OPPO OPDV971H Digital HD-Ready Up-Converting DVD Player
Almost perfect
The OPDV971H is almost the perfect DVD player. It's picture using the DVI connector is fantastic and the available adjustments are more than adequate to match the video output to whatever display technology one may be using. On the whole I'm very satisfied with this player.<br /><br />That being said, I have two issues with this player. The first is that there is no picture adjustment for the analog output. If the chosen display technology needs the analog output, this is not a good choice of player for that combination.<br /><br />My second and, in my opinion, larger concern is with the audio/video synchronization. Simply put, this player loses sync sometimes. Hitting 'stop' and 'play' resynchs the audio with the video, but this is annoying and, in my opinion, not something I would expect from a mid-range player.<br /><br />According to the Oppo website FAQ, the audio synchronization problem is due to \\"video buffering\\" and poor dvd mastering. I suspect it's really a bug in their firmware. I've had two DVD players before this, one for which I paid $150 and one $60. Neither had any problem with audio synchronization.<br /><br />Incidentally, I notice that the desynchronization problem occurs much more frequently while tweaking player settings so it would probably be a good idea to stay out of the menus while a video is playing.<br /><br />UPDATE: Oppo supplied a firmware upgrade that fixed the audio/video synchronization problem.