Well, I've had a fun first weekend with my new 970 - I've watched A History of Violence; I, Robot; The Closing of Winterland; and Hotel Rwanda - and the experience has been wonderful.

Here are a couple little problems I've had, which I'll mention in case anyone has any suggestions:

1. I've never been able to get the Input or Surr Mode front-panel buttons to do anything - no response at all. The remote works, so it's not a fatal problem, but it's clearly not right, either.

2. Yesterday, my Oppo 971H DVD player wouldn't turn on; the buttons all flashed their lights rapidly but wouldn't respond otherwise, the unit eventually going back into standby. I tried various things, including unplugging it from the power strip, but to no avail until I finally tried waking up the 970 from standby first - that worked. Later, when I tried to put the 970 into standby, it wouldn't go - no response from either the PWR button on the remote or the front-panel switch. Taking a clue from my earlier experience, I woke the Oppo up from standby, and then the 970 went into standby okay. Any ideas about this?

That's it, for the most part. I've had other little frustrations, but I think they might be learning curve issues, so I won't post them until I'm sure something's not working right.

- Bruce

Have you tried pushing the front panel buttons and then using the navigation pad to scroll up and down through the options? That's the way the 990's front panel works.

The Oppo 971H is not HDCP-compliant, so there shouldn't be any HDCP handshaking going on. It's odd that the player and the Model 970 would interact in such a way as to mess with each other's power commands. Has this behavior recurred?

Yes, but there's no change at all when I first push either of the buttons, so the nav buttons have no more effect than they would if I just pushed them first.

I haven't tried using either one since, so no, no recurrence yet. It wasn't much fun, so I haven't been eager to try to reproduce it. If it happens again, though, I'll try to note all the relevant circumstances and post an update.

Bruce,

On My 970 I have to hit the Input(or Surround Mode) on the front panel then hit the Up or Down arrow to scroll through the options. I just tested it with the surround button. When you hit the surround button the display does nothing. Try hitting the surround button and then hit the up (or Down) button.

Good Luck,

Charlie

Whoops! Sorry! Gonk and brubacca are both right - I thought I'd tried the cursor up/down buttons after hitting the Input or Surr buttons, but I must not have because, sure enough, that works. My bad.

- Bruce

Success!

I just thought I'd add an epilog to this story. I determined that the Oppo's failure to power up from standby had nothing to do with the 970. After contacting Oppo's service guys - who were very prompt and helpful, by the way - I was able to narrow it down to a faulty DVI-DVI cable (the one that came with the Oppo). They're sending me a replacement, and in the mean time I'm just running the DVI directly to my projector, bypassing the 970. Problem solved!