Oppo OPDV971H Build Quality

The Oppo DVD player came in a nice retail package. Opening it up, I was presented with a well-packed product wrapped in a tough blue material and capped by engineered foam packing material. To say that the unit was adequately protected would be an understatement. While I don't think the additional packing material was probably needed, it did serve to make the unit stand out from other products which come wrapped in plastic or thin layers of foam. The retail box included a composite video cable, a stereo analogue audio cable, remote control, batteries, a user manual and even a single link DVI-I cable.

The front panel of the unit is clean, measuring slightly less than 1 7/8" tall. The buttons and LCD display are themed blue which complements the silver faceplate. The DVD drive itself is very trim, with the drive tray measuring in at less than 1/4" in height. The rear of the unit sports 5.1 analogue audio outputs for DVD-Audio and a mixed L/R connection whose output is determined in the setup menu. There are composite and s-video connections for legacy systems. The component connection offers only 480i output and does not have the benefit of Faroudja processing which resides on the DVI output board. Coaxial and optical S/PDIF audio outputs are provided for PCM, DTS and Dolby Digital signals. Of course the real reason people are going gaga over this player is the fact that it has a DVI output ( without HDCP, making it friendly for use with displays have HDCP as well as legacy units that do not). On top of this, the Genesis FLI-2310 chip is planted squarely on this output, enabling DCDi and other visual benefits to using the DVI output.

I ran my standard "standby mode" test whereby I shut down the unit with the disc tray open. The Oppo doesn't take back in the tray before shutting down, it merely powers off as requested. In addition, activating any of the front panel controls fails to wake up the unit from standby mode - the power button must be depressed in order for power up to occur.

Update:
The player will retract the tray if the remote is used to power off the player.

The build quality if the unit is what I would expect for a low-profile DVD player. The overall layout of the chassis components is clearly defined and organized with a drive, power supply, connector board, DVI and Genesis video processing circuitry and a MediaTek MPEG board. The MediaTek board uses the 1389 chipset which is found on many PC-based drives and has had its share of firmware issues (which fortunately for owners, Oppo has been excellent at addressing to date based on user feedback). Even with these issues, the MediaTek chipset remains a very progressive system with support for such formats as DivX Pro. The Genesis FLI-2310 chip, which appears exclusively on the DVI video output board, is no slouch and appears on many higher-end DVD players. Why it is limited to the DVI board is an unfortunate mystery, but we imagine Oppo was doing its best to meet its particular target price point. The OPDV971H has a very modest power supply with a single 47uF capacitor and a PFC Boost Inductor. The slim-load DVD drive is mostly plastic, but the unit seems built more for form than function in going with the slim overall design.