[Tonyturbo1978]

The last few days i haven't really been able to decide what route to go in regards to HD DVD Drive/ Blu Ray Drive/ XBOX360 HD Add on drive or decent DVD Player. Read lots of peoples reviews and opinions on here about various different ways to do it as im fairly new to the Home Cinema scene. I wasn't prepared to pay huge amounts for latest technology quite yet as HD DVD`s or Blu Ray DVD`s seem a little sparce at mo. Plus I really dont want to buy one and have a kinda Beetamax and VHS thing happen to me like we had here in the Uk in the 80's. So been looking for a stop gap and decided to look at a few players, one from Sony, one from Phillips and another from OPPO. You will have to excuse me on the model numbers, cant remember and im at work and a little rushed but they are the three main ones that score well with you guys. Anyway getting to the point, looked at buying one from CRTProjectors but out of stock and nearly £200 plus Delievery. So looked up OPPO stateside and managed to get one for the eqivalent of £143 including 6 foot HDMI cable and USPS Delivery. It shipped with an hour of placing the order yesterday so a big thumbs up on that behalf. Very impressed with the quick turnaround and shipment..

Anyway next question is, will it be a case of playing straight out of the box? or will i have to change a few things seeing as it`s an American player?

Also anyone else have one? I have a 32" Sony Bravia KDLV2000 and was wondering what it looks like at both 720p and 1080i.

Thanks guys. Anyway anyone thats thinking of getting one, i couldnt be happier with the service i have had.......so far lol....lets hope the Customs do not put extra charges on it and it arrives quick and undamaged.

[richiec77]

Originally Posted by Tonyturbo1978

The last few days i haven't really been able to decide what route to go in regards to HD DVD Drive/ Blu Ray Drive/ XBOX360 HD Add on drive or decent DVD Player. Read lots of peoples reviews and opinions on here about various different ways to do it as im fairly new to the Home Cinema scene. I wasn't prepared to pay huge amounts for latest technology quite yet as HD DVD`s or Blu Ray DVD`s seem a little sparce at mo. Plus I really dont want to buy one and have a kinda Beetamax and VHS thing happen to me like we had here in the Uk in the 80's. So been looking for a stop gap and decided to look at a few players, one from Sony, one from Phillips and another from OPPO. You will have to excuse me on the model numbers, cant remember and im at work and a little rushed but they are the three main ones that score well with you guys. Anyway getting to the point, looked at buying one from CRTProjectors but out of stock and nearly £200 plus Delievery. So looked up OPPO stateside and managed to get one for the eqivalent of £143 including 6 foot HDMI cable and USPS Delivery. It shipped with an hour of placing the order yesterday so a big thumbs up on that behalf. Very impressed with the quick turnaround and shipment..

Anyway next question is, will it be a case of playing straight out of the box? or will i have to change a few things seeing as it`s an American player?

Also anyone else have one? I have a 32" Sony Bravia KDLV2000 and was wondering what it looks like at both 720p and 1080i.

Thanks guys. Anyway anyone thats thinking of getting one, i couldnt be happier with the service i have had.......so far lol....lets hope the Customs do not put extra charges on it and it arrives quick and undamaged.

I was thinking of doing the same thing. Let me know how much import duty you have to pay as I am really interested in this player straight from the states. Cheers

[Timbo21]

You may have to get a step down transformer, and once you've payed duty & tax... Personally, I would have waited for crt to get some in stock. For the saving you're making, that's if you do make any in the end, it seems hardly worth it, especially if anything goes amiss and you have to ship it back to the states!

Anyway, just my thoughts. Hope you enjoy it .

[sandstheman]

Originally Posted by Timbo21

You may have to get a step down transformer, and once you've payed duty & tax... Personally, I would have waited for crt to get some in stock. For the saving you're making, that's if you do make any in the end, it seems hardly worth it, especially if anything goes amiss and you have to ship it back to the states!

Anyway, just my thoughts. Hope you enjoy it .

Shouldn't think a step-down transformer would be needed - i have the 971 and it has a universal power supply anyway, so sufficed with just a plug adapter

[micks_address]

i've ordered one as well... step down shouldnt be required.... manual says acceptable voltage is 111-240 volts..

customs charge is probably a dead cert but even still will probably work out cheaper than crt... dvd players are such established tech now that its unlikely their will be a problem... (fingers crossed)

[Deano@Dublin]

It plays straight out of the box without any problems. You don't even need to set it to PAL or NTSC - just leave it to AUTO and this will work fine for Region 1 & 2 disks. The power supply is universal.

