I purchased a combo DVD and BluRay edition of Avatar this evening and was looking forward to seeing the BluRay version on my Oppo BDP-83. However, the BluRay would not play. It showed 15 seconds of the 20th Century intro and then went blank. My Oppo just said "Top Menu" on its screen and pressing a variety of remote buttons did not make a change. Anyone else have this problem? My Oppo was one of the first out so there may be a firmware update available. Any suggestions?

You need the latest firmware for the BDP-83 to play Avatar. I've seen at least one other report of someone with older firmware having a problem, while everyone running current firmware has been OK.

If you haven't been keeping the firmware current, I'd recommend doing so. Aside from new features added several times, there are also regular disc compatibility fixes.

Thanks, Gonk. The Oppo website lists "latest" and "beta" versions of the firmware. Which do you recommend I load?

The public betas are very stable. Even back before I started beta testing for them, I usually ran the public betas on my 971H. I'd go ahead and load the beta.

Success. I used the USB to update the firmware and it worked the second time. Can't explain why it didn't take the first time but I bet it was operator error. From now on I'll check the Oppo site periodically for new firmware updates. Now back to the show...

Oppo seems like its becoming a company with a great name, and i mean this regarding staying power of their integrity. great customer support and product support over a sustained period of time is far better than any advertising slogan.

I'm certainly a repeat customer and I recommend Oppo to family, friends and coworkers. My experience with their customer service folks has been terrific and they make it easy to update their products via firmware. IMO Oppo's players work very well and they are a great value.

They have built a very strong name for themselves over the last five years or so. The name itself dates back a fair bit farther than that in Asia, but it didn't exist here in the US until the end of 2004 or start of 2005. They build a good quality product, write a good manual to support it, and are a good company to work with if you need help.

I have the Oppo BDP-83 and an iPhone can I connect the iPhone to the USB port on the 83 and be able to view videos and listen to audio on my system?
I have already tried this but nothing happened?
Am I missing something?

The BDP-83 needs for a USB device to be a standard mass storage device. The audio and video files on an iPhone are only accessible through iTunes - if you plug it into the computer, open Explorer, and look at the phone all you'll see is pictures. You're better off picking up a $10 USB stick and using that.