OPPO Digital BDP-83 Blu-ray player - EAP and beyond

Hey everybody, I've got a link that I'm posting here before putting it up elsewhere on the net:

Gonk\'s BDP-83 review

At present, it reflects the "Early Adopter Program" form of the player. I'll be updating it as the EAP participants get significant updates and once the official launch takes place to address specific operational items and the anticipated addition of DVD-Audio. Enjoy!

Enjoy I did! Very well written detailed review. I look forward to the updates and getting my own BDP-83.

Thanks for sharing.

Gonk -- As usual a thoughtful and informative review. Thanks!

Separate question for the forum -- anyone out there one of the lucky 50 drawn in the lottery?

Very thorough, as usual. Sounds like a winner.

One question Gonk. I noticed you are using an Onkyo Pro processor. Will that be replaced, along with your 990, with the upcoming 997?

Thank you for the review gonk!

Sounds like this player will meet most people's high expectations for a Blu-Ray player from Oppo. Thank you, gonk, for the thorough review. Right now my cash is waiting for the 997, so the PS3 will remain my Blu-Ray player for now.

I am curious, gonk, about the analog outputs. You mentioned that you could hear an improvement when using these outputs while listening to a CD. Did you notice the same result when listening to the sound track of Blu-Ray movies?

I wondered when someone would notice that. Yes, I plan to move from the Onkyo Pro to a 997. The sound quality of the 885 was pretty well on par with the 990, I thought, and the convenience of having HDMI audio support and all video output via HDMI are enough to make me lean toward staying at the HDMI v1.3 hardware generation, but my wife frankly hates the Onkyo and I am going to be curious to see how it compares to a 997 for both audio/video quality and wife acceptance.
We haven't had onboard decoding of the lossless formats for long, so I'm still making comparisons and haven't decided yet. I still find myself readily toggling over to multichannel analog, though, and I never find an urge to switch back - which makes me think that unconsciously the two are at least pretty well matched.

Gonk, that was an excellent review.
I continue to be amazed at the expertise that you bring to such analysis and the time , effort and clarity of thought and expression that characterizes your work.
We are blessed as a comunity to have you as a fellow and resource.

Of course, that could change from pre/pro to pre/pro. It will be interesting to see how that analysis changes with the 997 in the mix.

Gonk,

I just read your review of the new blu ray player...thanks for that, that was really useful. In it, you mentioned this:


The BDP-83 also supports playback of an assortment of video files such as DIVX, AVI, AVCHD, MKV, and even VOB files from DVD's. These files can be stored on data discs (CD-R or DVD-R) or on external storage devices connected via USB (either USB memory sticks, USB hard drives or USB memory card readers). I have not made significant use of those, although I have played back some different formats using DVD-R media, a large USB hard drive, and several different USB memory sticks


Does that mean that I could use the bd83 with a large USB hard drive hooked to a USB port as a video server? If so, what sort of user interface does it offer for browsing and selecting movies stored on the hard drive?

Scott

I have a large USB drive connected to the rear USB port, but it will need to be a FAT32 formatted drive as the player does not support NTFS. To play back video files, you go to the Home Menu (there's a screen shot of this menu in my review), select Movie, and then pick the USB device you want to look at. At that point, you see a file manager sort of interface with a list of all the folders on the USB drive. You can navigate that folder structure and the player will list all of the video files that it supports. There are some page up/down buttons that let you jump up and down one screen at a time (about six or eight files/folders per page). It's not really the most robust interface for a media server, but it is serviceable and I use it for some of our daughter's videos.

Great preliminary review, Gonk.

Can't wait to get my hands on one.

Do you happen to have a good contact at Oppo?

I'd like to see about getting my brother in to interview them, I think it would be cool.

My brother's blog is http://www.scobleizer.com

Best info I've seen on the BDP-83. Need a new TV, Processor, and Blueray. Probably will purchase this item first.

The one thing that it's lacking that could be a show-stopper for some is no Netflix Instant streaming support.

Hope they are working on it.

I haven't heard any talk about that being in development, but I really wonder how much of a showstopper that is - I've tinkered with the Netflix stuff and found it to be sort of average at best. It would be nice to have for some people, but considering how much else it does I doubt its absence will have a significant impact on sales.

I agree it might not be a show stopper but it would be a nice feature. I wonder, is that an item that could be addressed with a firmware update? I am biased as a netflix subscriber

I'm a Netflix subscriber as well, but I don't know that it is something that can be added via a firmware update. I haven't prodded OPPO very hard on it, as getting the core features working was very much a higher priority for everyone involved, but I got the feeling that it would take more than a little programming wizardry to add Netflix support.

Another disincentive is that many of the newer HDTVs are web aware, if not internally, with a external wireless device. So Netflix is available without going through the BDP-83.

I'll have to explore that further. I am getting ready to buy a new HDTV. I know the model I am looking at getting (1080P TH58PZ800U-Viera-58-Plasma)is "Web aware" as you put it but not sure that involves a netflix type application.

There's always the $99 ruko !

Check out my post at the end of this thread for an alternate way to get Netflix to your tv.

cvinfig,

Thanks for the Playon link. That’s a great option for me as I am leaning toward getting a HP MediaSmart Connect. The downside to the HP ,imo, was lack of Netflix (and lack of 1080P). Playon will solve the Netflix issue plus eliminate the need for an additional box like ROKU. The main reason I am getting the hp is as a music server but like the fact I can now stream Netflix and other media from my home network. Haven’t pulled the trigger yet so still open to opinions. I know this is off topic since the original post was about the OPPO . That’s a done deal just waiting for the release to buy.

OPPO sent out the second round EAP invitations last night to a group of 300. All discussion here stopped about a week ago. So we don't know what y'all in the first 50 think.

I don't know if anybody from the first EAP was really around here. Of the 50, 48 voted in favor of expanding the EAP, and the plan is to have DVD-Audio implemented for the second wave. I'd recommend the EAP thread at AVS, but it's sort of an adventure to navigate and will probably not have much new to offer for a week or more.

Thanks Gonk. I've been over to AVS Forum and the most recent posts, about 4 pages of them, mainly are gripes about not being included in the EAP. But I'll try to find some time to plow through that stuff.

The EAP feedback is hard to find at this point, as it's lightly scattered through the thread. I'd skip back at least 10 or 12 pages to start with (maybe go back to around page 100) and start working back from there.

I received an invitation from OPPO last night to participate in EAP2 and just pulled the trigger. Must have gotten lucky when someone else dropped out. OPPO says the players with the new firmware should begin shipping either tomorrow or Monday, March 23. Will be interested to see how it compares to our Panasonic DMP-BD55.

You are the second gunslinger I've heard from who got into the second EAP (Kwok Lau also got in). Should be fun to hear the reports from the second wave...

I am very unlucky, so sadly, I knew I wouldn't get in on either one.

But, can't wait to hear the impressions!

Well I guess I am number three in the saloon to get in on the Oppo EAP. I can't wait, I have one of the early Sony's and personally I think it sucks. I virtually never use it. The load times just drive me nuts, Pirates of the Caribbean took well over 5 minutes from the time I inserted the BD until I saw video on the screen. Plus my current Oppo just blows it away in every respect so lately I have been watching just SD DVDs. I really am looking forward to seeing some good BDs.

I will let you all know once I get some time on it.

I, too, am getting one. It should be interesting because I have never had a blu-ray player before. So I've been sitting in a corner, trying to remain calm until it arrives.

Congrats, fellas! I look forward to reading your impressions.

I received an invitation also.
I can't wait to test drive this baby!!!!!

I doubt this is a delay that actually impacts the buying plans for many of us here in the saloon, but Denon has delayed their universal player to October (from an earlier target of February). The list price has also drifted up from $3800 to $4500 somewhere over the last few months.

