Oppo DV-981HD 1080p Upscaling DVD Player

The review hardware for this test was provided by OppoShop.com, a European-based online retailer of Oppo Digital products.
Oppo Digital are a company who, over the last two years, have been feverishly making a name for themselves in North America. I first heard about the company during the Summer of 2005, when they were virtually unknown in the English-speaking world. Oppo’s first product to hit the USA was a player that had gained notoriety for correctly handling and processing video in areas where many more expensive models were failing. Better yet, it accomplished this at a bargain price.

Most surprising of all, however, was the product support that Oppo had given their 2005 model. After an initial review by DVD Benchmark found faults with the player, Oppo corrected these via a firmware update; turning the machine into a stellar performer. It’s these two factors that have carved a well-deserved name for the company: excellent value for money and continued product support. They certainly are an example to many larger companies that tend to release players and forget about them.

Now, thanks to OppoShop, UK-based customers no longer need to import Oppo players from the United States. OppoShop are also based in Europe (Sweden, to be precise), so UK customers can order equipment with speedy delivery, and without the fear of Import Tax charges. OppoShop's asking price for the updated player, the DV-981HD, is £185 including shipping (at the time of writing).

Presenting the DV-981HD

The DV-981HD is effectively an update of the player that first made Oppo famous, the DV-971HD. Marketeers will be quick to point out that it upscales standard-def DVD video all the way up to 1080p resolution, which is more convenient than the previous model’s 1080i maximum. Most people who don’t (yet?) have Full HD 1080p screens, however, are still served by the 720p output mode.

The DV-981HD doesn't feature Component Video outputs, which is unusual. If this was a cost-cutting move, it was a smart one, especially in Europe, where almost all HDTVs feature digital HDMI connectivity. Curiously though, the European version has an RGB SCART output, which I didn’t test in this review given its promotion as an Upscaling Progressive Scan unit. (Audio is fully covered by Analogue Stereo, Analogue Surround, Digital Coaxial and Digital Optical outputs).

Without meaning to end the review before it even begins, I’ll explain what makes this player such a good choice. As with their 2005 model, Oppo have chosen to include a fairly well-regarded Genesis Microchip/Faroudja video processing chip inside. Genesis’ processing chip, when correctly implemented, is especially good at Deinterlacing the most common types of film material, presenting films from both video formats (NTSC and PAL) without the unnatural jaggedness that is sadly fairly common on other cheaper players. You would be shocked at how many "Progressive Scan/Upscaling" DVD players sold in Europe don’t handle motion from European DVDs properly! This superior motion handling is, in my opinion, more important than "Upscaling" for film enjoyment – but it’s harder for marketers to explain, which is probably why you don’t hear about it as much.

Additionally, the chip allows for Upscaling to HD resolutions, and usually performs this function in a way that’s slightly cleaner to how most HDTVs do it. I can certainly vouch for the DV-981HD doing a better job of upscaling DVDs to my 1920x1080p HDTV than the TV’s own internal video processor doing the same job.

So, with some idea of what to expect from Oppo’s latest, I lifted the wrapped-up player out of its slim cardboard packaging and took a look. The DV-981HD differs from its predecessor by coming in black (although in Europe, OppoShop seem to be offering a silver variant), which matches most current A/V components and adds to the player’s sleek feel. A brightly lit blue LED surrounds the Open/Close button, and the LED lights up in a similarly bright blue. These can be disabled completely, or dimmed, if you end up finding them too garish. The front of the unit is kept nice and simple, with only four thin, rectangular, silver buttons (Power, Open, Play/Pause, and Stop). The disc tray is thin and entirely black, and is almost invisible until ejected; in fact, it may actually prove difficult to see in the darkest home cinema rooms.

Remote Control

I’m in two minds about Oppo’s supplied remote control. Part of me wants to criticise the number of buttons it has (it can be a little scary to look at), but on the other hand, this means that the most of the player’s many functions are no more than one button press away, and users will soon learn where everything is quickly enough. The remote isn’t very attractive to look at (unlike the player itself), but more importantly, it has a good feel to it – it’s curved and fits in the hand nicely. It has buttons that feel nice to push and better yet, they glow in the dark!

