Official OPPO DV-983H w/ ABT VRS FAQ/Dump - Page 116

Not a stupid question at all. It's a great question and one that can easily be answered by the enthusiasts on this board. People really need to see it to understand.

The original question was related to spending $400 on a DVD player when you can get a PS3 that plays Blu-ray for the same price. Well, first the 983 produces an phenomenal image with DVD. So, the $400 instantly improves your viewing experience without needing to purchase a whole new collection to benefit. Sure the PS3 is not a bad DVD player, but it does not touch the 983. On top of image quality the OPPO is region free, does some nice stretching of non-anamorphic titles and plays SACD/DVD-A. There are a lot of people that appreciate that over the game playing capabilities of the PS3. There are also a lot of people like me who will get the 983 for DVD and the PS3 for Blu-ray.

Also someone could give us some opinion on Oppo 983H working with Samsungs Series 6 LCD (LN46A650 or similar). My Oppo is also on its way.


By the way, could someone here (Bill, Gary, Neuro maybe) do a resume on the issues are still left to be solved by Oppo. I read some about subtitles and other about the wrong display that menu button usually fixes. But a proper list done by you experts may be usefull, for us and for the Oppo Techies.

Mantas.
(Remember me? Pal N/M/B topic a couple of months ago?. I will see for myself when machine finally arrived)

I have a PS3 for Blu-ray, and ordered the Oppo 983H. The SACD/DVD-A audio playback was important for me as well, in addition to the improved video performance over the PS3.

My Oppo is hooked into a 52" Samsung Series 6 (the A656, the European equivalent to the A650), and it is absolutely fantastic. You are going to love it.

I also have a PS3 along with the 983. I recently did a pretty thorough comparison of Batman Begins and Starship Troopers in both SD DVD and in Blu-Ray.

To make a long story short, the BD discs clearly make the superior image in specific scenes. Most notably in Batman Begins at the beginning of the film during the mountain sequences. The added detail was really apparent to me. The same is true for the space battles involving the Roger Young in Starship Troopers. The level of detail on the ships is vastly greater in BD. Having said that, however, I have to add that my wife, who is also a serious film buff, could barely tell the difference until I pointed it out to her.

On the other hand, comparing the SD DVD performance of the PS3 vs. the 983 is absolutely no contest. The 983 set at 1080p just simply blows the PS3 image away! Even my wife was stunned at the difference. If you have a large SD DVD collection, then the 983 is a must-have player...

-Toonces

I have a Samsung LN-T4671. Combined with the 983H it's absolutely amazing! My brother-in-law who has an older 50" Panny plasma (forgot which model) and a PS3 "congratulated" me for getting Blu-ray when he was over a few weeks ago -- we were watching Silverado & Starship Troopers, great demos for showing off virtually any system. I had to show him the actual DVD before he believed we were watching non-BD material. Go figure...

As for subtitles, I watch tons of foreign flicks and have yet to run into any of the problems with the 983 described here. A few examples have been "1900 (Novecento", "All About My Mother", "The Best of Youth" -- you get the drift. Flawless with no menu tweaks.

Enjoy your Oppo and report back with your own feedback.

Geez guys, stop it!

Beforehand, I would have appreciated the info to help me make a purchasing decision.

Now you're just making the wait until my 983 arrives more-agonizing!

PS: Is there no market for my Panasonic RP-82? I would've thought they'd have SOME resale value, but one was listed on eBay recently (not by me) starting at $50 and didn't get any bids. So now I don't know what to do with mine.

RP-82 was one of the best 480p players ever. Do you have a bedroom TV or someplace else to put it?

Having a set of "senior ears".and about a 30% hearing loss in one ear..I rely on subtitles to enjoy my movie watching experience to the fullest....Those little straight,thin lines that crop up from time to time,do not,in any way,detract
from my getting the ultimate experience...They are very intermittent and sometimes do not pop up at all....
In short,I would rather deal with this very minor nuance than owning ANY other upscaling player that is currently on the market......At any price...
This player is simply amazing .."wart(which,IMO,are trivial) and all!

Nope. I live by myself. One fully decked-out movie-watching room is plenty.

I worry that eBay might not be the best place to try and offload it. Would your average eBayer even realize what they're getting?

Would love to get a few bucks for it to offload the sting of the 983. Breaks my heart to have it gathering dust. I even upgraded the firmware.

Just to add to the chorus of applause for the 983, I just watched a recent release on Region 1 DVD of The Cruel Sea, a British B&W 4:3 1953 film about the "Battle of the Atlantic" in WW II. Gripping in its realism. (I have read that it is still shown at Dartmouth College maybe on video tape - where it gets initial hoots and howls from the students as archaic - until the story grabs them and the room goes silent.)

Anyway, you know where I'm going. The film used for the DVD apparently was in excellent shape as the transfer seems flawless. And the 983 brings this gem to life superbly.

I hope Dartmouth gets a 983.

Dana

Maybe a nursing home or senior center could use it. It would get appreciated - and you might be able to take a tax deduction equal to its real worth. (I hasten to add - consult your tax adviser.)

Dana

There's a lot of very savvy and experienced people lurking on eBay looking for vintage and high-end equipment. Question is whether there's much of a market for used players at all. But you can list it with a reserve price and take it off if it doesn't sell. Points for presenting it with original box/packing, manuals, etc. SELL it!

