OPPO 981/480p to 720p DVD Comparison

[kberg]

I just received the OPPO 981 player and am having a bit of difficulty seeing the difference in the upconversion capabilities of this player (720p) compared to my Sony megachanger which has progressive scan at 480p. Perhaps I need to do some tweaking of the OPPO, but I was wondering if any of you could tell me if there are any DVD's for which you can easily see the difference in video quality between a 480p player and the 720p capabilities of the OPPO? Or, better yet, are there any DVD's for which you easily see the difference in video quality between 480p and 720p capabilities ON THE OPPO PLAYER? If so, could you provide even a short list of titles?

Thanks in advance.

[Ricardo]

I'm surprised you can't see a difference...how are you connecting it to the TV?

[PolkWannabie]

The 981 connects only via HDMI ...

[kberg]

Correct - it's an HDMI connection, and the OPPO is set at 720p as well. The picture is great...but again, I still can't seem to discern much difference in PQ between the OPPO and my Sony megachanger at 480p - I just can't imagine Sony's 480p progressive output is so good that it makes it hard to tell the difference between that and the OPPO at 720p.

Ideas...anyone?

Again, any DVD titles or certain scenes on such DVD's I can test for comparison?

[shawn474]

Why are you trying to compare 480p to 720p? The upconversion setting should be on 1080 if you REALLY want to see a difference. But, a couple if titles that I have used to test picture quality are Ultraviolet, U571 and MI: 3.
These may not be refernec level movies, but I have definitely noticed a difference between my old panasonic progressive scan and the Oppo.

By the way, you have a couple of connecting options on the 981. However, the only connection that upconverts is the HDMI. I think someone stated that the only way to hook it up was HDMI.

Shawn

[Maurice]

I just hooked up my 981 and I can see a difference in the pq between 480p & 720. Not much difference from 720p to 1080i because I too have a native 720 set. Also, I haven't calibrated yet. Overall, I see better pq than my 999es on certain discs. The audio is on par with the ES and in some cases better. It also has some features that are really good. For instance, the wide/auto setting for the display makes changing aspect ratios for different dvds a thing of the past. I own alot of dvds that are from 4:3 television shows, so that feature is a big plus for me. That being said, for the money, this thing is quite amazing. I will be ordering another one to use in the bedroom with a new 42" Visio lcd in two weeks.

[Maurice]

Correct - it's an HDMI connection, and the OPPO is set at 720p as well. The picture is great...but again, I still can't seem to discern much difference in PQ between the OPPO and my Sony megachanger at 480p - I just can't imagine Sony's 480p progressive output is so good that it makes it hard to tell the difference between that and the OPPO at 720p.

Ideas...anyone?

Again, any DVD titles or certain scenes on such DVD's I can test for comparison?

I have the same type of display. I think it may be the scaler in the display thats doing the work instead of the megachanger, but tweak it some and see what you get. I'll do the same and we can exchange notes.

[Refefer]

What is the size of your screen? It's much more noticeable on larger TVs than smaller ones.

[PolkWannabie]

Judging by his sig it's a 56". I would think it would be obvious at that size.

[Refefer]

Judging by his sig it's a 56". I would think it would be obvious at that size.

Hmm, good point :D :D

[kberg]

I have the same type of display. I think it may be the scaler in the display thats doing the work instead of the megachanger, but tweak it some and see what you get. I'll do the same and we can exchange notes.

Maurice, I was just thinking the same thing before I signed on and read your note above! Perhaps it IS the upscaling capabilities of the JVC rather than the OPPO that are doing the work - and yes, I would be interested in tweaking and exchanging PM's on this.

And yes, my display is 56" so I would expect to see SOME difference, unless the upscaling capabilities of the JVC are top notch, or near so.

As a side note in reponse to the above reply regarding 1080i over 720p, there is another thread that states 720 should be chosen over 1080i for best PQ:

720p vs. 1080i

[Maurice]

Thus far, the difference I see between 480p, 720p & 1080i is less noise in the pq. The pq gets a little sharper on each setting, but its not a huge jump. Again, I think the scaler in the JVC is doing a good job. Going from my 999 to this 981 is more of a lateral move than an upgrade. But it does kick much ass for $230.

[PolkWannabie]

Personally I use 1080P ... But then that's also the native mode of my TV ...

[shawn474]

kberg, interesteing article. I don't have the option of 720p on my set, so I go with 1080i. Now i wish I had the option of 720p.....

Shawn

[ZIPNVW]

I thing the article is a little bias towards 720p since the guy writing it works/ed for ABC. Personally, id rather have more pixels on screen when it come to having a 50"+ TV. Almost every 720p I saw when I was looking at getting a TV looked to blocky for my taste. The 1080i TV on the other hand looked nice. I guess like audio quality, PQ is subjective.

