The BDP-83 does have a composite output, just not s-video. The 83 is also taller in part because of the way the drive and display are oriented (they're stacked, unlike all of the other OPPO players that have set the drive and display side-by-side to reduce height).

I'll keep an eye on OPPO's site today, and once I see the BDP-80 on the front page I will post here (already have the post written, just have to copy & paste).

Good morning, everyone. I have a little treat to start off the day. We'll start with a link that is related to the "player of the day:"

BDP-80 Review

I had planned to wait until the BDP-80 was available for sale on OPPO's site, but decided to follow another beta tester's lead and post now. It is likely that the BDP-80 won't be available for sale until close to 9:00AM Pacific time. While we're at it, I'll toss in a couple pictures I took a little while back (click on them for larger versions):



The BDP-80 in that picture has a somewhat different set of silk screens than production players will have. After some debate with beta testers, they have just the Blu-ray logo on the front of the disc tray (DVD and SACD logos were removed from the tray).

Have a good Monday!

Gonk,
Nice write up as usual. Sounds like it would be a good lower cost alternative to the BDP-83 without sacrificing too much in performance.

Definitely. By the way, it is now available for order from OPPO's site.

Gonk,

I don't see a fan on the back of the BDP-80. Does it have a cooling fan?

govguru

Nope. No fan. I mention this in my review, including a suggestion (not anything dictated by OPPO, just the mechanical engineer in me chiming in) to give the top of the player some breathing room since the metal top is going to be providing some of the heat rejection that a fan might provide. There is absolutely no chance of fan noise from the BDP-80.

Great review Gonk. I'm still a bit hazy on just how the BD80 would compare to the DV981HD that I currently own for DVD playback. As I said before, if it's as good as the 981, but falls short of the flagship 983, I would be happy with it.

I didn't compare the BDP-80 directly to the 981HD. The 980H wasn't as good a deinterlacer as the 981HD, but otherwise it compared very well to the 981HD. The BDP-80 seemed to be better at deinterlacing than the 980H, so I would bet that it'd be a close contest when comparing the BDP-80 to the 981HD.

Quite a stack of players you got there. That is a dv981 on top isn't it?

Yes. The 981HD has moved on now, but I was doing some work to the equipment rack in the den a couple months ago and took some time to gather all five players together for a few minutes. Top to bottom, it goes: 981HD, 980H, 983H, BDP-80, and BDP-83.