OPPO Digital Presents: DV-980H (1080p, SACD DSD, 7.1 Surround, USB 2.0) - Page 205

Originally Posted by Neuromancer

The DV-980H uses a different decoder solution has its own SACD DSD problem: a thump when inserting a SACD or switching to a different audio stream (such as a 44.1KHz PCM stream from a CD).

The only similarities is that these are both OPPO products and both use MediaTek (MTK) decoder solutions.

Originally Posted by Neuromancer

Only happens with SACD set to DSD. This means HDMI only.

Originally Posted by fatherom

As many of you know, I own a BDP-83 but am experiencing the click/pop between SACD tracks. As far as I've learned (thanks Saturn!), the 980H doesn't seem to have this problem.

Is this the best option, in your opinion, for picking up an SACD player that does DSD and PCM over HDMI? I also want something that is quiet physically...minimal fan noise and transport noise.

Just wanted to get some other options, or to affirm that the 980H is the way to go.

Originally Posted by fatherom

As many of you know, I own a BDP-83 but am experiencing the click/pop between SACD tracks. As far as I've learned (thanks Saturn!), the 980H doesn't seem to have this problem.

Is this the best option, in your opinion, for picking up an SACD player that does DSD and PCM over HDMI? I also want something that is quiet physically...minimal fan noise and transport noise.

Just wanted to get some other options, or to affirm that the 980H is the way to go.

Originally Posted by Mitch57

As you probably know by now I'm also a Oppo BDP-83 owner and am experiencing the pops and clicks between tracks on SACDs and have posted my findings in several other threads here. I am also a long time Oppo 980H owner.

IMO the 83 is a far superior machine. However the SACD playback issue is a let down, so to speak, for those of us like me who only listen to SACDs and DVD-A albums. I rarely play CDs or other digital media on my players so this bug is of real concern to me as well.

That being said the 980H is still a great universal player. I've had no problems with it playing any SACD or DVD-A. But it's transport is far noisier than the 83's transport. Plus it's much slower to power up and eject than the 83. But other then that I think it's a great SACD/DVD-A player. That's why I decided to keep it when I bought the 83 just in case there were issues with the 83 which we all know there are.

Let's hope they can resolve the issues with 83 soon. If not I wouldn't hesitate getting a 980H.

Originally Posted by fatherom

Thanks for the info...one of these days, I may pick up a 980H.

Could you describe the transport noise you mentioned? Is it just during open/close/loading or is the transport noisy during SACD playback, in your opinion?

Originally Posted by Mitch57

.......
IMO the 83 is a far superior machine.........QUOTE]

Strictly in terms of AQ for SACD and DVD-A, would the above statement still be true?

Originally Posted by Saturn94


That would be a subjective opinion. But to me... Yes. However, used as a digital transport via HDMI I'm not sure there would be a noticeable difference if any. But via analog there is definitely a noticeable difference.

Originally Posted by Mitch57

.......
IMO the 83 is a far superior machine.........QUOTE]

Strictly in terms of AQ for SACD and DVD-A, would the above statement still be true?

Originally Posted by Saturn94

...Also the 980 will bitstream DSD....

Originally Posted by Jim Hef

As will the -83. Unfortunately, I took the 980 out of the system when I replaced it with the -83, and didn't do an A-B of the two. I would suspect that DSD is DSD, or bitsteam is bitstream, through either player.

Originally Posted by Neuromancer

It's because the quotes were originally done incorrectly on post 6129.

Additional commentators were pulling from this, which eventually led to incorrect quotes being issued.

Originally Posted by Smarty-pants

Having the volume set to 20 should not distort the audio, and in fact it is recommended to leave the volume at 20 since tuning it down will actually compress the audio.

Originally Posted by Saturn94

Thank you for responding.

LOL...... I got an e-mail from Oppo also asking what happens if I turn the Center back to ON then OFF. The answer is there is no change in behavior. I did try disconnecting cables and whatever cables remained connected were passing a signal, again, no matter what the speaker settings.

After further testing, it's apparent that this title completely ignores all the speaker settings in the 980H. Even if I set ALL the speakers to OFF, except the L&R channels which cannot be set to OFF, I still get sound from all speakers and sub. BTW, for testing purposes I made sure my processor (Anthem AVM20) was set to "ANALOG DIRECT" for the multichannel inputs so that no processing was going on there. Between this and cable connecting/disconnecting, I have ruled out that the processor is doing anything to cause this behavior. It's clear the 980H is sending a signal out all 5.1 analog connectors. Besides, it's only on this disc that this strange behavior happens. My other DVD Audio/SACD titles do not exhibit this behavior. I must admit that my collection is small right now as I have only recently been buying DVD-A/SACD titles.

