New Oppo upscaler released (DV-983H). Pricey?

[rago88]

Concidered the top of line in dvd upscalers....

http://www.oppodigital.com/press/oppo-pr-20080311.html

[admin]

At $399, it is a bit expensive. Still a good price given the video quality it produces, but build quality might be an issue for those used to high end equipment.

[MilesAhead]

curious

At $399, it is a bit expensive. Still a good price given the video quality it produces, but build quality might be an issue for those used to high end equipment.

I got the old $200 Oppo with the DVI output. Upconverted DVDs look great with it(1080i max.) I'd be curious what this one produces. But for $400 these days I don't think I'd buy anything that couldn't handle upconversion and Blue Ray native DVDs. I haven't been following developments since I bought my player but wouldn't the upconversion algorithm or something nearly as effective "leak down" to the cheapie upconverting players in a few months? Or do they have it locked down?

For that matter I haven't seen the output of any of the cheapie upconverting players. Are any of 'em comparable with the old Oppo 1080i output?

[rago88]

Don't really know.
we have 2 Helios[ former NeoNeu] units which upscale to 1080P thru component as well as HDMI.
That's not a typo..



Helios Labs - Connect to the future of digital home entertainment.

[MilesAhead]

Don't really know.
we have 2 Helios[ former NeoNeu] units which upscale to 1080P thru component as well as HDMI.
That's not a typo..



Helios Labs - Connect to the future of digital home entertainment.

The typo was in my post. You didn't see it because I edited it out.
$400 seems a bit much unless the thing will polish my car and make toast too.

[rago88]

lol...
I think your right..
Am sure it's a solid performer but now your getting into bluray prices but then again,
I don't know any movie I want to see that bad that I would pay over 20.00 to own and maybe watch twice..

The biggest advantage to the Oppo[ or any good upscaler is it doesn't need 25.00 dvd's to work..

[admin]

The current range of Blu-ray player's DVD upscaling ranges from poor to average (the PS3 is probably better out of the available). There are some new players from Denon and the likes that will have better upscaling (using Realta chip, big brother of the Reon), but these are in excess of $3,000.

Conspiracy theorists say that the poor upscaling capabilities are by design to show off Blu-ray video quality. Some even goes to say that recent DVD encoding qualities have dropped in order to make Blu-ray again appear a better choice. Someone mentioned an example of a very recent movie, but I can't remember the name (probably a Fox titles, like Die Hard 4).

[MilesAhead]

surprised

lol...
I think your right..
Am sure it's a solid performer but now your getting into bluray prices but then again,
I don't know any movie I want to see that bad that I would pay over 20.00 to own and maybe watch twice..

The biggest advantage to the Oppo[ or any good upscaler is it doesn't need 25.00 dvd's to work..

I was surprised at the quality of output to be honest. Progressive .avi files with a decent bitrate look nearly as good as upscaled good quality DVDs.
I think my favorite feature is the "Wide Squeeze" aspect ratio squasher.
If you have good quality 4:3 source without subs and you use the wide squeeze setting with 1.2 zoom it's almost like watching 16:9.

The only gripe I have with this Oppo is the Disc Tray. There's no break in the depressed circle that holds the disc and if you don't pay attention it's easy to get the disc jammed between the plastic form and the opening for the tray. It's just a pain that you have to think about putting the disc in and plucking it out. Other than that I like the Oppo very much.

[admin]

The current range of Blu-ray player's DVD upscaling ranges from poor to average (the PS3 is probably better out of the available). There are some new players from Denon and the likes that will have better upscaling (using Realta chip, big brother of the Reon), but these are in excess of $3,000.

Conspiracy theorists say that the poor upscaling capabilities are by design to show off Blu-ray video quality. Some even goes to say that recent DVD encoding qualities have dropped in order to make Blu-ray again appear a better choice. Someone mentioned an example of a very recent movie, but I can't remember the name (probably a Fox titles, like Die Hard 4).

With this said though, competition will mean upscaling quality will be seen as a major factor in people deciding what to buy, so perhaps if the CE firms haven't paid much attention to DVD upscaling on Blu-ray players now, they will do so in the future.

Toshiba on the other hand was pretty concerned with DVD upscaling quality (hence the Reon enable XE1), but look at what happened to them and to HD DVD ... so perhaps Blu-ray's approach is better for the format, although (as with many things Blu-ray related) not as good for the consumer.

[rago88]

makes sense..
btw:
do u have a HD or Bluray player of upscaler?

[admin]

makes sense..
btw:
do u have a HD or Bluray player of upscaler?

Me? All 3 actually (HD DVD standalone, PS3 Blu-ray, HD DVD add-on drive for the Xbox 360 - both standalones can upscale DVDs). Upscaling can only do so much though, since the primary problem with DVDs is the compression artifacts and poor colour reproduction (as compared to HD), and upscaling can't really deal with these problems (it can improve sharpness, and get rid of some artifacts, but colour reproduction is largely dependent on the source material).

One advantage that "real" HD content has is that they are usually taken from new masters created especially for the HD version (for older movies), and so, there's a lot of effort that has gone into it to make it look better before it even reaches the HD encoder. On the other hand, some DVDs that have had HD masters done for them (like T2: Extreme Edition) will look absolutely fantastic when upscaled, to a point where many people will be hard pressed to tell which is which without a direct comparison.