I have not but theoretically, an HD DVD would have a full 1080 lines of resolution where as the upconverting units has to interpolate. Judging from today's hidef material, the upconverting units does not produce as high a quality as the broadcast stuff.
I have not but theoretically, an HD DVD would have a full 1080 lines of resolution where as the upconverting units has to interpolate. Judging from today's hidef material, the upconverting units does not produce as high a quality as the broadcast stuff.
so the Oppo has a vga to hdmi converter cable, but then how do you get sound? I thought VGA didn't carry sound and what if you don't have a receiver/speakers and only a TV?
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
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theres no chance it would be close. we're talking 1920x1080i/p vs 720x480. 2million pixels vs 345k pixels, you can't magically upscale that kind of detail. all you get with a player like this is resizing earlier on in the process so your tv doesn't have to fiddle with it as much. most hdtv's dont have 1920x1080pixels either, so they gotta reprocess again.
Yeah, but when I play DVDs on my computer, it upscales to my LCDs resolution (1280x1024) and it looks good to me.
Sure, true HDTV is going to be better but will it be that noticably better than upscaled DVDs for the average person sitting in his couch watching a big screen from across the room?
from what i've read on the AVS forums about the new hd-dvd players, the quality of the players are quite bad. of course this will change with time, but for now I dont think it would hurt to buy an upconverting dvd player and wait for hd/blueray prices to come down
I have the Oppo, and while it is good most of time, epecially for brightly or well lit DVD transfers, where it does indeed approach HD quality, where it performs poorly are dark scenes, or scenes with one predominant color in the background. This is where the Faroudja chip performs poorly, resulting in what I can macro-blocking, which means the image kind of gets these big blocky digital blocks with zero distinction. I've watched plenty of DVDs with my Oppo, and most of the time it doesn't bother me, but certain DVDs look pretty bad, especially poor transfers. So don't expect miracles. I've heard the Sony 75 something is pretty decent.
I connect the optical out of my Oppo to the optical in of my TV. My TV is a little older and doesn't have HDMI, so I'm not sure if newer HDMI TVs have the option of separate optical input for the HDMI port. Many people will connect the optical out directly to their receiver for audio. Possibly you could connect the regular RCA audio to the TV for audio if you don't have the optical input.
The origial poster has a solid point, in that this is not a true HDMI player, just like many older HDTVs don't have HDMI, just DVI. So you have to be careful and make sure you can make the proper connection to get both sound and picture to your particular setup. People with projectors will probably not be bothered by this "crippled" HDMI sans audio, because they will already be using a separate sound system.
Hardly any of them upconvert over anything but HDMI or DVI. The Oppo for instance, only has decent quality going DVI/HDMI. For this particular player, the component output is rumored to be terrible, totally bypassing the Faroudja processor. DVD players that upconvert over component input are limited to a handful, the most famous being the Zenith 318. All the rest, the above included, default to standard progressive 480P output when using component. Obviously the standard 480P quality will vary from player to player. I do know that with my Oppo, I can toggle through the various modes when connected via DVI. While the HD formats look great, the 480P output is decidedly mediocre.
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,795
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dvd software decoders these days tend to be quite sharp, and well pc displays are also sharp. hd does exceed your lcd by almost double. on a small 19" letter boxed lcd screen its less noticable, but still you should notice a bit of softness, on a larger screen its glaring. and well these players are for larger screens after all. and yes even on the couch, never underestimate the eye. just beware of all the "edtv" type hdtvs out there. so many can't actually resolve the full resolution. even the low cost widescreen crt hdtv's..those little wide screens can't, they scan 1080times sure, but their phosphore dots are insufficient..they are coarse and they are few and can't produce the pixels asked.
if you cannot see the difference its either your eyes, your screen being insufficient in quality, or you sitting too far away for the size of your screen. we are marching inevitably towards larger and higer resolution screens, so the need will be there. lcd and plasma displays are getting ever larger and cheaper. heck just 5 years ago you probably would have sh*t yourself to have the lcd you have on your computer right now
videopho
Diamond Member
- Apr 8, 2005
- 4,185
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I have owned the Oppo for more than 2 months now and since then I have gone to a 3rd different dvi cable, the latest from Monoprice, a very well constructed 24awg gauge size that proves worthy, it offers better/sharper pictue quality than any other previous ones. BTW, none of my dvi cables are longer than 3 ft and cost more than $15.00. I also use the Zektor switcher for all of my dvi switching ie.I have a Sammy DirecTV stb besides the Oppo. I also recommend not to use the dvi cable that comes with it, it is pice of junk.
Picture quality of the Oppo is worth more than its price tag of $199.99 when use with proper dvi cable in coupling with good or great dvd movies materials. If you own a plasma (best) or lcd, this playey can do wonder for you, picture quality wise.
Overall I'm quite satisfied with it and quite sure this one will last me thru this year until the new hd-dvd prices and its quality have improved.
Picture quality of the Oppo is worth more than its price tag of $199.99 when use with proper dvi cable in coupling with good or great dvd movies materials. If you own a plasma (best) or lcd, this playey can do wonder for you, picture quality wise.
Overall I'm quite satisfied with it and quite sure this one will last me thru this year until the new hd-dvd prices and its quality have improved.
