Home > Consumer Reviews > Oppo DV-981HD Universal DVD Player with HDMI, 1080p Up-Converting, DivX & SACD

There are lots of excellent reviews of this player here already. I'll try not to repeat the many comments indicating this is an excellent DVD player. In general I agree.

I recently bought a Panasonic 50-inch plasma (720p resolution) from Amazon and I bought this player to go with it after reading excellent reviews here and on Cnet.com as well. I wanted an upconverting player and I also wanted a region-free/PAL DVD player so I could play DVDs from Asia and Europe without problems.

My older DVD player is a 5-year-old Sony progressive scan unit which only outputs 480p resolution. The first thing I did when I got the Oppo was pop in my Criterion Collection DVD of Kurosawa's "Ran". I borrowed the same DVD from a friend so I could compare the Sony directly to the Oppo. (It wasn't a perfect comparison because the Sony only has component output, while the Oppo is using HDMI output).

I was somewhat surprised to find that the differences between the two players were noticeable, but small. The Oppo -- upconverting to the higher 720p resolution over HDMI -- delivered slightly better detail than the Sony, which of course was putting out 480p resolution through the component connection. I doubt whether someone who wasn't looking specifically for the differences would have noticed.

Still, I give good marks to the Oppo for a slightly better picture.

Overall though, my advice is that if you don't care much about region-free/PAL playback, and you aren't a big stickler for the absolute best picture, and you want to save some money, you will probably be completely satisfied with the current upconverting DVD players from the big brands such as Sony, Panasonic, etc. which cost about 1/3rd of what this player costs.

As well, note that this player isn't the most user-friendly in some ways. What you have here is a good example of how Chinese product design has not caught up with the rest of the world in terms of refinement and ease of use. The remote is poorly designed with tons of small buttons and tiny print. I have a programmable Sony remote (model RM-VL600, very inexpensive, here's the Amazon link: 8-DEVICE Universal Learning Remote) and I "taught" the Oppo commands over to the Sony remote so I don't have to use the Oppo and I can use just one remote to control the DVD player, TV, and sound system.

Probably the most bizarre omission in the software of the player is that if you stop a DVD from playing and then turn the player off, when you turn the player on again it does not remember where you stopped the DVD. I rarely have time to watch a DVD all the way through in one sitting, so this is very annoying to me. Most strange is that if you EJECT the DVD, and THEN turn the player off, it DOES remember where the DVD was when you ejected it. So there's no question the player has the capability I'm talking about. Problem is, this adds to the wear and tear on the tray opening mechanism.

I emailed Oppo and they responded to me within a day - and on a Sunday no less - telling me the workaround for this omission: hit the Eject button and then immediately hit Power to turn the unit off. If you do it quickly enough that the tray does not open before you turn the unit off, then you've dodged the problem of the wear and tear. When you turn the 981 back on, it will load the DVD and show onscreen "Resume from saved position". Hit Play to continue where you left off.

Once again, a programmable remote is a big help here; I programmed my Sony remote to send the Eject command and also turn the unit off with one button. That workaround works just fine.

All in all though, who wants to go through all this trouble just to make a simple DVD player work the way it should? That's Chinese software for you. A good example of the fact that they do little actual, daily-use product testing in China. It's not a customer-friendly society.

On the plus side, here's a little noticed advantage of this player: on many DVDs, it will skip past the FBI warning and such and leap directly to the main menu, or to playing the movie itself (it depends on the DVD). Here's how you do that: put the DVD in the player and press play. As soon as the player recognizes it as a DVD and says "DVD-Video", hit the Stop button, then the Menu button. You may have to hit the sequence twice for it to work. On some DVDs this does not work, but it's a nice feature.

I would give the player 5 stars if the software were more user-friendly. As it is, it's a good player for those who want the best-quality picture for much less than the cost of a super-top-quality player from a major brand. Kudos to their American distributor, however, for excellent customer service. I hope they work with the Chinese manufacturer to make this DVD player all that it could be.

Just for reference, I'm including the information about how to make the player region-free as well:
1) Press "Setup" (on the lower left of the arrow buttons on the remote). 2) Enter the numbers 9210 on the keypad above the arrows. 3) A new menu comes up. 4) Press the number 0 to make it region-free. 5) Press "Setup" again. 6) You're done!

AMAZING CUSTOMER SERVICE. After my last review, which pointed out some problems with CD playback on this unit, the VP of Development and CTO at OPPO Digital contacted me to let me know OPPO had shipped a replacement unit, without my having to ask. The replacement unit arrived promptly. After testing with my original and replacement unit, I figured out (with Oppo's help) that that my problem was with my receiver, not the DVD player. My receiver was auto-detecting the audio signal, thereby causing a delay which made me think the DVD player was defective. I am hereby adjusting my review to 5 Stars for an excellent product and absolutely amazing customer service. I am completely satisfied with this unit and with this company.

A lot has been written here about the wonderful video up-conversion of the Oppo DV-981HD.

And it's all true.