I guess they aren't going to get to call it the "world's first universal Blu-ray player" much longer, as it looks like the BDP-83 is going to beat them to market by several months.

I had been considering the 997 and the Oppo Blu-Ray player.
First I am interested in the Oppo since I do have a Sony 550 Blu Ray but had to use the seven channel analog from my Sony777 that has SACD capability. That leves me without the use of the 777sacd format. I was thinking about a switcher however for the price of the switcher I thought the Oppo would be a better option.
With that being said how could I connect the Oppo audio to my 990 having the Sony 777 and the Sony 550.
Second The idea of the 997 had my mouth watering. However and I have to honest here the 990 is terrific. Love what it has done to my Home Theater. Even without the updated firmware.
Which I am thinking about doing in the near future.
Having a Infocus 7205 projector I do not think that I will see a signifcant upgrade in the performace in video with the 997. Audio perhaps will have an improvement, however the sound is awesome right now.
I feel that the addition of the 997 would be a mistake since I am satisfied with the 990 and comparing to the Integra 9.8 I am very much satisfied.
I would like to hear anyones thoughts on this post.

thanks

The OPPO would replace both the Sony 777 and the Sony 550. That's one of the really big benefits of the BDP-83: it can do Blu-ray (decoding for all formats), SACD, DVD-Audio (once it launches, although the EAP doesn't have that yet), and kick-ass with standard DVD. You connect the BDP-83's 7.1 analog output to the 990 along with a coaxial or optical so you can use that with DVD's and CD's if you like, feed the HDMI video to your projector (either directly or through the 990's switching if you have a DVI/HDMI cable or satellite receiver), and let the 83 handle all of your optical disc needs. Sell the 777 and 550, and you'd end up spending very little overall.

If SACD performance is a high priority, I don't think I'd sell the 777 (ES ?) until I've heard what the OPPO will do with SACDs. I have tremendous regard for OPPO, but matching the 777 is a pretty tall order. I agree with Gonk on the 555, the OPPO should give you better performance.
There are solutions for sharing the 7.1 inputs between devices thougt they are either pricey (VECTOR) or in-elagant( 3 Radio Shack AV switchers , my gastly solution ). If a 2-channel set-up is anywhere in your future, the 777 would be great for that , It's hard to beat for 2 channel SACDs.

In the last few weeks I have purchased both an Integra 9.9 and an Outlaw 990. They are both excellent quality pieces. I have them each set up in high end systems, the integra in my main home theater room, and the 990 in my living room system mainly used for audio.

I really like the way the 9.9 handles the video. It transcodes all video inputs and will output them through the hdmi including upconverting to whatever resolotion you prefer...up to 1080p. I have my Toshiba 9200 DVD player hooked to the 9.9 through component video cables as well as optical digital audio and 5.1 analogue for my DVD-Audio discs. I have not had an unconverting DVD player before, PLUS I am now upconverting the video from my u verse set top box to 1080p. On already very good quality HD programing or a good quality DVD, that shows a noticable improvment. The images have a more 3 dimensional look. The 997 will have that capability.


If you don't have a real need for your processor to do upconverting , transcoding to HDMI or handling audio through the hdmi, the 990 will be everything you need and more. The audio through the 990 is impecable...both two channel and surround.

Scott

And going with the BDP-83 will give you standard DVD video performance that will match or beat the Integra 9.9 (based on what I've found with the Onkyo 885, which has nearly identical video processing). It won't help with cable, but depending on the cable or satellite box it may be difficult to fully use the receiver's scaling for cable anyway (my Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD is a mess in this regard, and between its foibles and the 885's very slow video signal acquisition time I've not been able to use the Reon much for SDTV).

Yes..I am almost certainly going to order a BDP 83 when they are finalized and offered for sale to the general public. From everything I have read from your review and others, the video will be about as good as it gets from a home system.

I've never used an 885 but my 9.9 has never exhibited any video or audio acquisition troubles at all. I have my motorola set top box connected through a 50 foot HDMI cable to my 9.9, and another 50 foot hdmi cable going from the output of my 9.9 to the samsung 61 inch dlp led TV. The combination works great for video and audio.

The only fly in the ointment with that at present is the inability of the software in the motorola stb to output dolby digital over the hdmi. Supposedly AT&T is working on a software update to correct that, but right now all I can get from it is PCM two channel. It has the pro logic II encoding if the program has it, and the 9.9 does a marvelous job with that, but it's not true dolby digital. I need to use a toslink connection to get that.

Right now though, I am thoroughly enjoying my new toys. I haven't noticed any discernable diffference in the audio quality between the 9.9 and the 990. They are both as good as I have ever heard, and a large improvement over the sound of the HK signatures that they both replaced.

The 990 does have some pro logic II adjustments that are lacking in the 9.9....the panorama, center width and dimension. I have found them to be very helpful in getting the sound just as a like it when listening to music with PL II-music decoding.

That's good to hear, as both have been significant issues with the 885 (which is the same as the 905 receiver and Integra 9.8). Audio acquisition routinely takes a couple of seconds, on par with what my Model 950 did back in 2002 and much worse than the ~0.5 seconds my 990 could do. Video takes a similar amount of time whenever the input signal changes.
Curious... Now I need to see what options the 885 has for PLII adjustment...

I have to take back my statement that the 9.9 doesn't have those extra PL II adjustments..I just found them. Having to learn the setup in one new processor is hard enough but doing two different ones at the same time is brutal.

The 9.9 does indeed have the same panorama, dimension and center width adjustments as the 990. Now I have to spend some time finding the sweet spot for those settings in my family room system. They do make a difference.

Scott

Assuming that the 9.9 is similar to the 885, it's hard to learn under any circumstances...

Update--looks like the OPPO has shipped, with delivery set for mid-week. I can see I'll need to work at home on Thursday!

You might even find yourself coming down with the sniffles on Wednesday...

I can't figure out what they did. On Oppo's site it says they shipped FedEx Ground on Saturday. On FedEx's site it appears they shipped Friday, but only the shipping/billing information is in the tracking system and the estimated delivery date to DC is next Saturday. There's no indication mine is actually in transit.

It may be they drop-shipped a bunch to someplace east of the Mississippi and the individual packages won't show up until pallets are broken up in Memphis or another hub.

Ah, dear FedEx... I think OPPO started prepping shipping labels on Friday (which would put the tracking numbers in FedEx's database that day). As for FedEx's tracking info, I've found there to often be some weird lag in their system. When you combine that with the fact that there seem to be far fewer "waypoint" scans than with UPS, it's often hard to see what's happening.

Hey guys -- Got home from a business trip this week to find the OPPO waiting for me -- what a "Welcome Home!" Have swapped out the Panny DMP-BD55 and just started playing with the OPPO. Have not spent much time with it yet and will do a longer report later, but I did want to say that DVD-Audio has been implemented and seems to be working fine (at least with the Pet Sounds DVD-A I used). DVD-A is not a feature that is yet printed on the front of the machine as being supported (as SACD already is) but it has been implemented. Heading back for some more fun..er testing!

DVD-Audio is still "proof of concept" - encrypted discs will not play and may cause the player to freeze (holding down the front panel power button for 5 or 10 seconds will fix that), but about 75% or so of my little collection is working just fine.

Is the DVD- Audio being sent through the hdmi?

Both HDMI and multichannel analog are carrying DVD-Audio, although with the current EAP firmware the player needs to be set to output LPCM via HDMI for DVD-Audio to work properly over the HDMI connection.

