With more and more people getting HDTV sets, upgrades to other components become more important over time. In fact if you got yourself a new large screen 1080p display this Christmas, you’ll quickly realize that your 3 year old DVD player isn’t quite up to snuff these days. What used to be a sharp picture just doesn’t look quite as good on a 60 inch 1080p display. So what do you do for those old DVD movies? You get yourself an up converting DVD player of course!

One such option is the OPPO DV-981HD as reviewed by the folks at Consumer Electronics.NET here. The DV-981HD is billed as a universal DVD player capable of playing back all sorts of media including the following (from their website):

  • DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD (SACD) and DVD-Video universal playback
  • Compatible with Audio CD, HDCD, WMA, Kodak Picture CD, and other digital audio/video/picture media and formats
  • Official DivX® Certified product, certified to the Home Theater Profile
  • Plays all versions of DivX® video (including DivX® 6) with standard playback of DivX® media files
  • Plays XviD and .SRT, .SMI, .IDX and .SUB format

The real key to the DV-981HD of course is the up-scaling capabilities. It’ll take your 720 x 480 interlaced video and turn it into 480p/720p/1080i or 1080p video.Other features on the player include:

  • DCDi by Faroudja video processing technology
  • HDMI port
  • Supports NTSC and PAL
  • User adjustable video controls for sharpness, contrast, brightness, and saturation

Here’s the verdict from Consumer Electronics.NET:

It delivers a sharp picture that’s well beyond what any DVD can deliver on its own, as well as vivid color and lifelike enhancement options, all for a bargain price of $230. It’s well worth it. Highly recommended. 8.8 out of 10 stars.

[Check it out via Gizmodo]

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