo's implementation TrueLife should be left ON. When TrueLife is turned off it looks as if DCDi was turned off - resulting in jagged edges, moire of closely spaced lines, etc."

The sharpness remains the same as before, because if you try to delete you get jaggie problems?

I suppose. I see no point in ever turning off "True Life" -- when off, it looks like a poor performing, non-motion adaptive player. The excellent picture comes from:

TrueLife=ON
Sharpness=OFF (or LOW, if one desires it)

Paul

Nice to come back from being in NYC for a few days to find that Oppo indeed has come through as expected. Chiming in (late) to thank again all who helped liase on our behalf.

I think I'm certainly in the minority for those hooking up the bad boy to a CRT RPTV, so I thought I'd throw in my 2c. Look back a ways in this or the Brain Dump thread and you'll see that the first instance of "bees swarming" in images (subsequently dubbed "shimmering") was evident clearly in the DVE skyscraper test on my system. A/Bing with my RP-82 showed it was certainly the issue with the Oppo.

FF to post firmware, and I'm pleased to say that I too see a complete absence of shimmering now on those tests. I do still, however, see a small amount of ringing on some DVD sources, particularly bold white text (like credits). Certainly have some adjusting to do still, but I throw it out there. What's also weird now is that I can't replicate shimmering even with sharpness set to "low" and CSS turned on. Not sure what to make of that...

I'm loving being able to do the Pal/Multiregion thing - picked up Dogville and Breaking the Waves via Denmark for great extras, etc. Not being able to a/b on seperate players, I'm not sure if it's the case that the "print" for Dogville is particuarly worse than the Region 1 version, but the disc on first glance does seem to have some degredation. I'll continue to look into this as well.

Finally, for those of us -without- fixed res displays, what are the arguments for 540p vs 1080i? I know that any 720p signal willl be upconverted by the Sony to 1080i, but are there any arguments made to send the signal any other way?

ps. let me chime in on the hopes that the two major threads be consolidated and the "wishlist" be dumped to the front of posts.

I say forget about changing the Oppo to having Truelife always set to ON with no OFF option. With some discs, as I previously mentioned, the picture is unwatchable with Truelife set to On. Just check out Angel Season 5 (the beginning of the episode Shell for example) to see what I mean. I have actually seen numerous discs that look better with Truelife Off. This is using 480P.

I never understand why people keep insisting on limiting options, like when some suggested there was no need for a sharpness control, and asking to leave it set always to OFF. This is absurd, even if in most cases Sharpness is better left OFF. Give us more options, not fewer. In fact, regardng sharpness, I still wish Oppo would add one more sharpness setting, to set sharpness between the current OFF setting and the Low setting. There is now too big a gap between those two settings.

I say forget about changing the Oppo to having Truelife always set to ON with no OFF option. With some discs, as I previously mentioned, the picture is unwatchable with Truelife set to On. Just check out Angel Season 5 (the beginning of the episode Shell for example) to see what I mean. I have actually seen numerous discs that look better with Truelife Off. This is using 480P.

I never understand why people keep insisting on limiting options, like when some suggested there was no need for a sharpness control, and asking to leave it set always to OFF. This is absurd, even if in most cases Sharpness is better left OFF. Give us more options, not fewer. In fact, regardng sharpness, I still wish Oppo would add one more sharpness setting, to set sharpness between the current OFF setting and the Low setting. There is now too big a gap between those two settings.
I think Ja Phule was just joking about the Truelife option being taken away. He was just reacting to people saying there is no reason to turn it off...

Shark , I will be hooking mine up to a Mits CRT RPTV . Mine will be delivered on July 6th . I will be comparing it to my Elite 47ai. I hope that this player will provide the picture quality I've been looking for.

Do you have any set up tips for me in advance ?

I do have the DVI input .

Well, I'm happy to see Oppo has really done a nice job with updating the firmware. This little thing looks terrific now. I did notice, however, the angle icon came up during the Incredibles, even though I switched it off in the user menu. Has anyone else experienced this? It's a nit, for sure, but I was a little surprised to see it. That's the only movie I've seen it on as I haven't had too much time to check others.

I have a question ................If I just bought mine not yet delivered will mine have the newest firmware ? Or will I need to download it ?

I have a question ................If I just bought mine not yet delivered will mine have the newest firmware ? Or will I need to download it ?
Oppo says here http://www.oppodigital.com/opdv971h_support.html that "Orders shipped on and after June 30, 2005 from the OPPO on-line store are loaded with the latest firmware, OP971-8-0628."

Dana

Well , This is close as it gets. I recieved my Fed Ex shipping order on the 30th . Maybe I will call them . I'm not real good with computer stuff and would like itto be already on board

With the new firmware the lip sync issue is gone. I'm still amazed at the performance of this $200 dvd player compared to my aged $6000 video processor. Now if projector technology/prices would follow....

The sharpness remains the same as before, because if you try to delete you get jaggie problems?

The sharpness can be turned completely OFF, but the shimmering problem has been eliminated even if it's on LOW. TrueLife enhancement is employed at the lowest level I've ever seen, so it doesn't need to be turned off to avoid excessive edge enhancement. The OFF setting for TrueLife also turns off DCDi, so that's why you want to leave it ON.

Regarding CCS, I still have to check the vertical chroma resolution with CCS off, using Avia Pro, since Kris had mentioned a drop off due to CCS.

Regarding the new firmware, Oppo is applying the firmware upgrade to their stock and you should be able to request it from any dealer.

Well , This is close as it gets. I recieved my Fed Ex shipping order on the 30th . Maybe I will call them . I'm not real good with computer stuff and would like itto be already on board DOJ, it's really pretty simple to do the firmware upgrade. Burning the CD is little more tricky, if you're not used to burning. If you have a problem, gimme a holler and I'll mail you a disc with the file on it, but you should give the burning a try so you can learn. This won't be the last firmware upgrade, I suspect. (You do know I'm Ajax over at av123, don't you? :confused: ;) )

Try the instructions I posted on page 91 of this thread for burning firmware. If you have any problems I would also be happy to mail a disk out to those who have problems burning firmware or don't have a computer with a burner.

DOJ, it's really pretty simple to do the firmware upgrade. Burning the CD is little more tricky, if you're not used to burning. If you have a problem, gimme a holler and I'll mail you a disc with the file on it, but you should give the burning a try so you can learn. This won't be the last firmware upgrade, I suspect. (You do know I'm Ajax over at av123, don't you? :confused: ;) )


Yes I know who you are :) I agree I need to try it first , I do need to be better on the computer. And thanks for the offer . If I fall on my face trying I will give you a shout.

Thanks a ton.

This is a big thread for a single item :eek:

See you at AV123 :D

Just getting into the HD/DVD game so bear with me. If the people in the know are saying that "more than likely" if one has a LCD TV that does 1366x768 (768p) than setting the OPPO to 480p would be best as no double scaling is being done. This makes sense to me. However, on my Syntax 32", if I set the OPPO (DVI) to 480p and then get info on what the current resolution on the TV is, it says 720x480. When I set the OPPO to 720p the TV resolution is 1280x720.

Why does the TV display 720x480 when the OPPO is set to 480p? Wouldn't 720p be better as it is closer to the native resolution of this TV? I cannot seem to notice the difference between either settings nor on 1080i (TV displays 1920x540).



Thanks,
Robert

Running the latest firmware with:

TV Display=Wide/SQZ
Sharpness=Off
CCS=Off
TrueLife=On
All the rest=Default

Javry,

CCS -- Cross Color Suppression -- can be used when high frequency luma information is wrongly identified as chroma by the video decoder. It can keep the boundaries of adjacent bright colors sharp-looking.

TrueLife -- enhancement that adds detail and depth to the picture without introducing ringing, thus giving a lifelike viewing experience.

While CCS could have a case for on or off, in the Oppo's implementation TrueLife should be left ON. When TrueLife is turned off it looks as if DCDi was turned off - resulting in jagged edges, moire of closely spaced lines, etc. It might be fun to turn it off to see the effect to see how much it works but that's about it.

Paul

Thanks Paul....just for grins, I went ahead and left both of them on. I just wasn't quite sure what they were for. I also noticed that all the other settings revert back to default when doing the upgrade. For instance, for those listening to DVDA through this player, you have to go back into the audio menu and re-set the DAC to 192 Khz.....if that's where you had it before.

I've decided that sharpness in the low setting is the highest I'll need to go. I've been toggling between it and "off" based on what's on the screen. The new Tarzan movie is excellent for seeing the differences between the two. The black lines used to draw the characters get real stark and edgy as you continue up the sharpness register. I have boosted the color and contrast up a notch to 2......which is where I had them before. Not a bad upgrade altogether.

I haven't paid much attention to Lip-synching, although, I did turn the delay on my CBII back down to zero. Prior to the upgrade, I had the delay set at 110ms....and I still wasn't there. What are you guys finding?

I'm also finding that there's less difference between 1080i and 720p via the upgrade. Has anyone tried 480i through component and upscaled it through their display yet? I'd be curious as to your findings.

I'll probably run the TXH Optimizer via the Incredibles tonight to see if I still get the speaker offsets I was getting before......and post the results.
Javry

Why does the TV display 720x480 when the OPPO is set to 480p? Wouldn't 720p be better as it is closer to the native resolution of this TV? I cannot seem to notice the difference between either settings nor on 1080i (TV displays 1920x540).

480p = 720x480. With 720p, the Oppo is deinterlacing 480i to 480p and then scaling to 720p and then your display will scale it to 1366x768. Likewise, at 480p, it goes 480i to 480p and then scaled to 1366x768. The latter option eliminates the initial scaling from 480p to 720p. In each case, your display is still scaling whichever resolution it receives, so eliminating the scaling from 480p to 720p could help give a better picture. If you can't tell a difference, then I wouldn't worry about it (i know I can't :)).

With the new firmware the lip sync issue is gone. I'm still amazed at the performance of this $200 dvd player compared to my aged $6000 video processor. Now if projector technology/prices would follow....

Dave,
buzz me when you get a chance....
Javry

Ja Phule said, 480p = 720x480. With 720p, the Oppo is deinterlacing 480i to 480p and then scaling to 720p and then your display will scale it to 1366x768. Likewise, at 480p, it goes 480i to 480p and then scaled to 1366x768. The latter option eliminates the initial scaling from 480p to 720p. In each case, your display is still scaling whichever resolution it receives, so eliminating the scaling from 480p to 720p could help give a better picture. If you can't tell a difference, then I wouldn't worry about it (i know I can't ).

Thanks for the quick reply. Good enough by me. I will just leave it on 480p.:)

Robert

Great player made better by an unbelievable corporate mindset! As always, "Luck favors the prepared mind!"

I say forget about changing the Oppo to having Truelife always set to ON with no OFF option. With some discs, as I previously mentioned, the picture is unwatchable with Truelife set to On. Just check out Angel Season 5 (the beginning of the episode Shell for example) to see what I mean. I have actually seen numerous discs that look better with Truelife Off. This is using 480P.

On the Oppo, turning off TrueLife does really turn off DCDi deinterlacing. I confirmed this with the deinterlacing tests on the HQV Benchmark DVD. With TrueLife off, the player failed every single test. Failed miserably. With TrueLife on, it passed with flying colors.

Have you considered that maybe that Angel disc is just a badly mastered DVD? Turning TrueLife off also softens the picture, which may mask compression artifacts inherent in the source, but that doesn't mean the TrueLife is the cause of the visual problems on the disc.