Gonk -- Thanks for the clarification on DVD-A. Will try to go through my discs this weekend to see which do/don't work. I assume OPPO still is working to try to fully implement DVD-A? Also, one thing I have noticed is that when fast forwarding DVDs/Blurays, there is no audio. On my Panny, there is accelerated audio on the first fast forward mode, which I find pretty useful in helping to judge where I am on a disc. Have I missed something is setting up my OPPO or is this feature not supported?

Yes, the DVD-Audio support on the current firmware is just preliminary. It is being refined.

Panasonic has had an option for audio with first fast forward speed since their early DVD players, but OPPO has never offered that as far as I can recall.

Hi everyone,

I got my BDP-83 yesterday. It is very impressive! I am going to be putting it through its paces this weekend, 6 hours on it last night just isn't enough.

Just a quick couple of comments as to what I saw/heard so far:

1. The audio performance is amazing. I listened to SACD's, redbook CDs, BD's of concerts as well as DVD of a concert. All the different formats performed well beyond expectations. I really like the direct audio out. It seems to have a much better sound then when I let the 990 do the processing.

2. The easy setup was, well, extremely easy. In fact the advance setup was quite simple as well. I will have more on this when I do a more detailed review.

3. The video performance was stellar as well, but I really haven't had the time to do all the testing that I would like.

4. In general I have not found a single flaw in the units operation, but again I have really only put about 6 hours in on it with my focus being on the audio side of things. Also, in general it seems to outperform my DV-981HD for audio and up scaling. Also, I think its user interface is better.

So I have a couple of questions for those who have been testing these units.

1. Does it seem like the analog audio in the Oppo produces mush better sound then using the bitstream output of the coaxial connection? Is the Oppo using that much better DACs?

2. I tried both 1080P and source direct settings. I am not sure I understand what the upside of source direct is? I thought if I used source direct the TV would do the scaling, but it did not seem to do that. Could this be a TV setting that I can't find?

OK, that's it for right now, but more will be revealed I am sure.

What sources were you playing? DVD-Audio, SACD, and Blu-ray will sound better via analog than coaxial because they will give you the lossless audio instead of lossy.

For DVD's and CD's, I've found that the BDP-83's analog section is at least as good as the Onkyo 885 (which is itself comparable to the 990). My wife actually preferred listening to CD's via analog over HDMI, and I've found myself bouncing back and forth between HDMI and multichannel analog a fair bit.
Source direct outputs the original video format of the disc or file being played. For DVD's, that means 480i. For Blu-ray, that can be 1080i or 1080p. The TV has to scale that signal to its native aspect ratio - there's no setting to adjust. The TV won't show that it's doing this, because it will probably list the input resolution.

The benefit to source direct comes if you have a video processor in the signal path that is equal to or superior to the BDP-83's ABT 2010. Maybe you've got a DVDO Edge (which uses the same chip) or VP50 video processor handling all signals, or an Anthem Statement D2 with its Gennum processor - in which case having the BDP-83 output an un-processed signal lets you get optimal use out of that separate video processor. It also is smart enough to switch to 1080i for SACD and DVD-Audio playback, since with HDMI you need an HD video resolution to allocate enough bandwidth for multichannel audio. For most of us, though, the best bet is going to be to set the BDP-83 to the output resolution that is closest to the native resolution of our TV.

OK, I'm impressed. I have never had a blu-ray player before, and my screen is only capable of 1080i at the moment. So I don't really have anything to compare the BDP-83 to. But I put the calibration disk in and watched the intro video clip and the benefits of blu-ray became very clear, even downsampled. The sound difference over my Pioneer Elite 47avi was very easy to hear.

I have posed a question to Oppo, but maybe Gonk knows the answer. I plugged a USB wireless adapter into the player and it is not recognized. I don't know if the BDP-83 is set up only to do network communications throught the network port, the USB connection is not yet activeated, or there is something I missed in setup. I'm using DHCP, so I did nothing but tell my router to recognize the MAC address of the player. Still, the test reports no connection.

The USB port is for mass storage devices only, so to connect the player to the network (for BD-Live and network firmware updates) you need to connect to the Ethernet port.

It's for sale now? The Oppo website seems to have not been updated if that's the case. My original Oppo 971 is starting to crap out on me. I don't really have any plans to buy BluRay discs for the near term, but if the player is build solidly and does well with legacy discs, it looks like a nice unit.

Gonk, if you connect mass storage VIA the USB port, what's the interface like for picking tracks?

Cheers,

No. It is not for sale - there is an "early adopter program" test (the "EAP") going right now that sold 350 players, plus the beta test is still underway. My review is based on the initial EAP firmware, but I'll update it later.

The interface for playing files (movies, music, or pics) off USB or a data disc is fairly slick, actually. It's basically standard file/folder navigation, with a Home Menu that lets you pick the media type you are interested in.

I really appreciate the comments posted here about the BDP-83 and Gonk's excellent review. I looked at the AVS Forum at the start of EAP 1 and found there were way too many posts there for me to tolerate weeding through (many having no bearing on player performance). I'm looking forward to more comments from EAP 2. Although I currently have a 10-year-old DVD player, I'm patiently waiting for Oppo to get this player right and offer it for retail sale (I was not picked for either EAP). While my current needs are only for upconverted SD-DVD and Blu-Ray, I do like the options to play other format disks and USB files in the future.

Thought I would let everyone know that I have cast my vote (for now) on the BDP-83, and it was a "No". I tested the OPPO on our secondary system, becasue that is where the Pioneer Elite 42' plasma is (Axiom surround system, Yamaha HTR-5960 receiver, Outlaw LFM-2 sub). HDMI for video, with audio through mutichannel analog with the OPPO decoding the audio. The OPPO replaces a Panasonic DMP-BD55. In terms of start-up time, ease of use, manual clarity, menu structure, etc, the OPPO beats the Panny. Blu-ray PQ is a toss-up to me (perhaps largely due to the 720p screen), and SD DVDs look a bit better from the OPPO. SACD/DVD-A sound great.

However, even after the most recent firmware update, the OPPO's DVD-A in my view still is a work in progress. The latest firmware update did fix many important issues, such as discs not playing and the system freezing up when I tried to access the disc set-up menu and an inability to fast forward through music. But one major concern I still have is that on concert discs or discs where tracks should transition smoothly into each other without pause (e.g. Sinatra at the Sands; the Beatles, LOVE; Brian Wilson, Live at the Roxy), there is a noticeable pause between tracks, almost as if the player is searching for the next track (there is a sound as if the laser mechanism is moving). While that pause is less now with the latest update, it is still there and disrupts the listening experience. My Denon DVD-1920 Universal DVD player plays these discs through without any pause between tracks. If OPPO intends to market this as a universal player, I think the DVD-A implementation still is not smooth enough to carry it off. OPPO tells me they intend to get DVD-A up to the quality/performance of their 981-HD, but they are not there yet. If someone is not interested in DVD-A, the BDP-83 probably is sbout set to go and will be a great player (assuming a few other items mentioned on the 2nd EAP page at OPPO website are corrected). My concern is that if OPPO intends to market this as a universal player, it should be fully functional out of the box. I look forward to changing my vote once OPPO gets the DVD-A and other issues resolved.

Vote or no vote, a co-worker of mine spoke with Oppo last night and they told him it would be available in two to three weeks. Seems like a short window to get the last minute bugs resolved.

Based on the current voting pattern, OPPO will get the 70 percent "Yes" vote they say they need to release. Given their track record, I don't doubt that OPPO will get things right, the question is how quickly. In my business, we would not advise a client to release a product with known issues unless it could guarantee they would be fixed shortly or that they would give a full refund (including shipping) to any customer who buys on the company's assurance that issues will be corrected and then fails to correct them in a timely fashion.