[kberg]

kberg, interesteing article. I don't have the option of 720p on my set, so I go with 1080i. Now i wish I had the option of 720p.....

Shawn

I know that PQ depends on a LOT of things, such as equipment, conditions and parameters set (among other things such as personal preference!), but I can't yet discern any huge difference between 480p, 720p OR 1080i displayed from my OPPO, yet I found the article interesting as well. That being said, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. My experience so far does NOT make me lose sleep over NOT having a 1080p display!

[snow]

I know that PQ depends on a LOT of things, such as equipment, conditions and parameters set (among other things such as personal preference!), but I can't yet discern any huge difference between 480p, 720p OR 1080i displayed from my OPPO, yet I found the article interesting as well. That being said, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. My experience so far does NOT make me lose sleep over NOT having a 1080p display!

well i guess i will throw my 2 cents in to the mix here to further confuse matters and stir up the pot lol. i think the biggest advantage that 720p has over 1080i is detail in moving scenes. for example if you are watching a car race or football game. the cars or players that are moving fast will appear to be sharper less blurriness. as far as the diffrence between 480p and 1080i picture quality goes, the biggest diffrence that you are going to notice is on text. for example compare the screen credits on a 480p picture versus 1080i the diffrence should be huge. also i wonder if your display is doing all the upscaling regardless of which player is being used? there should be quite a diffrence between the sony versus oppo. if you have the manual to your display or know how to get into menu that would allow you to change things look to see whether there is an option to let the source or display do the upscaling. REGARDS SNOW

[kberg]

if you have the manual to your display or know how to get into menu that would allow you to change things look to see whether there is an option to let the source or display do the upscaling. REGARDS SNOW

Good suggestion - I already scanned the JVC manual for this possibility and it looks like I cannot make any adjustment for the DVD player to be the source of upscaling, but I'll check it again - thanks.

Maurice, having the same display, do you happen to know whether upscaling on the JVC can be "turned off"?

[ZIPNVW]

From what I can tell, your TV has a native resolution of 720p. If you feed it 720p from the Oppo, your TV should not have to rescale it. If you feed it 480p from the Oppo, it wll look the same as the Sony because the JVC will be upscaling both. I would check to make sure that the Oppo is sending 720p

[higgins79]

your tv is always up scaling. dvds are done in 24 frames per second. where as high def is 30 to 60 frames per second. all micro displays (dlp / lcd / lcos projectors) utilize what is called "pull down" to scale to the tv fromthe incoming source. (do a google because its way to long to explane.) Anyway if you dig a little further you will find that untill movies are filmed in 60 frames per second there is NO difference between 1080I and 1080p. As far as 720p verses 1080i you will find that many if not most micro displays cannot display interlaced images and will take 1080i images and either upscale to a kinda virtual 1080p or down scale to 720p. As for the oppo pick a good action scene and test between the two settings. in theory you should get a smoother picture with the 720p but more colors with the 1080i. Anyway alot of articles out there make for some interesting reads.

ps i was to lazy to spell check etc this post sry.

[Maurice]

Kberg,
I checked my manual as well and could not find any way to turn off or bypass the scaler.

[kberg]

This is getting VERY frustrating! Ok, first it appears that if my JVC has native 720p (which I believe it has and therefore will upscale DVD source material to 720p, like many HD sets do), then what good is having the OPPO player? Or am I missing something?

Second, and even MORE frustrating, I was playing Open Range, and in the beginning in the transition scene between Costner tying down the tent and fading out to black, then fading from black to the next scene where Costner is looking out on the ranger after the rain, I noticed that during the blackness of the fade out (in both 720p and 1080i), there was major pixelation or macroblocking (or whatever you call it) - it looked like grayish/black video "noise" DURING the fadeout. However, at 480p, no such "noise" could be seen? What's the deal here?! It looks even BETTER at 480p vs. 720p or 1080i?!

[ZIPNVW]

The reason why you have the Oppo is, for the most part, the upscaling quality is better that most built in scalers and other DVD players. The problem with the scaler, DCDi by Faroudja, is that on some dvds, you will see macro blocking which is the "noise" you are seeing during dark/black scenes. The reason why you are not seeing it at 480p is because you are only de interlacing the signal.

I also have a DVD player with the Faroudja scaler and most of the noise can be cleaned up with adjustment to the TV.

Also, there is no point sending 1080i signal to your TV. It will only de scale it to back to 720p. Leave it at 720p so that the signal is only processed once.

[John K.]

KB, yes your JVC has a 720p native resolution, which means it has to display at 720p, regardless of what is input. If 480i from a regular DVD is input your set deinterlaces the i to p and upscales the 480 to 720(as ZIP pointed out, if 1080 was input, it would downscale it to 720). Note that this doesn't make the resolution a "real" 720; enough extra pixels are mathematically calculated and added to the 480 to fill the screen and show a full picture, but the actual resolution can't be changed and remains 480. The only advantage of using the scaling in the Oppo is if it does a visibly better job of it than your JVC, but from what you report this isn't the case. All possibilities for input, i.e., 480i, 480p and 720p, should be tried to determine if the player does better at deinterlacing and/or scaling than the JVC itself does.

