Talk me out of buying an Oppo BDP-93 (1 Viewer)

[Tony Whalen]

After several years, I just pulled the trigger on the Oppo BDP-93.
To date, we've had a pretty poor experience with Blu-Ray.
We have a fairly humble setup (46" Sharp Aquos with a fairly decent amp & 7.1) ... but our experience with BD players has been .... meh.
Bought a Panasonic BD unit, and it was okay ... but had pretty bad load times. Plus it wasn't BD-Live. (Only 1.1)
After reading several reviews, we bought a Samsung BD-C6500 about a year-and-a-half ago, looking forward to a more responsive machine, with built-in wifi.
It's the worst piece of crap I've ever spent money on. I don't know if we purchased a lemon, or what. Horrible load times... freezing at random points on perfectly clean (and brand new) discs... crashing after the screen-saver kicks in (thus fearing pausing any movie) ... or even hanging up when pausing. As a result, we stopped watching Blu-Rays, and just watched stuff on Netflix, only occasionally purchasing a new disc. Even after firmware updates, the machine simply isn't reliable at ALL.
Enough is enough... we sat down to watch an older BD tonight... (Hunt for Red October) ... and after watching 40 minutes of the movie, it hung up. We restarted the machine... three times... after two failed loading attempts ("Unable to read disc" .. funny... read it fine a little while ago... ). Then got it running... and paused to go get a munchie about 1hr 5mins in. Sure enough, the machine froze. Rebooted AGAIN... very pissed off... and at about 1h 40m, the movie froze. Skipped ahead two minutes... froze again.. stuttered... froze again... etc. I checked the disc... clean and spotless.
At that point I gave up... and got out my Visa. No more sub-par machines. No more compromising. It's time for the machine that everyone says is the best.
I've read about the Oppo units for years on this forum... and I really really hope that it'll be an outstanding machine that is reliable, flexible and full-featured. (Plus it'll give me ammo to get my wife to agree to a 3D display!)

 

[TheBat]

After several years, I just pulled the trigger on the Oppo BDP-93.
To date, we've had a pretty poor experience with Blu-Ray.
We have a fairly humble setup (46" Sharp Aquos with a fairly decent amp & 7.1) ... but our experience with BD players has been .... meh.
Bought a Panasonic BD unit, and it was okay ... but had pretty bad load times. Plus it wasn't BD-Live. (Only 1.1)
After reading several reviews, we bought a Samsung BD-C6500 about a year-and-a-half ago, looking forward to a more responsive machine, with built-in wifi.
It's the worst piece of crap I've ever spent money on. I don't know if we purchased a lemon, or what. Horrible load times... freezing at random points on perfectly clean (and brand new) discs... crashing after the screen-saver kicks in (thus fearing pausing any movie) ... or even hanging up when pausing. As a result, we stopped watching Blu-Rays, and just watched stuff on Netflix, only occasionally purchasing a new disc. Even after firmware updates, the machine simply isn't reliable at ALL.
Enough is enough... we sat down to watch an older BD tonight... (Hunt for Red October) ... and after watching 40 minutes of the movie, it hung up. We restarted the machine... three times... after two failed loading attempts ("Unable to read disc" .. funny... read it fine a little while ago... ). Then got it running... and paused to go get a munchie about 1hr 5mins in. Sure enough, the machine froze. Rebooted AGAIN... very pissed off... and at about 1h 40m, the movie froze. Skipped ahead two minutes... froze again.. stuttered... froze again... etc. I checked the disc... clean and spotless.
At that point I gave up... and got out my Visa. No more sub-par machines. No more compromising. It's time for the machine that everyone says is the best.
I've read about the Oppo units for years on this forum... and I really really hope that it'll be an outstanding machine that is reliable, flexible and full-featured. (Plus it'll give me ammo to get my wife to agree to a 3D display!)

I had went to the motions of the cheaper players and felt the same way. I only had a few titles not play on other players. certainly fewer on the oppo 93. let us know how it goes with you when you get the new player.
Jacob

 

[Adam Gregorich]

If I could BUY the damn thing easily, I would! Not going to pay inflated prices just because they made this available only with Painasonic players!
Another plus on the Oppo is that it has COMPLETELY seamless layer changes on standard DVDs, from all the ones I've watched so far. No pause or audio dropout whatsoever, not even for a nanosecond! About time somebody got that right!

You've been around long enough that I am going to trust you. I'll send you my copy. Keep it for a week or two and mail it to Tina who will have to promise to send it back to me after she has had it for a week or two.