Josh,

The Angel disc is but one example of this. And softening the picture by turning Truelife to OFF does not affect anything, because even if I turn Truelife OFF and then set Sharpness to High, the problem does not come back and the picture is extremely sharp (though of course Sharpness should never be set to High due to causing ringing and other problems--though the Low setting is a major plus at times and is still very sharp). It is definitely TrueLife causing the problem even though the authoring no doubt contributes to the problem. And since I am upscaling from 480p to 1080i using my iScan HD, this might also be contributing to the problem (and the iScan besides upscaling is also going from DVI to component into my Sony RPTV since the Sony does not have a DVI input).

I also have use of a 26" Samsung CRT that accepts DVI and at some point I am going to try the Oppo at both 480p and 1080i with the Samsung to see what happens with the Angel disc and some other problem discs. I'll also try outputting the iScan at 480P with my Sony to see what happens with no upscaling, though I can't avoid the DVI to componenet conversion.

I don't doubt that turning TrueLife to OFF defeats DCDI deinterlacing, and I'm certainly not recommending that it be turned off all the time or even most of the time; but with no DCDI processing, doesn't this just turn the Oppo into a flag-reader, in which case if the discs are properly flagged, do you really need DCDI for proper deinterlacing?

The sharpness can be turned completely OFF, but the shimmering problem has been eliminated even if it's on LOW. TrueLife enhancement is employed at the lowest level I've ever seen, so it doesn't need to be turned off to avoid excessive edge enhancement. The OFF setting for TrueLife also turns off DCDi, so that's why you want to leave it ON.

Regarding CCS, I still have to check the vertical chroma resolution with CCS off, using Avia Pro, since Kris had mentioned a drop off due to CCS.

Regarding the new firmware, Oppo is applying the firmware upgrade to their stock and you should be able to request it from any dealer.

Hey Mike,
I've been out of the loop on the machine. So the fixing of the sharpness settings from being color saturation is what fixed the over sharpness I was seeing? (porus acne looking faces)

I thought we were looking into Truelife/off for getting rid of the too sharp picture?

Where did the color saturation get moved to because I had an over saturated magenta look even after tuning the grayscale? If I remember right I could de-saturate the colors better by raising the sharpness settings. Which was actually color saturation. Or maybe the Y/C delay fix covered the color problem I was seeing.

To make it simple just tell me I'll see no over sharpness now and color saturation will be jake. :)

edit:
Here I dug up a picture of what I was getting even after using colorfacts.
http://www.cigarbest.com/sales/oppo2.jpg

Plus looking at the left side of the Kings face, it's got that porus acne thing going on. :)

Guitarman,

With the new firmware, the Avia sharpness patterns resolve very well, comparable to the Panasonic S97. I turned off Sharpness completely for now. Sharpness is no longer tied to color.

There seems to still be a slight chroma delay (-0.07 on my HT1000). When I bring up the Oppo's menu, the yellow characters have a green edge at the left. However, in normal viewing, the picture looks just fine.

I still am working on getting my DVI settings corrected for the HT1000 as I show a red push on mine (+10%), so I can't comment on the color balance ;)

The Faroudja chip does not allow for custom resolutions. The Bravo has a more flexible scaling chip, but it's deinterlacing quality is lousy.

So if this is the case, how are they able to keep adding resolutions to the player? Does it have a pre-determined list of resolutions and they are just getting around to implementing them? Or is it just very difficult to implement each one and it has to be somehow hard-coded into firmware? Seems to me if it can be done in firmware, it could be user-settable, a-la-Bravo.

Got my Oppo two days ago and used a DVI-D to HDMI cable to connect to my Sony Wega.

When the Oppo logo screen is up and even during movie playback the screens shakes up and down by a few pixels. Wondering if my Sony does not like it or if I am doing something wrong. All the settings are default out of the box.

Today I downloaded and flashed the bios and it still shakes up and down. Can anyone give me a clue as what I might of overlooked?

Thanks for any info...

Guitarman,

With the new irmware, the Avia sharpness patterns resolve very well, comparable to the Panasonic S97. I turned off Sharpness completely for now. Sharpness is no longer tied to color.

There seems to still be a slight chroma delay (-0.07 on my HT1000). When I bring up the Oppo's menu, the yello characters have a green edge at the left. However, in normal viewing, the picture looks just fine.

I still am working on getting my DVI settings corrected for the HT1000 as I show a red push on mine (+10%), so I can't comment on the color balance ;)

Do you have colorfacts? If not send me your projector and dvd player and I'll tune it for $150. Just kidding :)

I think I'll buy another Oppo and tune the HT1000, maybe the numbers will match for you.

guitarman,

I could ship you my Oppo ;) Actually, you are so close to OppoDigital's office that you could pick one up in Mountain View, right?

I never invested in Colorfacts because you always posted HT1000 settings that worked well for me... You made it too easy!

That would have worked maybe. Anyway I ordered one a minute ago. Probably receive it on Wednesday. I'll post up the numbers on Thursday. Hope I don't run into the color problems I had before. With all the firmware changes, lets see.

I assume you have a CRT Wega. Try this- run the Oppo in 720P mode and tell me how it looks.


Got my Oppo two days ago and used a DVI-D to HDMI cable to connect to my Sony Wega.

When the Oppo logo screen is up and even during movie playback the screens shakes up and down by a few pixels. Wondering if my Sony does not like it or if I am doing something wrong. All the settings are default out of the box.

Today I downloaded and flashed the bios and it still shakes up and down. Can anyone give me a clue as what I might of overlooked?

Thanks for any info...

I do still, however, see a small amount of ringing on some DVD sources, particularly bold white text (like credits). Certainly have some adjusting to do still, but I throw it out there.

I know that any 720p signal willl be upconverted by the Sony to 1080i

If I'm reading right, you have a Sony CRT RPTV? Several Sony RPTV's have inherent circuitry that causes ringing. With calibration, things can look decent, but to truly get rid of all ringing Sony's need a hardware mod. In other words, your TV is probably responsible for at least some of the ringing you are seeing....not the player entirely.

but with no DCDI processing, doesn't this just turn the Oppo into a flag-reader, in which case if the discs are properly flagged, do you really need DCDI for proper deinterlacing?

You really want to take the risk that your discs are properly flagged? 99% of DVDs have flagging errors.

Need a little help from everybody. My Oppo has been acting up. When making menu choices it occiasionally will produce a loud clicking and grinding noise and then lock up for about 10 seconds before dumping back to the player blue screen. It's a very loud grinding noise for sure. Is anybody else experiencing this? It doesn't seem disc dependant since I've seen it on more than one dvd plus dvd-audio discs. I'm thinking my player may be defective, but I've already had it more than a month since it sat for a while before I could start using it. Any thoughts?

Give Oppo a call on Tuesday. They will likely arrange for you to send the player in for repair/replacement as it is under warranty.

To make it simple just tell me I'll see no over sharpness now and color saturation will be jake. :)


I'm not seeing any of the sharpness issues that were present when I first started using the player. Haven't had any color saturation issues, so I can't help you there. :)

The original Oppo firmware was mislabeled: the "sharpness" was a three-tier color saturation control and there was no sharpness adjustment. The next firmware sorted all that out and the controls were correctly labled and operated correctly and adding a real "saturation" control. The remaining issue was excessive edge enhancement caused by the MediaTek chip. That chip and the Faroudja chip were tweaked in this latest firmware and results in settings that work well and the artificial edge enhacement (the "shimmering") can be eliminated, if desired.

Paul

I got my Oppo last Friday and had only done some casual viewing up until yesterday. Originally my big complaint would have been the edge enhancement and TrueLife being permanently turned on. The new firmware fixed those issues nicely, but now I found that the lip sync issue is an even bigger problem. In the three movies that I have watched I had sync problems with two. "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Tomorrow Never Dies" both started out fine but got out of sync part way into the movie. "Pirates" was probably close to 1/2 second out of sync. At this point it looks like I will be returning the Oppo as this problem seems to have persisted through two firmware updates.

I just experience a very strange problem. I discovered that my unit would not turn on and the red light on the power button was not on. I checked the connection and it was good.

I unplugged the unit for about 5 minutes and the red light came on and everything worked. I am wondering if I have a power supply problem?

This has happened twice. Any suggestions would be appreciated. If this persists I will have to ask for a RMA from Oppo for repair.

Has anyone seen an angle icon even after turning it off?

so now the shimmering issue is solved, shall we ask for 480i over DVI ? :D (no harm trying...:) )

so now the shimmering issue is solved, shall we ask for 480i over DVI ? :D (no harm trying...:) )


Has been mentioned numerous times, but the Faroudja chipset doesn't support 480i over DVI.

At this point it looks like I will be returning the Oppo as this problem seems to have persisted through two firmware updates.

Yeah as i have no audio sync problem with those disks.

so now the shimmering issue is solved, shall we ask for 480i over DVI ? :D (no harm trying...:) )

Why would you want 480I? If the idea is to let your display device do the line processing, I'd think you'd use 480P. Is there an advantage on some sets to outputing interlaced?

If you meant this as a joke, I guess I fell into it, but this is such a long thread I'm drowning in it trying to see if I should buy an Oppo. Was ready to get a Bravo when I stumbled on this a few weeks ago.

You really want to take the risk that your discs are properly flagged? 99% of DVDs have flagging errors.

I don't understand what that really has to do with anything we're talking about here. If TrueLife is causing a problem that makes a disc difficult to impossible to watch and turning off TrueLife gets rid of the problem, even if it introduces some other minor deinterlacing problems, then of course I (or anyone else) would turn off TrueLife when viewing one of these discs, and turn it on for all the other discs. And trust me the problems caused by TrueLife (on my system) are anything but suble. They are truly horrid. So goodbye to TrueLife. The deinterlacing problems introduced by turning off TrueLife are insignificant in comparison on the discs I've been looking at. I agree that a large number of discs (though not 99% to any significant degree) have some flagging problems but most discs these days aren't that bad (on my system--and when they are that bad, I just switch over to my SDI RP91 fed into the iScan HD and all the problems are gone). Bottom line: no risk by turning off TrueLife on these discs, but much to gain.

Just ordered one of these after hearing about the latest firmware. I have never used an upconverting player and am really looking forward to it! Is anyone pairing this up with a Toshiba DLP? Have you been happy with the results?

Why would you want 480I? If the idea is to let your display device do the line processing, I'd think you'd use 480P. Is there an advantage on some sets to outputing interlaced?

If you meant this as a joke, I guess I fell into it, but this is such a long thread I'm drowning in it trying to see if I should buy an Oppo. Was ready to get a Bravo when I stumbled on this a few weeks ago.

For an unaltered digital signal path...probably to an external scaler. If you feed 480p you would be stacking conversions....480i to 480p in the player, then 480p to whatever resolution your scaler or display has. Though not always true, generally the cleanest, least altered is best.

Well im gonna put a few discs thru the paces.....i do like the fact that we now have the option to turn all of these things off......

For an unaltered digital signal path...probably to an external scaler. If you feed 480p you would be stacking conversions....480i to 480p in the player, then 480p to whatever resolution your scaler or display has. Though not always true, generally the cleanest, least altered is best.

yes exactly. to a IScan to deinterlace and scale to some "strange" resolution (854x480, 1024x576, etc)... So it becomes a $200 transport... U know ppl were paying more than $200 for a SDI mod just for something similar.

anyway the whole point of the Oppo is a gd upscaling player. 480i thing is just like icing on the cake. :)

I have my Oppo player hooked up to the HDMI input on my Sony KD-34XBR960 via a DVI->HDMI conversion cable and while the picture looks pretty darn good most of the time at either 720p or 1080i it's far from excellent.

