HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Gary, I am very interested in the BDP-83, but I also want a player that decodes HDCD and offers that decoded signal at the HDMI outputs, not just analog. I have been in contact with OPPO and obtained a link for the user manual at http://oppodigital.com/Download/BDP8...ish_Manual.pdf. While they claim the decoded HDCD signal is available at HDMI, the manual does not address it. In fact, it is hardly mentioned. Have you tested that? If not, will you?

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

For a "Universal" player, it is too bad that it cannot play the HD DVD discs that many collectors still have.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Edwin-S
Why on earth would they make a new player for a dead format??

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Because the 200 discs I have will NEVER die!

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

You can still buy new 33 1/3 and 45 rpm turntables, can't you?
Even 78 rpm ones. USB versions even.

And rightfully so!


Cees

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Yes, but the new Oppo BD player will not play them, either.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

There are a lot more people with copies of HD DVD movies than there are with either DVD-A or SACDs, but the player has the capability to play at least one of those dead formats. There is even the possibility of a firmware update to allow the player to play the other dead audio format. Yet, there is no support for a large group of people to play their HD DVDs.

It would have made a lot more sense to add an HD DVD playback capability to the player than to add support for dead audio formats. I'm not saying they had to support a dead format. It just shouldn't be called a "Universal" player when it clearly isn't. Calling it "Universal" would require it to be able to support all of the shiny disc formats: CD, HDCD, SACD, DVD-A, DVD, HD DVD, VCD, and Blu-ray. What are the other ones I've forgotten?

And don't say 45s, 33-1/3s, and 78s. They don't count as they aren't shiny.

Needless to say, I'm also omitting MP3s, etc. Although, technically any "Universal" player would have to support all of those data formats as well.


I doubt HD DVD players will have that availability: at least new ones. Used ones will be available for the present, but once they die the discs will be useless. The format didn't last long enough to build up a large client base that specialty manufacturers could service profitably.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

What's the source for your claim that more people own HD-DVD than SACD? I'd like to see those data. It might be true, but I've never seen those figures.

And, why do people insist on calling SACD and vinyl "dead"? Titles continue to be released on both media.

Doug

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

That was an assumption on my part. I've been looking for statistical data to back the claim, but I'm having trouble finding it. I'm lousy at searcning for statistical data on the internet.


It depends on how you define "dead". I consider any format to be "dead" when I cannot walk into a store and find product readily available for purchase. One statistic I did find was an RIAA stat on total SACDs shipped in 2007. 200,000 SACDs were shown shipped in 2007 compared to 1.3 million Vinyl discs. DVD-A shipped approximately the same number of units as SACD in 2007. SACD and DVD-A combined shipped less than half the total amount of Vinyl LPs which are themselves a barely visible niche.



Looking at those numbers, SACD and DVD-A are for all intents and purposes dead formats; however, I should have originally said "dead as mass market formats". Also the RIAA stats show that SACD and DVD-A shipments are declining over time.

Basically, my only point was that a HD video player shouldn't be called a "Universal" player unless it supports playback of both disc-based HD formats, regardless of their "life" status. IMO, SACD support is mostly in there to allow a small group of people to continue to play their existing SACD collections. I just think they could have given the same playback support to people with HD DVD collections. That kind of support would have truly made it a "Universal" player.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Those thousands of Laser Discs I have sure do look shiny to me and I am quite sure far more Laser Discs have been sold to date than HD-DVDs, thus I suppose Oppo ought to provide support for Laser Discs too. I sure as hell would buy a player in a jiffy if it supported Laser Discs. Not that I won't buy one anyhow and therein lies the secret, Oppo knows that they won't sell too many more players just because they add HD-DVD support and thus it does not make economic sense for them to do so.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

SACD is in there because it's...Sony. No need to pull out numbers and stats, or speculate why some of the other "missing" formats or features aren't, this is the real answer. IMO of course. [Please, noone tell me Sony doesn't pull the BD strings, and that they don't "own" it...I know that from a theoretical POV.]

Oppo is probably already being bent over the test bench on their BD licensing fees. It is not easy for a smaller manufacturer to enter this realm.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

It'd be nice if they COULD have it play laserdiscs, especially if it could play the Hi-Def ones from Japan, but since they're analog, bigger and use a different type of laser that would add a lot to the cost of the player. I don't know enough about HD-DVD to say how complicated it is to support playback of that. I would have bought the LG dual-format player had it not had a lot of technical issues.

Meanwhile, can anyone answer my question about the Oppo putting on-screen displays at the top when starting the discs it DOES play?

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Sorry, but did you really think about this nutty idea before you posted it? How many Sony BD players support SACD? Zero.

The real reason is that audio afficionados form a core part of Oppo's customer base, and we care about having a single machine that handles all of our audio and video discs (well, maybe not all, but as many as possible).

Doug

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Yeah, maybe it is nutty after all.

Re the Oppo/audio thing: yes, I know, I have an Oppo just for digital audio over HDMI, don't care about its video capability at all.

There are already lots of very good BD players. This one won't be cheap, so has to be very special for me to jump on it, considering the $170 980 already does all the digital audio->HDMI stuff and so far more of it. OTOH, maybe it is a very good $500 video-only player and can stand on that alone.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

According to a post over at PS3SACD.com in addition to everything else, there is now confirmation that the OPPO BDP-83 will play DVD-Audio, too. This is becoming mighty tempting! If I can get one box to perform the audio functions of my Denon DVD-3910 (that I ultimately want to move to my music room) combined with the Blu-ray playback capabilities of my PS3, it is time to seriously consider it. (I am tired of trying to explain to my wife HOW to watch a movie or listen to a CD...)

