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

I recently bought a Samsung HD-5679W here on Amazon. Well I hooked it up to my DVD player (a Playstation 2...), threw in a Superbit movie, expecting to be blown away... Not impressed. Not even close.

Yes, my Tv will upconvert a signal, but that doesn't mean it does a good job at it. Now on to the Oppo. After a lot of research and hours on various AV forums I went for the Oppo.

The DVD player was packaged beautifully. It's also light and thin and the HDMI cable they include seems to be a decent quality cable. After hooking it up to the TV, I threw in the same Superbit Fifth Element DVD- the results this time... Amazed.

Some major pros:

- No macroblocking yet: With DLP's and RPTV's some 1080p DVD unconverters can cause problems, especially on the bigger screens. No problems yet.
- Looks amazing on a 1080p TV. I have seen plenty of HD movies via BluRay and the difference really isn't that noticeable. I find myself re-watching a lot of my DVD's and box sets. When compared to the 1080i HD cable it's very close in my opinion.
- The sound: the difference here is what brought this product from a 4 star to a 5. Running an optical cable to my Onkyo 6.1 from this Oppo produces an amazing sound. My sounds system has never sounded so good thank to the Oppo. It really is impressive.
- Great customer service from Oppo: I sent them two e-mails asking a few quick questions and each time they got back to me within 3 hours or so. It seems they really support their products.

A few minor cons:
- Only HDMI: Not a big deal because I've got a 1080p TV with 2 HDMI ports, but the option of component would be nice, if for some reason I need to use the HDMI's for something else (say a PS3, etc).
- The disc tray: As noted in other reviews- it's flimsy. If I sneezed near it, I'd be worried about it snapping off... hasn't happened yet, but I'll keep an eye on it.
- Out of the box, it was set to 720p resolution, which was a little surprising since it's made for use with a 1080p TV. I had to remove the DVD then access the HDMI settings and flip through the different resolutions. Not a big deal, but just an FYI.

The bottom line- this little piece of equipment is going to make your DVD library worth watching again. Go out and buy it. Then in a year or two when the HD DVD shinanagins settle down go out a get a bluray or ps3 or whatever.

Either way, you'll be happy with the Oppo.

This DVD player is gorgeous! I use it with my Samsung 50" Widescreen HDTV. I've been using Netflix, and sometimes the DVD's are scratched. My old DVD player would just stop and refuse to play. This DVD continues, crunching through the scratches until it can get to a part and play normally again. And it was so easy to connect to my TV! I can immediately tell the difference in audio/visual clarity. The price is right for this DVD player.
ALERT***ALERT***ALERT This is not a player that plays HDTV DVD's. It plays regular DVD's and makes them look better.

I own a Magnavox 720p LCD TV and was expecting to see a much better picture from my DVD's than from my older TV. The quality of the LCD was a little better but still grainy. I started to research upconverting DVD players and everyone was raving about the Oppo DVD players in their reviews. I ordered a Oppo 981 from Amazon but they were backordered until late February/early March. Hmmm? Must be good stuff. I cancelled my order with Amazon and ordered directly from Oppo (extra $12 for shipping...sigh). I hooked it up and what a difference! This is a absolute, must have if you own an LCD TV. It can upconvert 720p, 1080i and 1080p TV's. Just get it. You won't regret it.

I got this right before Xmas(direct from Oppo as there was no order backlog) to go with a Panasonic TH-42PX60U. As others have said, I'm staying out of the HD format wars and have no plans for an XBox 360 or PS3. I've tested it with some of my best discs (Revenge of the Sith, LOTR ROTK, the superbit Crouching Tiger, and my favorite movie--the Britney Spears opus Crossroads ha ha jk)and the picture is vibrant and amazing. My wife is yelling at me b/c I have the need to watch all of my old movies over again on this player!!

The unit looks good, plays most every format,has upgradable firmware, and customer service second to none. A slight caveat I have for this unit is that it may be a little too much player for me as the Panny cannot display a 1080p resolution.

However if you have a 50 inch set or bigger with 1080p resolution, this is definitely the player for you. I'm sure when the DVD benchmark tests come out, it will prove to be the highest rated player out there, taking the title from the Oppo 971. But dont believe me, please do a search for this model on your favorite engine and read the reviews!!!!

This player is awesome. I bought a new 1080i hdtv about 3/4 months back and had picked up a cheap phillips dvd to get me going. I was so dissapointed with the picture. It made me think back to how i felt when i compared standard VHS to DVD in the first place. It was fuzzy, just very average and didn't scale up well to the bigger screen. I had been doing some searching around on the forums to see what other toys I could buy and there was a lot of talk about Oppo. I had never heard of this company, like most people I suspect, but people on the forums could not speak highly enough about Oppo. Everywhere I read it was telling me that it could basically convert my dvds to HS like picture. I couldn't really buy this, didn't really understand, but obviosuly I wanted it! (i sound like Jessica Simpson :( ) I was really close to buying a Oppo 970 when I read a rumour of a new version. Against my will I held out, and held out and eventually it appeared on the Oppo website. I ordered it the same day and had it a week later.

I was nervous because you now what it's like when you've hyped something up in your own mind and it nearly always doesn't meet expectations. Like when the trailer has all the good bits, and the movie itself sucks. Once I got this baby up and running (make sure you get the right resolution first) I was truely blown away. It was just like watching HD. I had both of my dvds connected and kept switching between them and rubbing my eyes. For the average punter who just likes to sit and watch DVD movies in great quality I can't believe there is a better DVD player for the price. Dont' worry that you haven't heard of this brand, their support is excellent, there is some many forum posts on it if you need help or assistence, and it's just better than anything else out there within the price range.

It plays every format you through at it, and plays them well. Great sound as a CD player.

There is also a very simple multi-region hack you can apply so if you are like me and have lots of DVDs from all over the world (from living different places) - you are covered!

Make sure you download the latest firmware from the website. The version I got had a problem if you switch HDMI ports on your TV and then switch back, it loses all it's constrast settings. Fixed with the firmware though so that won't affect my rating.