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 January 1, 2007Oppo Digital DV-981HD DVD Player
To refresh your memory: Oppo started with the OPDV971H, a brilliantly simple little DVD player that took a digital signal straight off the DVD and sent it at 480p, via DVI-D, to your display. While the OPDV971H was capable of upscaling the DVD signal to 720p or 1080i, that was necessary only with a poorly designed display. The player’s main virtue was that it preserved a pristine digital signal, bypassing all those nasty digital-to-analog-to-digital conversions necessary with component outputs. It even played DVD-Audio discs, and could be tricked into playing discs from any region in the world. And it sold for just $199. Oppo was able to cram all this quality into such an inexpensive product because the company’s owner -- a huge Chinese corporation -- was willing to keep prices down while they made their name in the marketplace. While I loved the OPDV971H, I secretly thought that Oppo might follow the lead of such firms as NAD and Meridian: begin at the low end of the market, then move upscale when folks realize how good your products are. I was wrong. Oppo’s next product, the DV-970HD, cost only $149. Roger Kanno reviewed it on Home Theater & Sound and said: "The purchase price of the Oppo DV-970HD represents less than 1% of the total value of my system, and only 50% of the cost of the power cord I plug it in with. Yet its performance is commensurate with that of the other components in my system. Don’t let its paltry price and unassuming looks fool you -- the Oppo DV-970HD is a killer!" The DV-970HD actually offered a few advantages over its predecessor, most important of which was HDMI instead of DVI output. It could also put out a pure 480i signal, which made it the budget DVD player of choice for someone using a high-end video processor with HDMI, such as a DVDO or Crystalio. For those lucky few, the DV-970HD offered a true, simple digital transport. The only drawback was for folks who would normally use the 480p, 720p, or 1080i output. Cutting the cost by 25% meant something had to go, and what went was the deinterlacing by DCD-I (Faroudja) and the scaling by Genesis-Faroudja. What was left still constituted a darn good system, all on one integrated chip -- and Oppo added amazingly good SACD playback. All in all, another home run for Oppo. What next? About four months ago, we began to hear rumors of the DV-981HD. It’s finally arrived, and I’m so excited about it that I wanted to get the word to you ASAP. The DV-981HD offers the same Faroudja chips as the OPDV971H, but it also has HDMI instead of DVI, and SACD playback, all for the aforementioned price of $229. One change is merely cosmetic, but I love it. The new player comes with a black, brushed-aluminum finish that I think looks a lot fancier than the other Oppo players. The DV-981HD loses the earlier models’ component-video outputs, but picks up the ability to output a 1080p signal to those of you who have 1920x1080 digital displays. (By the way, most projectors or flat panels of that resolution available today already have pretty good scalers and deinterlacers, and display everything in progressive mode anyway.) The only folks who really benefit from the addition of 1080p will be those few who still have CRTs, and anyone with one of those beasts that’s capable of showing 1080p should have invested in a premium processor long ago. And for them, the DV-970HD is a better choice anyway. For the rest of the world, contentedly using their digital displays, the DV-981HD immediately jumps to the forefront of DVD players, especially if you consider its ratio of performance to price. First impressions are important, and the DV-981HD made a good one on me right out of the box. It’s packed with the same level of care and packaging you expect from a high-end company like Classé or Ayre. It’s also neat, tidy, and virtually impervious to the rough-and-tumble delivery services we’ve all become used to. Connecting it was simple: HDMI to HDMI, plug in the power, and that’s it. Any additional complexity is up to you. Those interested in playing SACDs and/or DVD-As will need to make the 5.1-channel analog connections as well. The other outputs are coaxial and optical digital, downmixed stereo RCA, and composite and S-video. I used the coaxial digital to feed Zone 2 of my processor. And if you’re one of the lucky few whose processor or receiver will accept SACD and DVD-A via HDMI, the DV-981HD is one of the first players to offer you that signal -- finally, directly, and in a digital state. For analog users, there are EQ, channel trim, and channel delay. As much of a hassle as it would be, there are enough trims available that you could conceivably run a signal