Thanks that's a must for me.

Mine arrives on the 20th

I received mine on Thursday set it up yesterday. The first thing I noticed was the size and weight of the player. About 1/3 bigger than my Sony S550 and very solid. I know it really means little but it feels like a premium piece of equipment. I am not usually one that dwells on the physical appearance of equipment but once I put this in my rack I realized it is one beautiful piece of gear. Very attractive front plate it just blends very well with the rest of my setup

Now on to performance. Many times it is the little things that impress one. The load times on the Oppo are much faster than the S550. No longer will I put in a movie, start it, go to the kitchen to make a sandwich, pour a drink, let the dog out and then go back to the HT to see if the movie has loaded. that is nice. Also I finally get real info with the OSD. The S550 was lacking in info but know I can see the chapter (which is a big help on Java content movies when you have to stop them). Plus the ability to switch between times info for film, chapter etc. Like I said the little things impress me.

I have only had the chance so far to watch some BD's but I am impressed. PQ is great, I honestly can't say if the BD picture is better than the Sony S550 but it is at least as good. I am using the 5.1 analog connection for audio and though I don't know why the SQ seems better than with the S550, a bit more dynamic and fuller.

One small peeve is the remote. It didn't seem to have the range of some remotes and I had to rehit buttons at times. This was solved when I setup my MX-850 which definitely puts out a stronger signal and things are fine now.

All in all I am very pleased with this purchase. Today I will be trying out some standerd DVD's and multi-channel music. let you know what I think

With the analog output, the quality of the player's analog section becomes very important - and that is another area where the BDP-83 is very good.

A quick report on my impressions of the BDP-83...

I installed and set up the 83 in my system Thursday and watched Iron Man BD first thing. BD versions of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Apocalypto are in the wings. I've also reconfigured my 990 to use the analog audio for CD playback.

Video: I view my Pioneer Kuro 5080 (768p display) at about 10' so I have had some reservations about whether I'd be able to see the effect of BD material. After viewing Iron Man I switched to Open Range DVD. I now have no doubt all that extra data on a BD disc makes a difference on my display and at my seating distance. Interestingly my Pioneer can handle 1080p/60 and 1080p/24. I've set the Oppo to 1080p output and Auto for turning on 1080p/24. I don't know if Iron Man outputs at 24fps or not but it looked very good. I'll try 720p output at some point to see if it is an improvement but it is hard to imagine it would be.

Audio: I really enjoyed the HD audio track via 5.1 downmix to my 990. Dialog was terrific and the special effects are great. I still need to do a test tone sweep using Digital Video Essentials to make sure my 990s levels are OK with the 83. At this moment I'm enjoying a CD played back via the 83's analog stereo output. It is also very nice but a little further testing between the 990's upsample mode and straight analog will determine which one I use on a regular basis. I don't know if it was Iron Man but I had to turn up the volume more than with other inputs. CDs via analog need much less volume control to achieve the same sound levels in the room.

There are still a bunch of features I need to try including SACD, DVD-A, plus I want to watch some DVDs that show off the Anchor Bay VRS processing. I'm going to keep my Oppo 980H and will be able to do some comparisons though not strict A-B testing since I don't have two copies of any of my movies. Any suggestions of which movies I should choose?

One last thing; I've read BD load times have been a big issue with many players. I don't feel the 83's BD load time is all that much different than than my Oppo 980H.

My Sony LCD reports when it gets a 1080p/24 signal - Iron Man would have been outputting at 24p.
This makes sense. Much like DVD's, Blu-rays should have a lower audio level to allow for more dynamic range. CD's and TV will be louder at the same volume setting.
This is very true - my Panasonic BD30 was "fast" for a Blu-ray player when I got it in late 2007, but it is significantly slower than the BDP-83 (which is comparable to the 983H and 980H for those tasks that are common to all three platforms). Even for tasks unrelated to Blu-ray, it's a substantial difference. I can press "eject" on the BD30 when it is in standby, walk all the way across the house, find a disc on the shelf, walk all the way back, open the case, and remove the disc before the tray opens. On the BDP-83, the tray will open in about 11 seconds (not enough time to get a disc case off the shelf in the same room and get back to the entertainment center). You will find that for loading BD titles, there will be a fair bit of variation in load times due to the way each disc is authored and how each disc's unique BD-Java software is written.

I had the opportunity to listen to some DVD-A and SACD music the last couple days and I am very pleased with the BDP-83 in this area. So impressed that I ordered a couple SACD discs from Amazon today.

Also checked out SD DVD's and wow, noticeably better picture than with the Sony S550. Will be pulling out some DVD's to watch now.

I feel this player more than meets my expectations of a universal player. With this addition my HT theater is complete. I really can't think of anything I will need for quite some time.

Good to know SACDs and DVD-A sound good played on the BDP-83. I have yet to listen to my limited number of these discs but I'm looking forward to doing so in the near future. Oppo has done well with these formats in the past. I recall that my oppo DV-980H played SACDs much better than my previous Pioneer 45A universal player. Sounds like the BDP-83 is reviving interest in these formats for at least mzpro5. For regular old CDs the analog output of the BDP-83 and using bypass on the 990 is giving the upsample setting a run for the money. You have to mess with the bass in bypass since it sums the bass from both channels but it sounds very good when adjusted. This oppo is terrific!

I'm curious about the last two posts.

In what way(s) does the Oppo outperform other players with SACDs?

Right now I have two SACD-capable players. A Denon and a Sony. They each have their quirks when it comes to set-up / balance / bass management, but when I run either of them through my Outlaw ICBM-1, and let it handle the bass management in front of my Outlaw Model 950, I hear absolutely no difference (that I can notice) between the two players when listening to multichannel SACDs. Both sound incredibly good (low noise, wide and flat frequency response, no distortion, and great dynamics.)

Are the differences between the Oppo and other players on the analogue or digital side? How did you compare the two? How are they different (assuming that the set-up was essentially the same for all of the players used in the comparison)?

Or is the Oppo simply easier to set up and intergrate into your system than other players?

Jeff Mackwood

Since both posters are using 990's, the only way they can be hearing SACD's is by analog.

I've heard variations between players' analog sections over the years, sometimes very subtle and sometimes not so much so, but the BDP-83 is the best I've heard to date. Even my wife, who has no interest in what hardware is in the rack (as long as it is easy for her to use) but who grew up around an audiophile with a very high-end two-channel system, noticed and commented on that fact. The OPPO is easy to set up, but it is also furnished with one of the best, most transparent analog sections I've used.