What are everyone's recommend video and audio settings when using the BDP-83 and 990 with component and 7.1 analog inputs. I remember with my old blu ray player I needed to set the bass management etc. to OFF on the player and let the 990 do all of the processing. I can't find anything to turn it off on this player. I also noticed the manual stated that using the component video outs limits the player to 1080i but I chose the 1080p setting and the player accepted it.

Check out this link - it outlines the settings I recommend for the BDP-83 paired with the Model 990.

If you set the output to 1080p, the HDMI output will be at 1080p but the component output will be at 1080i.

Hey gonk,

My wife surprised me by ordering the BDP-83 for my birthday (Aug 23). Arriving soon. I guess I will be able to put your advice to work.
Thank again,

James
housedoc

I think you'll enjoy it!

Gonk,
It's been ages since I've been around these parts. Nice to see you're still around handing out great advice. This is tidbit (and linky) are of particular interest to me. My theater's been down all summer due to a toasted projector. I finally have a new one on the way and I decided to get a new disc player as well. Chose the Oppo. Can't wait til the hardware starts showing up.

Thanks again,
Scott

I think you'll be pleased with the BDP-83, especially with a projector to go with it!

I ordered the BDP-83 to pair with my 990 until the 997 comes out. Is it worth the expense of buying the analog cables vice using optical until the 997 arrives with HDMI. My understanding is that HDMI is as good as analog for SQ and that the Trinnov will only be available through HDMI connections.If I can avoid the extra cables it would be nice.

Yes, get the analog cables. That will give you access to SACD, DVD-Audio, and the lossless audio tracks on Blu-ray. You don't need to spend a ton on the analog cables, but I think they're worth connecting for the benefits they can offer.

Won't I get the SACD and DVD-A and lossless thru HDMI audio side?

Sure, when you have a 997. In the meanwhile, you'll need analog.

Currently I do not have a component with analog output and I expect the 997 to be out by EOY. With the addition of the BDP-83 do I want to invest in interconnects that will be relegated to the scrap heap in 2 months or just stick it out with optical until the 997 is out. Is there an advantage to having both HDMI and analog connected?

My case is probably not typical - I've had HDMI, coaxial, and 7.1 analog all connected, but that was in part because I was testing stuff. The BDP-83's analog section is nice, certainly enough so that I'd want to be able to use it with the 990 for a couple months of listening pleasure. I use some re-purposed Blue Jeans component video cables for my analog connection, but even something as modestly priced as three or four pairs of these would be a small price to pay to be able to get full benefit from the BDP-83 in the short term. In the long term, you would have the option to compare the BDP-83's analog section (without Trinnov's influence) to the Model 997 simply by switching inputs if you retained the analog connection.

Although they are currently pretty well hidden behind the rack, I'm not sure adding 8 or 9 more cables will continue to meet the WAF. Another possibility is to connect the BDP-83 directly to the 7500 for now and just wait until the 997 is on the street for a few months before I jump on that. I was looking to get some Magnepan 1.6QRs for music out of the 7500. How hard is it to use the BDP-83s menu system without the OSD?

You technically can connect the BDP-83 to a power amp, but it isn't really optimal. The volume control in the BDP-83 is nothing fancy. You also would need to have a video display of some sort connection if you are doing anything beyond playing CD's and SACD's.

If you really can't comfortably add six cables for analog audio (since you've got a 5.1 setup listed in your sig) in addition to the HDMI video cable, you can use optical or coaxial as a fall-back solution. Having spent over a year with the BDP-83, though, I would be remiss in not suggesting that at least $10 (for three pairs of MonoPrice cables) as a good, modest investment to maximize your enjoyment.

I will support Gonk's advice. I ran my BDP-83 through my Onkyo first with optical, then 5.1 analog, then bypassed the Onkyo and went directly to the Rotel amp. I went back through the Onkyo for better setup and volume control. I think the analog output of the BDP-83 is incredible. So much so that I will probably keep that connection even when the 997 is in place. I will certainly keep the stereo analog connected.

OK you have convinced me to figure out how to add the extra cables. I did check out monoprice for balanced cables and analog interconnects. Now the challenge is cabling vice cost. How do the Monoprice cables compare to BJC or Outlaw. The balanced cables seem to have better specs (16 vs 24AWG) and the interconnects are better shielded. The price of the cables is 1/3 of what BJC wants and 1/4 of what Outlaw wants. I am not an electrical engamaneer so is there something I am missing?

Monoprice is my regular go to place for cables and I have never been disappointed. I highly recommend them.