Haven't heard of anyone having to pay import duty on them. As the rumour goes, customs only check 1% of imports!!

[micks_address]

Thats re assuring Deano.. any time i've ever got stuff delivered by fed ex or dhl there's been a customs charge.. never had a ups delivery so fingers crossed.. maybe they mark the package down in value or as Gift to avoid customs interest

[loz]

If it is shipped by a recognized courier most likely will have to pay customs charges. The courier company will do all the customs work by default. Nothing to do with whether customs decide to inspect it or not. (though the courier company can only go by what the shipper declared the contents as)

It is only when sent in regular post then customs might only inspect a percentage.

You should be looking at 13.9% duty, then + 17.5% Vat

So, about £190 plus whatever the courier charges you for doing the customs paper work

[micks_address]

crt quoted me 45 quid for courier delivery to dublin so even with the customs charge - will probably work out cheapest from oppo direct.. i emailed oppo to ask if they would mark down the value of the package - havent heard back yet, but they are probably still in bed in the US yet

Cheers,
Mick

[Deano@Dublin]

I bought mine from this website - http://www.hkflix.com/home.asp. It arrived (to my mate in Washington) 3 days later! He then sent it using his works DHL to my work address.

Bit of a round-house way of doing it but I managed to save a few quid

[Smurkenstein]

I got mine from crt. It wasn't quite ready to play out of the box.

I had to change from region 1 (US) to region 0 using the handset. Also, I found NTSC/PAL auto would not work....forced me in to NTSC ...I had to set it to PAL and only then could I pull up the correct frequency. DVD playback in NTSC was pretty poor.

Now I have it set to 1080p into my bravia X. Excellent results. 1080p>1080i>760.

[micks_address]

Just got an email from Oppo in relation to declared value on shipments.. they mark them as 99 dollars value and mark them as Gift so hopefully will avoid customs charges.... very fast email response... looking forward to the player arriving now

Cheers,
Mick

[nwgarratt]

Originally Posted by micks_address

Just got an email from Oppo in relation to declared value on shipments.. they mark them as 99 dollars value and mark them as Gift so hopefully will avoid customs charges.... very fast email response... looking forward to the player arriving now

Cheers,
Mick

Gift only goes up to £36. If they take it at about £50 value. It will be around £11 tax.

[Tonyturbo1978]

excellent news all round. Cant wait now, been very impressed with them so far. Lets hope im even more impressed when it arrives in good working order

[micks_address]

mines just been delivered in the door.. charged 29 euro customs charge.. about 20 sterling i guess.

brought the price of the player to 248 euro for me... which is about 166 pounds.. crt could only DHL over to me so i saved about 60 quid on the player.. so happy so far.. now to un box and see if it works!

[Tonyturbo1978]

you lucky bugger....ours was on the same plane and im at work now so wont know if i have missed delivery till later this evening. Great saving though, definately worked out cheaper than buying here. Well worth the wait, keep us posted Mick on how it looks and performs..

[micks_address]

Hi Folks,

Just had a quick run through with the player... first question from my wife was - could i not get a silver one!

Packaging was nice.. well wrapped up.. player was cold though, post office must have left it in van over night..! i hooked it up and left for a wee while to warm up before trying..

it comes with american two pin plug.. i had an adapter in the house which i used and it powered up no problem..

By default its on 480p so changed that to 1080i, also tried 720p but i'm not sure which i prefer yet.. the manual seems to suggest that 720p would be a better match for a tv that cant handle 1080p but i', un decided

ran thorugh the THX optimiser on the indiana jones last crusade disc.. had to up the brightness a bit as it was too low...

Now onto pictures... well its as good as my last ns76, initial impression would say better... it was multi region out of the box.. other thing to watch for is that its on Video 1 settings by default under the video tab in set up.. you have to press the stop button twice on the remote to access some of the options, changed to video 2 as thats what suggested by the manual if yuou watch mixture of pal and ntsc discs...

only flicked through some of the last crusade so far and it was very good.. not sure what discs to try out now for good transfers! i know i should i have enough of dvd's!

ANyway thats it for now.. will report back any findings later.. no probelm with lip sync with the player.. have a 2 metre hdmi cable going spare now if anyone is looking?

Cheers,
Mick

[Tonyturbo1978]

is that the HDMI cable that comes with the player Mick, or is it another that you already had?