 

[TonyD]

What a guy.

 

[Eric-S]

I recently bought a used BDP-80, as I'm simply using it as a transport.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

That's very cool of you, but I already got one for $20 from Craigslist. Hope the guy didn't see how much it was going for on Ebay. Tina lives real close to me though if you want to send it to her, I haven't told her yet that I've got it. I do need to do something to make up for the TV I was going to sell her, but my dad ended up selling out from under me (Tina give me a call again when you see this- I don't have your number but you have mine!)

 

[Tony Whalen]

I had went to the motions of the cheaper players and felt the same way. I only had a few titles not play on other players. certainly fewer on the oppo 93. let us know how it goes with you when you get the new player.
Jacob

It arrived today.
Packaging blew me away... much less the machine.
Got it hooked up in no time... and the setup was a breeze. (Had to get into the advanced settings to generate sufficient base... very pleased with the flexibility!)
So far... it's a beautiful machine. Fast, feature-rich, and not a fault I can find. So far so great!!!
Now... what to watch... what to watch...

 

[FoxyMulder]

Finally, do the region hacks not void the warranty? And which is better to buy from -- Amazon, or directly from Oppo? Sorry, I know many of these questions keep popping up, but some kind of concise summary would be of great help. Thanks!

Oppo actually have an unused part on their circuit board where you plug in the region free kit to, i personally think Oppo put that part there to help people make their players region free, they couldn't do it directly due to blu ray disc association rules so they did it indirectly by providing the means for region free kits to easily be attached to their players.

I have a region free Oppo BD-83 and it performs by holding a button for a few seconds and it beeps to confirm its changed to the region, works flawlessly, since the hack is so easy to remove i doubt you need worry about voiding the warranty.

I also have a Playstation 3, that's quicker with disc loading and also does 3D but i don't need to upgrade though just because the new models have come out, i tend to only upgrade something when it no longer works.

The packaging is superb and the Oppo players feel like quality hardware.

Here's a link to an article explaining how the modification works. That's written by Josh Zyber who now occasionally hangs out here.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/blog/oppo-region-mod/

 

[annagranfors]

The only PQ difference you'll probably see is better-quality upconversion of DVDs, and better PAL to NTSC conversion of your R2 discs over your old player (if you had a region-free one previously), depending on how good that player's converter was. My old DVD player was a $50 Philips one, and the conversion is like night and day on an NTSC-only television.
Unfortunately, the fact you have a Samsung TV means you won't be able to take full advantage of the Oppo's "worldwide" capabilities, because Samsung displays (the ones sold in the US, anyway) aren't capable of displaying a pure, unconverted PAL image. That being said, though, the Oppo has a superior converter inside, and it is also capable of converting 50i Blu-Rays from the UK to 60hz, since your TV cannot handle 50i, either.

Yikes. I've got a Samsung UN46D6000...and I bought a BDP-93 a while ago, and installed the SuperDisk. It seemed okay for a while, but began to develop problems...juddering on files on my hard drive and discs (both NTSC and PAL), and worst of all, began to do this annoying white flash across the top of the screen at scene changes when playing my Blu-Rays (NTSC). I sent the OPPO back to the manufacturer, and they gave me a replacement. But if I'm understanding you, installing the SuperDisk won't allow for proper playback of my PAL (R2) discs correctly? And it further makes me wonder whether it's just the Samsung not being able to deal with the signal from PAL. (Although I did plug the OPPO into my old Olevia HDTV, and it seemed to have the same problems...?)
You seem quite knowledgeable about all of this...any further words of wisdom would be *greatly* appreciated, before I kill another OPPO (or the Samsung).

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by annagranfors /t/310509/talk-me-out-of-buying-an-oppo-bdp-93/60#post_3942904
Yikes. I've got a Samsung UN46D6000...and I bought a BDP-93 a while ago, and installed the SuperDisk. It seemed okay for a while, but began to develop problems...juddering on files on my hard drive and discs (both NTSC and PAL), and worst of all, began to do this annoying white flash across the top of the screen at scene changes when playing my Blu-Rays (NTSC). I sent the OPPO back to the manufacturer, and they gave me a replacement. But if I'm understanding you, installing the SuperDisk won't allow for proper playback of my PAL (R2) discs correctly? And it further makes me wonder whether it's just the Samsung not being able to deal with the signal from PAL. (Although I did plug the OPPO into my old Olevia HDTV, and it seemed to have the same problems...?)
You seem quite knowledgeable about all of this...any further words of wisdom would be *greatly* appreciated, before I kill another OPPO (or the Samsung).

