OPPO OPDV971H Digital HD-Ready Up-Converting DVD Player
Stunning & Undiscovered
OPPO Digital appears to be a company that chooses to do a few things but doing it well.  This OPPO DVD player is a shining example of this focus.    How did I hear about the OPPO 971H upconverting DVD player? At a movie party, at a professional photographer's home. He had installed 3 OPPOs in his house: one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and one in the basement. Then I read about the rave reviews, not only by pros but also by actual users. The amount of word of mouth out there was amazing. You can just google it. Of course, they were always exceptions, like the gentleman below who rated OPPO an unworthy \\"1\\" star.  Even reading this \\"1\\" star review, you could feel Eric Wyse liked the people at OPPO. It might be his particular device and OPPO that did not work out, which can always happen when it comes to compatibility.      Now to the OPPO player itself. I found the OPPO 971H an excellent match to my Samsung DLP. After testing both the Samsung HD950 and OPPO, I chose the OPPO. As a Samsung DLP owner, my first preference, naturally, was to use a Samsung DVD player. You could assume a Samsung upconverting DVD player would work best with the Samsung display. Not the case with the HD950. The picture image seemed to be very muddy no matter how I tuned the player and the display. Using the professional test discs such as Avia and Video Essential, I found that the HD950 failed to pass Blacker than black. It could not memorize the settings, which was a pain in the neck. The poor PQ was the deal breaker for me.     The OPPO, on the other hand, offers STUNNING picture quality, at both 720P and 1080i. The images are smooth, clean, and sharp. Quite simply, it is technical sound, passing all the deinterlacing tests on the test discs. I see no jaggies that came up with the Samsung player. I believe this is due to the Faroudja chip on board.  Watching big animation DVDs such as The Incredibles is such an enjoyment, as if we were in the movie theater. I did not experience the Audio Sync problem reported by Eric Wyse. I guess the issue must be display dependent.      I only wish that the OPPO also supports Divx 6.0.    At $200, the OPPO is everything and more than expected. Am I an OPPO fan? You bet. Should you try OPPO? You make the call.