OK, I have the BDP83 installed and it works well with the video section and the Optical output but it won't output through the analog section to the 990. I followed Gonk's connection and setup advice above but no analog sound. If I set the 990 to analog all sound is lost. If I set it to Optical it works fine. Do I have to disconnect the optical output to make the analog section work or is there something else I need to do. I have both the optical and analog connected. I also have the HDMI and Component connected. Any advice?

When you say "analog section" are you referring to a 5.1 or 7.1 analog connection? If so you must select the 7.1 output selection on your 990.

If not you have to do the multi-channel analog setup and then select 7.1 on the 990.

I have the BDP83 input set to analog but no sounds arrives at my speakers. The optical input works great. I am sure I have a switch or a toggle somewhere in the wrong position. I will just have to play with it some more. Any advice is welcome.

This page is a detailed walk-through of pairing up the BDP-83 with a Model 990 - it may help you troubleshoot your setup.

I got the sound and video to work at the same time through 7.1 Direct. Am I correct in assuming that when on 7.1 Direct the BDP-83 is doing all the processing? How would I go about setting up the BDP-83 to use the 990s processing? Do I have to configure a separate input from the BDP-83 to the 990? Once configured as a video input I would then select the audio as "Analog" for that input?

Watched LOTR TT and the picture was fabulous. The sound was awesome and I got a lot more headroom. Listened to some Clapton and the sound blew me away and its not even SACD. Using 7.1 Direct for the OPPO everything was cleaner and the presence was vastly improved over the optical. I am really surprised it was this much better.

Yes and no. Yes, the BDP-83 is decoding the audio. No, the BDP-83 does not have to everything. As I noted in my setup guide, the Model 990 will provide bass management unless you have set all speakers to "large" on the 990.
It depends on what you are interested in. If you want to use the 990's surround processing, you'll need to use a digital audio input. That can be assigned to a video input and the 990 will do the processing, but you will be dealing with core Dolby Digital or DTS bitstreams (or stereo LPCM) instead of the lossless audio tracks offered by Blu-ray. I wouldn't recommend this approach for anything aside from CD's and DVD's.

The multichannel analog input is tied to 7.1 Direct, and it cannot be paired with any matrix surround processing. It is the preferred approach for Blu-ray, especially with the BDP-83.

Gonk,

I have read your setup guide. I am using my 83 with a 970. Analog section is amazing, esp with vinyl. I love the HPF/LPF switch (also, the 2-ch out of the 83 is excellent, DVD-A never sounded so good) Yet I have NO idea if my LFE is calibrated properly for 7.1. I have referenced all speakers in the 83 at -7db with the sub at +3 db. This should account for the -10db of the LFE encoded channel and still avoid clipping.(all speakers are set to large) Yet, when I use the test tones in the AIX bluray I am about 10-12db too low in the sub channel while coax out is level across. Listening to films and switching back and forth between coax and 7.1 (using a DD or DTS signal) They sound about the same, but is the bass coming from the L/R or from the LFE? I have no way of knowing.

Is there a test tone disk specifically geared for the LFE channel?

Gonk,
If I understand you correctly, 7.1 Direct is the only way to input the BDPs analog output into the 990 and it essentially bypasses the 990s processing altogether. If I want an alternate setup such that the BDP is using the 990s processing I can use an optical out of the BDP and into the 990 and assign it to the correct DVI channel. This would use the BDP for video processing and the 990 for audio. Is this correct? At the moment I don't own any Blu-rays but I can upscale the DVDs with the BDP thru the HDMI => DVI connection and get sound either through 7.1 direct or optical depending on what processing I want. Originally I was thinking I could assign the analog output of the BDP to the analog input on the 990 and and then use the 990s processing. I tried that, but I get no throughput to the amp when setup that way.

The 7.1 analog input makes it effectively impossible to apply matrix processing modes like Pro Logic IIx because there's no way for the 990 to know which channels are currently "live" and which are not. What if it assumed 5.1 and expanded that to 7.1 with PLIIx? If you had a 7.1 TrueHD track, you'd be discarding those channels and replacing that information with a hacked-up version of the side surrounds. Thus, all that the 990 can do is basic "channel processing" (for lack of a better term): bass management, channel trim, and channel delay.

To get the 990 to apply matrix processing such as Pro Logic IIx, you are correct that you need a digital input (either optical or coaxial). That's not really a compromise for DVD's, but for Blu-ray and DVD-Audio it is a compromise. For SACD, it isn't an option at all because you don't get any digital audio output from those discs because of copy protection limitations.

