My system has 2 DVD players: an upconverting Zenith that I use for widescreen DVD's and a standard Sony that I use for 4:3 DVD's.

Can the Harmony remotes handle two DVD players by having two seperate "watch movie" activities, one using the Zenith player and the other using the Sony?

Absolutely. The remote doesn't utilize devices in an activity unless you specify them in that activity. If you want to watch a widescreen DVD, only the Zenith would turn on and that's what the remote would control. If you want to watch a 4:3 movie, the Zenith would turn off, the Sony would turn on and you can enjoy that activity. It's pretty cool, actually...

Question though. Is the Zenith not a good 4:3 player? I have an Oppo and it upconverts nicely no matter what you're watching.

Thanks JSein456. That's good news.

The reason I use the Sony for 4:3 is that when my Sony Wega rear projection LCD TV gets a 720p or 1081i input signal, it seems to assume the material is widescreen and stretches the 4:3 picture to widescreen. The TV's width control doesn't allow changing the aspect ratio for 720p or 1080i signals -it's locked at wide. So I can't upconvert 4:3 material unless I want to watch a stretched picture (I don't).

Of course I could change the Zenith's upconversion setting to not upconvert when playing 4:3 material but its upconversion control is on the front of the unit and not on the remote control. It's a nuisance to toggle thru the upconversion settings on the front of the Zenith everytime I play a 4:3 DVD. The unit takes several seconds for each toggle between 720p, 1080i and 480p. The Sony player doesn't upconvert, so the TV plays the right aspect ratio for 4:3 material.

Which Oppo do you have? Does its remote control allow toggling the upconversion setting?

I have the DV971H. There's an option to set the player to widescreen for widescreen content and to leave alone 4:3 instead of stretching it...the option is called "Wide/SQZ" in the menu, but then again my TV doesn't take the initiative to stretch 4:3 on it's own. It's an Olevia.

I'm not sure how the Oppo transmits the squeezed 4:3 to the TV. If it sends it with a widescreen flag by adding the black side borders your TV might not stretch it. But if it sends it as 4:3 and expects your TV to play nice it might be a problem.

The catch with the 971H is it only supports upscaling through the DVI, which also supports interlaced resolutions in NTSC and PAL formats. If you use its component outputs you'd only get 480i.

It's a nice player. You CAN change the DVI output setting from the remote, BUT you'd have to press the stop button on the remote first (unless it's already been stopped). You can't change it while it's playing a movie unfortunately.

Oppo's recent line of players are a major upgrade, but I don't know much about them yet. They seem really good, especially the black one. If you're interested in any of them you can get more info on www.oppodigital.com

Thanks for the link. I'll check the Oppo's out. It may be time for a new DVD player.