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

I'm a bit confused here..

"Another bonus with this player is the ability to do SACD playback. With the minimum HDMI 1.2 spec (this player is 1.3) you can send direct unprocessed DSD to a capable pre-amp or receiver, this is a excellent way to listen to SACD and is highly recommend by your reviewer."

Is this player capable of decoding DSD and sending it via the analog audio outs to a receiver, or just "pass thru" via the HDMI out?

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

I agree. That is a bit confusing. But, if you refer to the product specs on the OPPO Website, I believe that SACD playback is supported via the analog outs, in addition to HDMI... This picture of the back of the player clearly shows 7.1 analog outputs, so I think we are good to go.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Thanks Gary for clearing that issue for me, let's see what the street price is going to be..

A player like this would be perfect for me since I'm not planning to upgrade my Receiver in the near future....this way I can retire my SACD player to a different room and listen to both SACD and lossless Blu audio without upgrading the receiver..

Any other Blu players with SACD capabilities out there? (except PS3)

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Very unlikely. There are some 20 million SACD-capable players in the world (CD/SACD players, DVD players, Home-Theatre-in-a-Box systems and the first two generations of PlayStation3) and well over 5,500 titles -- numbers that only BD is getting to. HD-DVD did not get anywhere near those figures.


Not quite. In fact, Sony (any division SCE, Home A/V and especially Sony Music) currently does very little to support SACD. So do the other majors in the music industry. SACD is there primarily thanks to a large number of small, independent record companies, a couple of CE brands who still care about sound quality (including Oppo) and a base of audiophile consumers who did not stick with vinyl or RBCD because they found out SACD offers the best of thse two formats.


Well, if you count out the first 7 million PS3 consoles.

In case anyone asks (I believe somebody here did but I don't see it now) SACD-compatible BD players have been developed by Oppo, Denon, Marantz en some brand called ezGear.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Greetings Gary, and thanks for a fine review.
Been following this and the early adopter threads (AVS)and feel that this player has the quality and support that I've been waiting for.
Received my invitation to purchase this morning, so I took the plunge.

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Not a detailed review but a couple of random thoughts on this player. I received the BD 83 last week, but did not have a chane to install it until last night. I spent about two hours with it sampling various BD and SD DVD scenes to give a quick test drive.

Set up was a breeze, every optin has a little help description as you highlight it so no thumbing through a manual to determine what 16:9 vs 19:9 Auto means....thumbs up OPPO

BD playback is excellent, no complaints here. Hi Res audio sounded amazing (test with The Dark Knight key scenes and Master and Commander opening battle)

SD DVD-signifigantly better than the BD player it replaced. Watched the opening scene of Gladiator, the Coliseum battle of Gladiator and opening of Star Wars III, the space battle.

One thing I did notice on SD DVD, I origianally had the player set to convert SD DVD to 24P, and there were a couple of wierd cuts in Gladiator. It was as if the player couldn't handle quick cuts while converting to 24P, so I switched to 60hz and the problem went away.

Haven't tried any SACD or DVD-A yet, also looking forward to hearing HDCD

Re: HTF Special Review: Upcoming Oppo BDP-83 Profile 2.0 Universal Blu-ray Player

Oppo now has the BDP83 available to the general public. $499.

Just a quick update:

First, yes Oppo has the BDP-83 available on their website, Amazon is also selling it (staring July 6th)

www.amazon.com/OPPO-BDP-83-Blu-ray-Player-DVD-Audio/dp/B002EEP3MK/ref=sr_1_4

Second, with the latest beta version of Oppo's firmware, I now have no issues with HDCD.

Hayes
Edited by Hayes Preston - 6/30/2009 at 11:31 pm GMT

And joy of utter joys, there's an aftermarket mod to make it region-free for Blu-ray! Hurrah! Now all I need is the UK distributor to get stock - and the small matter of finding the money! - and I can at last get into this Blu-ray malarkey.

Completely Silent!
In case anybody out there was wondering, this player does not create any fan noise. I have had this player for about 2 months, replacing my Toshiba XA2. The XA2 is a fab upconverter, but the fans sounded like an air conditioner at all times—drove me bonkers!

This Oppo is every bit as good (or better) at upconversion as the stellar XA2 for my standard DVD collection while making no noise whatsoever. It also starts up/loads incredibly fast. For the time being, the bonus is the ability to also play Blu-ray disks (until ready to fully embrace it).

I feel this purchase was worth every penny!

In regards to the analog outs, I assume this can be used to allow the Oppo to decode lossless formats and send the audio via the analog outs to the amp?  I assume this is true with the SACD playback?  Can anyone verify?  Also, my amp only supports 5.1 analog inputs.  Is there a setting on the Oppo to address this?  Thanks to anyone who can answewr.

From memory, yes, you can tell the Oppo how many speakers you're using and it will handle the issues.  Also, if it helps, the user manual for the player is available from the Oppo web-site; it was useful for me when I was evaluating the as-yet-unreleased player against some of the others.  (And so far, I haven't regretted it.  I'll admit to some uncertainty when I went ahead and ordered it, but...)

Leo

^^^Good idea to check the manual online.  Thanks.

Here is the HTF product page.  On the links section you will find links to the manual and the oppo site.  I ordered one today.

For what it's worth, you don't need the hardware mod, just a different firmware (I won't link, can easily find by googling). I installed earlier this week and it works.  Now I can finally unload my DV-980H.