Good progresive DVD player

[Holland]

Iam looking for a good progresive dvd player around $200.
I have a panny 42inch EDTV with HDMI input.
Right now Iam thinking about the oppo player but I heard it has long disc loading times, something I really hate. I heard great things about it upconversion but I dont know how it preforms in 480p, also it only gives 480p thru the HDMI port.
I like all the other things the oppo does, but my main concern is that its quality (also audio) might not up to par with some older 480p only player from denon/sony/pioneer.
Has any one some idea about this? Or can some people comment about the 480p quality? If that is on to par with other 480p players I might be able to live with the long loading times (esp for cd)

Thanks........

[Shane Martin]

If the Oppo is not your bag, the Panasonic S77 is.

[JonMarsh]

I've had an Oppo since they came out in December 2004. Does not have long disk loading times in my opinion, but I haven't put it on a stop watch. It only does upscaling on the DVI port. The DVI port is NOT HDCP protected, so you can use it with any DVI or HDMI capable display. It uses a Faroudja de-interlacing/scaler chip, so the quality with video sourced material is also excellent. But all Faroudja chip players are a little more sensitive about having digital display properly calibrated on levels- otherwise the so-called macrblocking can be visible because miscalibration produces posterization and some stepping in gray scale. I have a CRT FPTV, but it's run through a DVI to RGBHV converter, which has always been a breeze to setup. The Oppo has some of the best setup controls in the biz on a DVD player with the firmware since last June. Brightness on should be about +3, and everything else "stock".

Best $200 I ever spent on a display. I run mine at 1080i scaling setting. Gorgeous picture, even on all those video sourced DVD (TV shows) that give a lot of players de–interlacing fits.

[Holland]

I heard some reviewers complain about the disc loading times. I had a old marantz dvd player which took ages to load a cd, didn't matter because I had a seperate cd player back then, but now I want to use all in one player.
JonMarsh did you try to play dvd's with mp3's on it? Thats something else I would like to do, but not too many dvd players seem to support that.

Also its an upconverter player (as are most these days) since I only need 480p Iam afraid Iam wasting money on something I don't need.

My panasonic EDTV is not callibrated but it gives a fine picture, Iam not sure if macroblocking will be an issue.

[Azeke]

The OPPO OPDV971H was the most highly rated DVD player in a DVD Player Benchmark review.

Overview listed below:

DVI (Digital Video Interface) output to eliminate flickers and to produce more clear pictures

High resolutions include 480p, 540P, 576p, 720p, 1080i
Up Convert from 480i to 720p/1080i
DCDi by Faroudja. Video is analyzed on a single pixel granularity to detect presence or absence of angled lines and edges, which are then processed to produce a smooth natural looking image without visible artifacts (jaggies)
Plays DivX® 5, DivX® 4, DivX® 3, and DivX® VOD video content (in compliance with DivX Certified™ technical requirements)
Plays XviD and .SRT, .SMI, .IDX and .SUB formats
Per-pixel Motion Adaptive De-interlacing
Patented FilmMode Processing C Used for proper de-interlacing of 3:2 and 2:2 pull down material

Functions:
DVD Video, DVD Audio, Divx/MPEG4, Audio CD, HDCD, WMA, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, CD-R/RW, Kodak Picture
Super Error Correction with Twin Laser and Intelligent Laser Wavelength Control
PAL / NTSC discs
Automatic Screensaver
Menu Driven Setup Screen
Playability of self-recorded discs may vary depending on media and formatting software types

Video:
108MHz/12bit Video D/A Converter
DVI Output
NTSC / PAL Output
Screen Aspect Ratio 4:3 and 16:9
Smart Video: Sharpness/Contrast/Brightness/Saturation
Multi-Angled View
Multi-Language for On-Screen-Display

Audio:
192 KHz Sampling Frequency, 24-Bit High Quality Audio DAC
Dolby Digital Down-mixed 2-Ch Stereo (L. R)
Built-in Dolby digital Decoder, Dolby Digital (AC3) 5.1 Channel Output
Built-in DTS Digital Decoder, DTS 5.1 Channel Output
Dolby Digital/DTS/LCPM Bitstream Output
3D Surround (Virtual Surround): Concert, Live, Dance, Techno, Classic, Soft

Power Supply:
~~110V - ~~250V, 50Hz/60Hz AC Universal Power Supply
Automatic Short Circuit Protection

Connectors:
Analog (Mixed 2 Ch) Stereo (Left, Right) Audio
S/PDIF (IEC-958) Coaxial/Optical Digital Audio
Component Video/Composite Video/S-Video
DVI (5' DVI-DVI-D cable included)
Bonus: 6' DVI-HDMI cable
5.1 Channel Audio

The shootout comparison:


DVD Benchmark tests

It gets my vote for a sub $200.00 DVD player, in my humble opinion. I certainly wouldn't be worried about layer changes, which seems to be one of your concerns.

Best regards,

Azeke

[CougarCruiser]

I was thinking about the Pany S77 for use with my new Panasonic 50'' plasma.

Does anyone know if I will have these scaling/macroblocking issues with this setup?

I would be connecting via HDMI -- possibly through a receiver with HDMI switching.

Thoughts?

[Holland]

What I want to know how is the 480p of the oppo compaired with a normal bugdet players 480p picture? I have a EDTV, when I feed it HDTV the picture is very good, I want to get the same picture with my dvd player. Which should be possible since my EDTV resolution is 480p, so HDTV or DVD should look the same. I dont need a upscaling DVD player since then I would be making 2 conversions (1 up 1 down) for nothing.
I like the oppo for the fact it plays a lot of different discs and is region free. Since I am from europe I have a lot of region 2 pal dvd's