Main Problem:

When the player is hooked up to the HDMI input on the television set, image smearing due to a fairly significant YC delay problem becomes quite apparent. When the player is hooked up to the component inputs on the television set, the YC delay problem becomes almost nonexistent.

Is anyone else having this problem too? I know some people had similar issues in the past that were all supposedly addressed by prior firmware updates.

OK , since the new firmeware upgrade when i start playing a DVD, my screen "flicks", meaning i see for a second a green and blue flash, and then the DVD starts...? I'm using 480p on a TH42PWD7UY Panasoninc plasma. Anyone has that ?

Would someone please post their experience with the Incredibles. I've seen the angle mark show up even though it's set to OFF in the menu. Even a "No, I haven't seen it" would be nice.

I got my Oppo last Friday and had only done some casual viewing up until yesterday. Originally my big complaint would have been the edge enhancement and TrueLife being permanently turned on. The new firmware fixed those issues nicely, but now I found that the lip sync issue is an even bigger problem. In the three movies that I have watched I had sync problems with two. "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Tomorrow Never Dies" both started out fine but got out of sync part way into the movie. "Pirates" was probably close to 1/2 second out of sync. At this point it looks like I will be returning the Oppo as this problem seems to have persisted through two firmware updates.

Hello,

There is a new option in the Audio Setup to adjust "Audio Delay". Has this new option been tried?

Paul

I just experience a very strange problem. I discovered that my unit would not turn on and the red light on the power button was not on. I checked the connection and it was good.

I unplugged the unit for about 5 minutes and the red light came on and everything worked. I am wondering if I have a power supply problem?

This has happened twice. Any suggestions would be appreciated. If this persists I will have to ask for a RMA from Oppo for repair.

Haven't seen this happen. I guess the situation was that the player was left unused (off or paused state?) for a period of time an when it was going to be used it was then discovered the red light was off?

Sounds like a power supply or corrupted memory/firmware issue.

Paul

Got my Oppo two days ago and used a DVI-D to HDMI cable to connect to my Sony Wega.

When the Oppo logo screen is up and even during movie playback the screens shakes up and down by a few pixels. Wondering if my Sony does not like it or if I am doing something wrong. All the settings are default out of the box.

Today I downloaded and flashed the bios and it still shakes up and down. Can anyone give me a clue as what I might of overlooked?

Thanks for any info...

Which resolution? Try several, especially 480p and 720p.

Paul

Hello,

There is a new option in the Audio Setup to adjust "Audio Delay". Has this new option been tried?

Paul

Both DVDs started out fine and when they did get out of sync it was far outside the range of the adjustment. The the longest delay setting is 50ms and what I was seeing (hearing?) was more like 500ms.

I just got my HT set back up and my Oppo is also shaking on my Sony HS10 projector (at all resolutions). I dont recall it doing this before the firmware upgrade, but I ran the upgrade almost immediately after I got everything running so I can't be sure. Does anyone have any of the old firmware update ISO files that they could email me and I could check it out (PS, I did the very first firmware and then the june 29th one so either the first or the April firmware would both work to test).

I just experience a very strange problem. I discovered that my unit would not turn on and the red light on the power button was not on. I checked the connection and it was good.

I unplugged the unit for about 5 minutes and the red light came on and everything worked. I am wondering if I have a power supply problem?

This has happened twice. Any suggestions would be appreciated. If this persists I will have to ask for a RMA from Oppo for repair.

I had this happen once. I believe the unit just overheated. Unplugging and replugging it seemed to reset everything.

Would someone please post their experience with the Incredibles. I've seen the angle mark show up even though it's set to OFF in the menu. Even a "No, I haven't seen it" would be nice.

Does The Incredibles even have an alternate angle option? The disc case and menus don't mention one. Where exactly in the movie are you seeing the icon show up?

For an unaltered digital signal path...probably to an external scaler. If you feed 480p you would be stacking conversions....480i to 480p in the player, then 480p to whatever resolution your scaler or display has. Though not always true, generally the cleanest, least altered is best.

Deinterlacing and scaling are two separate steps. Whether you perform them in separate chips or in the same chip, you shouldn't see image degredation the way you would if you scaled twice back-to-back in separate chips.

The Faroudja deinterlacing in the Oppo is excellent (arguably better than the Silicon Image deinterlacing in most quality scalers). Using the Oppo at 480p, you should have the benefits of both excellent deinterlacing and a pure digital connection to your scaler or display.

Shark , I will be hooking mine up to a Mits CRT RPTV . Mine will be delivered on July 6th . I will be comparing it to my Elite 47ai. I hope that this player will provide the picture quality I've been looking for.

Do you have any set up tips for me in advance ?

I do have the DVI input .

Nothin', my friend... I just hooked it up and it was ready to go. I've yet to screw around with re-adjusting my TV (was calibrated to the component feed from my RP-82). The pic certainly is darker than the '82, so required a bit of quick fiddling with pic controls and some AVIA/DVE goodness.

I'm quite reticent to adjust the Player's own pic controls, would rather adjust the set to the player (despite the fact that I'm still using the '82 for some discs... post firmware upgrade that's likely to change).

If I'm reading right, you have a Sony CRT RPTV? Several Sony RPTV's have inherent circuitry that causes ringing. With calibration, things can look decent, but to truly get rid of all ringing Sony's need a hardware mod. In other words, your TV is probably responsible for at least some of the ringing you are seeing....not the player entirely.

Yeah, I've got a CRT RPTV - the ringing does -not- appear with my '82 (when I can play discs on it - the real problem is a couple Region 2 discs that I've recently picked up).

Once again, anybody have their 2c on what res we CRT'ers should use to feed the set?

Thanks Josh. I think I had a quick power failure. I unplugged it and replugged it and still had nothing. I tried again in about a minute and everything worked. I did this a few times with the same results. It seems that there is some kind of reset in the power supply that requires you to unplug the unit for about a minute after a quick power failure. Everything is working fine now.

Thanks.

I finally got some time to re-calibrate with Avia after upgrading the firmware. My Toshiba 65H83 has native resolutions of 540p and 1080i, so I wanted to try those first. I couldn't get the set to sync at 540p - got a black screen with three vertical magenta stripes. I can't use 1080i as the jail bars are terrible (this is a problem with the Tosh, not the Oppo). 480p looked pretty good, but I still had some shimmering on test patterns.

I switched to 720p and the shimmering was gone. I still had to bump brightness on the Oppo to +3 to see BTB, and sharpness on the Tosh was raised to 36 (from 9 with the previous firmware). End result - the picture is incredible. Pixar movies look as good as their HD counterpart on cable. Live action movies have more detail and clarity, but retain the look of film. So far, I haven't experienced any lip-sync problem with any firmware version.

I received my OPPO 971 Friday evening. Some comments/questions I have. For reference, I am using this with a Tosh, RP-CRT, 65HX93 using DVI input and a SONY 750 Receiver using coax digital audio . It replaces a Onkyo CP500 DVD changer running over component. I'm not an expert reviewer, but thought I'd share my observations, and ask a few questions. I did update to the latest firmware 06-28 version.

1. When I initially set it up, I was pretty unhappy. I should have read these threads closer. I left the DVD oppo at the default Wide on TV setting (since I have a 16x9 hdtv). The result was that all 4x3 DVDs were stretched. After spending a while checking different DVD's, I decided to change the settting to wide/squeeze (I remembered that was a setting used here by one of main posters here.

That was exactly the setting I wanted to use. setting my TV to Natural, or Full (either one seemed to work) and the OPPO to wide/squeezed, all of the DVDs played as I desired. Result: my commercial DVDs play at the correct aspect ratio, 4x3 at 4x3 with black bars instead of the gray bars that the tosh uses on the sides. Very happy now with that setting

2. I then went in to try different DVI settings. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing what resolutions are being sent to the tv. My tv has two "native" settings I can choose, either 540P or 1080i. I have traditionally always left the set to 1080i. In cycling through the DVI settings, I have no way of knowing which setting I'm on. All of them look pretty close, except one of them only displays two pink vertical bars ( I assume thats ither the 576 or the 720), but I cant tell which I'm on. I settled on on, which I thought was slightly better to do my calibrating on. I'll be emailing OPPO to ask them how I can tell as well.

3. I used AVIA (consumer not proffesional), to adjust setting. I found with default setting, I was not able to get the blacker correctly set or the white correctly set. for contrast, I ended up with contrast on OPPO set to -1 and brightness on OPPO set to +6. For the contrast, I could not set OPPO any higher, reqardless of how I set the contrast on the TV. For brightness, I could have lowered the OPPO and raised the TV setting, but I decided on keeping OPPO at 6 (at this setting, the setting on TV closely matched what I have on set on component input.

4. I left OPPO sharpness to at off, but still had to change my TV setting (I had previously calibrated it at 45 in a 0-100 range), I changed it to 25 (and probably could have set it lower, but didn't.

5. I adjusted both color and tint slightly over previous settings.

6. The manual refers to a gamma setting at one place, but it doesnt show up on my set. Was it removed in one of the firmware updates?

7. playing of recorded DVDs I use a fair amount of DVDs that I record from either Sattelite or from OTA source. My recorder is and Emerson, and I record using mainly, DVD-RW, mainly at SP (2 hour). I had expected that this player would make these recording look worse as they are certainly of a lower quaility than commercial DVDs. In actuality, the picture quality actually improved with the OPPO (over the Onkyo). I was very happy with the results, with one exception. I've noticed that on every dvd that I've recorded there is a sutter in play back' By stutter, I mean every few minutes, the picture speeds up, then runs in slo mo. this messes up the audio sync, which actually slowly resyncs, then it stutters again. This all takes place very fast (if you blink, you miss the video effects and just see the sync problem) This has happened on every recording media I've used so far (3 - different kinds of DVD-RW). In spite of this, the pic quality is so much better, I'll probably still use it for these.

8. I sure wish they had a lighted remote with this player, although I'll probably be trying to program my OFA remote to handle it in the future.

9. I've seen NO problem with macroblock enhancement on any of the DVDs I've watched, which was probably my main concern. I'll be watching for synch issues on commercial DVDs, I had set my my audio delay to 10ms. I watched Electra, and about 2/3 of way through I had sync problem I changed the delay to 0. and I'll leave it at that until I notice any other problem.

SUMMARY:

Very good picture (improved over ONKYO CP 500 over component).

Needed to adjust contrast and brightness setting on OPPO for correct white and black levels.

Wish there was either a menu display of the DVI output setting, or even better, an on-screen display) (NOTE - Perhaps some tv's do this this themselves, mine does not). Anyone with other ideas on how I can tell what I'm outputting?

So far, I'm planning to keep the unit, although the audio sync may still be an issue, and could change my mind.

I'll probably do some additional checks with AVIA.

Thanks for all the comments on this board, it is why I oredered this player. (and sorry for the length of this post, but I wanted to give folks with a Tosh RP-CRT a sense of what I found.

Rick

I received my OPPO 971 Friday evening. Some comments/questions I have. For reference, I am using this with a Tosh, RP-CRT, 65HX93 using DVI input and a SONY 750 Receiver using coax digital audio . It replaces a Onkyo CP500 DVD changer running over component. I'm not an expert reviewer, but thought I'd share my observations, and ask a few questions. I did update to the latest firmware 06-28 version.

