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Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

post #1 of 55
7/25/07 at 7:35am
Thread Starter 
Face it. 1080P, NTSC and Pal, and all forms of raw digital audio from compressed MP3/WMA/DOLBY DIGITAL/DTS to uncompressed PCM and DSD, all via HDMI! Many current receivers feature HDMI 1.2 inputs, but pay attention... This is the first DVD player I'm aware of that actually features an HDMI 1.2 output, all for under $200. Now that's almost perfection! For pure perfection, I predict that their next one will be a 991 with USER SELECTABLE DCDi by Faroudja. Oppo is the only company so far whose technical support has answered advanced questions such as which version of the MediaTek is used in which model. (I hope they treat the average housewife with the same respect even though they may be somewhat inexperienced--LOL.) Anyway, if something happens to my Yamaha changers after their warranties expire, I'm going Oppo hands down and getting a USB harddrive to hook up to it so I can use it like a changer.
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post #2 of 55
7/25/07 at 9:14am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

What are the advantages to HDMI 1.2?

According to the Oppo website, the 981 will still offer the best PAL playback, so I'm happy I went with that model. The 980 also does not appear to include the much-coveted Faroudja chip.
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post #3 of 55
7/25/07 at 12:02pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

I believe that HDMI 1.2 can handle unprocessed raw DSD from SACDs. The 981's HDMI output can only send SACD when it's converted to PCM. I don't know of any other differences between 1.1 and 1.2 besides that. Of course, if there are more differences, please let us know. Again, as far as Faroudja is concerned, I bet they will come out with something like a 991 which will include HDMI 1.2 and DCDi by Faroudja. Or better yet, if anyone can come up with surprises we'd never even dream about, I think Oppo will come out with the first player that can play HDDVD, BlueRay, DVD-V (+/-R/RW/RDL), DVD-A, DivX, MP3CD/DVD, WMACD/DVD, and CDDA (R/RW). Who says Jacks of all trades always can be only halfway decent?
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post #4 of 55
7/25/07 at 4:47pm

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

HDMI 1.2a allows the SACD player to transmit the original DSD audio digitally to the receiver, just in case you believe that a DSD-->PCM transcode alters things. Some say it does, some say it's still good enough.

I suspect that my room has sufficient problems to overwhelm the difference.
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post #5 of 55
7/25/07 at 5:38pm

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Faroudja sucks for the very well known macroblocking defect, if you see it with your display. If they got rid of Faroudja for the 980, that can only be a good thing IMO.
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post #6 of 55
7/25/07 at 6:54pm

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin C Brown
Faroudja sucks for the very well known macroblocking defect, if you see it with your display. If they got rid of Faroudja for the 980, that can only be a good thing IMO.

IF you see it. Early DLPs had six bit internal processing, which lacked the dynamic range neccesary to display Faroudja's output. Extensive Calibration can mitigate the effect.

Nevertheless, the 980 is the new version of the 970, which never used the faroudja chipset.

The faroudja players are the 971 and 981.
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post #7 of 55
7/25/07 at 7:14pm

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin C Brown
Faroudja sucks
Thanks for that insight. That must be why Oppo puts it in their high-end products, huh?
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post #8 of 55
7/26/07 at 10:53pm

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Quote:
Faroudja sucks for the very well known macroblocking defect, if you see it with your display.

Dude... Panasonic sells more plasmas than anyone else out there. Macroblocking shows up on them. Macroblocking is one of the reasons why Denon no longer uses Faroudja in their high end players.

Educate yourself. Go spend some time at AVS searching for Faroudja and macroblocking. Enjoy!

Better yet, look here:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-b...deInt=0&mpeg=0

Quote:
The downside to the 981HD is the inherent macroblocking issue that comes along with the FLI-2310 processing chip. This was covered in our Benchmark of the 971H, which suffers from it as well. The macroblocking problem manifests as large blocks of noise in darker scenes or large expanses of a solid color. Not all displays show the problem for some reason, but if yours does, it can make the image nearly unwatchable with some material. I used my standard tests clip from A Bug’s Life to test the severity and clearly saw the issue in the clip.
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post #9 of 55
7/27/07 at 5:08am
Thread Starter 

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Besides Faroudja, are there any other high-end deinterlacers that handle 3:2 and 2:2 DVDs, as well as convert NTSC to Pal successfully? If the method of upconverting is the same in the 980 as is in the 970, I might write to Oppo suggesting a deinterlacer other than Faroudja for their next optical disc player.
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post #10 of 55
7/27/07 at 10:09am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Here is a partial list of technologies (an approximation of worst to best):

ZORON
SIGMA
MTK
FAROUDJA
GENUM
ABT
REON
REALTA (Big brother to REON)

The REON-based Toshiba XA2 & Samsung BDP-1200 are great upscaling players, although that performance comes at a price.

