Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Oppo DV-983H on the way...

Well,

After about a year of my Denon DVD-2930ci slowly dying (tracking issues on many discs), I got the okay from the boss for a new DVD player. I ordered the Oppo DV-983H the other day, and it's on it's way. If anyone is interested, they are selling factory reconditioned ones on their site for $319 ($80 off) with the full 1 year warranty.

I'll post my opinions on the video upscaling vs. the Denon when I get back home next week.

Hmmm, why not buy a Blu-ray at that price? The upscaling should be good enough and you get BR capabilities.

Hansang,

I wanted DVD-A and SACD support, as well as a great upscaler for normal DVDs. I already have a HD-DVD player (Xbox360) and I'm not ready for a new format at this point. When I'm ready for BR, I'll probably go with the PS3. What I needed was a great CD player, normal DVD upscaler, and something that could play DVD-A and SACD. There is no other player in this price range except this one.

Prior to the introduction of the Panasonic BD-55 which I purchased last month, the general consensus among reviewers was that pretty well all the BD players weren't particular good at handling standard DVD's. I already had an Oppo 980 on my rack(which also has SACD and DVD Audio) and I found the set-up(contrast, brightness, color, etc.), to be quite different between Blu-Ray and regular DVD's. In that way, rather than have to adjust the Panasonic for each type of disc, I play the standard DVD's on the Oppo and Blu-Ray on the BD-55. Even though the BD-55 is equally adept at handling standard DVD's, this way each player is set up for optimum performance and I don't have to make any adjustments.

SRoode,

I am very interested in how the Oppo stacks up the Denon. I've been eying the Oppo for quite some time now. I already have a PS3 that I play blu-ray's on. But, I have a very large dvd collection that I would like to make look as good as possible. The Oppo at close to $300 sounds tempting.

- Nick

For the record, you might want to check out the review that "Secrets" did on the 983 back a few months ago when it was first released. It was the only player to that point that passed "ALL" of the video tests thrown at it and that was even those players on the list in the $6-7000 range. That should tell you something.

The 983, if I recall, will not pass SACD / DSD via HDMI.....correct??

I remember wondering why they failed to include that, whereas the 980 does support DSD.

Yep, your right about that. I am not exactly sure why they excluded that feature as opposed to the 980, but the 983 does convert SACD to PCM via HDMI and although I have never had any opportunity to compare the two(DSD vs.PCM), I have heard it said on a number of occasions the differences are inconsequential. You might want to check with Oppo technical support and ask. From my experience, they are very quick to respond to any questions about their product line.

Yes mdrew, that is true. The Denon only passes it through as PCM also, so it won't be any different than what I have now (except hopefully it will actually PLAY the discs instead of trying to track them for minutes on end).

What I am really interested in the the Anchor Bay upscaling. I have a lot of regular DVDs, and when I tried playing them on the Xbox360, there was a noticeable quality difference between that and the Denon. I'm hoping the Oppo does an even better job!

I'll be interested in your thoughts Steve, I have a Denon 2910 as well as an Oppo 980H and don't remember seeing that much of a difference whenever I had them side by side eight or so months back. I've been thinking about dragging the Oppo out of the bedroom setup and using it for the main listening area because the Oppo has 7.1 analog output whereas the Dennon has 5.1, I also like the slim design of the Oppo.