1. When I initially set it up, I was pretty unhappy. I should have read these threads closer. I left the DVD oppo at the default Wide on TV setting (since I have a 16x9 hdtv). The result was that all 4x3 DVDs were stretched. After spending a while checking different DVD's, I decided to change the settting to wide/squeeze (I remembered that was a setting used here by one of main posters here.

That was exactly the setting I wanted to use. setting my TV to Natural, or Full (either one seemed to work) and the OPPO to wide/squeezed, all of the DVDs played as I desired. Result: my commercial DVDs play at the correct aspect ratio, 4x3 at 4x3 with black bars instead of the gray bars that the tosh uses on the sides. Very happy now with that setting

2. I then went in to try different DVI settings. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing what resolutions are being sent to the tv. My tv has two "native" settings I can choose, either 540P or 1080i. I have traditionally always left the set to 1080i. In cycling through the DVI settings, I have no way of knowing which setting I'm on. All of them look pretty close, except one of them only displays two pink vertical bars ( I assume thats ither the 576 or the 720), but I cant tell which I'm on. I settled on on, which I thought was slightly better to do my calibrating on. I'll be emailing OPPO to ask them how I can tell as well.

3. I used AVIA (consumer not proffesional), to adjust setting. I found with default setting, I was not able to get the blacker correctly set or the white correctly set. for contrast, I ended up with contrast on OPPO set to -1 and brightness on OPPO set to +6. For the contrast, I could not set OPPO any higher, reqardless of how I set the contrast on the TV. For brightness, I could have lowered the OPPO and raised the TV setting, but I decided on keeping OPPO at 6 (at this setting, the setting on TV closely matched what I have on set on component input.

4. I left OPPO sharpness to at off, but still had to change my TV setting (I had previously calibrated it at 45 in a 0-100 range), I changed it to 25 (and probably could have set it lower, but didn't.

5. I adjusted both color and tint slightly over previous settings.

6. The manual refers to a gamma setting at one place, but it doesnt show up on my set. Was it removed in one of the firmware updates?

7. playing of recorded DVDs I use a fair amount of DVDs that I record from either Sattelite or from OTA source. My recorder is and Emerson, and I record using mainly, DVD-RW, mainly at SP (2 hour). I had expected that this player would make these recording look worse as they are certainly of a lower quaility than commercial DVDs. In actuality, the picture quality actually improved with the OPPO (over the Onkyo). I was very happy with the results, with one exception. I've noticed that on every dvd that I've recorded there is a sutter in play back' By stutter, I mean every few minutes, the picture speeds up, then runs in slo mo. this messes up the audio sync, which actually slowly resyncs, then it stutters again. This all takes place very fast (if you blink, you miss the video effects and just see the sync problem) This has happened on every recording media I've used so far (3 - different kinds of DVD-RW). In spite of this, the pic quality is so much better, I'll probably still use it for these.

8. I sure wish they had a lighted remote with this player, although I'll probably be trying to program my OFA remote to handle it in the future.

9. I've seen NO problem with macroblock enhancement on any of the DVDs I've watched, which was probably my main concern. I'll be watching for synch issues on commercial DVDs, I had set my my audio delay to 10ms. I watched Electra, and about 2/3 of way through I had sync problem I changed the delay to 0. and I'll leave it at that until I notice any other problem.

SUMMARY:

Very good picture (improved over ONKYO CP 500 over component).

Needed to adjust contrast and brightness setting on OPPO for correct white and black levels.

Wish there was either a menu display of the DVI output setting, or even better, an on-screen display) (NOTE - Perhaps some tv's do this this themselves, mine does not). Anyone with other ideas on how I can tell what I'm outputting?

So far, I'm planning to keep the unit, although the audio sync may still be an issue, and could change my mind.

I'll probably do some additional checks with AVIA.

Thanks for all the comments on this board, it is why I oredered this player. (and sorry for the length of this post, but I wanted to give folks with a Tosh RP-CRT a sense of what I found.

Rick


There is an OSD of the DVI resolutions. As you press the DVI button on the remote, it will show on the top left of the screen, what resolution you are in (ie. 480p, 540p, 720p, 1080i). I am not sure why you aren't seeing it. You do have to do this when the dvd is stopped or not in the player.

2. I then went in to try different DVI settings. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing what resolutions are being sent to the tv.

Oppo displays resolution briefly when you switch resolution (player has to be stopped but not completely stopped like 5th tab in setup menu).

3. I used AVIA (consumer not proffesional), to adjust setting. I found with default setting, I was not able to get the blacker correctly set or the white correctly set.

For me and many other default settings are perfect. Probably first one with white problems... Anyways with sanyo z3 HDMI L1 setting oppo needs brightness +4 or +5 to get correctly btb to pass. Using HDMI L2 on sanyo i get correct levels without changing anything in oppo.

4. I left OPPO sharpness to at off, but still had to change my TV setting (I had previously calibrated it at 45 in a 0-100 range), I changed it to 25 (and probably could have set it lower, but didn't.

Yeah i have oppo sharpness off too (default setting) and seems to be great.

Anyone with other ideas on how I can tell what I'm outputting?

Any menu or something in tv to show current res?

I'll probably do some additional checks with AVIA.

You should probably try get reference black/white calibration dvd from this forum http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=5525270&&#post5525270 (if you have dvd burner in pc) or DVE to check to btb/wtw.

I assume you have a CRT Wega. Try this- run the Oppo in 720P mode and tell me how it looks.

U da man MikeK614.. 720 looks sweet :)

I am new to this forum. I received my oppo in june and now trying to upgrade my firmware. I saw that there are several posts asking to turn CSS OFF and TrueLife ON. Where do we do this? I do not see any options in my oppo . I have a panasonic PT-L500U. It is not an aoption on the projector? Please help

Settings>Video Setup Page

Sharpness
Brightness
Contrast
Saturation
CCS
TrueLife

You MUST have the newest firmware.

6. The manual refers to a gamma setting at one place, but it doesnt show up on my set. Was it removed in one of the firmware updates?
Rick

Gamma has not been removed. It still hasn't been implemented. I'm hoping Oppo includes this in the next firmware release.

My Toshiba 65H83 has native resolutions of 540p and 1080i, so I wanted to try those first. I couldn't get the set to sync at 540p - got a black screen with three vertical magenta stripes.

It sounds like even though the Toshiba runs at 540p, it will not accept a 540p input. This is unfortunately common for TVs to not accept their native resolution.

I am new to this forum. I received my oppo in june and now trying to upgrade my firmware. I saw that there are several posts asking to turn CSS OFF and TrueLife ON. Where do we do this? I do not see any options in my oppo . I have a panasonic PT-L500U. It is not an aoption on the projector? Please help

Press stop 2 and goto 4th tab in oppo. If those CSS, TrueLife etc settings are there then you have correct firmware otherwise upgrade to latest June 30, 2005 firmware.

Haha- I had a feeling that would work. I have a KD-34XBR960 and I saw the same issue. The TV uses its Digital Reality Creation processing (upconverting) when you feed it a 720P signal whereas it simply take the incoming signal as is when you feed it 1080i. I've heard a few explainations from people as to why you get this flickering with 1080i signals but I'm not entirely convinced by any of them. Just keep it at 720P like I do and the picture will look awesome and be rock solid. The TV does a very good job of displaying 720P TV signals, so I wasn't too suprised that it could work its magic on the 720P output from a DVD player too. Enjoy.


U da man MikeK614.. 720 looks sweet :)

Try 720P

Yeah, I've got a CRT RPTV - the ringing does -not- appear with my '82 (when I can play discs on it - the real problem is a couple Region 2 discs that I've recently picked up).

Once again, anybody have their 2c on what res we CRT'ers should use to feed the set?

So, nobody else has heard this loud clicking noise? Maybe I'm SOL.

Try 720P

OK... :) But, forgive me if I'm wrong, the set upconverts to 1080i any 720 signal, wouldn't that defeat the purpose?

CRT conversion is a bit more confusing than Fixed Pixel, as there really isn't per se a native res, it's whatever the electronics are sending the electron guns, so native res is the res of the processing unit, not the display unit.

Thoughts still welcome for those of us with CRTs (heck, I still greatly prefer the pic, even if I have to live with the 300lb gorilla in the room...)

I am new to this forum. I received my oppo in june and now trying to upgrade my firmware. I saw that there are several posts asking to turn CSS OFF and TrueLife ON. Where do we do this? I do not see any options in my oppo . I have a panasonic PT-L500U. It is not an aoption on the projector? Please help

Need to apply the 0628 firmware first, then the settings will be seen.

Paul

So, nobody else has heard this loud clicking noise? Maybe I'm SOL.

No clicking noises heard here. Happens for all discs, even commercial discs?

Paul

Finally received mine and hooked it up today. 2 quick Q's please for anyone that knows:

1) What code did you set (somewhere between 001 and 100) in your universal remote?

2) If you have a GW-III, what resolution (assuming you used the DVI output) did you set the player to? I am using the 1080i and it *appears* to be slightly better than the others, but could just be fooling myself.

Thank you.

I learned my Oppo remote onto my URC remote just fine. I think remotes use different codes to program so I'm not sure which (if any) would work for you.

...I'm pleased to say that I too see a complete absence of shimmering now on those tests. I do still, however, see a small amount of ringing on some DVD sources, particularly bold white text (like credits). Certainly have some adjusting to do still, but I throw it out there. What's also weird now is that I can't replicate shimmering even with sharpness set to "low" and CSS turned on. Not sure what to make of that....Firstly, the shimmering was caused by EE coming from the Mediatek chip. OPPO Digital turned off the Mediatek's sharpness completely, and now the Faroudja chip (alone) handles the sharpness, doing a better job without the same artifacts.

Secondly, you should know that the majority of Hollywood's DVD's have been recorded with edge enhancement/ringing. See the following excellent article on the issue: Ultimate Guide to 'Edge Enhancement' (http://www.videophile.info/Guide_EE/Page_01.htm)

Gary

I would note that 576i (PAL) digital (DVI) output is a built-in function of the Faroudja FLI2300/1/10 series chip which the 971H uses. This being the case, we can hope that it should be a simple software/firmware patch to turn on this feature in the OPPO 971H. On the other hand, 480i (NTSC) digital output is not a built-in function of the Faroudja FLI2300/1/10 series chip; so implementing it would be substantially more difficult. Thanks for the clarification, Rob. This will be a bit af a disappointment to some.

Gary

You shouldn't have a problem with movies that are fully subtitled, so long as you go into the disc menus and choose English subtitles before playing the movie. The problem is that the Oppo defaults to having the subtitles OFF, even on discs that normally default to them on. This is most problematic on movies that are partially in (non-subtitled) English and partially in a foreign language where English subtitles should be prompted.

The issue is partially, though not fully, addressed in the new firmware with a subtitle setup option labelled "Auto". When I chose this and tested Kill Bill Vol. 2, the movie played just as it is supposed to, with no English subtitles for the majority of the movie but English subtitles appearing during the Chinese language dialogue of the Pei Mei scene.

However, the "Auto" function is flawed when playing English language movies that are meant to default to no subtitles at all. Unfortunately, "Auto" triggers full English subtitles in these cases, which you must manually shut off. More good clarification. Thanks Josh.

Gary

I've just received this unit and I'm having problems with the picture distortion. When I play DVDs on resolution other than 720p, the pictures are waving. Is my unit damaged? It's hooked up via DVI to my DLP TV.

hi,

does the new firmware address the 2-2 cadence issue?

i havent tried the new firmware since i have the european bbk 971 model and im not 100% sure that the oppo firmware will work.

thanks.