If OPPO does release in 2-3 weeks, that will start the 30-day clock for EAP participants to decide whether they will keep the machines, and I don't know what I will do if the issues aren't resolved. Some of it depends on whether OPPO keeps the price at $499 (the EAP price) or bumps it up some for the finished product. It's not like DVD-A is the coming audio format, but I'd like to be able to play the discs I have!

I don't think they'll launch without having DVD-Audio support that is truly functional. That may very well be in the next one to three weeks...

I, too, voted No. I don't have any DVD-A discs and few SACDs or HDCDs. But I have had problems with some CDs causing considerable vibration. OPPO says the next firmware update will address this by changing the speed of the transport. The problem is that there is no apparent issue with the CDs that have the problem. I have a 2-disc set where one plays fine and the other causes so much vibration you can hear the player over the speakers.

Otherwise, I think this is a great player.

It is kind of interesting to read comments of EAP members. There are actually a few who have gone from Yes to No since the April 6 firmware update. I''m sure OPPO can fix the problems, and I hope it will not give in to the pressure, particularly on AVS Forum, to release it before it's ready.

It's not like the old days where it was largely the electronics that counted. It's increasingly clear that software matters at least as much in components such as BD players and pre-pros, and we all know how well software usually runs out of the box first time around! :rolleyes:

FYI: My co-worker was quoted $499 for the finished product. Sounds like they've settled in on that.

Just a heads-up, folks - it sounds like OPPO has begun sending emails to folks at the front of the interest list, offering them the chance to place a "priority order." It sounds like these emails will be going out in small batches over the course of at least a week, possibly longer. I haven't yet seen any official word on the final price, but it sounds like at least the folks on the interest list will get a shot at picking one up for $499. Rumor has it that this list, which started some time last fall, may have grown to contain upward of 27,000 names.

Even if only 10 percent actually buy that number is pretty amazing considering the economy and the total absence of published detailed reviews (not to minimize yours).

Some might say that the interest grew from the great reviews the 983 got. But it is obvious from all the firmware revisions needed that the BDP-83 is not merely the next iteration in a series.

Oh, there's nothing iterative about OPPO's development of the BDP-83. The only hardware that the 983H and BDP-83 have in common is the video processing (and even that's not entirely correct, as the 983H was developed using a two-chip solution and only later revised mid-stream to use the 2010 one-chip solution that the BDP-83 has). Totally different platforms, built with different disc drives, different chipsets, different chassis, different remotes, and different analog sections.

Hey Gonk, I don't think I saw anything in the reviews about 'other' formats such as mp3, ogg, avi, etc. My present Oppo DVD player does these nicely (though I wish they would put the file menu display in smaller font to fit on the screen, hope the BD83 will use a HD font for this!). How well does the BD83 do on digital audio (and video) codecs? Can downloaded youtube videos be burned to disk an played?

The BDP-83 doesn't have quite the range of file support that their earlier players do (although firmware updates may expand on that now that they have the core functionality well in hand). There is support for a lot of it, though. You can see some of the menu interfaces in my review (under the Audio section). Bill McLain has a good overview in the beta test FAQ he maintains ( this link will jump you right to it).

I had the offer in my mailbox this AM. It is for the $499 price. Have to check the finances.

From my time using the BDP-83 in the 2nd EAP, I think most purchasers will be extremely pleased with it in terms of its video performance. It beats my Panny BD-55 in that area (particularly on SDs). My ongoing concern is that DVD-A still is a work in progress. As I noted over on the OPPO site, even with the latest firmware update, there is a reproduceable bug that results in the player freezing up if you pause a DVD-A and then start playing again. You can get the song going again if you skip back to the beginning of it, so you do not need to restart the disc or machine. I assume OPPO will get it fixed, and DVD-A functionality is much better than when originally introduced. Even with the bug, I will be keeping mine.

Yeah, I feel pretty comfortable with the DVD-Audio support - work is still ongoing in that regard, and I expect that the firmware that ships to the first customers will be even more polished than what the EAP'ers have now.

I ordered mine today as I just received the email. Are you going to update your review or is it good as is?

It'll get an update. I'm waiting for the beta testing to formally conclude before I make a pass through it to update things, as they are still working on it actively and we've still got separate EAP and beta firmware versions in circulation.

My coworker ordered one last night. Expecting it to ship next week. Does the beta testing continue past the formal release? Is it extended so that they can continue to work through smaller bugs?

The formal beta testing typically runs right up until they finalize the production firmware, but then beyond that there are often public beta firmware versions (firmware that addresses a bug or adds a feature and is stable enough for general consumption but not yet approved for official distribution). It's rare that they continue running true "beta" firmware out to the beta testers after launch, but certainly not impossible.

Call me a lucky one. My coworker that bought his wants me to try it out on my system first since he's not going to have his system ready to go yet. So I'll get to try it out for free for a while. Hard to beat that!

Nice! Although the day that he comes over to retrieve it will be a tough one...

Very true. But maybe by then I'll be ready to pick up my own. I may even be able to convince my wife that it is a much better solution than the DVD player and the PS3 we're using now.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to comparing the upscaling of the PS3 to the Oppo. I'll also be able to run the new lossless codecs through my system for the first time. Since the PS3 only has an HDMI out and my (soon to be replaced) AVR predates HDMI, the best I can get from my BR discs is DTS.

Should be fun!

Oh, it'll definitely be fun. Let us know how it goes.

I put my order in last night. Would have been better for my finances if I waited a month or so but I wanted to take advantage of the $499 price.

Well my wait for an OPPO BD player should be over in the next week or so. I took up OPPO's invitation to order the BDP-83 and their site says it will ship sometime next week. I'm really looking forward to the enhanced video and audio of BluRay and the video enhancement of SD-DVDs. I'm one of the folks that sees this OPPO player as a way to continue using my 990 pre/pro and still enjoy the benefits of the new audio formats and advanced video processing.

Now the nitty gritty...Do any of the Outlaws who beta tested the BPD-83 have any specific tips/recommendations for setting up the 83's analog audio with a 990? Are there any bass management quirks to worry about? On the video front I have a Pioneer 5080 Kuro plasma (768p with the ability to receive 1080p 24fps signal); how does the 83's auto resolution work?

With the 990, I'd set all speakers to large and the sub to on (the 990 will be doing bass management, so there's no reason to ask the BDP-83 to also do that). I'd also leave the trim settings and distances zero'd.

For video, the BDP-83's auto resolution mode relies on your TV's EDID information. Personally, I've not really messed with it much, as I've instead just set the resolution. For a 768p panel, I'd compare 1080p/24 output to 720p and see which I like more. It's very possible that 720p will win, but it depends on how well the Kuro's video processor converts a 1080p/24 signal to 768p/60 and I just don't know how well that specific display's video processor stacks up against the ABT2010.

Thanks, Gonk! A few more more questions came to mind: Just to clarify, is it the 990 or 83 whose trim and distances are zero'd? If the 83's trim and distances are set to zero does the 990 use my current delay and trim settings for each channel when 7.1 channel input is used? If so, that would probably be a good thing since the universal settings in the 990 would be applicable to other inputs. Do you suggest using the 83 to decode codecs other than the new lossless codecs? How would my other inputs (e.g. cable TV) work if the 990 trim and distances are zero'd?

Re: video - Thanks for the thoughts and I suspected the choice of resolution would be a resolved with a bit of testing but I wondered if there was a consensus of opinion on the issue.

Zero trim and distance on the BDP-83 (the 990 applies the same settings to the 7.1 Direct input that it applies to the other inputs).

I'd suggest connecting a coaxial or optical digital cable as well as the 7.1 analog, just so that you can do some A-B comparisons when listening to CD's and DVD's. My traditional answer for players like this has been to stick with digital for the discs that allow it (CD and DVD), but the BDP-83 has an excellent analog section so you might want to experiment a bit to find what you like the best. For Blu-ray, I'd probably just use the 7.1 Direct (analog) connection for all discs.

