Recommendation for a cheap DVD Player

Roy Munson

My old Toshiba is starting to give me problems with changing layers as it not only will pause but it sometimes just stops and locks up at the layer change. I'm not ready to make the jump to a HD player until the format is decided so, I would like to get a cheap DVD player to use until the HD format war is over. My only real concern for a new player is that it must be able to handle DVD-R disc's and have a smooth transition from layer to layer. It should also do progressive scan. I don't care about CD play back as I have a 2 ch. system that I listen to music on, I just want something to play movies on. Does anyone know of a cheap player as I described in $100.00 to $130.00 range [or less if that's possible] that would meet my criteria?

Ricardo

OPPO is the word of the day

$149

http://www.oppodigital.com/dv970hd/dv970hd.html

Roy Munson

The Oppo is over the budget I have set. I might eventually consider it but it isn't on my radar at this moment however that could change.

Thanks

Ricardo

Roy Munson wrote:

The Oppo is over the budget I have set. I might eventually consider it but it isn't on my radar at this moment however that could change.

Thanks

I would really try to come up with those extra $20..... rave reviews and many of us here are very happy with both PQ and SQ.

shawn474

I was looking at this one, but decided to get the Oppo instead. Fits your criteria.....

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7678694&type=product&productCategoryId=cat03013&id=1134702980301

PolkWannabie

Roy,

What size TV do you have ?

Does it have HDMI or DVI inputs ?

Roy Munson

Rick,

My TV is a Mits 48 inch WS HDTV, it has DVI but it doesn't have HDMI.

Roy Munson

I would really try to come up with those extra $20..... rave reviews and many of us here are very happy with both PQ and SQ.

It's really not a matter of coming up with another $20.00, it has more to do with the fact that what ever player I decide on it probably won't be used for more than a year, hence not wanting to spend much for now. I'm just looking for something cheap to get me by for the next year!

As far as the Oppo goes I believe that it only upconverts through HDMI which my TV doesn't have.

Ricardo

Well, you can do HDMI to DVI with an adaptor; I even think the Oppo brings one (My 971 brought one..)

Anyway, you can probably get something for $100 or less. Good luck.

Roy Munson

OK, after looking around and doing some more research I ordered an Oppo 971 from Amazon..I went over the budget that I assigned to myself but oh well! It seems to always work that way.

beardog03

good choice !
The Rookie would`nt steer ya wrong..!

snow

Roy Munson wrote:

OK, after looking around and doing some more research I ordered an Oppo 971 from Amazon..I went over the budget that I assigned to myself but oh well! It seems to always work that way.

good desicion, good choice. heres a test on it in a shootout it beat everything else there. including a $13k esoteric player. http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=all i got my 970 a couple of days ago and it is the best $149.00 i have ever spent. REGARDS SNOW

hearingimpared

HTrookie wrote:

OPPO is the word of the day

$149

http://www.oppodigital.com/dv970hd/dv970hd.html

I bought one, it's coming 12/29. Let go of the extra $20 bucks dude. Read page 26 of January's TAS. Even if it isn't as good as Chris Martens says, you can't beat the value plus they offer you a great price on an HDMI cable.

I'll let you know how it is.

Gaara

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?homevdeo&1172162670

No affil, Oppo 971 for $140 shipped.

Jared

Ricardo

Good choice Roy; you'll love it.

Roy Munson

Thanks guys, I'm looking forward to it coming. It won't be here until Jan. 8th or so. I'm really interested in the HD players but for me it's not time to jump in until things are a little more settled.

shawn474

Got the 981 last week and it cired my itch for the HD player or Blu-Ray Player (at least for the time being ). Hope you like it; I LOVE the 981.

Disc Jockey

You'll love the player Roy. The 971 ouputs (and upconverts) only through DVI, it doesn't have an HDMI connection. It ships with both a DVI-DVI cable and a DVI-HDMI cable.

The 970 and the 981 are the ones with HDMI outputs.

