Well, OPPO has been telling folks to expect the DV-983H by the end of March. That will be something of a statement piece for them regarding standard DVD players. They've been very tight-lipped about what will come after that, but in light of the difficulties seen with LG and Samsung combo players I'm starting to suspect that their first shot at an HD player will be Blu-ray only rather than combo.

Every Blu-ray player supports DVD playback, including upscaling via the HDMI output. Like the HD-DVD players, the quality of that upscaling will vary from player to player, but DVD support in Blu-ray players has never been an issue. Ain't It Cool was the first place I ever saw that suggested otherwise when they had ran an article coming out in favor of HD-DVD. While HD-DVD certainly does a good job delivering HD content, that article was far from being an accurate description of the format war - it included a lengthy discussion of how convenient it was that HD-DVD players would play DVD's, how cool it was that it would upscale those DVD's, and why that was a benefit over Blu-ray. The truth is that my HD-A2 is a decent upscaling player (not as good as my 981HD, closer to my 980H, and not much different than my Panasonic BD30) with a sluggish interface and slow layer changes. The XA2 uses a Reon chip for upscaling DVD, which is a very good video processor, but it still has the same interface and layer change limitations of my A2.

What would I like from an OPPO Blu-ray player? I'd love to see them be able to retain some of the typical OPPO features (interface speed, layer change speed, and DVD-A and SACD support interest me, while others would be interested in PAL support and region-free operation) and combine that with good Blu-ray support (especially if it went profile 2.0). The end of the format ware will likely make it easier for them to move forward with a design, but I will be surprised if they can get an HD player out before 2009.

And in related news... Universal is going to start releasing titles on Blu-ray . Seems reasonable to suspect that Paramount isn't far behind, especially since they have prior experience with Blu-ray. They may even have some Blu-ray software ready for production or even produced and in the warehouse, if rumors are correct.

well according to the news Toshiba is pulling the plug on hd-dvd. darn! oh well, the consumer takes it on the chin again. cant wait for the 99.00 blue ray machine.lol

2009 for an OPPO Blueray, that is a long wait. I have been patiently waiting for the format war to end. It's been apparent to me for sometime now that Blueray was winning the war, however I didn't want to take the chance.

I have my eye on the soon to be released Panasonic DMP-BD50. Sure wish OPPO would make an announcement. I would buy a Blueray from them in a heart beat. My OPPO 970 has been bullet proof.

Well, the "war" is over and HD-DVD is history. Now how long must we wait for a player that does all digital formats well?

I'm just guessing, obviously, so I could always be horribly wrong. On the other hand, they're a small manufacturer and the Blu-ray format isn't exactly an easy target. We're just starting to see a couple manufacturers offer profile 1.1 players, and there's only one profile 2.0 player announced at this point (the Panasonic BD50 you mentioned, due around mid-year or so, although the PS3 is slated to get a firmware update to make it profile 2.0 eventually as well). If the companies that helped create the format (Sony, Panasonic, etc.) can't get full-featured players into production, how can a small company like OPPO? Add in the uncertainty of the format war, and it just compounds the problems. I'd love to be wrong if it meant that OPPO started shipping a really good Blu-ray player in the next five or six months, but they're in the final weeks of development on one player now and I can't see them turning around and pushing an even more complex product out the doors that fast.

On Monday I emailed OPPO and asked them if they had a Blu-ray player in the works. The net was buzzing that Toshiba would concede defeat today (they did) and I wondered if OPPO would give an indication of where they were headed. I added my suggestion it include the features of the 980H too. This is their response:

"We have not yet aligned ourselves to the HD DVD, Blu-Ray, or combo high definition video formats. The primary reason for this is that we feel that neither of these hardware designs are mature enough to be implemented and released by OPPO Digital. Our operational motto is to "make a mature product better". The HD DVD and Blu-Ray specifications are continually changing, and we can't afford to create a solution which will become obsolete within a year.

We are vigorously investigating all current and future hardware solutions, however we do not know when we will commit to them.

Best Regards,

Customer Service
OPPO Digital, Inc."

So now that HD-DVD is out of the way the question of when a Blu-ray OPPO will appear seems to be based upon when the standard settles down. Let's hope that is soon. If past performance is an indicator of the future a Blu-ray player from OPPO would smoke the competition.

Should we expect the price of existing HD DVD's to drop in order to clear them out? I might as well build a small library since I have the HD-A2.

My son commented last night that Sony will have the PS4 next year since the PS3 is reported to be a piece of junk. That is from a 13 year old, so I write this with that caveat. Any truth to that rumor?

It's certainly possible that HD-DVD software prices will fall, but it's also possible that new releases will simply be produced in smaller batches. You might watch for folks selling off HD-DVD collections, as that's more likely to be a good way to get some deals.
The PS3 is only about 15 months old and will be around for quite a while longer. There is no official mention of a PS4, and considering both the average life cycle of a game console and the investment that Sony made in the Cell processor and the PS3 platform I'd expect it to be around for a few more years. As for it being junk, the hardware has actually been pretty stable and reliable, aside from the inevitable fan noise that can be an issue for both Sony and Microsoft game consoles. The Wii has also been a good platform, aside from some property damage and personal injuries produced by swung and thrown controllers. By comparison, the Xbox360 has had a dreadful time with the "red ring of death" and heat-induced hardware failures, which appears to have been resolved only recently with some hardware changes.

It appears that Toshiba's announcement has helped them lock in on a development path, according to this engadget article . The article confirms that they are "very early" in the development cycle, so I wouldn't want to revise my guess on how soon anything might actually reach market, but it also indicates that they are officially going to build a Blu-ray player.