I have a Mitsubishi WS-55517 55" RPTV. 1080i It has one HDMI hookup and several component. This is the last model CRT Mitsubishi made I purchased in 2006. Which OPPO would be best for my RPTV? On OPPO website they push the 981 for TVs above 50 inches. The 970,980,or 981? Is the 981 worth the price of 229 dollars when you can purchase a Toshiba HD-A2 for 236 dollars? Why would you purchase a OPPO upconverting DVD player over a seemingly good HD player that also upscales DVDs?
Currently I have my HD 622 Dish Receiver hooked up component because the HDMI picture is washed out. This seems to be a 622 issue but that does leave me a open HDMI connection. If needed in future I will purchase a HDMI switch. I have a Onkyo 790 hooked up 5.1. My current DVD player is crap.

Thank you.

IMHO, an upconverted 480p image isn't even in the same ballpark of PQ as a true HD-DVD or Blu-ray player. Skip the OPPO.

Then why would someone pay approx. the same price for the OPPO 981 rather than purchase a Toshiba HD A2? I realise that there is a format war going on and I also realise that the Toshiba HD A2 is a "lower end" HD player but we are talking 6 dollars more foe HD. Is it the format war?

The 981HD offers different things than the HD-A2. The 981HD has DVD-Audio, SACD, region-free capability, good PAL playback capability, a lightning-fast layer change, and support for an assortment of audio and video files in addition to very good Faroudja-based video scaling. The HD-A2 has HD-DVD support (albeit with no multichannel analog output, so you'll be getting high-bitrate DTS encoded from the DD+ or TrueHD tracks unless you upgrade to a receiver that supports at least HDMI v1.1) and good video scaling of standard DVD's, but even with the improvements made over the first gen HD-DVD players it is still slow in comparison to a standard DVD player like the 981HD.

I have a feeling that the Oppo offers some of the best upconverting technology out there, and so might have an edge for upconversion over the A2.
And, whether or not you'll actually notice a difference between the two when upconverting is probably debatable.
The other difference is that the Oppo can play SACD, etc. The A2 can't.

So, if you're like me and don't have fancy-pants CDs or stream your music, then I think it makes most sense to get the A2 and watch as much content on HD-DVD as possible. For those movies you have to watch on SD, the A2 will be more than capable of offering an upconverted image.


Mitch