All of the most obvious functions have buttons on the remote that are near to each other: Play and Pause share a button and are next to Stop, "Goto" (jump to a chapter or time position), Rewind, Fast Forward, Chapter Back and Forward Buttons, as well as directional buttons and Menu and Setup keys. Quite usefully, there’s a button that cycles through the different video modes (but this’ll only work if a disc isn’t playing).

The remote, by the way, has an Eject button as well, which I love to see. Stooping over to find the said button on the front of a DVD player after watching a film is a pain for any couch potato.

Picture Tweaks

The majority of the DV-981HD’s picture settings come correctly configured (and by "correct" I mean accurately representing what’s on the disc). Sharpness is turned off – which, the manual reminds us, adds NO edge enhancement whatsoever to the picture - very nice to see. Although the Sharpness feature on this player only targets specific frequencies rather than the entire image, it should still be left off. The Saturation, Brightness and Contrast settings are at their default "00" values and should not normally need to be tweaked beyond this. Using the THX Optimizer, I made sure that Whiter than White and Blacker than Black (the most extreme shades) were being passed without clipping at these default values. Things worked just fine, which is convenient, because other players sometimes need these options adjusted to bring out all of the tones present in the image.

There’s also the facility to enable or disable the added features that the Genesis video processor brings to the table. These are "TrueLife", a detail enhancing feature which I honestly couldn’t see the results of, as well as "CCS", the Cross-Color Suppressor. (If you’ve ever watched a DVD of a TV show that’s been transferred from an old fashioned Composite video source – like most seasons of The Simpsons – then you might have noticed a rainbow-like tizzing effect in finer areas of the picture. Although this job really should be done by the DVD producers, the Cross-Color Suppressor is designed to try and remove this).

"Noise Reduction" is self-explanatory and performs a Temporal/3D NR effect (that’s the kind of Noise Reduction that tends to create trails, or lag, in the picture). Naturally, I left it Off, but it’s there for any really, really troublesome material should the need arise.
Update (August 24, 2007): Originally, disabling the "TrueLife" feature (which I am yet to see the effects of - supposedly it's a Detail Enhancing image tweak) would enable the Noise Reduction setting, introducing motion blur. As soon as I reported this to Oppo, they were quick to respond and have now fixed the problem with their latest beta firmware update, which OppoShop now has available for download. It's great to see that Oppo are still providing this level of customer service.

Finally, "Video Mode" makes slight adjustments to how Deinterlacing is handled. There is almost never any difference between the "Video1" and "Video2" functions, but if one particular mode is producing jaggies from Film content, then the option is there to change it and potentially clear up the problem. I never had to do this during testing, however.

In case you’re wondering, the DV-981HD has Aspect Ratio control functions as well, in case your HDTV is like mine and locks you into a 16:9 ratio for HD resolutions. Out of the box, it will distort 4:3 content by stretching it to fill a 16:9 frame. The "General Setup" page in the Setup menu has a strangely labelled option called "16:9 Wide/Auto" which will add black bars to the sides of 4:3 content to pad out the empty room ("Pillarboxing").



One thing that I must draw attention to is that the DV-981HD – or at least the European unit I received for review – comes configured in a way that will degrade the quality of NTSC DVDs. The rightmost setup page (called the "Preference Page" – only accessible when the player is in STOP mode) has an option called "TV Type", which is set to PAL by default. This means that the DV-981HD is actually rate-converting 60hz NTSC discs into a 50hz PAL-like signal, which is detrimental to their motion quality and causes juddering. In Europe, we’re lucky enough to have equipment that can natively handle both 60 and 50hz as the norm, which means we should select the "Auto" setting. This simply outputs NTSC 60hz discs at 60hz, and PAL 50hz discs at 50hz - without any unnecessary attempts at conversion. The manual does explain all of this, however.

Curiously, there’s no option to change between the different video resolutions in the menus. A button labeled "HDMI" at the bottom left of the remote handles this, and cycles through 480p/576p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p (in that order). There is no way to output raw 480i or 576i, directly from the disc, via this player’s HDMI output – you are required to make use of the Genesis chip’s deinterlacing functionality. This is of little consequence to most users, because using the Genesis chip’s deinterlacing functionality is one of the main selling points of the player (it does a much better job of Deinterlacing than many TVs that I’ve used). It will irk those using extra off-board video processing hardware, however (OppoShop in fact sells a different player geared towards people like this).