Did you try updating the firmware on your Oppo, also just thought i would mention this but Blu ray is not NTSC, nor is it PAL but you do get standard definition material on these discs which can be NTSC or PAL and some European discs can also have films/tv shows that are encoded at 25fps ( 50i ) instead of the usual 24fps.

Blu Ray's from Europe are Region B, Blu Rays from North America are Region A and Blu ray's from China are region C. More info below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Region_codes

Perhaps this superdisk is the issue, i personally would have gone for a proper hardware mod chip, something like below which is only $89 and easy to install.

http://bluraychip.dk/product.php?id_product=17

Pro version even better at $149.

http://bluraychip.dk/product.php?id_product=15

 

[Robert Crawford]

Anybody, I have the pro version and will sell it for cheaper than $149







Crawdaddy

 

[annagranfors]

Did you try updating the firmware on your Oppo, also just thought i would mention this but Blu ray is not NTSC, nor is it PAL but you do get standard definition material on these discs which can be NTSC or PAL and some European discs can also have films/tv shows that are encoded at 25fps ( 50i ) instead of the usual 24fps.
Blu Ray's from Europe are Region B, Blu Rays from North America are Region A and Blu ray's from China are region C.  More info below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Region_codes
Perhaps this superdisk is the issue, i personally would have gone for a proper hardware mod chip, something like below which is only $89 and easy to install.

My mistake re: Blu-Rays being PAL or NTSC; I knew that but apparently my addled brain substituted NTSC for Region A.
And yeah, I'm curious now as to whether the SuperDisk might be harmful to the OPPO's health. I'd seen nothing on other forums to suggest otherwise, but DID know that a hardware mod would invalidate the warranty, so I went that route, especially since I just wanted to be able to play my PAL DVD collection. Yes, I did update the firmware, but it did nothing to fix the problems I described.
AndyMcKinney's mention that Samsung TVs were incapable of handling the "worldwide" capabilities made me wonder whether perhaps the signal (after SuperDisk install) out of my OPPO was something that the Samsung couldn't handle, and would result in the juddering/white flashes. (Although, again, playing it through my old Olevia resulted in similar results.
Thanks for the advice, though...I may consider the hardware mod since my OPPO's now out of warranty, anyway.

 

[AndyMcKinney]

My mistake re: Blu-Rays being PAL or NTSC; I knew that but apparently my addled brain substituted NTSC for Region A.

Were you talking about Blu-Ray discs (such as 60hz vs 50hz ones), or playing foreign DVDs, though?

Despite what some others may say, NTSC and PAL do still make a difference, even on HD displays, when it comes to standard-definition content. Some (like the Sharps, Sonys, etc.) can handle both 480i (i.e. NTSC) and 576i (PAL) being fed to them. The American displays that cannot handle PAL (Panasonic, Samsung, etc) cannot handle 576i, whether you want to refer to it by that name or PAL. The only way those displays can cope with PAL discs is for the disc to be converted to 480i/NTSC by the player (or some other device) before being fed to the display. Granted, some players do a good job with conversion (like the Oppo), while others are real dogs. The best picture quality is, of course, going to come from a player that's feeding the "native" PAL signal and a display which can accept it.

And yeah, I'm curious now as to whether the SuperDisk might be harmful to the OPPO's health.

Absolutely not. I have the hardware mod, and have also used SuperDisk when I disabled the mod to do some troubleshooting. Oppo themselves told me to install the SuperDisk! If you're only wanting to play foreign DVDs not Blu-rays), then it's perfectly alright for you to just install the SuperDisk and skip the hardware upgrade. If you want region-free on Blu-ray, though, the hardware mod is your only option.

AndyMcKinney's mention that Samsung TVs were incapable of handling the "worldwide" capabilities made me wonder whether perhaps the signal (after SuperDisk install) out of my OPPO was something that the Samsung couldn't handle, and would result in the juddering/white flashes. (Although, again, playing it through my old Olevia resulted in similar results.
Thanks for the advice, though...I may consider the hardware mod since my OPPO's now out of warranty, anyway.

