Welcome me to the 1990's!

[jamison]

how is the on screen menus on it? I have a DV-980H and love the player but the menus look like they were ported from space invaders.

[pixelthis]

You sound like the guy who bought a color TV in 1989 because he was waiting for them to perfect the technology.
Well, I just bought my first Blu ray player, upconversion is first rate,
one site said it was as good as the 1200$ scaler they put up against it.
And I can rent blu titles all day long , they cost as much as a regular DVD, and there are several dozen sub 20 buck BLU discs out there,
and the price keeps coming down.
I would like to congratulate you on finally entering the 20th century,
only problem is, we are now in the twentyfirst
After a few years of not messing with computers I went into circuit
city to shop, four rows of laptops and one of desktops!
A geeky kind of guy told me that nobody bought desktops anymore, probably an exageration, but they appear to be heading teh way of the CD.
OH, you probably didnt hear, but the CD is dying a quick death.
And trains have been replaced by airplanes also.
Wish I could cheer your "decision" but you basically bought a Betamax
reight before the "great capitulation", Blu is a major improvement over DVD, and while upscaled DVD looks pretty good(especially cgi intensive stuff) DVD is the past
And the price of addmission you paid to get to that "past " would have bought you a nice new bLU PLAYER that plays UPCONVERTED
DVD as well as your Oppo, if not better.
Not that that matters, DVD is a legacy format now, and in a few years
you will come to see what I mean

[elapsed]

Lol you clearly didn't sense the sarcasm in my post, of course I did not wait 15 years for the technology to reach perfection. I'm 29 years old, I've been building my stereo system for less than 2 years and was waiting out the HD wars before I purchased a player, and made my final decision to purchase DVD over Blu-Ray.

In any event, both my DVD player and your Blu-Ray player will be obsolete in 4 years time. However, the Oppo was a reasonably priced purchase for me, and I can enjoy tens of thousands of titles costing next to nothing (I don't rent media, but this is a personal preference). To be honest I couldn't care less about the higher definition video or audio quality offered by Blu-Ray. I own a 2-channel stereo system and 90% of my time is spent listening to music. But for that occasional time when I want to enjoy a movie, its nice to have the best upconverting DVD player ever built, in terms of video processing.

And when DVD and Blu-Ray are both replaced by media servers and streaming downloads, you'll be stuck with DRM protected Blu-Ray disks, while I can quickly rip my entire collection to a media server and enjoy all of the movies I've purchased for as long as I wish. So in fact, your overpriced Blu-Ray player will be obsolete before mine.

cheers,
elapsed

[Rich-n-Texas]

Lol you clearly didn't sense the sarcasm in my post...

I didn't either, but OTOH I got my sarcasm detector from GM so...

I'm 29 years old, I've been building my stereo system for less than 2 years and was waiting out the HD wars before I purchased a player, and made my final decision to purchase DVD over Blu-Ray.

Can't argue with that because IMO the lines haven't been drawn yet between the two technologies.

Nevertheless, if money wasn't so much an object, I'd probably have a PS3 AND an Oppo 981 in my A/V rack. The Oppo's are clearly a good value and a major step up over the run-of-the-mill DVD players these days. And when an American company puts something like that out on the market my inclination is to support and reward them by giving them my business.

But I do have to agree (and this is where a functional Detector would be useful) that BD titles aren't that expensive. I purchased from Amazon, a "Legends of Jazz:" BD that was recommended by a member here that absolutely blows away any DVD in picture and sound quality in my collection. It ain't even close. Cost was $13.95 shipped. I own more concert DVD's than movies and my PS3 gives me excellent detail in both sight and sound. About the only thing I use my Progressive DVD changer for anymore is to load it up, crank up the volume and go do chores and such around the house.

In any event, both my DVD player and your Blu-Ray player will be obsolete in 4 years time.

This one I'm not so sure about. If more and more movie studios are getting on board with the Blu-ray format then I think four years is unrealistic, and even if it is, how many people keep their same equipment for say... five years? On the other side of the coin, you heard from one person who mentioned that he's still running Windows 98 (Good Lord JM!!!) so I'd say there's more than a 4 year lag for acceptance of new tech such as Blu-ray AND VOD. What components will one need to purchase in order to utilize VOD? I'm able to purchase VOD titles over FIOS which means an STB and a MoCa router are required.

However, the Oppo was a reasonably priced purchase for me, and I can enjoy tens of thousands of titles costing next to nothing (I don't rent media, but this is a personal preference). To be honest I couldn't care less about the higher definition video or audio quality offered by Blu-Ray. I own a 2-channel stereo system and 90% of my time is spent listening to music. But for that occasional time when I want to enjoy a movie, its nice to have the best upconverting DVD player ever built, in terms of video processing.

It was certainly the right solution for you. Enjoy!

[pixelthis]

Lol you clearly didn't sense the sarcasm in my post, of course I did not wait 15 years for the technology to reach perfection. I'm 29 years old, I've been building my stereo system for less than 2 years and was waiting out the HD wars before I purchased a player, and made my final decision to purchase DVD over Blu-Ray.

In any event, both my DVD player and your Blu-Ray player will be obsolete in 4 years time. However, the Oppo was a reasonably priced purchase for me, and I can enjoy tens of thousands of titles costing next to nothing (I don't rent media, but this is a personal preference). To be honest I couldn't care less about the higher definition video or audio quality offered by Blu-Ray. I own a 2-channel stereo system and 90% of my time is spent listening to music. But for that occasional time when I want to enjoy a movie, its nice to have the best upconverting DVD player ever built, in terms of video processing.

And when DVD and Blu-Ray are both replaced by media servers and streaming downloads, you'll be stuck with DRM protected Blu-Ray disks, while I can quickly rip my entire collection to a media server and enjoy all of the movies I've purchased for as long as I wish. So in fact, your overpriced Blu-Ray player will be obsolete before mine.

cheers,
elapsed

Dumb dumb dumb
You are not getting the point, that oppo cost just as much as a
blu player, so wheres the sense in that.
As for downloading off of "media servers" I do that already, did they pass a law that people with Blu ray players cant do this?
As for DRM wait untill you see those "media servers" guareentee ya
the DRM on those suckers will make BLU look open sourced
by comparison
DRM phobia is becoming so prevalent that they oughta put it in a psychology textbook, and then theres what it leads to... DOR
(denial of reality)
DRM is here to stay, sorry but you will have to pay for media you use,
simple as that.
As for the "better dvd picture" that is nonsense, the video amps,
scalers, everything on a Blu player is better in order to accomodate
the higher capabilities of the blu format, to say that your oppo is "better"
is that ol DOR kickin in again.
You get a little boost in Q on a DVD by deinterlacing its 480i pic to 480p, because you're going from interlaced to progressive, and twice as much info is on the screen at the same time, you cant wring any more rez outta it without three grand worth of equipment.
The entire tech is horse and buggy, it has nowhere to go, blu titles
are selling for as low as ten bucks, and how are blu players
"rediculousy" expensive when they cost as much as your oppo and do Blu ray?.
Send that oppo back, and step into the 21st century.
please
PS I have a car for sale, interested?