There might be price differences, but which DVD player is the best between the Sony 71H, Oppo 970, and Phillips 5982. Thanks.

Oppo 970

There is no shortage of Oppo worship here, is there? :p

Granted, they are great players and have lots of extra bells and whistles.

If you want to actually walk into a store and buy a player, both the Sony (as the NS75H or the Costco 71) and the Phillips have gotten good marks here.

I have the NS75H myself. Great player. Great PQ. Considered an Oppo. But, the Sony was on sale locally for cheap, so I went that route. I knew that if it sucked, I could just make the 5 minute drive back to return it. Plus, I have no DVDs that aren't Region 1, so region-free playback doesn't matter to me. If it matters to you, go Oppo.

Didn't the NS75H get essentially the same Benchmark scores as the Oppos? Mine looks great. No desire to jump onto the Oppo bandwagon.

All 3 players the OP listed are good machines. Let the wallet (and eyes) decide which is best.

I have no 1st hand experience with the Oppo. Therefore, no comment.

But I have both the Sony and the Philips hooked up to my TV right now. You are right about the prices. Sony is 2x as much as the Philips. There are a few neat things that the Philips can do and the Sony can't. It depends if those nifty things are important to you or not.

In terms of Pict/Sound Quality, Sony is a clear winner over the Philips. In addition, the user interface, remote, output jacks, and ease of use all make Sony the better choice, IMHO.

In terms of Pict/Sound Quality, Sony is a clear winner over the Philips. In addition, the user interface, remote, output jacks, and ease of use all make Sony the better choice, IMHO.
Sony is handicapped by its inability to play DivX files.
Philips is clearly the best value for the money.

Didn't the NS75H get essentially the same Benchmark scores as the Oppos?.

Essentially the same as the 970, not the 971/981. Use Oppo in the singular, not plural.

Sony NS75H scores 74-85
Oppo 970 scores 84-86.

Oppo 971/981 scores 93-96.

Philips 5982. Did a comparision with Oppo 971. Diff in PQ is difficult to say. At that price it is probably the best value. I had zero issues so far.

Essentially the same as the 970, not the 971/981. Use Oppo in the singular, not plural.

Sony NS75H scores 74-85
Oppo 970 scores 84-86.

Oppo 971/981 scores 93-96.

For Sony NG75H ($119, typical online $99) score a bit off its 78/85 per DVD Benchmark and this player is now being replaced shortly with NG77H in either silver or black ($99) which does 1080P. As far as HDMI video performance the Sony NG75H and Opp 970 were close on results. Price wise it will soon be $99 versus $149!

Sorry, grabbed the score for the Sony 910. :o

I have the Sony 75 and Oppo 970. I also just picked up the Philips, but haven't hooked it up yet.

The Sony NS77H manual is online!
esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=DVPNS77H

I see it on Amazon for 100 and free shipping! Has anyone tested it yet? I don't see any reviews. I wonder if it displays 'x2' or '2x' on the screen when you zoom in? What are the zoom levels? The manual is quite vague in this regard. That was a major complaint about the NS75. The zoom is pretty much useless.

The Oppo 970 has a nice range of zooms (1.2, 1.3, 1.4... up to 4x if I recall correctly), with the display disappearing after a few seconds. But I don't see refurb 970s any more (like mine, which has performed nicely), although it seems a bit sluggish to commands. Sometimes I keep hitting buttons like zoom, and go too far because it takes a while to catch up. You have to zoom up one step at a time until it gets to the max, then it goes back to 1x. Maybe it's my Harmony remote setup? Has anyone else had this issue? I should check the delays in the Harmony setup...

I have the Sony 75 and Oppo 970. I also just picked up the Philips, but haven't hooked it up yet.

The Sony NS77H manual is online!
esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=DVPNS77H

I see it on Amazon for 100 and free shipping! Has anyone tested it yet? I don't see any reviews. I wonder if it displays 'x2' or '2x' on the screen when you zoom in? What are the zoom levels? The manual is quite vague in this regard. That was a major complaint about the NS75. The zoom is pretty much useless.

The Sony NS77H has not arrived at any dealers. See this Sony DVP-NS77H topic (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=872367)

Yeah, I read that topic. It's on sale at Amazon, but no B&M stores yet. I'm a-waitin'!

Yeah, I read that topic. It's on sale at Amazon, but no B&M stores yet. I'm a-waitin'!
On Sonystore site it now says available on or about 8/01/2007 :-)
Its a shame we have wait, as the market needs more good quality inexpensive DVD players now! ;-)

I just hooked up the philips, but I can't get it to pass blacker than black with DVE over HDMI no matter what settings I change. With the same settings on my PJ that my Oppo 970 passed BTB, I couldn't see any of the white side bars. It was totally black on the sides of the greyscale vertical bar! I had to increase contrast to the max, and brightness quite a bit, just to see the white vertical bars. It's the worst BTB I've seen on any DVD player I've tested!

It really sucks that the menu fills the entire screen! And it stretches 4:3 material. I tried all resolutions, upping the contrast and brightness on the player to the maximum, Standard, Vivid, and Cool default settings, and the Hitachi PJ-TX100 PJ just wont display the BTB bars with DVE (this PJ looks great with my Oppo 970 on HDMI and passes BTB fine!).

I haven't tried component yet, but someone else said it didn't pass BTB over component, only over HDMI! I spent over an hour just trying to get it to pass BTB! Plus the remote sucks, no aspect ratio settings, the lowest zoom is 2X for video (Oppo has 1.2x, 1.3x, 1.4x, etc.), USB is slow (probably not USB 2.0!).

It's cheap, but I will probalby return it anyways. I may wait for the new Sony 1080p player (100 on Amazon and free shipping). Too bad the Sony doesn't have USB!

Anyone else see this BTB issue with DVE over HDMI?