Recommendation for a cheap DVD Player

PolkWannabie

Roy Munson wrote:

... all I can say is the pq is stunning!!!! The picture is very crisp and clear, the colors are warm and vibrant. 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! Highly Recommended!

Roy,

I know this player was a little over your original budget but imho I thought this or the 970 was at least worth a try ... Glad your happy with it ...

snow

mrbigbluelight wrote:

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:

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Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal

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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:

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congrats on your purchase. REGARDS SNOW

mrbigbluelight

Well, got back home yesterday from work, and sitting half in the bushes was a box marked "Amazon.com".

....in one piece !

Simple hookup: DVI to the TV, coax to the AVR.

Didn't make any adjustments/calibrations, just got "War of the Worlds" out, and let 'er fly ! (did let the unit warm up to room temp before opening, though).

Nice !! VERY nice ! Definitely in the " Ahhhhhhhh " category.
Used WOTW as a test disk because the black levels on that DVD are pretty tough to display.
Or were. But this Oppo 971H makes watching dark scenes in the basement effortless.
Without ANY video calibrations, the picture appears, to my tastes, slightly
....uhm......"washed out" ? Now, that sounds bad, but it isn't. Sort of like complaining that the Mona Lisa needs to smile more.

And the sound ?

We put in the 1st disk of Lord of the Rings. There's a scene early in the movie where Gandalf is riding in a cart and stops to talk to Frodo. Little birds are chirping in the background. No, let me rephrase that:

.....Little birds are chirping all around the room, calling from nests of velvet with voices of thin silk.

UN - GD - BELIEVABLE !!

Same coax cable to the same AVR, so we've always had good-sounding HT audio (for the equipment involved).
But this is something else.
Opening landing scenes from "Saving Private Ryan" ? Very distinctive, very precise sounds from metal-on-metal, boots on sand, water lapping, etc.

I'm going to have to go out and get some classical music today to see how this Oppo performs.

Very pleased, to say the least. Can't go wrong at $199.

So .... let's keep those recommendations for cheap equipment coming !


One minus: the glow-in-the-dark remote doesn't glow worth a crap. :rolleyes:

PolkWannabie

Regarding the remote ... I agree ... But then that's why there are good universals ...

Don't think "cheap" ... think "inexpensive" ...

snow

congrats on your oppo purchase. it looks like another satisfied oppo user:) its hard to imangine for less than $200.00 a lil more with shipping. that we can get this sort of quality. i remember the day when a semi decent 4 head vcr was at least $400.00 and people were buying em quick at that price. when you do your calibrations can you tell us if it helps with the washed out picture look? THANKS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR. SNOW

Roy Munson

The Davinci Code was filmed with a lot dark scenes indoors and out and is also known as a film with a soft look, well it looked great on the Oppo 971 upconverting to 1080i on my Mits! It is indeed a bit soft but compared to my old DVD player there just wasn't any contest! When I first watched TDC on my old player my eyes strained because of the soft look but not with the Oppo and as far as blacks go I can't imagine a player doing a better job! I'm still tinkering with mine a little as there are many settings and choices to consider when setting up this player..needless to say I dig it!

edit: BTW..I watched the Aviator last night and the pq was just stunning, near HD quality. Now I'm not saying it rivals HD but on those DVDs with good overall transfers the pq must be seen to be believed. Sometimes when new products come out they get over hyped for a variety of reasons and people praise them because someone else did..not so with the Oppo, it is very deserving of the praise! It's a good match for my Mits!