You could try videogon or audiogon.

congrats

the oppo looks great on my 150. Clearly not HD looking (and not "near HD"), but the best SD upconversion I've seen.

Well I've had my 983 for 5 days now and I am very happy, I don't have my Plasma yet so can't take advantage of the superior image, but that will be soon hopefully.

Audio quality is great for DVD-Audio and SACD, definite improvement over my Yamaha DVD-S1500, functionality is also excellent and much better than the Yamaha, I like you can turn Pro-Logic on or off in the menu on the Yamaha it was linked to the analogue outs if you had it set to 5.1, pro-logic was auto engaged for all stereo sources the speaker settings are also much better the Yamaha was quirky in that regard.

Layer change is flawless I have yet to notice it on any DVD, and some of the one's I have tried were quite bad on the Yamaha (1/2 sec to change).

Also the drive is so quiet some DVD's that were rather noisy on the Yamaha are dead quiet on the OPPO I had to turn the volume off and put my ear next to the player to be able to hear it working.

I have only tried the USB functionality a little bit but it has worked very good so far with an 8gb USB drive, I like how it can read .vob's from USB a very handy feature for me as I do some authoring of concert DVD's

One thing I was wondering as it has a fixed crossover point for bass management, what is the crossover point applied by the 983 when speakers are set to small?
I know I have read it previously somewhere in this thread and have searched though pages but can not find it.
Also would it be possible for OPPO to add a adjustable crossover to bass management in a future firmware upgrade?

Yes I have this problem using S-video for the output to a 4:3 TV where Anamorphic Widescreen DVD's would display in incorrect AR, a DVD with 16:9 AR would display as full screen 4:3 and DVD's with 2.35:1 AR would display in approx 16:9 AR on the 4:3 TV with the output on the 983 set to "4:3 Letterbox" however I have found a work around that seems to work for about 75% of the DVD's I have tried.

When playing a DVD I went into the "General setup page" selected the "TV Display" and changed it from "4:3 Letterbox" to "4:3 Pan/Scan" and the image changed to it's correct 16:9 AR, even though the "TV setting" was now set to "4:3 Pan/Scan", I then skipped forward a chapter and it went back to fullscreen image, so I went back into the menu and changed the setting back from "4:3 Pan/Scan" to "4:3 Letterbox" and it was back to it's correct 16:9 AR. I also stopped and resumed playback and the same happened the image reverted back to fullscreen, I reset it back to it's correct 16:9 AR by changing the "TV setting" back to "4:3 Pan/Scan". I then paused playback and resumed from pause and it retained the correct AR ratio when using the pause function.
So it does not seem to matter if you have it set to "4:3 Letterbox" or "4:3 Pan/Scan" but you need to switch from one to the other to get the correct AR.

The workaround also works for DVD's with a 2.35:1 that incorrectly display in 16:9 AR to enable them to be displayed in the correct 2.35:1 AR.

However as noted it only seems to work with about 75% of the DVD's that I have tried.

I also have a PS3 and the 983. Agree with Toonces. The 983 stomps the PS3 in upconverting SD DVD. I have a 971 also and the contest there was fairly close. Spent hours back when comparing the two. Pretty much a toss-up.

Did not even bother comparing the PS3 with he 983. The difference is too obvious to waste the time.

With a collection of at least 800 DVD's I am enjoying titles, and seeing details that I had not seen before. No longer bothered by a lack of BD titles worth putting in the Netflix queue.

With a 133" screen and the 983 SD DVD will live on.

Joe

Hmm.. if the 983 vs. 971 was a 'toss up', it doesn't really convince me that a 980 to 983 upgrade is really worth it...

Do others feel that the 983 in comparison to their previous players is that close?

Depends on your display, resolution, setting, screen size, ect... ect... ect...
Fact of the matter is that the 983 is the best sd dvd player on the market. It will beat out any other player with $1000 of it's price point. A lot of the different criteria I mentioned above will determine how much better picture quality you will see.

That's not what he said...He was comparing the 971 to the PS3 as a toss-up. The 983 vs. the 971 is not a toss-up. For me the difference was very noticeable.

-Toonces

Cool..

Panny AE900U (LCD) @ 720p onto a 92" Carada 'classic white' screen. Viewing distance approx. 12 ft, completely dark room.

Have a 980H now, and it does OK.

Since I have ~450-disc SD collection I'll 'upgrade' if it's worth it..

Ah, gotcha. Misinterpretation then. My bad. That's good news for me then, pondering the 983 as an upgrade to the 980.

Thanks for clarifying.

Yes as noted in my post all functions except the "pause" button cause it to revert back to the incorrect AR.

Unfortunately this is my only option until I get my new Plasma.

Okay...I will probably get slammed or this.....But after hooking up my 983 to my newly acquired Elite 150fd..... and viewing the results there from.... My wife and I vowed to purchase select Hi def discs only....and be truly selective in that ...and take it from me...she is not nearly as affected by the PQ virus as I..
The upscaling is fantastic....It's a match made in"picture-quality Slut"heaven!
I will save my comments as far as HD PQ and SD PQ for another forum..But you might venture a guess as to what that might be
Sufficeth to say that the deal I got on this TV as a floor sample,coupled with the OPPO,is the best electronic marriage money I've ever spent!!

Glad you are enjoying it (I sent you a PM)

John