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upscaling DVD player - anybody here use one?


Shade

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Well, I purchased the Theatertek software earlier this evening. The picture quality is MUCH better than the other players I was using. Works well out of the box, but the bit of tweaking I did to it helped a fair bit. Planning to play around with it a bit more though. Between the improved PQ, and the array of features, I think I'll be quite happy with this.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and advice.

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Shade, good to hear... I too am very happy with TheaterTek.

Red, as for power, my 3G runs about 5% during playback w/o FDD post proc. 15-20% if I have FDD running as well. I think the buss speed is very important. I am running 400 mhz dual channel RAM. For reference, I did try to run it on my old 4 year old 1.2 Tbird with a single 133 buss and it is pegged at 100% CPU.

AVS has A LOT of info. I did all my research w/o a single post. Do detailed searches like ATI TheaterTEK, or FDDshow ATI settings, etc etc to sift thru the data.

As for noise, I have my PC case in the storage room behind my rack. I bought a nice aluminum Firewire case that you can plug your DVD IDE cable into. SO in my rack I just have the DVD in its nice case. I do keep the wireless keyboard on top of my turntable, but now that I have my RF Remote Control all setup, I don't touch it much.

JM

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  • 1 year later...

I recently purchased an Oppo DV971V for $200. It performs on par with players costing several times as much, has excellent build quality and very strong customer service. I did a side by side comparison with a Marantz DV9500 (using an HDMI to DVI adaptor) with a MSRP of $2200 and a street price of about $1600. At 720p or 1080i the Oppo's PQ is every bit as good as the Marantz. Both run circles arond my previous Denon 2900's.

I find this incredulous. Especially the build quality. Must work for Oppo?

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I just upgraded to an Sharp LCD, and got an Oppo upconverting DVD to go with it. Because the components are in a walk in closet adjacent to the media room, I had to get a 35' HDMI cable.

Apparently, the standard for HDMI is no cable > 15'. My solution was to get an "extender" - which is a small signal amplifier that goes in line at the TV end on the HDMI cable. Only had it all since just before Xmas, so I honestly have not played around - like to see what happens if I turn off the "extender" - I'll try it tonight...

I bought mine from http://www.octavainc.com/ - along with a HDMI switch and the cables, as I wanted to run only one HDMI to the TV, and be able to switch from DVD to Dishnetwork HD, without changing my reciever. Set the Oppo player to 1080i out, and let it do the upscaling to the TV - seems to work fine for me.

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The Avelink 2 is the same as the JVC SR-DVD100U which they just change the name on the panel. I run mine with component video cables and the stuff I burn myself seems a lot better quality when shown thru this unit. This is on a Sony KDL-46XBR2 LCD.

JJK

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I have both an upscaling dvd player (zenith 318) and a HTPC. The zenith I have still upscales over comp. I got mine before the firmware. It does a great job. Infact I did compare it with a friends oppo and we bothed like the zeniths picture better. You do have recal the display for differnt players.

I also have the HTPC which I use for 90% of my dvd use. I also use it as a music server. The picture is way better using the HTPC. I have a very simialer system to JM. I have a P4 prescot 1gb ram and a 9600 xt video card. If you go this way and you decide or have a ATI Card, download the latest driver and the cataylist software. It will give way more resulotions to play with. I don't use powerstrip, never needed it. I use theatertek, very easy to setup. I use andy's version of ffdshow, just make sure you disable the sound decoder in ffdshow and it will work great for you in theatertek. I am not to computer savy, I know enough to get myself into trouble, and I still got it up and running. I have had my HTPC up for a little time now and I still mess with the settings. I don't think I will ever go back to a standalone player agian. I will still have one for the wife.

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I recently purchased an Oppo DV971V for $200. It performs on par with players costing several times as much, has excellent build quality and very strong customer service. I did a side by side comparison with a Marantz DV9500 (using an HDMI to DVI adaptor) with a MSRP of $2200 and a street price of about $1600. At 720p or 1080i the Oppo's PQ is every bit as good as the Marantz. Both run circles arond my previous Denon 2900's.

I find this incredulous. Especially the build quality. Must work for Oppo?

Lisa

This guy used to post here a lot. I found him to be fairly reasonable. He was one of the first here to advocate using tons of wattage to drive highly sensitive rf-7's. Turns out he was right about that. The discussions got heated & I guess he didn't like it & left (avs I think). May have been other issues.

JT

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I too went the way of an HTPC as Jay and other have. There is nothing better for flexibility and picture quality. With

Theatertek out putting at 1080i the picture is awesome!

Jay... have you had a chance to download any of the WMV HD samples? These are stunning to say the least.

I spoke to Theatertek and the software fully supports the new WMV HD protocol. If you haven't already go over to microsoft

and look this up. They have many HD clips in both 720 and 1080i all about 100 megs or so (can u say broadband).

T2 is coming out this year in this new format. It will be interesting to see what becomes available for the HTPC guy.

scooter

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I recently purchased an Oppo DV971V for $200. It performs on par with players costing several times as much, has excellent build quality and very strong customer service. I did a side by side comparison with a Marantz DV9500 (using an HDMI to DVI adaptor) with a MSRP of $2200 and a street price of about $1600. At 720p or 1080i the Oppo's PQ is every bit as good as the Marantz. Both run circles arond my previous Denon 2900's.

I find this incredulous. Especially the build quality. Must work for Oppo?

Lisa

This guy used to post here a lot. I found him to be fairly reasonable. He was one of the first here to advocate using tons of wattage to drive highly sensitive rf-7's. Turns out he was right about that. The discussions got heated & I guess he didn't like it & left (avs I think). May have been other issues.

JT

I'm sure, but I think the Oppo's tray alone pulls it out of the "good build quality" category. I like the Oppo alot, but one has to admit that tray is pretty scarey. Works fine, but it sure makes me nervous.

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I got my oppo 981 (the 1080p one) last night and got to play with it a little today... Out of the box, I was actually impressed with the quality of the build when put into perspective with the price of the player. I'll admit, I didn't pay that much attention to the tray, but it didn't stick in my mind as "whoa this is cheap", and overall the player felt very solid, and the picture was excellent.

Can't speak as to how it sounds though, as my reciever and speakers won't arrive for at least another week.

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