straight into a multichannel power amp. The DV-981HD’s 24-bit/192kHz, high-resolution, audio D/A converters make that a more interesting idea than you might think. Hook it up to an Outlaw 7075 ($699), and this DVD player would be pretty tasty. Of course, a spate of new receivers and processors are coming out that will accept all sources over HDMI. If we had this five years ago, SACD and DVD-A -- and maybe DVD-V -- wouldn’t be moribund. One big surprise: The DV-981HD comes with a full set of good-quality cables. Now, I’m not sure the analog cables would live up to the expectations of our sister publication, Ultra Audio, but they sure make life simple -- and they’re free. Even better is the HDMI-certified, 6’, gold-tipped HDMI cable, which would fly at Ultra Audio. It’s a high-quality cable, and when HDMI’s labs certify something, that’s as good as gold -- on an electrical basis, you can’t get any better. If you’ve priced an HDMI cable from Monster or AudioQuest lately, you’ll appreciate this freebie. Setting up the DV-981HD was straightforward. You hardly need glance at the manual, but go ahead and use it -- you’ll find interesting little tidbits, such as how to set the sound so you can get all those highly protected digits over the HDMI cable (set Audio to Raw). Even a technophobe should be able to successfully install and set up a DV-981HD in under 30 minutes. If time is money, then Oppo saves you a bundle. The DV-981HD’s picture was among the best I’ve seen in my home theater. Last night we watched a high-definition feed from HDNet, one of the better-looking HD feeds available. When we switched to the DV-981HD to watch V for Vendetta, there was no letdown in beauty of image. While real HD isn’t available from a standard-def DVD, no matter the level at which I set the DV-981HD’s resolution, the picture was so clean and relaxing to the eyes that I didn’t feel like a second-class citizen. I ran the DV-981HD through several torture tests and couldn’t trip it up. The flag scene on Video Essentials came through without jaggies. Chapter 10 of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me looked great, despite its many pans across the vertical balusters on the railing, horizontal lines flashing in the background. The real eye-opener was how well the whole system looked using the HDMI output. I had an OPDV971H handy, and tried the two in a head-to-head competition, and thought the differences were subtle. Both players use the same chipset, so I have to attribute any improvement to HDMI. The main advance was in the picture’s perceived depth, something directly attributable to improved shadow detail and an ever-so-slight enrichment of colors. Well-recorded DVDs, such as Boz Scaggs Live and Mission: Impossible III, looked just a bit more real, a bit more photographic, and were a bit easier on the eye using the DV-981HD.
Music is another area where the Oppo shone. Whether playing SACDs, DVD-As, or used as a simple CD transport, its sound was as good as that of some multi-thousand-dollar machines of just a few years ago. I didn’t have a processor on hand that would accept a DVD-A or SACD signal through the HDMI input, but given the DV-981HD’s performance as a CD transport, my bet is it will be a giant-killer. Using the analog 5.1-channel outputs offered a clear, clean sound with good bass and a low noise floor. Comparing Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue on CD, DVD-A, and SACD showed a clear signal -- none had quite the depth of my "six-eye" Columbia LP, but none of the silver discs had any surface noise, either. In almost every case, the best sound came from the SACD. And thank you, Oppo, for retaining the ability to hack around the Region Code. Just press Setup on the remote control to access the Setup page, then hit 9210. A hidden service menu pops up. Hit "0", then Setup to exit. You now have an all-region player. The worlds of Asian and European cinema have become your oyster. I wonder how long Oppo can keep crashing the price/performance barriers. That any company can stay this close to the bottom of the price pyramid while offering performance at or near the top of the quality pyramid is nothing short of astonishing. Did I mention that they offer a 30-day, money-back guarantee? Not even a restocking fee. They must be confident in their products. If you’ve ever spent more than $230 on cables, or power conditioners, or super-secret solutions to improve the conductivity of your inputs (my hand is up), rush to Oppo’s website and order a DV-981HD. At the price they’re asking, it’s almost an impulse buy. And prepare to be amazed. …Wes Marshall Oppo Digital DV-981HD DVD Player Oppo Digital, Inc. E-mail: service@oppodigital.com
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