I have a question about the new Oppo BDP-83 SE. I understand that everyone who has a 990 or 970 has to run their Oppo through the analog audio connections in order to utilize the new HD audio formats that are available. Since the future is HDMI, what is the point of Oppo offering a Special Edition BDP-83 with better DAC's if HDMI is supposed to sound as good as analog? I called Oppo today and their answer was that some people have very high end pre amps that only have analog connections and thats what the higher end DAC's are used for. If we are paying a $400 premium for high end DAC's, I would think that hooking up analog to your receiver or pre-amp (even if it does have HDMI) would sound better. Otherwise, what's the point of paying the $400 premium ($300 for the upgrade). Does analog sound better than HDMI? It seems like now we are getting away from HDMI for audio and going backwards. Just curious because I am confused. Thanks.

Good question.
I am using 990-analog inputs from Oppo-83.
Sounds great, but then analog always has sounded great. Perhaps (though I don't know since I've not done an A:B) analog "sounds better" since it is not compressed. Dunno.

Even with HDMI, you must convert to analog somewhere. If nothing else, the BDP-83 and its Special Edition sibling can serve as a reminder that we still need to make sure our analog section (wherever it may be) is good. The analog section in the stock BDP-83 is as good as the analog section in the Model 990 and my Onkyo PR-SC885 (a surround processor that had a list price of $1800). That means it can sound better than the analog section in a $500 HDMI-equipped receiver - in which case the analog output would sound better than the HDMI output. The BDP-83SE is offering analog performance that pushes the level even higher.

Let's say that you own a Lexicon MC-12 (a $10,000+ surround processor if you bought it new) and you don't want to spend thousands on the HDMI update for it, or you have an Anthem AVM30 and don't want to sell it and get an AVM50 or AVM50v (again, a multi-thousand dollar investment). You want Blu-ray, DVD-Audio, and SACD, but you don't want to spend several thousand dollars to revamp the whole system to get it. In this case, you are exactly the person that the BDP-83SE will appeal to. At $900, it costs almost four times less than the Lexicon Blu-ray player (which is built on the BDP-83 platform) and is also a whole lot cheaper than other high end Blu-ray players from Denon and Marantz. It also offers all of those formats in a single platform, so it can do all of them through the single multichannel analog input.

Vangor
I don't know about HDMI sounding better than analog. It would really depend on the DAC's used.
If you had a $500 receiver, then it's a safe bet that HDMI is probably the better way to go vs analog, as the analog inputs aren't likely to be that great.
If you have a higher end receiver or a controller then there is a chance the analog inputs could sound "better" than HDMI. It would depend on what you think sounds better to your ears and again, the quality of the DAC's in the 83 in comparison to your receiver's.
The 83 has very good DAC's in it and the 83SE are spec'ed even better.
Your question will be easier to address when there are decent reviews of the SE available.

It's all speculation for now.

I think you've got it a bit flip-flopped, audionirvana, but I agree with your intent. HDMI is going to put the analog workload on the receiver (staying in the digital domain upstream of it), and a $500 receiver is likely to have a lower quality analog section than the stock BDP-83 - as a result, the analog input to the receiver from the BDP-83 is likely to sound better because it bypasses the DAC's and goes straight to the amplification with minimal influence from the receiver's internal analog section. A higher-end unit will have a better analog section with better D/A conversion performance, thus making HDMI a more appealing option.

I am running my Oppo BDP-83 to my Onkyo 805 receiver (using it as a pre/pro) using the supplied HDMI cable. My Onkyo has Burr Brown DAC's. I don't know which is better between Cirrus Logic and Burr Brown. If running the audio out through the analog section of the Oppo 83 SE to high end equipment is the purpose of the Special Edition model, then what's the purpose of paying high dollar for the high end processor your connecting too if the Oppo is doing all the video work and digital to analog converting?

Thanks for your input Gonk.I can attest that the 7.1 Direct sounds good in my system but it is no where near as good sounding as the optical sound. It has to do with the 5.1 downmix to the 990 in that it tries to use the center channel for all of the voice signal and my center cannot match the LR for richness of sound. It would have been nice to have the BDP-83 have a menu for downmix with 2.1 upsample as an option.

Any opinions out there as to what my first Blu-Ray should be. I have a lot of good DVDs which I won't likely upgrade so everyones suggestions are welcome.