Another solution is to feed pure 480i to the ABT-based DVDO series of stand-alone scalers. (VP20,30,50)

-DB.
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post #11 of 55
7/28/07 at 12:33am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

OK, this is from the long AVS thread, by memory. The 980 does use the same solution as the 970, but it said to have been "customized" by Oppo. I take that as: improved. It's Mediatek.
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post #12 of 55
7/28/07 at 4:37am
Thread Starter 

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Well then, if the 980 comes close to the quality of DCDi by Faroudja, but without the macroblocking problem, we might have THE upconverting SD DVD player that will keep us happy until we're ready to upgrade to BlueRay and/or HDDVD. We'll just have to wait and see.
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post #13 of 55
7/28/07 at 8:41am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

I pick mine up on Monday.
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post #14 of 55
7/28/07 at 10:14am
Thread Starter 

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Are you saying you are getting a 980 on Monday? Please let us know about Pal-to-NTSC conversion over HDMI!
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post #15 of 55
7/30/07 at 9:26am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Yes, I am going to drop by their office and pick one up at lunch today. I don't think I really have a way to test PAL to NTSC, but I can ask them about it when I am there. I currently have the 970 and I was impressed with the picture quality. Note, as mentioned the 970 and 980 use the Mediatek deinterlacer not Faroudja.
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post #16 of 55
7/30/07 at 3:14pm

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

What did you want to know about PAL to NTSC? The guy said it will do PAL to NTSC and NTSC to PAL via HDMI.
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post #17 of 55
7/30/07 at 3:37pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

But is there picture flicker during Pal-to-NTSC playback via HDMI? I understand that Faroudja handles conversion very well. If not, by all means, you can't beat the 980 for playing anything you want to play and/or listen to. If so, and internatiol DVD playback is important, it might be best to either go with the 981, or if DSD via HDMI is also important, wait and see if Oppo releases an HDMI 1.2A player with DCDi by Faroudja sometime next year.
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post #18 of 55
7/30/07 at 4:17pm

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

I would image that at this point if they release an update to the 981 it will use 1.3 simply because it is the latest.

As noted, the 970 and 980 use Mediatek deinterlacing not Faroudja. I don't have any PAL media to convert, so I don't know if I can help you there.
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post #19 of 55
7/31/07 at 7:03am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Note that on their website, they say that the 981 is "best" for PAL-to-NTSC conversion, even though the other models do it.

I recently bought a 970 and had to return it because I was getting "jerky" playback on PAL discs, like frames were being dropped. I had the same problem on my old Toshiba player, but it was actually worse (more frequent) on the Oppo 970.

I subsequently bought the Oppo 981 and haven't had a problem with PAL playback since.

So, if PAL is an issue for you, I strongly recommend that you keep your 980 in "returnable" condition until you verify that its conversion is good enough for you. And please let us know what you find.
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post #20 of 55
7/31/07 at 8:34am
Thread Starter 

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Now this sounds truely convincing! DSD over HDMI AND Pal are equally important in my case. Therefore, I'm waiting for a Faroudja player with HDMI 1.2 or higher. Thanks.
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post #21 of 55
7/31/07 at 8:42am
Thread Starter 

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

I just realized ... It would be less expensive just to wait for an all-in-one player. However, if you absolutely can't wait and happen to have a receiver with two or more HDMI inputs (version 1.2 or higher) and you need pure DSD and high-quality Pal-to-NTSC conversion, buy the 981 for video playback and the 980 for audio!
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post #22 of 55
7/31/07 at 9:30am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

So, initial impression is, I don't see a major difference in picture quality. It looks excellent just like the 970 did, so I guess that is a good thing. Color seems to pop and there is plenty of detail. Video based material looks sharp and film based material looks smooth and natural. Via digital, DVD sound seemed a touch low, though I only watched a few scenes from discs I recently watched on the 970. For audio, I listened to Patricia Barber's Modern Cool SACD via analog and it did seem to sound a bit better than the 970, but I can't say that for certain without a 970 to compare. It should suffice to say that it sounds great so far. I'm really liking the dim blue display also. I don't know if the 981 came with that same black/dark gray remote, but I like the look better than the previous silver too. Some pics:







The tray does seem a bit more solid, but it is still relatively thin. Not a big deal, IMO. The front panel has a cleaner and simpler look than the 970 did.

I hooked up my card reader for my camera to the USB port and it cycled through the available pics. The manual says you can watch video via the USB port as well. I asked them about using a external hard drive and they said it will work as long as it is FAT/FAT32, though the guy said there is a limitation to the size it would recognize (he wasn't sure what that would be though).
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post #23 of 55
8/1/07 at 8:11pm

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Just ordered a 980 and am eagerly awaiting its arrival. I'm planning to use it for multi-channel digital audio and multi-region DVD playback.

I'd been considering a Denon DCD-3930CI, which lists for about 9X the price of the Oppo. The higher price of the Denon would get you better analog electronics for SACD/DVD-A output, and better video processing (Reon) ... but no multi-region capability.