In most cases, I think that folks are going to prefer to leave as much video processing as possible in the BDP-83 rather than allowing the display to do it. Particularly for a panel that doesn't natively display 24p video (which is only possible with 120Hz panels that accept a 24p signal and repeat each frame five times), I'd rather have the player do 3:2 pulldown. Pioneer tucked some nice hardware into their Kuro panels, though which is the only reason I didn't just say "compare 1080p/60 and 720p/60 outputs and leave the player on the one you like most".

Gonk,

You are a gentleman and scholar! And one heck of a resource here in the saloon for all things A/V. I'll report back after I have a chance to use the BDP-83 for a while. Its going to be fun!

I've been lurking this forum for a bit; just ordered the BDP-83 and wanted to thank Gonk for the detailed review and the ongoing great advice - looking forward to weighing in on the new toy! (might even investigate the tiniest nagging buzz from what is presumably a bad ground on my turntable while I'm back there in the wired jungle...)

That's funny because I decided when I hook mine up to clean up the hydra mess behind my rack. Something I've been meaning to do for a while.

Think of it as spring cleaning that is actually rewarding! I'm hoping that mine arrives before the weekend (even paid extra for fast shipping, totally giving in to the instant gratification urge) so I can have plenty of time to clean things up and play with the Oppo. Otherwise, I will be showing up at work under severe sleep deficit conditions.

Anyone out there using Netflix for blu-ray rental? How does it stack up in terms of selection, availability, etc.? Thanks in advance for the feedback!

I've been using Netflix for Blu-ray for a while now. Selection and availability have been good for me, but we aren't a high-volume renter (unlimited one disc at a time).

I've been using the BD option since January, can have 3 discs at a time and no problem, best way to see those films on BD you aren't sure if you want to buy. No problems with either selection or availability.

And isn't it great that Netflix has just raised the BD premium from $1 to $3 a month!!!

Yeah, that was a bummer. Didn't impact me as much since I'm only doing one disc at a time (went from $1 to $2).

Yeah I was a bit peeved myself until I sat down and figured I am still only paying $1.60-1.75 per disc rental (in slow months maybe $2/disc) and it is delivered to my door and no late fees.

Plus you have to figure BD costs more than DVD's (even for Netflix)more people want BD's and Netflix's cost goes up.

Still the best deal around.

Here's my two cents:

• I started out paying $19.99/mo for 3 standard discs with Netflix.
• Then they lowered my price to $16.99/mo.
• Then they started offering BluRay for free!
• Then they started charging $1/mo for BluRay.
• Then they started charging $4/mo for BluRay.

Now, I could get upset and frustrated with the trend of price increases for BluRay access even while the cost of BluRay discs are going down. But at the end of the day, I've had Netflix for 4 and a half years and I'm only paying $1 more than when I started. Hard to complain about that.

So gonk, you didn't have any problems using the analog outs with the 990? I read on the EAP site that there was a confirmed issue with the center channel not working when using the analog outs.

I've used the analog outputs quite a bit, although mainly with the Onkyo 885. No problem. I don't recall a center channel issue, so it was likely an isolated case (specific disc, audio format, or configuration) that has since been fixed.

I am using the analog outs through my 1070 with absolutely no problems. There was someone who had a problem getting the center channel, but I don't think it was with analog. May have been with HDMI, or with that particular unit.

I suspect that we'll start to see a steady trickle of professional reviews of the BDP-83 in the next few months, but here is one early sample . I thought it was particularly interesting that the reviewer was comparing the analog performance to a Lexicon RT-20 for DVD-A and SACD. The RT-20 retails for somewhere around $4500 or so and doesn't do Blu.

Glad to hear you guys aren't having problems with the analog out. This is the post I was referring to (click on "No Votes" to make it easy to find):
http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/eap.aspx

Interesting - I haven't run into that issue in my system.

I haven't had any center channel issues on mine, either -- just the previously noted DVD-A issue several post back, which is not a deal-breaker and I am sure OPPO can fix.

Edited NOTE: BTW, looks like there was a new firmware update issued yesterday (May 4). Will have to install and see what has changed.

New: Only had a chance for a brieft test last night, but it looks like the latest firmware update corrected the DVD-A issue in which a paused song froze up a bit after restarting it.

I updated my review last night. It may get some further tweaking over the next week, as it was kind of late last night when I posted it. I've also made a long-overdue update to my HDMI FAQ , although I still need to go through it and update a few sections (I mostly just added some information on what HDMI v1.4 is supposed to include when it is published and some commentary on HDMI Licensing's approach to the standard).

Nice additions. My player arrives today.

Thanks..I'm going to go re read that and see the updates. I always appreciate your take on gear plus...mine is ordered and should be shipping out shortly.

Having the BDP-83 for just a short while, I found the 7.1 direct for DVD's much better than the optical. I'm not sure why, but with the optical I have to turn the volume up quite a bit more to reach the same db as I did with the 980H or the 7.1 direct. The 7.1 direct is much more open and clear. There is a huge difference and I didn't notice this much of a difference with the 980H direct or digital, nor did I notice a big decibel difference. I have the BDP-83 set at 192 LPCM.

Gonk... I believe and your wife had the same experience?

Fantastic palyer. Very fast compared to my Pioneer BDP-51FD

Keep those comments and recommendations coming. My BDP-83 should be delivered either Monday or Tuesday next week and any setup help is appreciated!

Got the shipping notification this morning so sometime next week I should have mine.

AvFan and mzpro5 - congrats on the shipping notices!
When the multichannel analog and HDMI into an Onkyo 885, I haven't noticed that pronounced a level difference, but I do recall that the output level of the multichannel analog is higher than for the stereo analog (it's designed that way, based on some recommendations from the company that OPPO partnered with to develop the design of the analog section).

I have been very impressed with the quality of the BDP-83's analog section. It's really a very good performer.

I've got one sitting on my guestroom bed. Still in the box. Mother's Day weekend dominated my schedule. Everytime I walk by that room I see it in there and its driving me crazy. Can't wait to hook it up!

It's excellent. Really happy with it. HDMI seems fine, it's only the spdif connection that has major level differences. It's not really an issue as I'm very happy with 7.1 analog.

Just a little addition. HDMI CEC is very cool. All I have to do is turn the Oppo player on and the tv turns on and automatically selects the proper input. If I'm watching TV it'll change to the oppo player and when I turn it off it goes back to the channel I was watching. Also when I select the DVD player via the tv as the source, it turns on the oppo player, but doesn't turn it off.HDMI CEC is pretty cool.

My BDP-83 is scheduled to arrive Wednesday, and I'm looking forward to it. We haven't got a single BD disk to try on it yet, but I'm anxious to see what it does for standard DVDs. The BDP-83 is replacing a 10+-year-old Pioneer Elite player that doesn't even have progressive scan. That was fine with our old 32" direct-view TV, but doesn't cut it with the almost new 52" Toshiba.

Parts Express shipped speaker kits that are due for delivery Thursday. Looks like I'll be busy this weekend.

Bill

I didn't have any BDs when mine arrived in March. But it comes with a calibration disk that has an intro including scenes from around Seattle. If you have any question about the difference between 1080p BD and SD just watch the intro.

If you are interested in some recommendations of BDs to try on the BDP-83, my family and I all think the following look great and really show off the player: Planet Earth series (for breathtaking visuals, not audio), Cars, Iron Man, Ratatouille, and Casino Royale. For older movies, the recently released Sean Connery James Bond films Dr. No, From Russian with Love, and Goldfinger show what BR and attention to getting the transfer right can do. We've had fun with them all on our BDP-83. Enjoy!