Usability and Menus

The best way of describing the DV-981HD’s menus is "functional". The on screen displays aren’t very attractive to look at and certainly lack a hi-tech feel, but they’re very easy to read and I was pleased that all of the options could be found somewhere within one easy to use menu. (My previous DVD player featured a labyrinth-like menu structure). Additionally, they respond very quickly, so they’re easy and fast – just like the rest of the player. (Fast Forwarding and Rewinding on this thing is even faster than it is on my PC-based DVD player, which is pretty something – and the layer change time is close to non-existent also).

By the way, OppoShop deliver this player region free out of the box, which is something that I really appreciate. It’s an excellent first impression and reminder that they take movie watching seriously. Apparently it’s possible to get DV-981HDs that will refuse to play certain discs out of the box, but entering the key code 92100 with the player’s Setup menu on screen allows you to remove the region lockout anyway. That’s right, Oppo’s player does not require a modification or a specialised remote control to unlock it – it can be made region free with only a few key presses! This is excellent to say the very least and hopefully means that more people can now import legitimate DVDs from other territories, rather than being forced into resorting to less wholesome methods of acquiring material not available in their country.

Once or twice after stopping a DVD, I encountered an HDCP error, where the player and my HDTV didn’t properly "handshake", resulting in a snowy static pattern on screen. Fortunately, playing and stopping again, or playing a new disc, returned the player to normal operation in almost every case. That said, I did once have turn the player off and on again to cure the problem.

Quality Analysis: Film Deinterlacing

In previous reviews, I’ve assessed different types of film content (PAL Film, NTSC Progressive Flag, NTSC without Progressive Flag) individually, but there’s no need to with this player because it’s easier just to say that each of the most common types works properly. Using a copy of the Silicon Optix HQV Benchmark DVD, I confirmed that 3-2 Pulldown Detection (for NTSC movies) works correctly. Only some more unusual cadences created jaggies, and even then, these jaggies were smoothed out by the Faroudja DCDi technology present in the player.

All of the PAL movies I tested played without trouble, confirming that 2-2 Pulldown Detection is present and working properly. This certainly makes a change for a cheaper player, but as I said, it’s by no means an unexpected result given Oppo’s track record.

As with what seems to be anything but the most expensive players, some of the rarer cadences (such as films broadcast on US TV with the "Vari-speed" method) tripped the player up. The Silicon Optix test disc is the only time I've ever seen these cadences used and this is essentially a non-issue for 99% of people.

Quality Analysis: Video Deinterlacing

Video deinterlacing always involves some degree of compromise - there is simply no way of getting a 100% jaggy-free image from material shot on video, because unlike Film material which can simply be "re-structured", interlaced video material requires the video processing circuitry to "fill in the blanks".

Fortunately, the Genesis chip present inside has a jaggy-smoothing technology called Faroudja DCDi, which makes a definitely noticeable improvement. (For those of you familiar with the "three rotating bars" test on the Silicon Optix HQV disc, the DV-981HD manages to display the top two out of three bars largely free of jaggies, which Silicon Optix deems as providing "Good" performance - to get better, you'd need to spend a lot more money).

Regardless of the content, be it Video or Film, PAL or NTSC, there DV-981HD did not show any Chroma Upsampling Error issues. Colours were smooth, without jagged edges.

Quality Analysis: Upscaling

Many people seem to get the wrong idea when it comes to Upscaling DVD players, and expect them to upconvert their existing PAL (and sometimes NTSC) discs to High Definition quality. This is a mathematical impossibility (at least with today’s hardware!), but a decent upscaling player will usually give better results than feeding an HDTV directly with a Standard Def signal.

This was true of the DV-981HD in my setup. To test, I used the Sharpness pattern from the AVIA Guide to Home Theater DVD, and fed it to my Sony KDL-40W2000 HDTV with the player outputting 480p, bypassing it’s Upscaling capabilities. I then instructed the player to send the pattern to the TV in Upscaled 1080p. The result was a picture that was cleaner, with a little less edge ringing.