This behavior only happens when I play the DVD Audio track on this particular disc. The other tracks (DTS, PCM) play as they should according to the 980H's speaker settings. I tried a couple other DVD Audio titles as well and they work properly, even when the DVD Audio track is selected.

Another problem I've had with the "Blue Man Group, The Complex" title is menu navigation. All the menu options (audio tracks, features, etc) are on the main page. When you try to move the "cursor", the movement does not correlate with the direction selected. For instance, I may try to move the cursor up by pressing the up arrow on the remote, but the cursor may move down, sideways, or not at all. I haven't been able to figure out a pattern and trying to select a particular audio track or feature becomes an exercise in random button pushing until you finally land on the place you want.

I tested this disc in my Pioneer 51, and the menu works normally. However, as you know the 51 lacks DVD Audio abilities so I could not test that audio track to see what would happen on the 51.

Oppo has asked me if I would send them the disc, but as I told them, I am very reluctant to do so as it was difficult to locate an affordable new copy (or any copy; it seems this title has been discontinued) and I do not want to risk damage/loss in transit. I've ask them if they could obtain another copy by other means. Hopefull they can and see what is going on.

I also told them I would also appeal to my fellow AVS members for help as there must be some Oppo owners who are also Blue Man Group fans.

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

EDIT: Would it be inappropriate for me to post in other Oppo threads to try to find another owner with the DVD Audio title in question? I'm interested in whether this problem is unique to the 980H or if it occurs on other Oppo players (DVD or BD players). It doesn't seem like many owners visit the DVD section anymore much less this thread.

Originally Posted by Saturn94

Judging from the lack of response, it seems interest in this bug is limited. However, just in case anyone reading but not posting is interested in the status of this bug I'm posting the latest e-mail I received from Oppo.

"We received the disc and tested it. Indeed it is strange that the center channel cannot be turned off for this disc. It might be related to an unusual channel layout used by this disc. We often see DVD-A discs splitting the channels to Group 1(Lf-Rf-Ls-Rs) and Group 2(C-LFE) but this disc uses Group1 (Lf-Rf) and Group 2(C-LFE-Ls-Rs). However we are not certain this is the cause. We are forwarding the disc to our decoder chip maker for further study.

The navigation issue is highly likely a disc authoring problem. We tested on a Denon DVD-A player and the DVD-A menu behaved the same way as on the OPPO player. The user's Pioneer BD player does not access the same DVD-A menu, but the DVD-V menu on a different section of the disc. When we set the DV-980H's "DVD-Audio Mode" to "DVD-Video", the DV-980H can also properly navigate the DVD-V menu on the disc. The problem is limited to the DVD-A menu on the disc."

I'm glad to see they are interested in fixing this and not just sweeping it under the rug.

"We received the disc and tested it. Indeed it is strange that the center channel cannot be turned off for this disc. It might be related to an unusual channel layout used by this disc. We often see DVD-A discs splitting the channels to Group 1(Lf-Rf-Ls-Rs) and Group 2(C-LFE) but this disc uses Group1 (Lf-Rf) and Group 2(C-LFE-Ls-Rs). However we are not certain this is the cause. We are forwarding the disc to our decoder chip maker for further study.

Originally Posted by Neuromancer

You are assuming people who do phantom centers are also people who have the same taste in DVD-Audio titles that you. That is a lot of assumptions.

As a Beta Tester I test the player to my conditions, which is why I would never find any playback errors related to phantom audio.

Originally Posted by rdgrimes

There are virtually no guidelines being followed in DVD-A authoring. Some studios and even some individual releases do pretty much whatever they like and the result is one-off playback issues in specific systems or setups. It should not be viewed as a player bug, but as buggy authoring.

Given it's a dead format, don't be expecting much in the way of support from the decoder maker.

Originally Posted by Saturn94

I guess my lack of understanding the technical aspects of how DVD-A works comes into play here. It surprised me that a disc could overide a players speaker settings. I thought the process of redirecting channel information came after the decoding of the information on the DVD-A. Apparently it is a bit more complicated than that.

Originally Posted by rdgrimes

Multichannel DVD-A streams are actually 2 separate streams that get stuck back together. The only decoding going on is unpacking the MLP to PCM.

But there are also 2 layers of DRM, one of which is player-based, plus navigation schemes that defy all logic. Some DVD-A do in fact use instructions telling the player how to down-mix. During beta testing of the BDP-83, Oppo had to make patches and fixes for literally dozens of one-off disc playback issues and in the process they bought almost every DVD-A there is.
Many of those same titles had more than one playback issue.

By comparison, SACD is a cake-walk.

Originally Posted by kjbawc

Could be a dirty laser lens. You might try a cleaner disc, if you have one. Also, possibly a dirty spindle.