Oppo Digital DV-970HD FAQ / Brain dump - Page 2

What an incredible report, Paul!!

I just finished ordering mine and I hope to have it in my sweaty little hands very soon!

I am most interested in its 480i over HDMI performance (of course), as I will be feeding it to my Vantage-HD HQV VP, but from your report it sounds like the deinterlacing/scaling of the 970 is very good (or maybe excellent) in its own right.

The big unknown (to me) bonus is the DVDA/SACD support. This is fantastic, as it will allow me to retire my aging Pioneer 563 player once and for all.

Thanks again for all of your great work!!

I decided to replace my Panasonic S77 with the Oppo 970.

Panasonic S77 had a bug (or feature) where 1080i output is actually 540p line doubled to produce 1080i. You could clearly see the line doubling in the output. I've been told this is the result when one follows the Faroudja reference implementation.

Oppo 970 doesn't suffer from this problem so 1080i output looks significantly better (to me). I'm using a native 1920x1080 panel.

Other than startup, Oppo is just blazing fast on various operations. S77 wasn't really a slouch, but Oppo 970 is noticeably faster.

Also after switching back and forth between Toshiba HD-A1 and Oppo 970, I feel like bicycle vs ferrari. Toshiba is so slow on various operations, but if playback and pause are the majority of your operations it works fine. PQ on Toshiba is obviously more detailed, but if I sit far enough away, the extra details are not as noticeable.

Also Oppo 970 plays back my PAL discs, where S77 refused to, complaining with some error I've since forgotten (known limitation of S77)

The main downside (for me) is the aspect ratio feels slightly off because of the MediaTek shrinking problem, so instead of 16x9 the picture is more like 16x9 squeezed into a 16x8.5 frame. Even on 16:9 movies I get slight black bars on top and bottom. However I've grown used to it and it doesn't bother me as much.

The 970 looks like the BBK 988 that I bought in Hong Kong a few months ago. The only differences that I see is that the 988 has both DVI and HDMi and will upscale over component. I gues that Oppo had to make the changes for the US. I wonder if future firmware updates will work on the BBK 988?

How does the Oppo 970 colors compare to the Toshiba? Which gives a more filmlike image?

Hmmm...Why would the HD-A1 be more detailed?

I assume he was talking about the standard definition upconversion of the HD-A1.
That player does have very good SD capabilities.

Right, , understood, but why would it be more detailed?

I have been waiting for this to happen and am glad to be one of the first to order!

It has a better de-interlacer than the DV970HD. For this reason, you will have a much more defined image (less aliasing), which in turn produces a much more pleasing picture.

Upconversion over component on production models will not be possible with CSS-encrypted DVDs.

Great work as usual Paul. Have you had a chance to run through the HQV disk? It doesn't do well on the Jaggies #1 and 2, but it does a good job on everything else.

Sorry, I should have been more clear, I was comparing to HD-DVD on Toshiba, basically better PQ, but at the expense of player convenience.

Comparing SD upconverted on Toshiba to Oppo 970, I thought the colors on Toshiba looked snappier, but not having run objective tests, I have no idea which one is more "accurate" rather than more pleasant to the eye.

I guess film-like is not a very precise definition. I found the Toshiba upconverted picture more pleasing. The colors were slightly richer and there was more depth to the picture, but I'm sure if I played around with enough settings I could make the two pretty comparable. I wouldn't say either one was way ahead of the other.

I only tested film-based DVDs. I didn't look at video-based stuff, so the answer for video could be different than film.

The oppo digital player is now available in OZ.
Can't wait to get one at xmas.

Hi Paul....I just PM'd you.

Does channel delay work on 5.1 SACDs?

This is a bit disconcerting. We've been reading about picture squeezing on the Sony NS70 and NS90 for months and people were glad to find that the newer NS75 (and NC85) had that problem fixed. Now we're reading about a similar problem on page 2 of the new Oppo 970 thread. The Faroudja-equipped players have one problem, the Mediatek-equipped players have another.

That is good to know. Thanks.

For those who already have the 970, is the face of the player black or silver? There are pictures of both on the images tab. Thanks.


Just found the answer on the FAQ tab,

"The OPDV971H front panel has a brushed aluminum finish; the DV-970HD front panel has a reflective mirror finish."

ordered mine today! should be great to hook up to a DVDO iSCan VP30 and pass 480i/576i via HDMI ...

The same fix that Sony utilized in the NS75S (zooming and stretching to cover the underscan) will likely be used on the DV970HD. There is reason why both have the same error, but I can't go further than saying that.

HDMI 480i output with 16x9 pixel crop pattern

Left 0
Right 0
Top 0
Bottom 1

The MPEG decoder is a tad (technical word ) noiser than the MEI. If you look at the Super Speeday (Film Detail) on the ABT VRS test disc, you will see this in the sky to the right of the bleachers.

So Stacey, have we found the ultimate 480i HDMI player? Or is a Pio 59/79avi still top dog in that respect?

I believe it is better than the Pio players. I still prefer the image from the RP91/82 via SDI. The Oppo is a lot faster in terms of responsivness though.

Good to hear. Can I pester for just a bit further elaboration on the Oppo/Pio differences at 480i HDMI? I have a Pio now, but may need the Oppo soon. Details please!

And cheaper

I have also noticed that the OPPO DV-970HD is very similar to the BBK 988 DVD player I bought in Hong Kong two weeks ago, except the remote looks different. Also, the DV-970HD has DVD-audio capability, while the BBK 988 can play VCD, SVCD, MPEG4 and MP3 discs. I wonder if each can be easily programmed to have all these capabilities.

The BBK 988 can play DVDs from all regions straight out of the box, without the need for any re-programming. Is the OPPO DV-970HD also region free straight out of the box? If not, has anyone figured out yet how to make it region free?

I have played with the BBK 988 for two weeks now. The biggest plus for me is now I can play Region 2 PAL DVDs with an upconverting player through HDMI. I am very pleased with the video quality, which I consider to be slightly better than what I get from the Zenith 318 DVD player with component output.

Yes, they are basically the samething, except that the DV970HD does not have the DVI output, and is HDCP compliant (which the Chinese player is not concerned with at all, so you do not have any component based upconversion limitations).


The DV970HD supports the same features. Check the specifications again (MP3 is not listed, but it works).


OPPO complies with region coding, so it is R1 locked. However, the same code which worked for the OPDV971H, works for the DV970HD (Setup->9210->0->Setup).