In the Oppo's menu options, you should be able to select TV system output to NTSC, PAL or Multi (for MultiSystem). If you have one of the incompatible TVs, you need to set this to NTSC. This will tell the Oppo to not only convert all your PAL discs to NTSC, but will also convert any 1080i/50hz Blu-rays to the US standard of 1080i/60hz (yes, the PAL-incompatible TVs also cannot handle 50hz Blu-rays).

Also, how are you connecting your Oppo? HDMI?

white flashes

If it occurs on other things, too (other than just PAL discs), I think that might be a "hardware handshaking" issue, in which case you'd just turn off "handshaking" in the Oppo menu (forgot where that was). I can't remember if it's white flashes, or the player turning itself off, but I had similar issues and was told to disable hardware handshaking.

 

[annagranfors]

First of all, thanks for the quick response, Andy!
I was talking about playing UK PAL DVDs (and 25 fps .avi/.mkv files, either burned to disc or on my external HD) and Region A Blu-Rays. The juddering seemed to occur predominantly on the DVDs and files, whereas the white flashes occurred exclusively on the Blu-Ray ; I don't recall seeing any juddering there, although there may have been.
Good to hear about OPPO advising using the SuperDisk (I burned my own to CD from an .iso I found a link to at AVS Forums.), since I'm planning on calling them to walk me through proper setup/connection to my Samsung, whose myriad menus and controls are a bloody mess.
And yes, I am connecting the OPPO via HDMI (the cable they supplied). I'll make sure to use the NTSC TV system output–thanks for that advice.
I'll keep you apprised, hopefully with a "yay! it's working perfectly!"
Cheers!

 

[FoxyMulder]

 

[AndyMcKinney]

If your tv can handle PAL 50hz content then don't activate any PAL to NTSC conversion in the Oppo, it's set to NTSC as default, try switching to Multi System but only if your TV supports this as otherwise you can lose the picture. Check yout television's manual to see if it can support PAL 50hz content.

She said her TV is a Samsung, so that means it is not compatible with PAL (no US-marketed Samsung TV s are compatible with PAL. The only exception would be tuner-less sets that are sold as "monitors"). She should make sure her Oppo is set to NTSC.

Switch off DVD 24p conversion and check if you still see judder.  From the Oppo manual.

I'd heard from other sources it's probably best to leave this switched off, too. Apparently, there are very few DVDs encoded at 24fps anyway, so not many people would see an improvement by switching on.

 

[FoxyMulder]

Originally Posted by AndyMcKinney /t/310509/talk-me-out-of-buying-an-oppo-bdp-93/60#post_3943812
She should make sure her Oppo is set to NTSC.

I missed the original post about that, i do agree with you though.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

You usually won't find any reference to PAL/NTSC compatibility in a TV's manual; most of the time you'll only know it from trying it. I first chose a Vizio since my friend had two which could display PAL, then after mine turned out to be junk (long story) I got a Sharp based on internet research.
I will say that if you don't have a PAL-compatible display, the PAL to NTSC conversion on this player is miles ahead of what I've seen from other players. It actually keeps the right frame rate on video material; most other players give it a more film-like rate.

 

[annagranfors]

...just an update...
...and first, thanks to all who responded; it was greatly appreciated!
So I finally got around (busy at work) to connecting my new replacement OPPO to the Samsung, set to NTSC. And the same thing happened...everything started off fine–my Region A Blu-Ray played flawlessly, as did a US DVD, and a few 25 fps .avi's from my USB-connected HD did too. Then tried playing an HD 25 fps .mkv, and our old pal judder returned. Tried playing some of the same 25 fps .avi's again, and judder was now there as well. Didn't even try playing the Blu-Ray again.
I think I got a defective Samsung, and it's well out of warranty by now...I just got fed up and hooked the OPPO back up to my old Alevia 540, where everything played wonderfully. So I'm through with the Samsung...kind of a shame, since broadcast TV looked quite nice on it, but since most of my viewing is 25 fps-based (anglogeek, me), am quite happy with the old Olevia. Yeah, I top out at 1080i, but it doesn't look cringingly worse than the 1080p on the Samsung.
I think I'll just give the Samsung to my old friend/landlord who lives across the way, and who primarily watches broadcast TV, and look for a better match for my OPPO when I get around to it.
AndyMcKinney...I still haven't tried using the SuperDisk, primarily from fear that everything'll go to hell again ("the OPPO's been infected by bad Samsung voodoo!"), but I'll get around to it. I've got too many foreign DVDs not to.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

US Samsung TVs won't display PAL- the one I tried showed a "Format Not Supported" message.