I have my Oppo 971 connected to my Samsung HLR5078W via the Oppo provided DVI -> HDMI cable.

Using this setup - I get terrible ghosting of the blacks. See the pics below - it occurs on the Oppo screen saver and with black scenes in any movie. I can see each position the Oppo logo appeared, I should only see the current position :)

With the player connected via the component output I don't have any problems (the picture looks MUCH better). I have too many other component only devices so I would like to be able to connect the DVD player via HDMI.

I can't figure out if it is a problem with the TV's HDMI inputs (this is the only device I have with HDMI output) or a problem with the DVD player. I would guess its a problem with the TV, but am unsure.

Any ideas? I have tried all sorts of settings on the DVD player with no luck at changing the problem.

Also - the Oppo has firmware MVer: 05.00.01.07 Batch: F-0302. I tried upgrading the firmware today, but wasn't successful (I got a checksum fail error, even though the disc/data is good per Oppo's website).

I have my Oppo 971 connected to my Samsung HLR5078W via the Oppo provided DVI -> HDMI cable.

Using this setup - I get terrible ghosting of the blacks. See the pics below - it occurs on the Oppo screen saver and with black scenes in any movie. I can see each position the Oppo logo appeared, I should only see the current position :)

With the player connected via the component output I don't have any problems (the picture looks MUCH better). I have too many other component only devices so I would like to be able to connect the DVD player via HDMI.

I can't figure out if it is a problem with the TV's HDMI inputs (this is the only device I have with HDMI output) or a problem with the DVD player. I would guess its a problem with the TV, but am unsure.

Any ideas? I have tried all sorts of settings on the DVD player with no luck at changing the problem.

Also - the Oppo has firmware MVer: 05.00.01.07 Batch: F-0302. I tried upgrading the firmware today, but wasn't successful (I got a checksum fail error, even though the disc/data is good per Oppo's website).

I wouldn't judge anything by the menu or screen saver displays; they're always kind of funny. But you say you see this during movies and I believe you.

Faroudja-chip players like the 971 often cause macroblocking in DLP, but that does not look like what is happening here.

Do you have any of the video controls on the player turned up: noise reduction or sharpness, for example? That can cause artifacts and you might try turning them off. I believe there is a bug such that noise reduction is not really off unless Tru-Life is On.

Component on the 971 does not use the Faroudja chip (or any of the video controls that I know of) which is a sign that some feature of the chip is causing the problem.

-Bill

Thanks for your help...

I tried the following settings:

Sharpness: Off
Brightness: 00
Contrast: 00
Saturation: 00
TrueLife: On
CCS: Off
Noise Reduction: Off

Still have the problem. I took a couple pics from the Bourne Ultimatum as a reference actual video and compared the same scene component vs. HDMI (plus one Universal opening scene with HDMI that looks horrible).

The other weird thing - is that there seems to be a problem outside the true aspect ratio of the video. For instance, in the screen comparison below, the video is 2.35:1 so there are suppose to be black bars on the top/bottom of the picture, but you can see this 'ghosting' effect on the HDMI input, above/below the picture.

Thanks for your help...

I tried the following settings:

Sharpness: Off
Brightness: 00
Contrast: 00
Saturation: 00
TrueLife: On
CCS: Off
Noise Reduction: Off

Still have the problem. I took a couple pics from the Bourne Ultimatum as a reference actual video and compared the same scene component vs. HDMI (plus one Universal opening scene with HDMI that looks horrible).

The other weird thing - is that there seems to be a problem outside the true aspect ratio of the video. For instance, in the screen comparison below, the video is 2.35:1 so there are suppose to be black bars on the top/bottom of the picture, but you can see this 'ghosting' effect on the HDMI input, above/below the picture.

Maybe macroblocking is the problem. That's more severe than I've seen, but I've never had a DLP and so don't know it's characteristics.

Does following this procedure make any difference: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7270763&&#post7270763

-Bill

Thanks Bill,

I'll give those posts a more thorough read and try calibrating my display to see if that helps.

I have a 46" Samsung DLP and I get ghosting on most scenes involving anything black when a device is hooked up via HDMI. IMO I think it's just a problem that most DLP sets have when it comes to an HDMI connection. Component and VGA connections don't ghost at all, but when it's HDMI, yeah it's bad sometimes. It's a bit distracting.

I wish I knew of a solution.