The Oppo DV-981HD does render a magnificent, color vibrant picture in 720P and 1080P for standard DVDs, but that's really just the beginning. For home entertainment enthusiasts this player brings a lot more to the table than just a pretty picture. This extremely versatile player excels in delivering exceptional hi-end audio playback in a variety of formats. HDCD and redbook CDs sound great, but this player really shines with the SACD and DVD Audio formats. It's a great feeling to finally be able to take any disk in your audio/video library and know the Oppo DV-981HD is going to deliver without breaking a sweat.

Leveraging your audio/video software investment is really what the Oppo DV-981HD is all about.

So five stars and two thumbs way up for Home Entertainment with the Oppo DV-981HD.

And that's the prettiest picture of all.

RESULTS:

Comparison to Sony DVP-NS71HP (same as 75HP)

Both players look amazing and do a fine job of upconverting/scaling your legacy DVD collection for display on the Sony LCD (Full Pixel mode).

During the THX Contrast setup the OPPO showed a slight green tinge on the 2nd block in from the upper left where the Sony did not. Hue and Color changes on the set did not affect it, nor did the Saturation or RGB Range choices offered on the OPPO.

The THX Brightness setup showed with the OPPO having a slightly brighter picture than the Sony that equate to about 1 notch on the Brightness scale (51 on the Sony = 50 on the OPPO). Some of the gray blocks had a slightly green tinge again on the OPPO that was not evident on the Sony.

The THX 16:9 Aspect Ratio set showed better on the Sony with the OPPO having distinct jaggies around the circle where the Sony was smooth.

The sample playback scene on the THX setup showed very well on both players (jaw dropping in fact) with a slight edge to the OPPO for shadows and a decidedly better treatment of edges when the scene stops going to the Sony for not having jaggies (stair steps) like the OPPO.

For Kill Bill I used the duel scene near the end of the movie (Scene 16 on the menu) to audition both players. The OPPO again with the green tinge evident in the snow where the Sony shows a bluer cast (which would be more accurate for snow). The details imprinted on Lucy's robe (Kimono?) was quite evident on both players as was the shine of the blade in the close-ups. The snow falling was exquisite in detail on both players. Both players displayed a slight bit of jumpieness during the scrolling of the credits at the end.

For Battlestar Gallactica the opening credits were a good source of comparison as I had the same images on two different DVDs that I could quickly flip source between. The Sony showed a slight edge in detail as you pan over the water toward the city. There is a fade scene of some text and a cylon robot's head the OPPO handled better with fewer jaggies and the text faded smoothly with no interlacing type gaps in the image. The OPPO also showed the text of "49,284 Lives" in a more uniform way without looking like it was a shadow font. However this was all during frame advance, and completely undetectable during normal playback speed.

The remotes are vastly different. The Sony offers some controls the OPPO lacks such as skip fwd/back with will move about 15s for easy skipping of credits or to repeat a scene. And the OPPO offers some features that the Sony does not, like bookmarks (separate from the A>B loop thing) and On Screen Display of the motion controls that can be operated via the cursor controls (neat but not that useful).

The layout of the buttons on the Sony are easier to maneuver in the dark (neither remote is backlit) and fit better in the hand. Both offer a Slow Play feature but the Sony has sound with it while the OPPO does not. The OPPO also combines both fwd/back on one button which makes it harder to change direction.

The OPPO offers more intermediate levels of Zoom and even offers a couple of Zoom Out positions where you can shrink the image on the screen.

Many of the buttons on the OPPO cycle thru their functions (and return to the starting point after several presses) where the Sony has more buttons dedicated to specific functions or directions and only have 2 or 3 levels to cycle thru. One quirk about the Sony that is annoying is how sensitive the cursor buttons are, often causing one to overshoot the target with anything but the lightest of touch.


CONCLUSION:

Both players offer superb image quality and will extend the life of your DVD collection on your HDTV. I honestly could not tell the difference between 720p and 1080p on the screen. I'm sure there are scenes on some DVDs that will be better under 1080p but I did not find them in my auditions. For the extra $100 the state of the art video processing from the OPPO was wasted on me. In fact, I liked the more natural looking images from the Sony. Plus the remote was the kicker... better control, better ergonomics. I'll be requesting an RMA from OPPO and sticking with my original purchase of the Sony. For what it's worth the OPPO does come with a higher quality HDMI cable than the Sony.

I bought this dvd player for my Samsung lns-4095d 1080p. I have to say when you switch the player to 1080p, it's like taking off on an airplane.
I love it, my wife loves it and my cat is now watching dvds with us.

Why buying a Oppo 981 vs. Sony or Samsung hd960???

1) It's black
2) it has up to 1080p upconversion using NTSC or PAL Disk
3) It takes 110V US or 220V Europe, so you can travel with it. It comes with a slick black carry bag (oppo branded)
4) it's Region Free, ask for region code 0 !!!!!
5) it has a NTSC / PAL convertion tool build-in, so you can watch dvds from any zone (pal or ntsc disk) on any TV (pal or NTSC) !!!!
6) it has optical/coaxial output for dolby digital or DTS
7) it has 5.1 channels output
8) HDMI gold cable is included
9) Remote is nice and slick
10) Customer service is just the BEST

ok, now the bad,
1) no component video output
2) the screansaver looks so cheap it's not even funny
and that's it.

So don't look further that this one. Just the Best so far!!!

Wait for Blue Ray or HD-DVD palyers or buy the OPPO... ;-)