Oppo or Denon 1920? (1 Viewer)

[William_Gravem]

My DVD player is dying an untimely death, I was hoping that the old Toshiba prog-scan would last until the whole HD/BluRay thing was sorted out... it didn't.

I don't want to blow the bank on something too expensive, but want something decent. I was just about convinced to get a Denon 1920 when I stumbled upon a few Oppo 971 words and looked into it, now I'm very interested. I have axiom speakers and an SVS... so I'm pretty comfortable with getting good stuff from on-line dealers... so long as I get the approval from my friends at HTF.

SACD isn't very important to me, but do want to be able to listen to CD's and DVD-A. The TV is a Sony LCD projection I think it's some model number like 55XS955. The price on the Oppo is insanely good, and they also include the DVI/HDMI cord... all in all that saves like $150-$200! But can this thing really be as good as I've read from googling it? And I hear plenty about the Denon 2910, but nothing about the 1920... why is that? Is there something I'm missing when looking for a DVD player?

Please help me make up my mind. All comments about Oppo 971 and Denon 1920 are welcome. Let's hear what you've got to say.

Thank you,

---Bill

 

[Mort Corey]

Check the review at Secrets...they really liked the Oppo.

Mort

 

[James Phung]

The 1920 just came out like a week or 2 ago it seems, so it's pretty new.

Lots of happy Oppo owners including myself. Oppo has great customer support and are always improving on the player. Some people have issues with lip sync on the player(I've never had a problem), and Oppo is continuing to fix it for those who do have it. They will take back the player and give you a refund if you're not satisfied in the first 30 days.

 

[William_Gravem]

Mort, thanks for the post. I checked out the review at Secrets. It's glowing! (by the way, LOL on your post on the other thread about the box you're waiting for... HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, DVD-A, SACD and fold and press your underwear... hell, even my wife would ok that!)

James, I really appreciate this post. I'm glad there are people out there that own this. I couldn't find any reviews from owners and was starting to worry. Good information about the 1920. A local tweeter had it last night, and it had a lot of the features I'm looking for... but if the Oppo's 1/2 as good as the reviews claim it is, it's well worth the $200. I keep reading these reviews but I'm enough of a skeptic that I'm not going to buy something unless someone here verifies the product.

A couple questions... I keep reading about this DCD Faroudja chip. I notice different Denon's have different version's of it and the Oppo specs say it has one, but doesn't say which one. 1) What IS this chip? 2) Do the versions of it matter? 3) Which one is in the Oppo?

 

[James Phung]

Faroudja is the processing chip used on these dvd players. The chip is used to deinterlace dvd (since dvd is 480i, it needs to be deinterlaced to give a progressive signal to your display). There are many different processing that is needed to be done in order to correctly deinterlace dvd, and most dvd players under $150 will not be able to correctly correctly deinterlace dvd correctly. Cheaper players are "flag" based deinterlacers, meaning they rely on "flags" stored on the dvd to know when to process the interlaced image to progressive. This wouldn't be a problem if dvds are properly flagged, unfortunately this is not the case. Good deinterlacing chips, like the Faroudja, are "motion-adaptive" and do not rely on the flags.

You can get an idea of the types of processing for deinterlacers here:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...ut-1-2003.html

The Oppo uses the Faroudja 2310 chip.

There's a lot more info on both of these players in the threads here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=18

 

[William_Gravem]

James,

I went ahead w/ the Oppo. Can't wait for it to arrive.

Thanks for the links and your help.

---Bill

 

[Citizen87645]

So is purchasing direct from Oppo the best way to go?

 

[Gavin_mi]

I bought an Oppo direct from Oppo (which went smoothly) about 2 months ago. when I got it, it didnt have the most current firmware on it. the update came out about 3 days after I bought mine :frowning: but no worries there it took about 5 mins to update using the Oppo web site. one thing I noticed before the update was that the sound would get out of sync with the video, after the update that is fixed. a couple problems that I do have is that the first about 1 to 2 seconds of ANY dvd doesnt play the sound...not sure why, may just be my player. the second is that from the day it has been new I have had problems with it giving me a no disc error. I have to eject the disc in and out a couple times for it to play, which isnt hard with the eject button on the remote. none the less it is rather annoying. the picture quality is very good, and it does a noticibly better job of up-scaling to HD than my Mits WD-62327 does. it never misses a beat when changing layers on the disc or between chapters. does anyone else with this player have the same problems that I do? maybe its just mine and I need to send it back. anyways, sorry I didnt post this til you bought it, and maybe I'll get to see how Oppo's customer service is if/when I decide to return this one (if my problems are unique).

Gavin

 

[William_Gravem]

Gee Gavin... now I'm just plain scared!

Oh well. I didn't buy mine from Oppo... I bought it from surf audio/video... which I think is one of few oppo dealers.

Hopefully I won't have any problems though, and it's re-assuring that the picture's good.

I'll probably put up a post when I get it just for the everyone else's sake.

 

[Citizen87645]

Well, it can't be any worse than the Bravo D1 loading problems.

 

[William_Gravem]

I'm not familiar with the Bravo D1 loading problems. What am I missing?

 

[Citizen87645]

Many D1 owners experienced total lock up and/or "fast skipping" where the disc would run at high speed. Sometimes ejecting the disc would remedy it but more often a complete power cycle was required. Some found replacing the loader with a standard DVD-ROM drive solved or reduced the problems. In my experience it only reduced the frequency. I've considered getting an Oppo to replace the Bravo, but think maybe I'll hold off when the Bravo officially dies. Right now it's basically a terminal patient.

 

[Rob McAuliffe]

I'm with you on the Bravo D1... mine opens and closes so fast you have to be Quickdraw McGraw to get your disk in and out! That's why I'm following this thread, to find one with the superior picture of the Bravo without performing the loader olympics every night. Thanks for all the input...

 

[jim.vaccaro]

I'd buy an Oppo today if it did all the wonderful things through component that it does through DVI.