Transformers is another winner. It looks fabulous in Blu-ray. I have Galapgos Islands and it's good, but not quite as good as Planet Earth.

I'm curious about he Godfather series?

Wall-E is a good one, too - I got our daughter hooked on that one, which is just fine (especially compared to the other options that are likely to get into rotation for a four-year-old).

figured out my audio issue. I was using LPCM from the bdp-83 to the 990. when I switched to bitstream, the levels matched.

I have the Godfather box set in BD and the transfer is excellent. If you are a fan of these I would definitely get the BD.

Other good BD's - Live Free or Die Hard, Underworld movies, Hellboy, Narnia movies and the X-men movies. All very good to excellent BD's.

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.

My other experiences with SACD players are the same as AvFan. I had a Pioneer 45A and the 980H. I never cared for the 45A SACD playback. the 980H was better and being unable to do a direct A/B comaprison I would say they are very close if not the same.

I have to agree with gonk about the 83's analog section, I definitely feel the analog audio is better than the Sony S550.

And the Oppo's operation is so much nicer from load times to display to setup.

As I recall the Pioneer 45A I purchased in 2004 was one of the first reasonably priced DVD players that would also play SACD and DVD-A. Setup with my 990 was straight forward using its analog inputs. I have just a few SACDs and DVD-A discs but these formats seemed a like novelty to me after I listened to them on the 45A and so I didn't go out of my way to purchase many more. When I wanted an upconverting DVD player I chose the Oppo DV-980H universal player and I debated whether to keep the analog connections between the Oppo and my 990. I did and when I played them there was a significant improvement in sound. I didn't need to do an A-B comparison to recognize the Oppo sounded significantly better than the Pioneer.

As I noted I've not played any SACDs or DVD-A discs on the BPD-83 but I look forward to giving some a spin. A direct comparison between the 980H and 83 would be difficult because the 990 has only one set of 7.1 analog inputs so I've packed up the 980H. Based upon Gonk's observations I'm looking forward to listening to some SACDs with the BDP-83. Who knows, I may join mzpro5 and start buying SACDs.

I was just thinking about what DVD-A/SACD players I've owned. There was a DVD-A player (the Panasonic RA60 that I bought in 2002), but I didn't have both formats until I got the Yamaha S1500 in September 2004. The S1500 had a pretty decent analog section coupled to a truly dreadful user interface, which is why it became a purely DVD-A/SACD player in May 2005 (the OPPO 971H was a much better DVD/CD player, with digital output to the 990). Then there were the 981HD, 980H, and 983H. The 981HD's analog section was probably not quite as good as the S1500's, but it was a quite satisfactory all-in-one solution. The 980H improved on the 981HD nicely, with the 983H offering some subtle benefits (very slight, at least to my ear). The BDP-83 tops them all, though. It won't matter to folks who are using the HDMI output for audio, but for everybody who isn't yet ready to upgrade their receiver or surround processor (and there are plenty of folks in that category) it's very good news indeed.
Keep an eye out for music titles on Blu-ray, too. There's not a lot of studio stuff out there, but there is a fairly decent array of concert titles out there. TrueHD, DTS-HD MA, or straight PCM are all capable of equaling DVD-A and SACD.

I hadn't really thought of the audio on the Blu-ray concerts, but it makes sense they should sound equal to SACD and DVD-A with the uncompressed audio formats.

One question about SACD playback: For discs that contain CD and SACD, does the BDP-83 output SACD via its 7.1 analog if the audio setup has the preference set to play the CD portion of the disc? In other words, do I need to change the BDP-83 setup and specify SACD playback to turn on the full array of 7.1 analog outputs? I have set up an Activity on my Harmony One to play SACD/DVD-A discs but it just uses the 990's 7.1 input but it doesn't change the BDP-83's setup.

All outputs play the same layer of an SACD at the same time, because that's the only layer that the drive is reading. I leave the SACD Priority to SACD Multichannel, because I see no reason to listen to the CD layer when I have the ability to play the SACD layer.

I don't know if the poor quality of SACDs prior to an Oppo is exclusive to Pioneer or not. I had a Pioneer DV-563A for years. Dual format with DVD-Audio and SACD but SACDs were always greatly inferior to the DVD-Audio quality on the Pioneer. I had assumed it was the nature of the SACD format. When I replaced the Pioneer with the Oppo 890H it was a night and day difference with SACDs (DVD-Audio continues to sound great). CDs even sounded better when played through the Oppo analog to feed my 950. Oppos 5.1 (& 7.1) matrix for stereo sources is very impressive. In fact, I sometimes use the Oppo analog feed for movies too. Of course with the 950 we only get 5.1 through analog inputs. I still prefer DVD-Audio sound quality to SACD but that could be a whole different debate.

One problem that early universal players were said to had with SACD was related to converting DSD to PCM (since most lacked DSD-capable DAC's). The Pioneers in particular were frequently noted as being better with DVD-Audio than SACD (even though both represent lossless digital audio formats). In addition, both DVD-A and SACD are subject to the specific surround mixes used - I've found that some sound more pleasing than others. These days, the debate over whether DSD output is better than PCM tends to end in a draw.

The 980H is a very nice player, especially for the money. Mine is still hanging around as a player with my RR2150, and the analog output serves me well.

I did an interesting comparison this morning and I wonder if any other Gunslingers have done the same. I have a moderately priced Sony turntable with its original factory cartridge and I compared the BDP-83's analog output to the turntable. My subject CD/Vinyl was Jack Johnson's In Between Dreams and my 990 was set to bypass for both inputs. Other than the random clicks and pops on the vinyl I preferred the vinyl over the CD but they were very very close. I thought I heard a wider soundstage with the vinyl and vocals were slightly more pronounced on the CD.

Any other Gunslingers done a comparison between vinyl and the BDP-83's stereo analog?

Maybe someone can help. On the PIP feature of Band of Brothers, "In the Words of Easy Company" I can get the PIP picture but no audio for the PIP. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong. Thanks.

I tried the SAP but when I push that I get the red circle with a line in the top left corner.

Do you have secondary audio disabled in the player's setup menu?

Thanks gonk, right after posting I went into the menu and realized I had the secondary audio off DUH!!!!

I've got the BDP-83 in my system now and I'm looking to do some A/B comparisons. My PS3 has been my BluRay player and is still in my system. I'm mostly interested in sound comparisons, though I am interested in looking at the upsampling capabilities of the two players.

Because I'm running an older system, I cannot get DolbyHD or DTS-Master Audio from my PS3 since it does not have an HDMI input. I ordered Master and Commander on BluRay from Netflix and I own the DVD version of the movie. I believe it is one of the best surround sound recordings I've heard. I watched the BR version this weekend and loved the sound, though the HD presentation didn't seem all that much better than my standard DVD, which I found surprising.

I have yet to watch them one right after the other to compare the two, though I plan on doing it tonight. I have a question though. Is there a difference between DTS-HD and DTS-Master Audio? A visit to the DTS web site didn't really provide me with an answer. I thought that Master Audio was a new and improved version of DTS-HD. Anyway, the Master & Commander BR disc uses DTS-HD, so if there is a difference, does anyone have a DTS-Master Audio BR movie they recommend for great sound that I could use to compare against standard DTS?

Aside from that, this is a beautiful machine that is very easy to set-up. Build quality is outstanding. Un-boxing the unit is something else. Best packaging I've seen. I have never owned a SACD or DVD-Audio player, so I have no discs and nothing to compare them against. From what I've read, that is where most of the questions about this unit originate from. The only standard DVD I ran through the unit couldn't really be used to gauge the upsampling since it was a 10 year old commedy that probably didn't have the best filming standards to begin with. I'll probably use the cars DVD to compare the upsampling of the OPPO vs. the PS3.