The 0628 firmware does not add 2:2 cadence.

Paul

Does The Incredibles even have an alternate angle option? The disc case and menus don't mention one. Where exactly in the movie are you seeing the icon show up?


I'd have to check again, but it's early on. It also comes up during the Star Wars space text crawl, which has 3 language angles IIRC.

What i want to know is what exactly do the CCs and True-Life adjustments do? I have tried both of these on and off and to me PQ is better with them on but with Sharpness off.......

Truelife is basically DCDi processing, turning it off turns the Oppo's best feature off, don't touch it.

CCS fixes the flickering problem of the Oppo, this should be best turned off unless one is watching certain kinds of animation.

Sharpness is best left off.

The BBK 971 is exactly identical to the Oppo, however, the Oppo has a different remote, I believe a hacked version of the previous firmware is availible somewhere.

Much better now without the EE shimmering. The OPPO output via DVI looks great on my 118 diagonal screen. Good job on the latest firmware update.

TrueLife is NOT DCDi. It is a separate feature the first appears in the 2310 chip. It is basically a dynamic contrast and sharpness control. If you like the way if looks leave it on, but turning it off does not turn off the chips deinterlacing features. If you value the intended look of the video transfer, leave it off.

While not confirmed, turning the TrueLife option off seems to also turn DCDi off on the Oppo as pictures seem to have quite a bit of moire and jaggies.

While not confirmed, turning the TrueLife option off seems to also turn DCDi off on the Oppo as pictures seem to have quite a bit of moire and jaggies.

I have not seen either with it off and the VE flag still looks fine.

The Toshiba 592 with Faroudja is able to do 480i over HDMI (that is, unless the Secrets review is wrong).

I just got my Oppo and am having a problem which may have no solution. I have an InFocus 7210 set to maximum picture size for my 100" screen. As mounted, images from Pan S97, PE DV-59avi, Zenith HDR230 and Zenith SAT-HD520 just fit. With the Oppo there is significant picture shortage at the bottom and some to the left. Any suggestions?

I just got my Oppo and am having a problem which may have no solution. I have an InFocus 7210 set to maximum picture size for my 100" screen. As mounted, images from Pan S97, PE DV-59avi, Zenith HDR230 and Zenith SAT-HD520 just fit. With the Oppo there is significant picture shortage at the bottom and some to the left. Any suggestions?

I get this also on my Infocus 4805. My HD box fits just fine. I have to use overscan in order to make it fit perfectly.

Please help me , how i can see the version of my Oppo , I received my oppo in june 14and now trying to upgrade my firmware.
I only see a little paper with small " V2.30" after read post this is not equal at the numbers used to identified the firmware version.

Thanks for yours answers.
Fernando

While not confirmed, turning the TrueLife option off seems to also turn DCDi off on the Oppo as pictures seem to have quite a bit of moire and jaggies.

So far I have not noticed this with TrueLife Off, but I still have not watched a lot of discs since upgrading the firmware. Deinterlacing has looked fine so far with TrueLife On or Off. If someone wants to test this, I think it would also be beneficial to see if the moire and jaggies occur at all resolutions. I am now using 576p and haven't yet seen a problem.


Changing the subject somewhat:

I have been able to significantly reduce the problems I've been mentioning that occur with TrueLife set to On by outputting 576p into my iScan HD (whether I'm playing NTSC or PAL DVDs) instead of 480p (previously I had the Oppo set to Auto so that PAL resolution was 576p and NTSC 480p, now I convert all NTSC titles to the PAL resolution). I have also lowered brightness and raised contrast to minimize the TrueLife induced artifacts. So now I have TrueLife almost always set to On and most of the time have Sharpness set to Off, but still like Sharpness set to Low about 25% of the time. The Low setting for sharpness doesn't seem to be quite as overcooked as with the previous firmware.



Long ago I had mentioned that the brightness level between PAL and NTSC was not equal with the Oppo, meaning that in AUTO mode I would have to change brightness (and contrast) when switching from a PAL DVD to NTSC. This has still not been fixed with the newest firmware and should be added to the list of needed fixes. PAL is set much brighter than NTSC (it seems to be about equal to the difference in brightness between 7.5 IRE and 0 IRE for NTSC.


Fernando,

You can check the firmware version in the Setup Menu by using 9 2 1 0 on the remote keypad. This is also where you can set the region code (use 0 for all region).

Here is a quote from the Yamaha DVD-S2500 manual describing TrueLife:

TrueLife
Produces more dynamic picture by increasing the
picture contrast and the color intensity. This function is
available for progressive scan output only.

Here is the description of TrueLife from the Faroudja web site:

TrueLife™ Enhancement
Conventional video enhancement is done by a “peaking filter” that enhances the high-frequency components of the video signal. However, this creates unwanted artifacts. Faroudja does not use a peaking filter to enhance an image rather uses its TrueLife™ Enhancement technology to identify transitions considered to be the details in an image such as skin texture, freckles or hair. These detail transitions are deliberately enhanced making them more visible and more lifelike. The technology also enhances large edges to create greater depth of perception without introducing visual artifacts or distortion.

Dennis,

Thanks for that information. Based on this, it seems strange that some people are reporting increased artifacts and deinterlacing problems when turning TrueLife Off. In fact, with TrueLife being an enhancement itself, it's easy to see the opportunity for TrueLife to add artifacts (despite what Faroudja says about TrueLife not introducing any), as it sometimes does on my system.

Dennis,

Thanks for that information. Based on this, it seems strange that some people are reporting increased artifacts and deinterlacing problems when turning TrueLife Off. In fact, with TrueLife being an enhancement itself, it's easy to see the opportunity for TrueLife to add artifacts (despite what Faroudja says about TrueLife not introducing any), as it sometimes does on my system.

That's the problem with these type of circuits. The "transitions considered to be the details in an image" part of the description says it all. The circuit is, at best, making an educated guess as to what is a "detail" and then enhancing it. At best it is enhancing details that do dot require enhancement to look as they should and, at worst, is enhancing who knows what.

Most everyone is quick to turn these circuits off when present on a TV but seem to want to treat them differently when part of the DVD player.

Some things you turn 'on' in a player OR display usually fall into the category of being enhancements or filters.
As you suggest, it is quite possible they could complement each other, depending on whether one is in a display (end product) or player (source).

"TrueLife" stays on in this house. When I turn "TrueLife" off, the Oppo fails (w/720p & 1080i):

Both HQV test for jaggies
Waving Flag
3:2 detection

The picture is bad, bad, bad

Jagged diagonal lines all over the place.

Paul

Just ordered the Oppo to possibly replace my RP82 on a 62" Tosh DLP. Haven't seen any comments from Tosh DLP/Oppo users so once I have it I'll try to post any unique experiences that haven't been covered here yet. Oh yeah, subscribing to thread as well ;)

I've been experiencing the audio out-of-sync issue with the latest firmware. Is the official word from Oppo that it's supposed to have been totally fixed? If so, I guess we should write them to let them know that it's still there for some of us. For now, rewinding a few seconds and hitting play fixes it (until it happens again).

Also, as some others have reported, the image "shakes" a little bit at 1080i (on a direct view Toshiba 34HFX83). In my case, it's not noticeable when watching material with motion, it's only visible on still images. In fact, I've only really noticed it on the Oppo logo screen. The image still seems a little better when inputting at 1080i instead of 720p, so I think I'm going to keep the Oppo's output at 1080i. But that's another thing that I should perhaps report to Oppo...

I believe the firmware notes stated that they had made IMPROVEMENTS to the audo sync.

"TrueLife" stays on in this house. When I turn "TrueLife" off, the Oppo fails (w/720p & 1080i):

Both HQV test for jaggies
Waving Flag
3:2 detection

The picture is bad, bad, bad

Jagged diagonal lines all over the place.

Paul
Is there a chance that Oppo has wired up both DCDi and TrueLife to the user setup item called "TrueLife"? Perhaps it does turn both on and off. If other people's research is accurate, it sounds like perhaps they could/should be treated independently.

Maybe in a future firmware, Oppo could have a "TrueLife" switch that only turns off TrueLife and doesn't turn off DCDi. If need be, a separate switch could be available to turn off/on DCDi, but I'm not sure that one would ever be needed.

For those who are having a problem burning the firmware as an ISO I would suggest the following. These instructions have never failed for me.

1. Download the new firmware and place on desktop.

http://www.oppodigital.com/Download/Firmware0628.iso.


2 Download free program "Burn At Once 0.95.5" This free utility is just for burning ISO
files.
It works great and you will not make any mistakes.

http://www.burnatonce.com/index.htm?downloads

3. Open "Burn at Once" and from the file menu go to load new image. Load the Oppo
file you downloaded to your desktop.

4. I would also suggest that you next go to the device settings menu and change the
burn speed to 4 or 8 times for a slower burn.

5. Hit write and your ISO file will be ready in less than a minute.

I have used Burn At Once hundreds of times with no problems for burning ISO files. I also have Nero and Roxio but I like Burn At Once for ISO's because it is mistake proof. (Be sure to use a CD not a Dvd disk) Your finished disk will read 0629. The bin file will be 935.

6. Follow the instructions on the Oppo page as to how to upgrade firmware after
you have made your disk.

http://www.oppodigital.com/%5COP971HFirmware0628.htm

Good Luck and thanks to Oppo, Liteup, Paul and others for testing the firmware.

Greetings,
I wanted to thank rwestley for posting these instructions. I was getting error messages burning the cd using the Oppo recommended software site, so I used yours and it worked like a charm.
I know just enough about computers and electronics to be a danger to myself and my equipment so this was a lifesaver. I was convinced that I would just see a puff of smoke out of my Oppo, even though Oppo's truly outstanding customer service told me to try the cd's I had initially burned.
This forum is amazing in that it not only helped me find a great new product from Oppo, but I actually felt as if by following this thread that I was on the cutting edge, so to speak.
I tested out the firmware on the NASA montage on DVE. All the shimmering and jaggies that I was seeing in these scenes on my Samsung hl-p5674 are now gone.
Bravo Oppo...
b.

Is there a chance that Oppo has wired up both DCDi and TrueLife to the user setup item called "TrueLife"? Perhaps it does turn both on and off. If other people's research is accurate, it sounds like perhaps they could/should be treated independently.

Maybe in a future firmware, Oppo could have a "TrueLife" switch that only turns off TrueLife and doesn't turn off DCDi. If need be, a separate switch could be available to turn off/on DCDi, but I'm not sure that one would ever be needed.

I imagine that that could be possible. It would not, however, explain why some have deinterlacing problems with it off and others do not. Actually in other implementations Truelife is adjustable between 0 and 7 with 0 being off.

Long ago I had mentioned that the brightness level between PAL and NTSC was not equal with the Oppo, meaning that in AUTO mode I would have to change brightness (and contrast) when switching from a PAL DVD to NTSC. This has still not been fixed with the newest firmware and should be added to the list of needed fixes. PAL is set much brighter than NTSC (it seems to be about equal to the difference in brightness between 7.5 IRE and 0 IRE for NTSC.

Yes i have posted my settings here not long ago that showed 2 different calibrated settings for PAL/NTSC. I have 2 different presets on my display to use with oppo; 1 for PAL and 1 for NTSC.

I imagine that that could be possible. It would not, however, explain why some have deinterlacing problems with it off and others do not. Actually in other implementations Truelife is adjustable between 0 and 7 with 0 being off.