[scottvamp]

I find this thread very interesting. I also recently discovered that my 65"Tosh basicly upscales everything to 1080i, its native resolution. So using a upconversion player is perhaps pointless. I just purchased another upconversion player for my front projector which has only component. But i figured it will have a good 480p quality at least. I was unhappy with my Zenith but that 720p article was a good read. Both players will eventually get well used in the future. When i buy a new projector with HDMI. I just don't experiment enough.....

[IanD]

Appreciate the info in this thread. I was going to order a Oppo 981 to replace my Pioneer DV-46AV but after reading this thread I think the Pioneer will hang around a while longer.

[kberg]

I'm going to write OPPO Customer Service regarding this issue and get their input - I'll report back once I hear from them.

[Maurice]

OK, I've been running several types of dvds thru this player and my impressions (pre-calibration) are:

1. It's a very good player, and for the money an outstanding deal.
2. If you have a higher end player (ie Denon 29/39**, Sony ES, Pioneer Elite)
you may not see a big improvement.
3. The scaler in your display will also determine how much of an improvement
you see.
4. This player has some nice features and lots of adjustments can be made.
5. This player's audio has more bass output than my 999, which is cool.
6. This player is very easy to use.
7. In comparison, it does a better job on some dvds, and a little worse on
others. I would call it a draw thus far.

Overall, I like this player and will be keeping it as it gives me what I had in the 999 plus some much appreciated extra features. I expect it to get better after calibration. If you are not using a player like the ones stated above, this one will be a very nice upgrade short of going full HD-DVD/BD. If you have a quality player and a display with a good scaler, it will be a lateral move.

[kberg]

Ok, I wrote OPPO and here are their responses. I left out my original question to them, as it was a bit lengthy but basically the same as my original question in this thread. Before reading it though, I thought I would let you all know that last night I DID see differences in PQ between 480p and 720p while watching Predator. However, it was not the KIND of improvement I was looking for! I think THIS was the problem! I was expecting to see a much SMOOTHER picture, but instead what I noticed was much greater DETAIL in 720p, especially during the darker scenes, keeping in mind that the "smoothness" of the picture at 480p was still excellent and in my mind the "same" as in 720p. I will be testing this difference in DETAIL with other films as well, especially during darker scenes. Ok, here is the thread (read from the bottom up):

-----Original Message-----
From: service@oppodigital.com [mailto:service@oppodigital.com]
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 5:41 PM
Subject: RE: 480p vs. 720p on OPPO 981 Player

Kevin,

Unfortunately there are no more suggestions. If you have played several films and do not see a visual difference, then there is nothing further that can be expressed. There are no films which are great indicators of the quality of our units, and the higher the quality the DVD, the higher the quality will be universally across all DVD players. We justdo a better job then most.

Best Regards,

Customer Service
OPPO Digital, Inc.
453 Ravendale Dr, Suite D Mountain View, CA 94043
Service@oppodigital.com
Tel: 650-961-1118
Fax: 650-961-1119


> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RE: 480p vs. 720p on OPPO 981 Player
> Date: Mon, January 15, 2007 12:46 pm
To: "'service@oppodigital.com'" <service@oppodigital.com>

Thanks for the quick response. The OPPO player was already calibrated via AVIA before I (didn't) notice the difference in PQ, so it appears that is not a factor, and I also tried to compare a few films between the Sony and OPPO, and still no noticeable difference (and I was really looking for even the most MINOR change in PQ).

Any other ideas/suggestions? Can you perhaps suggest a number of popular DVD movies that I might have in my collection and scenes to check out to compare the two; perhaps DVD's which would show substantial differences in how well each player handles badly encoded DVDs? It seems to me that great material tends to look fine (and may be harder to discern PQ differences) on just about every player and that one can learn more about the quality of a DVD player by watching/comparing lousy DVD movie material than you can learn by watching great material.

Thanks,

Kevin

> -----Original Message-----
From: service@oppodigital.com [mailto:service@oppodigital.com]
Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 3:16 PM
Subject: RE: 480p vs. 720p on OPPO 981 Player

Kevin,

We would recommend trying one or two films with the DV-981HD and then switching back to the Sony changer. You should notice more aliasing and ombing errors with the Sony over that of the DV-981HD. We also highly recommend that you use AVIA, DVE, or the THX Optimizer to ensure that you have done a proper calibration. An improper calibration will cause visual errors.

Macroblocking can be enhanced due to scaling. The higher the scaling,the higher the processing and exaggeration of errors. For this reason, an image at 480p could look better in terms of macroblocking as you are not enhancing the errors further.