With HDMI 1.3 pre-pros and receivers beginning to hit the market, it makes sense to me to get an Oppo as a digital transport and pay for high-end analog electronics only once - in the pre-pro/receiver.
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post #24 of 55
8/1/07 at 8:32pm
Thread Starter 

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Definitly! Besides, the audio DACs in receivers and video DACs in displays are usually better than in the players anyway. I e-mailed Oppo anonymously and this was their response:

"There are no plans a this time on creating a DVD player which supports both USB and
the Faroudja de-interlacing and scaling solution.
Best Regards,
Customer Service
OPPO Digital, Inc.
453 Ravendale Dr, Suite D
Mountain View, CA 94043
Service@oppodigital.com
Tel: 650-961-1118
Fax: 650-961-1119
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: One More Consideration for Models after the New DV-980H
From: Anonymous
Date: Wed, August 01, 2007 2:02 pm
To: Service@oppodigital.com
I am impressed with the audio capabilities of the DV-980 as a result of HDMI
1.2A output. However, I am equally impressed with the video capability of the DV-981HD.
Maybe for your next design, would you consider a unit with HDMI 1.2A or later which
features two deinterlacing modes--DCDi by Faroudja (as featured in the DV-981HD)
and the standard MediaTek solution (as featured in the DV-980H), as well as USB 2.0
(as featured in the DV-980HD)? That way, consumers wouldn't have to replace their
DVD player every time they replace their display because of macroblocking. And with
USB 2.0, consumers would be able to continuously view hours of standard 8.5GB DVD-VIDEO
content via a high-capacity harddrive. If Oppo Digital incorporates the above in
their next product, then, as much as Yamaha has always been my preference for A/V
receivers and speaker packages, that would be the final nail in the coffen which
would make me change my preferences to Oppo for my optical disc equipment. Keep
up the good work!"

So I say if you need versitle, high quality playback, get a 981 for video and a 980 for audio and that equals perfection!
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post #25 of 55
8/1/07 at 8:52pm
Thread Starter 

Hold It!

I just looked in the 980's PDF manual and unlike Oppo's site, the manual says it can output 480I via HDMI, letting you use your display's deinterlacing solution. My only concern is how a North American LCD display will handle a native interlaced Pal 576I signal over HDMI. Otherwise, your best bet might simply be only $170 on the 980!
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post #26 of 55
8/2/07 at 7:10am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Big C -

This morning I was thinking about the very same thing. The 980 has known flaws with detecting film cadence for PAL sources, so it fails deinterlacing tests for PAL-encoded film-source material.

I am tentatively planning to get an Integra DTC-9.8 processor. This processor has a Reon HQV chip in it, so it can do higher-quality upscaling / deinterlacing than the MediaTek chipset in the Oppo 980.

The owner's manual says nothing about how the processor would handle a 576i PAL source over HDMI. I presume it wouldn't handle it at all, since it is a North American model.

If the Oppo can be configured to do only PAL->NTSC, with no other processing, the Oppo + Integra would be a viable solution...
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post #27 of 55
8/2/07 at 8:20am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Colin Dunn
If the Oppo can be configured to do only PAL->NTSC, with no other processing, the Oppo + Integra would be a viable solution...

Going from 576i to 480i sounds a tad messy.
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post #28 of 55
8/2/07 at 10:12am

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

The manual does say it will do 576i over HDMI when I was reading it this weekend. The 970 was able to do 480i via HDMI also; that was actually one of their selling points for it because there is a market segment that have their own scalers and/or want to let the display do it.
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post #29 of 55
8/2/07 at 2:07pm

Re: Is everybody excited about the new Oppo 980?

I took a peek at the Oppo 980H manual posted on their Web site.

The player does have built-in PAL->NTSC conversion.

I'm not sure how good the results will be. I'll have to experiment with settings once I get everything to see what combination of settings gives the best results.

How could going from 576i->480i (reduce groups of 6 lines to 5) be much more messy than going from 576i->720p? (increase groups of 4 lines to 5)? Going to 1080p would be even messier, increasing groups of 8 lines to 15!

All three alternatives require resampling the entire image to get stable motion video after upconversion (or downconversion, in the case of 576i->480i).

Going from 576i->480i in the player, then upconverting to 720p in an outboard processor, would mean processing the video twice and losing resolution in the process, but possibly gain better film-cadence detection.

Going from 576i->720p in the player would entail just one processing step, preserving the full resolution of the original input signal. However, film-cadence detection would be incorrect, resulting in combing/jaggies.

Without trying both settings I think it's a toss-up as to which one would be more visually pleasing. It may even be a matter of individual preference. (I would probably favor upconverting in the player to preserve the resolution as much as possible, unless combing artifacts and judder were unbearably bad.)
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post #30 of 55
8/2/07 at 2:26pm
Thread Starter 
Before I begin, I must admit that I'm still an old-fashion CRT composite video user, so I'm in the minority at these forums and have never actually experienced HDMI yet. I'm only going by information I got off the internet, as well as my own experience with Pal and NTSC. Remember that it's not just 480I and 576I. The other factor is that NTSC is 60Hz and Pal is 50Hz. As far as 26" LCD HDTVs, on one hand, LG and Toshiba upconvert to 1080P, but don't handle 2:2 material. On the other hand, Philips only upconverts to 1080I, yet handles 2:2 material. Maybe by the time I have filled my wallet, Philips will have released a display capable of 2:2 and 1080P.
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