DJ

Roy Munson

DJ,
I realized after doing a little research that the 971 indeed upconverts through DVI. I had read that the 970 upconverted through HDMI and that is where I got confused. The 971 will work fine with my TV! Hope it's as good as people say.

mlhm5

HTrookie wrote:

OPPO is the word of the day

$149

http://www.oppodigital.com/dv970hd/dv970hd.html

Absolutely agree. Plays anything and everything from any area without hesitation. If you add HD to you setup, Oppo will fit right in.

hearingimpared

Received mine today, I'll be hooking it up Saturday.

mrbigbluelight

Disc Jockey wrote:

You'll love the player Roy. The 971 ouputs (and upconverts) only through DVI, it doesn't have an HDMI connection. It ships with both a DVI-DVI cable and a DVI-HDMI cable.

The 970 and the 981 are the ones with HDMI outputs.

DJ

The cost of included cables makes this sound like a good buy !

The video signal will be upconverted to 1080i, for instance, through the DVI output.
There is an optical audio output that will also send the audio to the AVR, correct ? For example, a full DTS 5.1 encoded audio signal to the AVR to go along with an upconverted 1080i signal to the TV.

That may seem fairly obvious, but I felt I should ask after reading up on the Microsoft Xbox 360 HD DVD player. What a wasted effort that seems to be
(Video = Good, Audio = Terrible).

PolkWannabie

There are both optical and coax audio outputs ...

Roy Munson

I don't know how this happened but the Oppo will be here tomorrow [Thurs. 28th] according to my UPS tracking number! I wasn't expecting it until the first week of Jan. I just ordered it four days ago and it was shipped on the 26th out of Sparks Nev. which isn't far from SoCal!!!

Disc Jockey

mrbigbluelight wrote:

The video signal will be upconverted to 1080i, for instance, through the DVI output.
There is an optical audio output that will also send the audio to the AVR, correct ? For example, a full DTS 5.1 encoded audio signal to the AVR to go along with an upconverted 1080i signal to the TV.

That is correct, and as PolkWannabie said you have the option of optical and coax. You can also output 5.1 through the analog outputs if you so desire. I have not done this so can't vouch for the sound.

PolkWannabie

5.1 analog works fine for SACD etc ...

janmike

Panasonic RP56. Great DVDP for the price - check out the reviews. Not sure if they still make them so you may have to settle for used.

Roy Munson

I received the Oppo 971 this afternoon and this evening I did a basic set-up. My Mits WS48315's native resolution over DVI is 1080i so that's what I set the player to upconvert to and proceeded to watch Dead Man's Chest..all I can say is the pq is stunning!!!! The picture is very crisp and clear, the colors are warm and vibrant..I still have to do a better calibration but I was impressed! After watching DMC I tried several DVD-R's that were giving my old player trouble and they played with no problems on the 971. I might also add that although I've had very limited play time with the Oppo it handled layer changes flawlessly! This is a great DVD player regardless of the price! How it will perform is probably dependent on what type of TV one has and what the native resolution of each individuals display is. Highly Recommended!

mrbigbluelight

Well, I figured if it was good enough for Roy Munson and HearingImpaired, it was good enough for us, so ....

The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com:

---

Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal

---

Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):
1 OPPO OPDV971H Digital HD-R... $199.99 1 $199.99

Shipped via DHL Next Day (estimated arrival date: 29-December-2006).

Paid a little extra for one-day shipping (time is one thing I don't have a lot of), so it'll be here TODAY !

Had to go from Hebron, Kentucky to the Wilmington, Ohio sort facility (Hey, just drop it off on the way up to Wilmington !).

It's being shipped by ..... DHL. I had a set of Polk R30's off of Ebay that were shipped by DHL that looked as if they had been drug through the Amazon rain forest by a gorilla with St. Vitus, so .. .keeping my fingers crossed.

My son's buddy would occasionaly drag over his HD DVD player, and hook it up to our Prima TV (from Sears, thank you very much), so we know what it is capable of. Keeping our fingers crossed.

The remote has keys that glow in the dark (not back lit, they just glow in the dark). Oooooooooooh ! :eek:

Disc Jockey

mrbigbluelight wrote:

The remote has keys that glow in the dark (not back lit, they just glow in the dark).

And they don't glow all that well....

Ricardo

Wow.....congrats to all the new Oppo owners.


Oppodigital should bring a nice karma gift to Club Polk....:)