I am in the market for a new 42" LCD TV (Sharp Aquos) and new DVD/CD player (Oppo brand) now. Since the DAC's in my Outlaw 970 seem to be lacking, I want to maximize the analog audio in a video player and the 970 Oppo seems to be a good choice. The downside is that the video performance of the Oppo 970 appears limited, so would I be wasting the 1080p feature of the new TV? Would I be better off buying a cheaper 720p set?

The OPPO 981HD is a pretty nice performer for DVD-Audio and SACD (on par with my Yamaha DVD-S1500 for DVD-A and better for SACD), and the 970HD uses the same platform for audio decoding and D/A conversion. In fact, the analog output of the 970HD is slightly simplified over the 981HD, which OPPO has said can yield a bit better audio quality (although some people who have used both have reported having a real hard time telling a difference). I haven't used a 970HD, so I can't speak to the video performance, but I don't know that I'd call it "limited" - it isn't as powerful as the 981HD, but it's no slouch. If your display will accept 1080p and you want to feed it a 1080p signal, you can get a 981HD for $80 more than the 970HD.

It's been suggested elsewhere that if your HDTV does a good job of handling a 480p signal you don't really need an upconverting DVD player. I'm planning on getting a new HDTV in a few months, but my current DVD player is a bit long in the tooth. It isn't a universal DVD player, nor does it do 480p (only 480i). So I'll probably get the 981HD as it will play anything. I'll have to then compare the video results with having the DVD player feed the TV a 1080p signal, or see how the tv handles a 480p one. As for HD content, I'm going to sit on the sidelines a bit and let HDDVD and BD duke it out a bit longer.

The descision to purchase a 720p or 1080p set is partially based upon the distance from your seating to the screen. For a 42" screen you need to sit 6 feet or closer to see the improved resolution provided by a 1080p set. This may be a moot point since there may not be much difference in price for a 1080p LCD over a 720p LCD. Other factors such as color saturation, viewing angle, black levels, contrast and general video performance are probably more important factors to consider when shopping for a new TV unless you are getting a really big TV/screen where you will sit very close.

As far as which DVD player to use you probably can't go wrong with the Oppo (either the 981 or 970). As kscharf points out the combination of player and TV will determine which component (TV or DVD player) does the video processing as one will do it better than the other. You will have to experiment to find out which one you prefer. My experience is with the 970 and it is a fine, and inexpensive, player. However, as Gonk pointed out, the cost for the more powerful 981 is only $80 more than the 970.

As always, the input (pardon the bad pun intended) is much appreciated. It will definitely be one of the Oppo's. I'm still baffled by all of the upconverting process and what does what. Can you control which signal you can feed (480 vs 720 vs 1080) to a TV?

AvFan - How do you like the 42" Plasma? We are about 8 feet from our screen in the current set-up.

The Oppos allow you to control the signal fed to the TV however each one is different. Oppo has a nice site that has a comparison chart for all three of their players. You can also access each players manual to check things out further. There a more than a few regular Oppo users in the Saloon that can provide you with the details of setting up an Oppo with your TV.

I've enjoyed my 42" commercial Hitachi plasma for over 4 years now. I've mounted it above my fireplace and it sure had a "Wow" factor when I first got it. My monitor is an odd one; its native resolution is 1024 x 1024. Hitachi and Sony jointly owned the factory that made this type of plasma glass however I don't think it is being made any more. By today's standard my monitor is way out of date, but it just keeps humming along. As a matter of fact, that is one reason I want to replace it; its noisy. When I eventually replace it I will probably go with a 768p 50" Panasonic commercial or 768p Pioneer consumer plasma. My seating distance is about 10 to 11 feet so I would not see the benefits of a 1080p plasma. The colors and black levels of the new screens are just amazing and a plasma's wide viewing angle works with the seating arrangement in my family room.

A 42" plasma at 8 feet would be very nice and folks could sit closer without seeing the individual pixels.

Enjoy your search for a new TV and DVD player! Let us know what you decide to buy and how it works for you.

I started to post this last night and got distracted by work, never finished it...
Your TV will have a native resolution - that specific number of pixels across and high that it actually uses to draw a picture. As an example, it is common for "720p" HDTV's (LCD, plasma, DLP) to have a resolution of 1366x768. For these fixed pixel displays, all sources are converted to that resolution for playback. (There are some cases where a 1:1 pixel mapping mode is used to display 720p data on 768p displays by simply not using the top and bottom two dozen rows, but that's an exception to the rule.) The problem early in HDTV's development was poor scalers and deinterlacers in the TV's doing this conversion, leading to disappointing results. Progressive scan DVD players (which deinterlace DVD's 480i video to 480p) have been around a while now (since around 2000 or 2001, at least), but a few years ago manufacturers started going one step further and adding scalers to the players so that you could choose to output the video at 720p or 1080i as well as 480p. The goal was to let you get your output video as close to your display's native resolution as possible, thus minimizing (or perhaps even eliminating) the scaling done by the TV. If the player had better scaling than the TV, the result would be better picture quality.

The OPPO 970HD will allow you to toggle between 480i, 480p, 720p, or 1080i output (although disc playback must be stopped to change resolution). The 981HD will allow 480p, 720p, 1080i, or 1080p (480i is presently not an option, and I don't know that it ever will be due to the way the video signal is routed through the player).

Gonk, once again your clear explanation helps all that read these posts.

So the fact the OPPO 981HD does not output 480i and the 970HD does makes the 970HD the preferred player for those using outboard video processors? I would expect a separate video processor to be better at converting a 480i signal all by itself to the native resolution (or close to it) of the TV versus having either a source or the TV do some of the processing. Sound reasonable?

As most of us will not spend the big bucks for a seperate video processor we will need to experiment between having the source (e.g. upconverting DVD player) or the TV doing varying degrees of the video processing to display a 480i source.

This is probably a topic for a separate post but I don't like the way standard definition TV looks on my plasma. I have some old VCR tapes that look even worse. While the upconverting DVD players improve a standard DVD's appearance these other sources are processed by the TV alone. The trend to include video processors in pre/pros and receivers that work on all video inputs seems like a good idea as long as the ratio of cost to desired features is appropriate.

Precisely - the 970HD became the DVD player of choice among owners of Anthem Statement D2's almost as soon as it appeared, since it could feed an essentially unaltered video signal from the disc to the D2's Gennum-based scaler.
This sentiment is exactly why folks have begun expressing more and more interest in receivers and processors offering scaling solutions based on some of the "name brand" scaler chips (Silicon Optix, Genesis, Gennum, ...). If done properly, it can eliminate much of the concern about how good a job your TV does with scaling (or even how good a job your DVD player does, if you have a player like the 970HD and a good enough implementation in the receiver). The key, as in so many things, is doing it right...

Maybe this is not the right place to pop this question...
Does anybody know where the HDDVD players have gotten at this point as far as affordability and value?
What's the best deal on an HD DVD player?
I heard about Toshiba, but I know nothing about models and all.
Waiting for the format war to die off might sound like a lengthy proposition and I'm itching for those "Planet Earth" HD images on disk.
Any input will be largely appreaciated.

Thank you