I wonder if the player's and the display's settings may be working at cross purposes? You may want to zero-out the settings on both. Then start with a rough calibration on your display and fine tune from there with the player.

Likewise, if you have not already done so, you may want to peruse this third party, advanced set up guide on your player: http://www.oppodigital.com/dv970hd/dv970hd-adv-setup-guide.pdf

Lastly, I have the 971H, and if I recall correctly, that player's video settings could not be optimized via the component outputs. Not sure how the 970 compares in that regard, but I throw it out there just as an FYI.