That's what I mean when I say I wish for more options with the Oppo, not fewer.

As I test more discs and fine tune my settings for brightness and contrast and saturation and others using the iScan HD, I find that for me I almost always prefer TrueLife Off and have found no deinterlacing problems at all so far (a couple of times when I thought there might be a problem, I tested by switching between TrueLife set to On and to Off and could detect no difference). I also think that for the most part I like Sharpness set to Low instead of Off. Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation are all set to 0 in the Oppo itself.

With my tweaking now about done, the Oppo, much to my surprise, using 576p output, is quite simply stunning, and now fully lives up to the expectations set by the very high Secrets score, even in comparision to my also stunning SDI modded Panasonic RP91. I could now easily live with the Oppo as my only player, at least based on the limited number of discs I've watched. And that is saying a lot for a $200 player. Others I'm hearing from that I've recommended the Oppo to are saying the same.

After putting the player through its paces this weekend, I'm pretty much 100% on this player now. There now remains (for me) just 1 element about the Oppo that they still need to fix. The player's ability to vertically stretch 4:3 letterbox material is just not up to the level of the rest of this player's abilities. I don't know if this is a byproduct of the zoom still not being able to display the correct pixel shape or not, but, in addition to the zoom not appropriately filling the screen, there are quite a few artifacts introduced in the zoom not present in the original source. This player's ability to zoom non-anamorphic discs falls well below the Panasonics, the Zenith 318 and all of the Samsungs (even the $60 P241 @ 480P). I made this suggestion many, many pages back, but it was pretty much ignored, but how about talking with Oppo about using the disc's 4:3 letterbox flag to correctly (and automatically) stretch the image? This really wouldn't be anything different than what the player currently does with 4:3 in the Wide/SQZ mode. The player would just have to read the flag to correctly identify 4:3 pan and scan vs. 4:3 letterbox. This is exactly what the Panasonics do and I see no reason that the Oppo couldn't perform similarly. This would also allow Oppo to very carefully perform the stretch for maximum quality.

Just a suggestion, as non-anamorphic widescreen discs are the only ones left in my collection that I still cringe when putting in this fantasic player.

And for the guys at Oppo (if you're reading this), Oppo is the only brand of DVD player that I plan on purchasing from now on. Thanks for the great attention to support.

Cliff

I just got my Oppo and am having a problem which may have no solution. I have an InFocus 7210 set to maximum picture size for my 100" screen. As mounted, images from Pan S97, PE DV-59avi, Zenith HDR230 and Zenith SAT-HD520 just fit. With the Oppo there is significant picture shortage at the bottom and some to the left. Any suggestions?

Did anyone notice this also ? I have a similar problem (a Benq 7700, in Real mode where it is showing exact input pixels). The pio 59avi fits fine. ( btw a Denon 1910 also has the same problem. )

PCKeys, that's a bummer. Can you edit the review later... or tell them to watch this thread for fixes?

Definitely explain how eager Oppo Digital has been to work with us to fix any defects. They've already done a tremendous job, in just a few months! I don't know what they are currently working on, but I certainly don't think the lip-sync issue will be fixed in a hurry... it's a Faroudja issue that will require the intervention of Genesis engineers. (Same goes for macroblocking). Note that shimmering only seems to affect high-contrast edges, not all vertical lines. I don't think that one will be too difficult to fix at all.

Gary

Maybe THIS is why the Samsung DLPs have the lip-sync issue, since they all have the faroudja chip in them. Now for the big question...............

With ALL the problems with the Faroudja chip (both 2301+2310), is it really WORTH the fine work they do on video if it introduces MacroBlocking & Lip-sync problems?

I returned the Samsung I tried because of the lip-sync (and to a smaller degree the Clay Face issue). I am beginning to think if it says Faroudja, RUN don't walk from the product.

I just wanted to follow-up and confirm, or at least support, what some have reported here. I am still experiencing audio sync problems with the lasters (6-28) firmware. This was observed on Flight of the Phoenix, about an hour in I had to pause player and rewind slightly. And then tonight, watching Independence Day, mu;ltiple times 45 minutes in, 2:00 hrs in, had to pause and rewind to get sync back.

Coiuld a 2-2 cadence problem result in dvds doing a slow-mo followed by a fast speed withing about a 2 sec time fram, then repeating this every 3-4 minutes? That is what is happening on DVDs (DVD-RW) that I have recorded myself. The PQ on these have been greatly improved by the oppo, so I'll still be watching them on it, but the spped issue still exists.

Oppo is paried with a Tosh, RP-CRT 65HX93, can not see the DVI resolution, so not sure what I'm feeding it. (Can someone post the order of the DVI outputs?)

Thanks,
Rick

Jello,

where did you buy your BBK in Europe? Any other BBK owners could let me know please where I can get it in Europe? It seems that it does exist over here but is hard to find. No need to brake any rules, I am not interested in prices rather in suppliers. Feel free to pm me!

Thxs!

I just wanted to follow-up and confirm, or at least support, what some have reported here. I am still experiencing audio sync problems with the lasters (6-28) firmware. This was observed on Flight of the Phoenix, about an hour in I had to pause player and rewind slightly. And then tonight, watching Independence Day, mu;ltiple times 45 minutes in, 2:00 hrs in, had to pause and rewind to get sync back. You're the third person who has reported this. I've not noticed it yet, but I'll keep an eye out for it.
Coiuld a 2-2 cadence problem result in dvds doing a slow-mo followed by a fast speed withing about a 2 sec time fram, then repeating this every 3-4 minutes? That is what is happening on DVDs (DVD-RW) that I have recorded myself. The PQ on these have been greatly improved by the oppo, so I'll still be watching them on it, but the spped issue still exists. There is no 2-2 cadence problem, 2-2 is simply not supported at all. Are you saying that your DVD-RW is recorded with PAL 2-2 cadence? I have not noticed a speed issue with my recorded disks (NTSC). Are you sure its not an authoring problem?
Oppo is paried with a Tosh, RP-CRT 65HX93, can not see the DVI resolution, so not sure what I'm feeding it. (Can someone post the order of the DVI outputs?)480p,540p,720p,1080i. Your set probably goes blank for a couple of seconds while it synchronizes with the new DVI signal, so you never see the Oppo's reported resolution. Doesn't your set have an "info" or "OSD/display" button that reports your current settings and inputs? Another easy way to check, is to hook up a cheap composite cable and watch THAT input while you change the DVI resolution, then switch back to the DVI input.

Gary

Maybe THIS is why the Samsung DLPs have the lip-sync issue, since they all have the faroudja chip in them. Now for the big question...............

With ALL the problems with the Faroudja chip (both 2301+2310), is it really WORTH the fine work they do on video if it introduces MacroBlocking & Lip-sync problems?

I returned the Samsung I tried because of the lip-sync (and to a smaller degree the Clay Face issue). I am beginning to think if it says Faroudja, RUN don't walk from the product. That seems to be true of the Faroudja chip in it's default application, but Panasonic has demonstrated that it is possible to reduce both lip-sync and macroblocking quite effectively.

Gary

I don't know if this is a byproduct of the zoom still not being able to display the correct pixel shape or not, but, in addition to the zoom not appropriately filling the screen, there are quite a few artifacts introduced in the zoom not present in the original source. What kind of artifacts are you refering to, since the EE/shimmering is gone?
This player's ability to zoom non-anamorphic discs falls well below the Panasonics, the Zenith 318 and all of the Samsungs (even the $60 P241 @ 480P). I made this suggestion many, many pages back, but it was pretty much ignored, but how about talking with Oppo about using the disc's 4:3 letterbox flag to correctly (and automatically) stretch the image? This really wouldn't be anything different than what the player currently does with 4:3 in the Wide/SQZ mode. The player would just have to read the flag to correctly identify 4:3 pan and scan vs. 4:3 letterbox. This is exactly what the Panasonics do and I see no reason that the Oppo couldn't perform similarly. I'll add this to the wishlist.

Gary

Much better now without the EE shimmering. The OPPO output via DVI looks great on my 118 diagonal screen. Good job on the latest firmware update. Hello Guy

Its good to see that you've joined the Oppo club!

Gary

Is there a chance that Oppo has wired up both DCDi and TrueLife to the user setup item called "TrueLife"? Perhaps it does turn both on and off. If other people's research is accurate, it sounds like perhaps they could/should be treated independently.

Maybe in a future firmware, Oppo could have a "TrueLife" switch that only turns off TrueLife and doesn't turn off DCDi. If need be, a separate switch could be available to turn off/on DCDi, but I'm not sure that one would ever be needed. We're not sure about this, but we'll ask Oppo.

Gary

Long ago I had mentioned that the brightness level between PAL and NTSC was not equal with the Oppo, meaning that in AUTO mode I would have to change brightness (and contrast) when switching from a PAL DVD to NTSC. This has still not been fixed with the newest firmware and should be added to the list of needed fixes. I'll add it.

Gary

I just got my HT set back up and my Oppo is also shaking on my Sony HS10 projector (at all resolutions). I dont recall it doing this before the firmware upgrade, but I ran the upgrade almost immediately after I got everything running so I can't be sure. Does anyone have any of the old firmware update ISO files that they could email me and I could check it out (PS, I did the very first firmware and then the june 29th one so either the first or the April firmware would both work to test). Charles J P,

Did someone email the April firmware to you? If so, what did you find?

Gary

Also, as some others have reported, the image "shakes" a little bit at 1080i (on a direct view Toshiba 34HFX83). In my case, it's not noticeable when watching material with motion, it's only visible on still images. In fact, I've only really noticed it on the Oppo logo screen. The image still seems a little better when inputting at 1080i instead of 720p, so I think I'm going to keep the Oppo's output at 1080i. But that's another thing that I should perhaps report to Oppo...

I had the shaking problems too on 1080i but when I upgraded to the latest firmware, the shaking disappeared.

What's your TV and what resolution do you prefer?

Mine is a 44" LG DLP TV on 720p.

I couldn't really tell the difference between 720p and 1080i.

Stimby,

my bbk 971 remote looks exactly the same as the silver oppo remote (its an bbk logo on it)
it seams that the new oppos have a black remote.
since the new firmware will support both remotes, the remote should not be an issue.

No clicking noises heard here. Happens for all discs, even commercial discs?

Paul

Yes. When making disc menu selections. It usually results in the player freezing up and quitting.

hey, add this to the pile of goo...

I finally went and re-calibrated my TV for the Oppo (as opposed to the RP-82) in SERVICE MODE (cue scary drums...)

required some resizing and centering of the image, but I've got a nice 3px overscan all around the screen. Green's still a bit funky, but blue and red and dead on. Brightness and Picture (contrast) are much more "torchy" then the '82 used to be, with much higher values to get propper black and white levels. I've left the player at neutral and calibrated the TV, we'll see how long that lasts.

I used AVIA, DVE, and a neato black/white level MPEG file that's to be found somewhere on this forum, kudos to those guys for puting it together.

Pic looks great, I still have a bit of "wiggle" (not as bad as shimmer) on some of the resolution screens with DVE - shows up only with 1080, not 480,540 or 720 for no obvious reason. Plus, with 1080 I get a bit of shake with the Oppo logo itself that's not evident with the other res modes.

And, for those who wish to know, in Service Mode you can see the input res in real time as you switch from Oppo's DVI output options. It goes from 480p for 480p (of course), briefly flashes as 480i while adjusting (no doubt an artifact of the TV switching, but tantilizing for those wishing for this res over DVI), 1080i for 540p (you read that correctly, and it of course makes sense), 720p, then 1080.