Sorry for rambling!

"DTS-HD" is not a single format. There is DTS-HD High Resolution, which is a lossy format comparable to Dolby Digital Plus. There is also DTs-HD Master Audio, which is a lossless format comparable to Dolby TrueHD.

Thank you. I didn't think they were the same format. After doing some further research, it looks like Master & Commander BR version IS DTS-HD Master Audio. I'll have to take a closer look at the screen. The logo that comes up says DTS-HD. My guess is that the small print says Master Audio. Seems like DTS would've wanted a little more differentiation between their product names, but what do I know?

There are very few DTS-HD High Resolution titles out there - a search of Blu-ray.com turns up just one title with such a track ("Diary of the Dead"). In most cases, if it says DTS-HD it is Master Audio. I do agree, though, it would have been nice for DTS to find a better way to name the two formats. "DTS-HD Master Audio" and "DTS-HD High Resolution" are a pain to type out, and even the abbreviations (DTS-HD MA and DTS-HD HR) are still longer than "TrueHD" is.

Greetings fellow Outlaws.

I'm in need of some assistance in deciding on Oppo BDP-83 vs the Panasonic DMP-BD55 to go along with my Model 990 processor. I'm attempting a 7.1 channel HT set up now.

Some background.

I pulled the trigger on an Open box Panny for $380 because I thought I had no chance of getting the Oppo BDP-83 early since I was very late in registering for the product.

To my surprise I just got an e-mail from Oppo stating that I may eligible for the 6/1/09-6/15/09 shipments.

I'd love to try both out and see and hear what the differences are but I have a 7 day return policy on the Panny BD and it is slated to arrive @ my house on 5/29/09.

While I have no idea as to when I will receive The Oppo. If I'm lucky maybe shortly after 6/15/09.

I took a quick look @ the specs of each and the one difference is the Oppo plays SACD while the Panny doesn't but this is a non-issue for me as I have a PS3 that could play SACDs.

From the rest of the specs it seems that both are neck and neck. I didn't have much time to cross ref both spec sheets. My boss keeps passing by.

Has anyone had a chance to compare the 2? Which one would be the better choice in general? (Panny @ $380 vs Oppo BDP-83 @ $517 shipped) Is the Oppo that much better to justify the $137+ difference?

Thanks so much. JD

The PS3 will only play SACD's if you replace the Model 990. It doesn't have a multichannel analog output, so they only way to hear SACD's is via HDMI. THe BDP-83 will do SACD's and DVD-Audio (which neither the BD55 nor the PS3 will do) via multichannel analog.
The Blu-ray feature sets are similar (Profile 2.0, onboard decoding of the new formats). Once you get past that, though, there are some very real differences. The BDP-83's video processor is definitely better, which will have minimal impact on Blu-ray but a clear benefit for DVD. (The BD55 has a somewhat newer and improved version of Panasonic's Uniphier chip compared to the BD30 that I have, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the BD30 for DVD performance when compared to my old 983H .) The BDP-83 supports DVD-Audio and SACD. The BDP-83 is faster (start-up, disc loading, etc.). The BDP-83 has a better analog section. The BDP-83 also benefits from OPPO's customer support, which is among the best in the industry.
I've compared a BD30 to the BDP-83, but not a BD55. The BD55 is a newer generation of the BD30 (enables onboard decoding, adds Profile 2.0, and uses what I'm told is a better version of the Uniphier chipset). If it were my $137 to spend, I'd go with the OPPO.

I have both the DMP-55 and the BDP-83. While the specs are similar, I find the performance of the OPPO to be superior in the following areas: speed of operation, standard DVD upscaling and playback, and CD audio (besides the added benefit of DVD-A and SACD performance). My perception also is that the Blu-ray audio is slightly better on the OPPO, but I will admit that could all be in my head.

On Gonk's point, from what I can tell, the Uniphier chip in the BD-55 is improved over the BD-30, and we certainly were happy with it, but it still is not up to the OPPO's quailty.

If you are going to use the Panny primarily for Blu-ray with limited SD playing, my sense is you probably would be okay with the Panny. But if you are going to use it even 30-40 percent of the time with SD-DVD, I'd go with the OPPO. We ultimately kept both machines (having gotten a great deal originally on the Panny -- paid $240 new), but if I were buying one machine today, I would buy the OPPO, even if I could get the Panny at the price we originally paid.

My OPPO just arrived, have not had a chance to hook it up yet but hopefully soon.

I have a 7.1 system and can anticipate one potential problem for my setup.

I currently listen to my DVD-A/SACD thru a Marantz DV 9500 via analog to my 990. DVD-A/SACD surround signals from the Marantz (5.1 analog outs) are routed to my rear surrounds not my side surrounds via the 990. My rear surrounds are better positioned and suited for 5.1 high resolution playback.

Please correct me if I am wrong but with the new OPPO (7.1 analog out), if I hook this way, it will work fine for DVD-A/SACD but with Blu Ray, the side surround signal will come out the rears and the rear surround signals will come out of the side surrounds. I assume this will sound goofy so I was wondering if there are any suggestions to alleviate this ( I doubt it). The only one I can think of is to replace the 990 with the 997 and hook Blu Ray up via HDMI.

I am assuming that with DVD-A /SACD on the OPPO, the surround signals are assigned to output via the surrounds jacks and not the rear surround ones?

Thanks in advance

You are correct - there is no way (short of concocting an interesting switching system with the interconnects between the BDP-83 and the 990) for you to send the side surround channels of DVD-A and SACD to the rear surrounds while still sending side surround channels of BD and DVD to the side surrounds.

Last night I watched the BD version of Planet Earth disk 1. The video and background sounds/music was great, but Richard Attenborough sounded like he was in the next room with the door closed. I know several EAP participants had trouble with these disks and that the firmware released in mid-April was supposed to have fixed all problems. But I'm wondering what gives with the center channel volume.

Has anyone else had similar problems? This is the first BD disk to act this way for me.

I'll have to give that disc a try some time today. Are you listening through multichannel analog or coaxial/optical? As I recall, Planet Earth used a Dolby Digital track, not one of the new formats. If you are using the multichannel analog, you might check to see what your Dynamic Range Control is set to (under Audio Processing).

Gonk

I am using the analog audio outs. I have tried changing Dynamic Range Control. Initially it was on auto and I have tried on and off. Nothing brings Attenborough into the room with me.

Try the coaxial output - it may just be the mix.

Bob

On vacation this week and as it is raining thought I would give this a try. Normally use analog connections to a 990 but also have an optical hookup. No problems either in multichannel or optical output.

Have you tried the disc on any other BD player? May have a bad disc.

Well, so far I have been loving the Oppo w/ my 970...

Today though, I tried hooking up the Oppo w/ the 7.1 analog output, instead of the digital Coax like I was running.

First thing that goes wrong. After setting up everything as far as speaker set-up in the Oppo and letting the 970 know what type of signal was coming in, VERY little low-end came out of my LFM1-EX. Other than the analog signals, I made no changes to the SMS-1 or anything else. (I tried all three settings on the bypass to no avail)

2nd, when I try switching back to the coax to see the difference, I have to turn the volume up by about 20-25 db from where it was before, and again, very little action out of the sub.

Any ideas?

You might want to try how I set up the BDP-83 with my 990. The oppo's speaker settings are zero for trim and distance and the speakers are set to large. Finally the sub is set to "on". This should allow the 970 to handle all those chores including bass management. My experience is the volume between the digital optical for DVDs is slightly more than the 7.1 analog output for Blu-ray.