Another benefit of having the player upconvert to 1080p is that many 1080p HDTV sets allow the user to disable Overscan on 1080p images. There is no technical reason as to why this shouldn’t be possible with lower resolution pictures, but to date most manufacturers only allow this to happen if the TV is being fed 1080-line video. For this reason, and the reasons above, I appreciated the Upconverting functions in the DV-981HD.

While the 1080p, 720p and 480/576p output modes on this player are good, I don't recommend anyone uses 1080i output. As with all other players I've used that incorporate the Genesis chipset, it's quite jagged and stair-stepped. This will affect almost nobody, as most 1080-line displays accept pure 1080p and users of lower resolution displays are probably better using 720p.

For all of its other many benefits, the Genesis video processing chipset found in this player does have a small down-side that you might have heard of: the "Macro Blocking Enhancement Error" (or "MBE" for short). MBE shows up on large areas of flat colour, and makes what would otherwise be a flat shade look a little dirty and blocky, especially if you’re using its Upscaling functions. This isn’t Oppo’s fault and is just a quirk of the video processor.

While the MBE error is of course present, I was pleasantly shocked at how less noticeable it was compared to my last Upscaling player. It looks like Oppo have done everything to try and minimise this inherent bug, which doesn’t surprise me. This end result means that it’s minor enough for me to say that many people may not even notice it, and if they do it’s unlikely to significantly bother them. Since I watch a ton of 2D animation, I’m particularly sensitive to this problem (and almost every other video problem under the sun, for that matter) and it really didn’t irritate me that much given the chipset’s other many advantages, if that’s any indication.

Audio and Other Features

Unsurprisingly, the DV-981HD played Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS audio tracks nicely. Unusually enough, the player features its own Volume Control, which I left at the default (20/20) setting. It also has several Equaliser and Sound Field presets, which I also left disabled.

The BOOKMARK button brings up a feature that I seriously appreciated as a hardware reviewer. This button brings up a grid with 12 boxes on it. Moving the cursor over an empty box and pressing OK will create a Bookmark at that position. Similarly, moving the cursor over a box that already has a time assigned to it will take you to that position on the disc, and pressing CLEAR on the remote control deletes a bookmark.

Naturally, the player also has Resume support. Ejecting a disc will briefly flash the message "Saving Breakpoint…" up on screen. When the disc is reinserted, it’ll play from that point, unless the user presses STOP to cancel and play from the beginning.

The DV-981HD also plays a variety of other media types that are outwith the scope of this review. These include DivX-compressed movies burned onto DVD-R, SACD, and DVD-Audio.

I should also point out that the player even comes supplied with a 6-foot HDMI-to-HDMI cable, which I used to send 1080p/60 – the most bandwidth-hungy (and therefore the most error-prone) of the signal types to my TV, without any problems, meaning that the performance of this in-box cable is up there with the most expensive available.

Lastly (whew), I need to throw in a good word for the player’s speed. This unit is FAST. Navigating through menus takes almost no time thanks to the unit’s near-instantaneous reaction to remote commands, and the layer change speed is of the "blink and you’ll miss it" variety – it takes almost no time at all.

Conclusion

So, there we have it, a worthy update to the player that gave Oppo Digital a good name just two years ago. At £175, the DV-981HD is a bargain. It performs every essential film-related playback task, and is quick and easy to use. Yes, it’s true that you can get a "Progressive Scan" DVD player for £70 if you look hard enough – but the majority of these are almost certain to present jagged motion from PAL DVDs, thus defeating their entire point!

There is only one feature I'd like to see added to the DV-981HD: an option to actually soften the image slightly. When I reviewed the upscaling functions of the Panasonic DMP-BD10, I noted how much I appreciated careful use of this feature to help conceal annoying edge enhancement added to some DVD transfers. (That said, that particular player cost considerably more).

Anyone looking to transport their library of Standard-Def DVDs to their HDTV at 720p or 1080p is advised to check Oppo's latest player out. To better the DV-981HD, you’d need to spend a considerably higher amount of cash, meaning that this is money well spent. I’ve been adamant for some time (as have others) that Genesis’ chip, when implemented properly, is the best balance between value for money and quality for most users. Seeing it served up for a bargain price inside the DV-981HD gave me no reason to change that opinion.