So, as far as I can tell, on RPTV CRT Sony, 540p and 1080 are treated identically. Yet, for some reason, I notice picture difference. I wonder what the Oppo's doing differently with each mode... :)

Oppo with default settings, for those in the know.

I wan to know if the audio-sync problem also appears with coaxial digital out or just with the optical digital out? Also read that with the analog 6ch out there is no audio-sync problem. Any Comments?
Thanks before hand for your attention

I have not seen either with it off and the VE flag still looks fine.

The HQV Benchmark DVD has a similar flag test, and the Oppo fails it when TrueLife is turned off. In fact, it fails all of the tests on that disc with TrueLife off.

Regardless of what TrueLife is actually defined as in the Faroudja spec, in its implementation on the Oppo the firmware setting labelled "TrueLife" does indeed turn off DCDi deinterlacing.

I'd have to check again, but it's early on. It also comes up during the Star Wars space text crawl, which has 3 language angles IIRC.

The only Star Wars disc I own is Attack of the Clones. Does it happen on that one? I do have The Incredibles and will check it if you can find out exactly where on the disc it happens.

I tested this feature with Tomorrow Never Dies, and the player did what it was supposed to do after turning off the Angle Mark setting.

I wan to know if the audio-sync problem also appears with coaxial digital out or just with the optical digital out? Also read that with the analog 6ch out there is no audio-sync problem. Any Comments?
Thanks before hand for your attention

Well i have never had audio sync problems. I use coaxial digital output.

The HQV Benchmark DVD has a similar flag test, and the Oppo fails it when TrueLife is turned off. In fact, it fails all of the tests on that disc with TrueLife off.

Regardless of what TrueLife is actually defined as in the Faroudja spec, in its implementation on the Oppo the firmware setting labelled "TrueLife" does indeed turn off DCDi deinterlacing.

In addition to the HQV disk, I have the Faroudja test disk which has the flag test and a number of other tests for DCDi and motion-adaptive deinterlacing (swinging pendulum). As Josh said, both tests fail with TrueLife turned off, indicating that more than just TrueLife's being turned off.

Actually in other implementations Truelife is adjustable between 0 and 7 with 0 being off.

As I've mentioned a number of times on this thread, the implementation of TrueLife on the Oppo is the lowest level I've ever seen it. It has less of an effect than turning it from "0" to "1" on my projector. Other players and displays I've used have exhibited an unacceptible amount of edge enhancement with TrueLife on, but not the Oppo.

Help me understand something. It seems by reading through this thread the audio sync. problem has not been a constant thing. It seems to appear on some disks and not others. Many times replaying the same area of disk the problem does not repeat.You can stop and replay can clear up the problem.

Was anything else changed with the latest firmware to correct the audio sync. besides adding the adjustable delay settings? I do not see how this can solve the problem since this will add the delay at all times when the problem is not constant.

The adjustable delay seems only to benefit if there is a constant sync. problem possible do to a compatability issue between the player and a receiver/processor.

Thanks,
Barry

can anyone tell me or post your settings you are using with a Samsung DLP ? this would help me alot and guide me a bit in what settings to use... i'm just horrible setting this thing up, any help to guide me in the right direction would be great. using the avia dvd just takes me forever i can't seem to find the right settings.

Help me understand something. It seems by reading through this thread the audio sync. problem has not been a constant thing. It seems to appear on some disks and not others. Many times replaying the same area of disk the problem does not repeat.You can stop and replay can clear up the problem.

Was anything else changed with the latest firmware to correct the audio sync. besides adding the adjustable delay settings? I do not see how this can solve the problem since this will add the delay at all times when the problem is not constant.

The adjustable delay seems only to benefit if there is a constant sync. problem possible do to a compatability issue between the player and a receiver/processor.


Your understanding is correct. That is the problem in a nutshell.

can anyone tell me or post your settings you are using with a Samsung DLP ? this would help me alot and guide me a bit in what settings to use... i'm just horrible setting this thing up, any help to guide me in the right direction would be great. using the avia dvd just takes me forever i can't seem to find the right settings.

Greetings,
I have a Samsung hl-p5674 and use the default Oppo settings with the new firmware at 720p. YMMV...
b.

Thnaks for the answer

The latest firmware does indeed improve the shimmer problem. No longer am I distracted out of a movie. Good job by OPPO on this one.

Can someone tell me if there has been a firmware upgrade that addresses the strech of all content. Does this dvd still stretch all content regardless of its format (for example does it stretch 4:3 to 16:9)

thanks.

I am trying to decide which dvd to get with my new pio 5050 and this one is on my short list, however, this is one question that I cannot get answered.

thanks

Um, that was addressed in the first firmware update back in January.

Can someone tell me if there has been a firmware upgrade that addresses the strech of all content. Does this dvd still stretch all content regardless of its format (for example does it stretch 4:3 to 16:9)

thanks.

I am trying to decide which dvd to get with my new pio 5050 and this one is on my short list, however, this is one question that I cannot get answered.

thanks
On Paul Bigelow's brain dump thread here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=491306&page=1&pp=30 it is noted that if you set TV Display to Wide/SQZ the Oppo will "pillarbox" 4:3 material. Hope that's the answer to your question.

Dana

Much better now without the EE shimmering. The OPPO output via DVI looks great on my 118 diagonal screen. Good job on the latest firmware update.

So the Oppo looks good with the H79? You were able to grayscale a good image? I get an Oppo delivered tomorrow and was an early adopter, looks like the new one will work out. The first one I couldn't dial in a grayscale without a red push, plus Avia wouldn't show me stable boxes for color and matching bottom tones.

I've emailed Oppo regarding the couple of issues that I was having, and I must say that I'm very impressed with their customer service. I received informative and honest replies within hours of sending my emails.

It seems that the "shaking" or "flickering" that I'm seeing at 1080i is just the result of interlacing, nothing more. I had pretty much guessed that was it, but wasn't sure. What confused me was that since the TV is always set to 1080i, it has to upconvert and interlace any progressive signal that it receives, whether 480p or 720p. So I thought that I should be seeing the same flickering with progressive signals, but it seems that it's most apparent when the source signal itself is interlaced (in this case, 1080i from the Oppo).

I'm afraid the news is not so good regarding the audio sync problem. Oppo customer service first advised that I should try the new audio delay feature, but I explained that it wouldn't help since the problem I'm having is intermittent. I also mentioned that I was using the optical output, and that I had not tested any of the other outputs. Here is Oppo's reply:

"Martin...

You're right - the audio delay isn't a perfect solution to the audio sync problem. Unfortunately, given the current technology, its the best that can be done for the moment. You'll find that it doesn't matter whether you use the optical connection or any of the other analog connections."

I take it to mean that it's probably as good as it's going to get. I don't want to press them for more details, but the comment about the "current technology" leads me to believe that they've done all they could. Hope I'm wrong though...

Having said that, I still love my Oppo and would easily recommend it, although I would mention the audio sync problem. In fact, I just ordered a second one for my father...

Audio sync is one problem I didn't have with my early machine. Isn't the sync issue related to the users electronics? Or does everybody have it to some extent or other?

You're the third person who has reported this. I've not noticed it yet, but I'll keep an eye out for it.
There is no 2-2 cadence problem, 2-2 is simply not supported at all. Are you saying that your DVD-RW is recorded with PAL 2-2 cadence? I have not noticed a speed issue with my recorded disks (NTSC). Are you sure its not an authoring problem?
480p,540p,720p,1080i. Your set probably goes blank for a couple of seconds while it synchronizes with the new DVI signal, so you never see the Oppo's reported resolution. Doesn't your set have an "info" or "OSD/display" button that reports your current settings and inputs? Another easy way to check, is to hook up a cheap composite cable and watch THAT input while you change the DVI resolution, then switch back to the DVI input.

Gary


Thanks, Gary

1. Yes, I think maybe it is an authoring problem. Since no one else see it. I'm just surprised it hasnt shown up on two other players. But in any event, I'll try reautroing one with DVDshrink and see if that works.

2. Thanks for sequence, I had thought there was a 568 or something like that, so I was having trouble counting. I have one setting that shows vertical magenta bars. Someone else with a smilar tv indicated that happened on 540p so maybe i can count from there. Also have one setting that occasionally rolls, so maybe I can tell where I am. I'll also try the component cables, I hadnt realized the DVI resolution would show up on that input. Thanks!


3. Someone else indicated that their were no sync problems using analog output, so I'll probably try that instead of the coax digital output im currentlyusing.

Thanks,
Rick

by the way, I'm just across the river in Gresham, OR

I wan to know if the audio-sync problem also appears with coaxial digital out or just with the optical digital out? Also read that with the analog 6ch out there is no audio-sync problem. Any Comments?
Thanks before hand for your attention


reply:

Yes, I'm using digital coax out to a sony reciever. My tv is a RP-Crt, TOSH, 65hX93.
I'm having sybnc problem. I'll try the analog out and see what it does.

Rick

Uh Oh! I can't believe there's an audio sync issue with the OPPO. Audio sync is one the the truly fundamental requirements for a DVD player to have. What the heck good is a player, no matter how good it looks if you've got to stop/rewind/play, etc, to get sync back? It just ruins the effect of being involved with the movie. I've ordered my OPPO and it should arrive this Friday, I really hope I don't have to return it.

After using Oppo for over two months, I realized that the deal breaker for audio sync is in PAL material (converted to NTSC). Whenever I play PAL DVDs/divx, there is always a constant audio delay. For example, everytime a scene is selected in DVD menu, video starts first and then goes audio in less than a sec. The delay is greater than current 50ms option from the new firmware.

Basically I share nadeama's and Oppo's and KenTech in the direct view CRT forum's sentiments that the flickering is simply a product of the interlacing process itself. I too was looking for the magic bitton to push that would make the flickering around the edges of menus and thin lines dissapear. I got the same flickering with the Oppo, my computer's DVI output, and my high def cable box. so I just accepted reality and have been feeding my TV a 720P signal ever since.

Two thoughts: One- the source material from a DVD was never 1080i to begin with, it was only about 500 lines of resolution, so you will definitely get every bit of resolution from the DVD by giving your TV a 720P signal. It's not like you're throwing away the extra lines of resolution from a 1080i TV show by downgrading to 720P. Two- What are the actual shortcomings of giving your tv this 720P signal. Is there horrible distortion in the picture if run at 720P? Is the signal full of artifacts so egregious as to make the picture unwatchable at anything other than a full, flickery, 1080 interlaced lines of resolution? Or are you just chasing an ideal because your TV's manual mentions 1080i and the DVD player has a 1080i switch and running the DVD player at 1080 is just the way it should be. This may come off as a little harsh and for that I apologize, but I think you're going around looking for an answer which I myself was looking for but realized did not exist.



OK... :) But, forgive me if I'm wrong, the set upconverts to 1080i any 720 signal, wouldn't that defeat the purpose?

CRT conversion is a bit more confusing than Fixed Pixel, as there really isn't per se a native res, it's whatever the electronics are sending the electron guns, so native res is the res of the processing unit, not the display unit.

Thoughts still welcome for those of us with CRTs (heck, I still greatly prefer the pic, even if I have to live with the 300lb gorilla in the room...)

Oh yeah- Oppo, after the latest firmware revision there definitely is no more shimmering at all. AWESOME JOB!!

So the Oppo looks good with the H79?...

