Are image problems common on hacked players?
 

I just put in the hack on my Oppo 970HD, then tried watching my dad's British copy of My Name is Joe. I noticed quite a bit of stuttering on the picture, especially during pan shots. So is this simply a bad copy of the disc/ poor transfer, or are there often problems playing different regions on hacked players? I really want to order a British copy of The Wind That Shakes the Barley, but I didn't want to spend the money unless I knew it should play OK. I'd always assumed region coding was purely a software issue, but after the problem mentioned above, I wasn't sure.

What exactly is your DVD player / TV setup? NTSC or auto or what? Post all the information.

I've never heard of region coding affecting picture playback (except for not allowing it).

This may not be the full explanation, but the Oppo 970 (unlike the 971 and 981) is not capable of doing the 2-2 cadence, which as I understand it is something akin to the PAL equivalent of 3:2 pulldown for NTSC discs. Hence, PAL format titles will suffer some artifacts as a result.

The TV is a 50" Sony Grand Wega set to NTSC. As for the Oppo, I just set it to region-free for the hack.

I have the same problem with PAL titles with my Oppo 971. I have a JVC rear projection TV (has DVI input). It's not the region coding since R3 and R2 NTSC discs work fine. It's only the PAL discs that I have this issue with. I watched a PAL title last night and was thinking about this very topic.

subgenius, I wonder if your 971 is like my 981... the 2-2 cadence only works if you're in "VIDEO2" mode. If you're in VIDEO1, switch it out and then take a look.

Correct you are. I just figured that out on my own by reading the updated users manual on Oppo's website, page 32 specifically. Thanks for helping. To think, I haven't been getting the most out of my PAL discs for some time. That change made all the difference in the world. That's why I'm only a subgenius.

So, just to clarify, are you saying that if I want to get serious about buying international DVDs I should purchase the 971 or 981? The issues I described in my original post really are too distracting to make watching international DVDs doable on my 970 if they're all going to look like that.