Nobody is going to "convert" their whole collection to HD DVDs. What will happen is that your favorite movies, the ones you watch over and over, these you will upgrade to HD. The rest, you will probably be completely satisified with the older DVDs. It isn't like high quality DVDs look bad. They look great in my opinion. The quality difference going from DVD to HD-DVD is way less than the jump from VHS to DVD.
I say don't sweat this issue. Just jump into the HD-DVD thing as slow as you want. This isn't even close to the VHS/DVD jump, and not even close to the LP record/Compact Disk jump a few years ago. This is much more incremental. This is where a good upconverting DVD player has a very economical role to play. It will allow you to get the most out of your current collection, for very small up front cost. For my 32" HDTV CRT, the Oppo really gave life to DVDs again. So it isn't just hype, these things really can give you a noticeable gain for little upfront cost.
I say don't sweat this issue. Just jump into the HD-DVD thing as slow as you want. This isn't even close to the VHS/DVD jump, and not even close to the LP record/Compact Disk jump a few years ago. This is much more incremental. This is where a good upconverting DVD player has a very economical role to play. It will allow you to get the most out of your current collection, for very small up front cost. For my 32" HDTV CRT, the Oppo really gave life to DVDs again. So it isn't just hype, these things really can give you a noticeable gain for little upfront cost.
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
- 64,795
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well i wouldn't say the quality difference is less. its just as big if not more of a difference on a display and player capable of resolving hd's full resolution. we are talking 2 million pixels vs 300k! its just that vhs was so very bad. vhs is like a cardboard shack, dvd is like a small house. hddvd is like a mini mansion. you can get by quite comfortably in a small house, but in a card board shack you would be truely miserable.
does anyone here know whether the panny comes with an hdmi cable? i need to buy a switcher and am not sure how many cables i'll need to buy. thanks.
probably what i will do is to get the switch from monoprice plus 2 hdmi cables and i will be good to go...now if i can just get comcast to fix everything i'll be in good shape. we got our lcd installed a week ago and not only don't we have cable tv, but as of yesterday we also don't have internet access at home!
lol, looks like you're getting the full "Comcastic" treatment...
Just a heads up, a new OPPO model came out today , FW has the differences between the two. The newer model is cheaper, $149 and comes with a HDMI cable:
http://www.oppodigital.com/dv970hd/dv970hd.html
Ripped from FW thread:
Q: What are the main differences between the OPPO DV-970HD and OPDV971H DVD players?
A: While both the OPPO DV-970HD and OPDV971H are excellent DVD players with high definition up-conversion, the OPDV971H emphasizes more on the video performance and the DV-970HD emphasizes more on the overall performance and value. The main differences between the two models are:
* The OPDV971H features video processing with "DCDi by Faroudja" technology and video chipset by Genesis/Faroudja; the DV-970HD uses a different chipset and technology for video de-interlacing and up-conversion. While both player produce excellent picture quality and the difference is subtle, the "DCDi by Faroudja" technology is able to handle some tricky video contents. On very large TV or projector screens, the difference could be noticed by experts or videophiles. When benchmarked with contents designed to test video performance, the OPDV971H will score higher than the DV-970HD.
* The OPDV971H has a DVI output for digital video; the DV-970HD has an HDMI output for digital video and audio.
* The DV-970HD supports Super Audio CD (SACD) in addition to DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, Audio CD etc. supported by both players.
* The DV-970HD has a flash memory card reader and USB interface while the OPDV971H does not.
* The OPDV971H front panel has a brushed aluminum finish; the DV-970HD front panel has a reflective mirror finish.
Just a heads up, a new OPPO model came out today , FW has the differences between the two. The newer model is cheaper, $149 and comes with a HDMI cable:
http://www.oppodigital.com/dv970hd/dv970hd.html
Ripped from FW thread:
Q: What are the main differences between the OPPO DV-970HD and OPDV971H DVD players?
A: While both the OPPO DV-970HD and OPDV971H are excellent DVD players with high definition up-conversion, the OPDV971H emphasizes more on the video performance and the DV-970HD emphasizes more on the overall performance and value. The main differences between the two models are:
* The OPDV971H features video processing with "DCDi by Faroudja" technology and video chipset by Genesis/Faroudja; the DV-970HD uses a different chipset and technology for video de-interlacing and up-conversion. While both player produce excellent picture quality and the difference is subtle, the "DCDi by Faroudja" technology is able to handle some tricky video contents. On very large TV or projector screens, the difference could be noticed by experts or videophiles. When benchmarked with contents designed to test video performance, the OPDV971H will score higher than the DV-970HD.
* The OPDV971H has a DVI output for digital video; the DV-970HD has an HDMI output for digital video and audio.
* The DV-970HD supports Super Audio CD (SACD) in addition to DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, Audio CD etc. supported by both players.
* The DV-970HD has a flash memory card reader and USB interface while the OPDV971H does not.
* The OPDV971H front panel has a brushed aluminum finish; the DV-970HD front panel has a reflective mirror finish.
Just want to add that DV-970HD is $50 cheaper, and what is more important it has descrete on/off remote codes. So go for this player and do not look further.
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