It's not just a question of the DAC's - it is how the DAC's are implemented. Burr Brown is a widely recognized name, but there are equally good or better DAC's available. The stock DAC's in the BDP-83 are the top-of-the-line from Cirrus. My 885 (based on the Onkyo 905 receiver) also uses Burr Brown DAC's, and the BDP-83's Cirrus DAC's matched up very well - as I said, my wife preferred the 83's 7.1 analog output for CD listening.
There is a common perception that we must have HDMI. The reality is that HDMI has been a debacle from the word go. The connector is poorly designed. The feature set has been a moving target (we're on our fifth version in less than seven years). The encryption standard that was chosen (HDCP) is a poorly-enforced headache. Even the decision to build it around an existing computer digital video standard (DVI) is questionable, since DVI was meant for desktop PC's located very close to their monitors and thus came with a 15-meter length limitation that is a real problem for projector-based systems or systems with remote equipment racks. HDMI can be really handy when it works, but it also has a lot of really unfortunate baggage - not the least of which is that it is only a few years old.

That brings us to one of the reasons for OPPO to put some real care into the design of the BDP-83's analog section. Surround processors didn't spring into existence after HDMI arrived. If we limit ourselves to "high end" surround processors released in the last ten years, there are a lot of really good units that appeared without HDMI. Anthem had the AVM-20 and AVM-30. Lexicon had the MC-12, including several hardware and software upgrades. Companies like Proceed, Theta, and many others had some very, very good products during that time. Companies like Rotel, Adcom, and Outlaw have had a number of very good products as well that deserve mention, even if some may place them a step down from the elites of the industry. I've got a co-worker with a Rotel 1068 and another with an Outlaw 990. Both are great pieces of gear. Neither guy wants to invest a thousand dollars or more in a new, more complex processor just to get access to an HDMI port that will offer them a better audio alternative for exactly one component. Yet if they want a player with an analog section that at least equals their processor, they won't find that in a Sony or Panasonic player. They could go to a Pioneer Elite, Denon, Marantz, or Lexicon player, but it will cost them a lot. Or they could go with the BDP-83, which lets them protect their investment in surround processor. That is the purpose of the Special Edition - and, to a lesser degree, the purpose of the stock BDP-83.

There is a market for an OPPO player with the BDP-83's capabilities that omits the really potent analog section. Folks with those new high dollar, high end HDMI-equipped processors could get such a player for less than the BDP-83 costs. I think we'll see such a player eventually. At the moment, though, the BDP-83 offers a lot of player for the money even for people in that position. The $500 that OPPO sells the 83 for is a bargain when you consider what's under the hood - even if you don't use the analog output. That's why so many people with receivers like your 805 have been singing the player's praises this year. They could have priced it at $600 or $700 and it would have been worth the money. The good analog is icing on the cake and an acknowledgement that there are people out there who don't want to throw out perfectly good non-HDMI gear just because the industry wants them to.

Well said Gonk! It's funny. You can call manufacturers direct and they can't give you an answer to your question as clear as Gonk can.

In OPPO's defense, their statement to you:
is in some ways just a less long-winded version of my own answer, without my editorial comments on the glory of HDMI...

With a BDP-83SE and the 990, I would like to avoid using the 990's DAC if possible. I have a 5.0 system with full range fronts and the center and rears being pretty good down to near 40 Hz.

Using the 7.1 analog direct inputs, I understand that all speakers must be set to large to avoid A/D/A conversion. I assume "all" means "all" so in a 5.0 system, I would still have to set the SW and Rear Surrounds in the 990 to large to avoid the conversion.

I could then have the player do the speaker adjustments.

But then I also have to consider my other sources--mainly my cable TV. In particular, with all the speakers set to large, would there be missing bass in the center and rears.

Am I thinking about this correctly? Any thoughts?

I think the best advise would be to set all speakers to large on the Oppo and sett them to small on the 990 thus letting the 990 do bass management. Using the 7.1 inputs, about all the 990 does is apply bass management and volume settings.That way yuor speaker settings ar applied for all sources, and the Oppo is doing youd digital-to-analog conversions.
I'm sure that Gonk will chime in on this, he's the Oppo expert.

Thanks, that is basically what I am doing now. The Oppo is all set to Large and on the 990 I have the 2 full-range fronts set to large and my center and surrounds set to small. I was just wondering if it is worth trying to get a little more performance out of the Oppo by avoiding the 990 DAC. The drawback is no bass management for my cable box but I wonder if there is much audio being directed to the center and rears below 45 HZ anyhow. Maybe it isn't worth messing with but I thought maybe I'd play with it and see what seems to be the best overall.