All sounds good so far. Cant wait now, getting anxious and impatient...You answered my next question to you already, seeing as we both have same tv was going to ask which looks sharper, 720p or 1080i and as i had thought, it's probably too close to choose the better. Maybe if you could have 2 tv's sitting next to each other and a different format on each one, it may well be possible, but not when turning off a source, setting to another setting and then retrying.

Come on Delivery man, cant wait any more.

[Tonyturbo1978]

actually, what was the courier Mick? did UPS just bring it to the UK and then maybe transfer package to Royal Mail or CityLink etc

[micks_address]

Hi Tony,

It was the post office delivery van.. not a courier...

still cant decide on 720/1080i

yep, spare cable is the one that came with the player.. already had a tech link one... havent tried swapping the cables.. assume both would produce same results... cant be bothered the hassle of changing them

watched some of the extended edition of the fellowship of the ring.. started to see things i hadnt before.. like the joints in stone walls, and extra detail.. maybe i'm just imagining it..

Trying to decide what to watch next

Hope yours arrive soon

Cheers,
Mick

[nwgarratt]

Originally Posted by micks_address

watched some of the extended edition of the fellowship of the ring.. started to see things i hadnt before.. like the joints in stone walls, and extra detail.. maybe i'm just imagining it..

That sounds normal if you haven't had a digital connection before. I recently went from component to a HDMI - DVI connection and the background is much more detailed. I am using a Sony NS96 but would have got a Oppo 971 if funds allowed me especially as I have a DVI connection. I can swap between the component and DVI on the fly and it is a lot diffferent. I find component moody now and often too dark.

[ROY_H]

OK, so mine has arrived and I've had a very quick play with it. I was worried I might not be able to use it with my Hitachi (28LD5200) but connect through the DVI-D input and it played straight away. The 720p input on the Hitachi is 60hz only so leaving it on default NTSC it worked fine as did 1080i/60hz.
Hitachi will only accept 1080i at 50hz (and not 720p/50hz at all) so will try this on the PAL setting. sometime. Does anyone know if there is any major disadvantage leaving output on NTSC even for PAL discs ? Oh, was multi-region out of the box!
Picture looks awesome even compared to my Denon 2200, and just as important to me the SACD playback (via analog output) seems superb, more listening time will tell.
So far I'm convinced this could be the bargain of the year.
I was contemplating a Samsung 960 but glad i went this way. Thanks to AV forums for alerting me to this player.

[craig777]

Originally Posted by micks_address

It was the post office delivery van.. not a courier... Mick

Oppo must have used USPS to send the parcel then.. not UPS.

UPS is a courier company, USPS is United States Postal Service (their version of Royal Mail). USPS parcels always get taken over by Royal Mail/Parcelforce once they get to our shores.

I always prefer USPS, as there's more chance you'll miss customs charges as not all parcels get checked when they arrive here.

[Tonyturbo1978]

God damn it my first post didnt work, and it was long....

Ok shortened version and straight to the chase, I have a sound problem. When i change DVD`s or stop then re-start the dvd i loose my sound. The only way i can get it back is by going into the setup menus and changing one of the audio options. I dont have a very good setup so far but i am working on it. Here is my setup if it helps in your diagnosis.

Have a Sony Bravia 32 KDLV2000, an XBOX 360 which is linked up via component cables, The Oppo which is linked only with the HDMI cable and for my sound im afraid im using a really old stereo system. I have this connected via standard phono leads which i have plugged into the back of the tv.

Sorry its a bit brief guys, but just spent 20 minutes previous writing all about the player and how amazing it is, only for the post not to work. Cant do it all again, im a bit rushed for time, Going Paris in the morning for G/F 21st YAY !!! thats if the weather doesnt ground us lol

[Smurkenstein]

So the sound doesn't come from the tv or amp? Sounds like the Oppo is fubared? Have you tried analogue out from the Oppo into your amp?

Paris eh? Very Nice Got any plans?

[GrumpyZombie]

Originally Posted by craig777

Oppo must have used USPS to send the parcel then.. not UPS.

UPS is a courier company, USPS is United States Postal Service (their version of Royal Mail). USPS parcels always get taken over by Royal Mail/Parcelforce once they get to our shores.

I always prefer USPS, as there's more chance you'll miss customs charges as not all parcels get checked when they arrive here.

Mine arrived just before xmas, direct from oppo. Yes, they use USPS. I didn't have to pay any duty so total price was £146.
General rule of thumb is that if something gets sent via USPS, there's a good chance that you will avoid customs charges, if something is sent via UPS or fed-ex, you will almost always get stung for import duty and VAT.