When I spoke with Oppo customer service they told me that they do not advertise and that they depend on 'word of mouth'. I told them that I learned about them from the 'Outlaw' website. I really should have told them that I learned about the Oppo from gonk. The Oppo really is a nice piece of equipment at a very reasonable price. Thanks gonk.

FYI, I was initially concernrd about the length of cable that I needed to connect the Oppo to my front projector. Surf Audio/Video sold me a 10 meter DVI cable made by NXG that works great. The cable is fat. I think that the cable cost around fifty dollars.

Good advice from Gonk.

I have been using the Oppo for my DVD playback for many months now, and the latest firmware makes this unit very, very good indeed.

Other than the Oppo, I can recommend the Denon 1600 and ORIGINAL Zenith DVB318 for HDTVs without DVI/HDMI inputs.

For an all in one player(audio and video), I can highly recommend the Onkyo SP1000 and the Denon 3910 with the slight edge going to the Onkyo for audio playback. Unfortunately, my Onkyo occasionally exhibited the lip sync problem, so I sold it and got my Denon 3910 modded by Modwright.

Still, I use the Oppo for movie playback and the Denon 3910 for all(stereo and Multichannel) my audio playback.

PS - My current HDTV does not have a DVI or HDMI input, but I use a Dtrovision DC-DA1 converter between it and the Oppo and Denon DVD player which allows me to get upconverted 1080i DVD signals into my older HDTV. Fortunately, I bought this unit at the price of $249, before they became so popular... and before Hollywood's threats to Dtrovision led to their stopping manufacture of the unit.

Thanks to all for keeping this thread alive and well. I'm very tempted by the Oppo, but have a few more weeks before I make a decision, so am still exploring. I'm still interested in hearing any first-hand experiences with the Samsung HD-950 as a universal (audio and video) DVD player (I probably don't have the space for two players). And anything else that plays nicely with the 990.

The predecessor to the Samsung HD-950 (Samsung HD-841) works great for both audio and video. That's my main player. It's not a Theta transport, but it's also 1/20 of the price. 8-)

Cheers,

merc, the link to that site for the converter you have looks like the device can still be bought? I have a RPTV with no DVI input support and would like to get something like this. Can you tell me were you bought yours?

Thanks

I got my Dtrovision DC-DA1 converter from Digital Connection that merc linked to. They raised the price about a month ago from $259 to $399. Good company to do business with as I have used them several times.

Gonk,

I saw in a prior post that you have a Yamaha DVD-S1500. I picked one up at a clearance sale the other day, and am having problems getting the 990 remote to recognize it. Do you have any suggestions? I tried the two provided codes and went through about five minutes of searching for a code with no success.

I immediately switched to a third-party universal remote, so I didn't try to get it working with the 990's remote. HiFi Remote lists 0539 as a Yamaha DVD code that might work for the UEI remote if 0490 and 0545 didn't work for you. Are you trying to program it to the AUX button? If not, try that one since it's the one that by default is associated with the DVD code library.

Gonk, which remote are you using? I've been toying with the idea of picking up a Pronto so I can retire my pile 'o remotes.

Cheers,

I'd been using an MX-500 for a couple years and think very highly of it (about to get one for my dad since they got an HDTV recently and are having trouble keeping the TV, cable, DVD, and VCR remotes under control), but I recently upgraded to an MX-700. Either remote is an excellent choice, and the MX-500 can be had for around $85 from some reputable online dealers.