Yes. Definitely. It is amazing how good plain old NTSC DVD looks with such a low cost player hooked up via DVI to the Optoma H79. A few years ago you be paying ten times as much for the same amount of enjoyment. Add in HDTV via DVI and wow - a picture at home that repreatedly reminds me I was right to give up my CRT and move forward. All at a price that is well -- essentially disposable so future upgrades are definitely easier.

Even better, my wife can run the system and likes the sharper, brighter, bigger picture over our old CRT based system. You know what that means in terms of getting more toys later.

k, my first major funk-up with playback. Watching disc 2 of season 7 of Homicide:Life on the Streets. On both the first and second eps of disc two, the show would start with the dialogue entirely out of synch (major out of synch, full seconds, not miliseconds)... pic would continue for a moment, then slam into synch, jumpcutting to the new shot.

Now, H:LOTS does that a lot themselves, but this was the fault of the player...:)

Threw it into my RP-82, played totally fine. Was able to repeat the problem after powering off the Oppo, ejecting the (brand new, no scratches anywhere) disc, etc., etc.

Add this to the pile...

What kind of artifacts are you refering to, since the EE/shimmering is gone?
Gary

The zoom (on 4:3 letterbox material) artifacts I am seeing are more color flashing and what appears to be more extreme aliasing. The color flashing really smears the image. I've taken some pictures of what I am seeing and, although the overall quality is pretty lacking (i've never really tried to take photos of my TV before, the artifacts visible are certainly what I am seeing. Please also note that I took these using a tripod and remote, so there was no contact with the camera at all, only the switching of the zoom mode on the Oppo.) The Streets of Fire shot (Oppo_1) shows the flashing issue. What's weird is that both the problem and the basic geometry of the shot return to normal at 2X and are fine up until 4X, when the flashing problems return. In the Top Gun shot (Oppo_2), the increase in the amount of stair-stepping is pretty drastic and not really visible before the vertical stretch. It's pretty hard to show aliasing and similar artifacts in a still, but it's not hard to spot them on this player.

Cliff

ok,
i flashed my bbk 971 and it worked fine.
so bbk 971 with silver remote is compatible to oppo firmwares.

too bad the 2-2 cadence issue was not resolved

greetings from pal land

I tried again PAL to NTSC conversion with the latest firmware.
My conclusion is the same, this machine is doing an OK job no more.
I really don't know if the faroudja is doign the conversion or the mediatek but I tried with turning off the faroudja processing and the result was the same. (maybe the faroudja is "busy" converting and cannot do anything else)

Again, it seems like the conversion is done before the scaling to 720p, so apparent lost of resolution, lots of jaggies artefact, moire, etc.

With PAL output, no complain at all of course. It's really a great machine for the price.

Cliff,

I note the pictures are with zoom and pause utilized.

Oppo Zoom and Pause modes:

Zoom PQ quality is not very good, it's on par with the S97 (although *video* based material looks pretty good) and is a weak spot, causing jagged lines, doubling of information, thin horizontal bands -- as if two frames of a picture are slightly out of sync.

Anything in pause mode has the prospect of looking bad because the Oppo is using either "field" (half the infomation) or "auto" (sometimes half the information) mode. "Frame" mode can generally preserve the detail, with smooth lines, although a freeze with fast motion can look smeared. The Oppo doesn't offer the pause choice and it is already in the "Brain Dump" fix/wish list. Note that some players do offer the choice of "Frame" mode for pause.

Paul

...The Streets of Fire shot (Oppo_1) shows the flashing issue.
Cliff


Oh, my... Streets of FIRE? :rolleyes:

heheh...

I have noticed that post 0628-firmware, paused shots are much more stable and much less pixelated than before. FWIW.

Basically I share nadeama's and Oppo's and KenTech in the direct view CRT forum's sentiments that the flickering is simply a product of the interlacing process itself. I too was looking for the magic bitton to push that would make the flickering around the edges of menus and thin lines dissapear. I got the same flickering with the Oppo, my computer's DVI output, and my high def cable box. so I just accepted reality and have been feeding my TV a 720P signal ever since.

There's a couple things going on, and it's easy to get confused - the flickering I was referring to was showing up with the full screen logo of the Oppo player. What's odd is that the logo seemed to stabilize with the 540p signal. Now, based on the info display in service mode, the 540 and 1080 signals from the oppo were -both- treated by the TV as 540, yet the image was behaving (slightly) differently. Kooky, no?


Two thoughts: One- the source material from a DVD was never 1080i to begin with

oh, I'm so with you on this line of thinking. My scepticism about upconverting players is still pretty high, I was never planning on buying this little stopgap measure, planning on waiting for the HD fun coming through in a few months/years. As someone with both dvd-a and sacd players, the thought of both blueray and HD-DVD doesn't fill me with dread quite as badly as for some.

I bought the Oppo for some pretty good reasons: 1) it's cheap for a decent player, 2) region free playback, 3) DVI fun, 4) a new toy to play with, and, most importantly, 5) a real commitment on the part of Oppo to include the AV community in improving the unit. As soon as I heard that firmware was updateable via the website, and that major functions were added post launch via software (I beleive DVD-A support, among them) I bit the bullet and grabbed one.

I first was looking at the Panny, as I wanted everything my '82 had, with the bonus of dvi fun. I realized the DVI addition wasn't enough. For the Oppo, the reasons above justified me scratching the upgraditis itch and playing with a new box. Plus, having picked up the excellent Region 2 of Tommy and seeing how fun it is to get good DVDs from all over the world, I couldn't be happier with such simple region free implementation.

I've not yet disconnected my RP-82, and often use it for 4:3 material, and some other discs. With the new firmware that's likely to change as I use the Oppo more and more. As above, I've actually setup my TV now for the Oppo colour settings as opposed to RP-82 for normal viewing, clearly showing a preference for the newer player.

What are the actual shortcomings of giving your tv this 720P signal. Is there horrible distortion in the picture if run at 720P?

none, save that I was working under the belief that the Sony CRT, despite not being a fixed pixel display, did all its processing at 540p, and projected at 1080i. Thus, even when sent a 720p signal it gets converted to 1080i. I'm trying to send the best signal, of course, to incur the least amount of post processing. I've yet to see definitively the operating resolution(s) of the sony CRT in question, any help from others to resolve this quandry would be appreciated.

Jello,

Many thanks for your pm yesterday! This is the shop I know as well, seems like the only one in our area where you can get the OPPO (BKK). I hope I 'll get mine this w-e!

Let me ask you, this 2-2 cadence issue, is it causing you any problem with your player? What is the result of this?

Also, I read somewhere before that the lip sync problem only affects the PAL dvd's, this is US!!! Is it correct? Have you experienced any problems?

Thxs in advance!

MfG, :)

cologne

Cliff,

I note the pictures are with zoom and pause utilized.

Oppo Zoom and Pause modes:

Zoom PQ quality is not very good, it's on par with the S97 (although *video* based material looks pretty good) and is a weak spot, causing jagged lines, doubling of information, thin horizontal bands -- as if two frames of a picture are slightly out of sync.

Anything in pause mode has the prospect of looking bad because the Oppo is using either "field" (half the infomation) or "auto" (sometimes half the information) mode. "Frame" mode can generally preserve the detail, with smooth lines, although a freeze with fast motion can look smeared. The Oppo doesn't offer the pause choice and it is already in the "Brain Dump" fix/wish list. Note that some players do offer the choice of "Frame" mode for pause.

Paul

Paul,
The point of my post was about the quality of the zoom, as I don't feel it compares favorably to other players with similar features (Samsung, Zenith). It makes watching non-anamorphic widescreen stuff impossible and/or painful. I never got all that artifacting and color tearing with any of the other players (Sam's 241 & 850, Zenith 318). But this:
"jagged lines, doubling of information, thin horizontal bands -- as if two frames of a picture are slightly out of sync"
is exactly what I'm talking about! I feel sort of like being given an amazing meal after starving and then complaining that the side dish was a little too salty. I think I'm just going to have to keep the cheapy 241 hooked up on another input specifically to watch 4:3 letterbox stuff, as I don't think this is going to be a huge deal for Oppo to fix. But I do hope that they can make it work well in the next player they decide to produce (which I will certainly also be buying, expecially if they manage to sneak in SACD as well. ;)

I only used pause to be able to grab the exact same frame in various zoom modes for display here. But the artifacts you see in those stills are exactly what I see during playback and what you mentioned above.

Cliff

Oh, my... Streets of FIRE?

heheh...

I was going to pick a bad movie to do the shots from, but unfortunately all of them are in your collection. :D

A few questions:

1) I upgraded the firmware on my oppo to the June release and didn't experience any issues during the upgrade process. I have read this entire thread but can't seem to find this. I believe that this firmware or some earlier firmware address the problem of the tray not closing when the unit is powered off (put in standby). My tray does not close when the unit is put in standby. Anything I can do? Should I reflash the firmware?

2) On a few occasions I inserted a disk (LOTR ROTK) and Lost in Space, and the unit would not read the disk. The front panel displayed meaningless symbols. opening and closing the tray did not help. I believe it took a power cycle. Eventually both disks read without problem. Any Ideas?

3) Everyone is talking about calibrating the player. I asked a similar question in the pj forum but I still don't have answer I understand. Since both the projection device, in my case an H-77, and the dvd player can / should be calibrated, where do you start? If you are using both in the system how do you know if it's the dvd or pj that is out of calibration. This problem always seems like the chicken and egg dilemma to me. How do you calibrate both?

I'm very new to all of this and I guess I'm not "trained" yet, but right now I am running the dvd using component out to a denon 4806 and down converting to composite (only input available) on an old Mitti 40" rear projection 4x3 TV. I have to say that even with this less then optimal setup, the picture looks great. I hope I am "untrainable".

Rant - off topic - I can't believe how difficult it is to hire a finish carpenter. My theater is about 85% done and it seems these guys have more work then they need. I can't get any to come and bid. I do have some lined up, I'll see if they actually show up. - rant off

Sorry for the multiple questions.

1) I believe that this firmware or some earlier firmware address the problem of the tray not closing when the unit is powered off (put in standby). My tray does not close when the unit is put in standby. Anything I can do? Should I reflash the firmware?

Someone else reported same. Mine does close when its put on standby/poweroff from remote (dont know what happens pushing buttons from player itself as i dont use them).


3) Everyone is talking about calibrating the player. I asked a similar question in the pj forum but I still don't have answer I understand. Since both the projection device, in my case an H-77, and the dvd player can / should be calibrated, where do you start? If you are using both in the system how do you know if it's the dvd or pj that is out of calibration. This problem always seems like the chicken and egg dilemma to me. How do you calibrate both?

I think they mean calibrating display to player (brightness/contrast etc). Oppo with defaults is great so i atleast didnt need anything changed there.

1) I noticed this too. It was fixed in a firmware, but it seems the fix did more harm than good, so it was removed. Close the tray before turning off or turn off with the remote.

The zoom (on 4:3 letterbox material) artifacts I am seeing are more color flashing and what appears to be more extreme aliasing. Cliff,

I agree with your observations, but I'm not too worried yet. Oppo is still working on the zooms.

Did you notice that the vertical stretch is slightly lacking when using the zoom (a circle is squished into an oval)? Oppo may not have taken into account that DVD pixels are not square, so when a player scales the image for a square-pixel display panel, the vertical has to be stretched slightly more than the horizontal. Oppo engineers are aware of this now, and are continuing to work on it. The zooms are very complex, because they affect the square-pixel AVI images too.

Gary