Just sayin'

OR SR6006, whatever it is...

I suspect the Outlaws are working on an expanded manual. When that is finished they usually post it and create a forum. I seem to recall that prior such offerings happened a little close to when the sales of the product started...

Maybe they're working a little ragged. (Or if you believe the wheels are thisclose to the whole thing coming undone given the lack of timely progress reports about a widely anticipated offering that has been acknowledged to require trips to the most evil manufacturing nation that is intent on destroying America you might have a different explanation...)

renov8r - response of the day! One can surmise (by Gonk's absence, if nothing else) that the dreaded Asian-based unit is in beta testing -contrast this, however, with, I don't know, Oppo's approach to beta testing - I know that when I was waiting on the BDP-83 there was what amounted to a beta forum where issues, kudos, wishes, etc. were on display for all to see - I don't think that approach hurt Oppo one little bit...

Maybe Gonk isn't testing. He may have just gotten tired of reading complaints.

Reports of my demise have been slightly exaggerated. It's been a really hectic year so far for me, and my time online has been very limited lately.

I know both Outlaw and OPPO pretty well. The two have a lot in common, but they also operate in different ways in some regards. OPPO, for example, does not operate a company forum. There are threads at AVS and lots of other places that serve as support forums, but they are not company-hosted. Also, the BDP-83 isn't a "typical" example of how either company handles product development. In some cases, OPPO has allowed a player's beta testing status to be common knowledge, but normally no details about that beta process are allowed. More often than not, they have operated in a manner more like Outlaw. The DV-980H was released without any advance notice, and the BDP-80 was similar. The BDP-83 was in beta testing for months before beta testers were allowed to speak about it, and during the "open beta," when OPPO allowed customers to buy the player while firmware development was still being completed, there were actually two separate firmware development tracks ("T" for test that was used for internal testing, and "B" for beta that was used by paying customers). Discussion of the "B" firmware was open because it was available to customers, but discussion of "T" firmware was restricted to within the company and the testers who had signed NDAs. This was done because the "T" firmware was susceptible to show-stopping bugs, since it was being tested in part to find such bugs, while paying customers only got firmware that was considered unlikely to leave them unable to use the player they had paid for. New features also appeared in "T" firmware first, but could not be discussed publicly until they were in "B" firmware (and even then only discussed as far as they behaved within the "B" firmware). The BDP-93 was also in beta for some time before being publicly announced, and discussion of it by beta testers was not allowed until the player shipped.

Gonk! Welcome to the Outlaw Forum! If this is what it takes to "get you out of hiding" (as all Outlaws do from time to time), then it's worth it! And thanks for the clarification on the Oppo - I knew it wasn't a forum per se, but there still was a lot there for the potential consumer to gain impressions of how things were moving along - certainly more than the 978 slow trickle...

It's a temporary reappearance - still way behind on lots of things - but I happened to check in (had a few PMs that I hadn't answered from weeks ago) and saw Koyaan's post in the recent activity.

Part of my point was that for some OPPO players, there was detailed information available, but for most the information was limited to a model number, feature list, and maybe a picture or two - not much different from what Outlaw's done over the years. In some cases, not even that was available until the first production run was sitting in California and ready to ship to customers. Test firmware has always been protected by NDA, and still is - if I were to get test firmware for one of my OPPOs tomorrow, I would still be under NDA and unable to discuss details of that firmware even though the hardware involved is available or even discontinued. "Beta" firmware is discussed online by beta testers and customers, but OPPO's beta firmware is publicly available to customers after the product is already available (although the 83 was in such demand that it was very hard to get for the first three or four months).

WELCOME BACK GONK , WE'VE MISSED YOU.