A couple of weeks ago I noted a problem playing the BBC Planet Earth BD. At Gonk's suggestion I tried the coax output to my 1070. When I set the BDP-83 to output bitstream over coax and the 1070 to use the coax, rather than analog, the sound was wonderful. BTW, I got all channels of analog, allbeit with Richard Attenborough in the next room with the door closed, only with Ext 7.1. If I switched to straight analog the center channel with Attenborough on it, was gone entirely. Using coax I also got a lot more bass.

I have contacted Oppo Tech Support to ask what's going on.

praedet -

I had the same problem using the analog outs from the Oppo. Coax did not give me the same problem though....

Either the June 11 Beta firmware fixed it, or I did something to the settings when inputting after the firmware update???

Also - I do have +10 db on the LFE channel through the Oppo. I believe I have that correct? Just fixed it last night, so I haven't had a chance to use my db meter to verify where it is at relative to the mains. May still need tweaking.

Have you tried the new firmware?

Also - Oppo did mention that they are experiencing problems with the trim not sticking after power cycling the player. The player still reads the correct settings, but does not output them. This is not affecting me though, or maybe it isn't now that I have the new firmware?

I'll have to load the 6/11 firmware before the next Planet Earth disk arrives from Netflix. For now, Oppo has added my problem to the database of issues.

Thanks

Help me out ...I don't see a 6/11 firmware version on Oppo's web site.

It's listed under "Public Beta Test Version", just under "Latest Firmware" on their "Support" page.

My audio appears to be fixed. I have a problem with color inversion almost every time I fire it up still, they are working on this for a future firmware upgrade. Something is not communicating the the "color space" on my tv still.

Try this link.

I just unboxed my BDP-83 last night and everything seems to working as promised, thank you Oppo. One unpromised item that I loved in my old Oppo 980H was the excellent multi-channel matrix it would create from stereo source material (when using the analog outputs of course). This wasn't simply 5/7 channel stereo but a wonderful matrix that would separate good stereo source music through the entire surround speaker system. This matrix effect brought much better life to those stereo only SACDs and CDs (for my taste). I'll be a little disappointed if I need to leave the 980H connected (in some future configuration) just to enhance the stereo listening pleasure. I'll be calling Oppo support but I'm curious if any Outlaw my have a recommendation on a setup change I might be missing on the BDP-83?

First, try turning Pro Logic II on. Second, OPPO has told me that they plan to implement a matrix steering logic similar to what the 980H used to expand 5.1 to 7.1 but that they are waiting to get more core functionality thoroughly stable first.

Good suggestion Gonk but I have the Oppo Pro Logic II "ON", thinking the same as you. I'll report back on what Cust. Service says but this may be a deal breaker for me. If I need to keep the 980H connected (that would handle all my SACD/DVD-Audio/CD requirements) then I can purchase a much cheaper Blu-ray only solution. Still early yet and maybe this is on the Oppo wish list. I have my doubts since 2.0 to 5.1/7.1 was undocumented on the 980H too.

A few things to keep in mind since you are using a Model 950:

You will want a Blu-ray player with onboard decoding of the new formats and 7.1 analog output. That limits how much cheaper you can go with a Blu-ray player. Any such player will also evict the 980H from the multichannel analog connection, thus eliminating your ability to play DVD-A and SACD.

You will need Pro Logic II turned on to expand 2.0 sources to 5.1.

There are still very few players that will expand 5.1 to 7.1 via analog output. I've mentioned this to OPPO several times during beta testing and I do expect them to implement something similar to the 980H's steering logic with the BDP-83.

If you really want full 7.1 analog right now, you could set the BDP-83 to 5.1 downmix and split the side surround outputs to feed both side and back surround inputs on the 950.

Waitaminute: You have a Model 950, right? (Going by your sig, it appears that you do.) The 950 only has a 5.1 analog input, so the 5.1-to-7.1 steering logic couldn't be used anyway. Am I misunderstanding how you were using the 980H and the Model 950? Or has the 950 been replaced by something with a 7.1 analog input (like the Model 970 or 990)?

Maybe I confused you, sorry, yes I still operate the 950 and only have a maximum capacity of 5.1 through the analog inputs. My question is getting the BDP-83 to take stereo (2 channel source material) and matrix it into the 5.1 channels as my 980H does. Even with the the Oppo Pro Logic II turned on I still get no rear activity with stereo source material whatsoever. Does your BDP-83 work differently and provide rear activity during stereo source material? I do have the 5.1 downmix activated as well.

As a side note, I watched the new Return to Forever Live Blu-ray that sounded (and looked) no less then incredible! The lossless formats do make a stunning difference.

I have left Pro Logic II disabled for so long now that I don't recall what results I had with it last, and I certainly have no experience with current firmware behavior. Definitely talk to OPPO about the situation, as the only difference in audio processing I am aware of between the BDP-83 and 980H relates to how it supports expanding 5.1 to 7.1. Both use Pro Logic II for expanding 2.0 to 5.1.

Follow-up after my call to Oppo Cust. Ser. on the BDP-83 offering the same 2.0 to 5.1 matrix sound as my Oppo 980H. Short answer is no, the BDP-83 won't do 2.0 to 5.1 matrix. The 2.0 to 5.1 matrix is a hardware bug in the 980H they haven't been able to eliminate (much to my liking). I guess I should have know this because the only way to engage this 2.0 to 5.1 matrix in the 980H is to enter set-up after any power off and bounce from 5.1 downmix to 7.1 downmix and then back to 5.1 downmix. After doing this process, all stereo sources filled the surround speakers with what I consider an excellent (while artificial) matrix surround processing. The Pro Logic II setup option in the BDP-83 is only there to activate sources already encoded with Pro Logic II.

The drawback for me is my 950 does not allow any signal processing of the analog inputs so SACD Stereo sources can't have Dolby Pro Logic or DTS-NEO processing implemented. On CDs, that allow digital input, the 950 surround processing is available. I just love the Oppo audio processing on stereo sources and had used it over the 950 processing for CDs.

On another note, the BDP-83 is incredible for doing everything it is 'documented' to do. Folks won't believe this but I have to downmix all video to 480i for my old 3 CRT projector to process. I do see an improvement in the picture quality of both Blu-ray and standard def. source material. Future upgrades 1st)1080P Display 2nd) 997 (and then BDP-83 through HDMI and 980H through analog inputs. Seems overkill on Oppos but I love the 980H stereo 'bug' especially on the Stones and Kinks SACD catalogs).

Good evening, Outlaws. I've got a few links to share before I head off to bed:

• Setup Guides for Outlaw Audio Processors and the OPPO Digital BDP-83
• Model 990 and BDP-83
• Model 970 and BDP-83
• Model 950 and BDP-83
• Model 1050 and BDP-83

Enjoy, folks...

Gonk -- Thanks for these. Very clear and very helpful!

Thank you gonk! I have the 970 and I see that I may need to experiment with my settings a bit more.

Have you had a chance to play around with the June 11 Beta firmware? I know you have a true Beta firmware, but wondering if there is a work around to get my lfe back. My understanding is that it resets after a power cycle, but the trim still reads +10. I was told that the work around is to simply work the trim on the same powercyle that you watch a movie, but I haven't had luck with that.

Thanks for all that you contribute here!

Thanks gonk! And I can't wait for experitise once the 997 comes.

Thanks gonk. Your guide means so far I managed to stumble through everything on my own! I do have a question you do not address.

Until now I have used the 990's full bass management for all sources with speakers set to small and crossed over. Now with the BDP-83 I have been trying out the stereo analog output from the BDP-83 to the 990's CD input and setting it to analog input and BYPASS when playing CDs and 2-channel programs on DVD-A and SACD. As you know if the sub is turned on, both the front speakers and the sub get full range signals when the 990 is set to BYPASS. This "double bass" is clearly noticeable when I switch to the digital coax line from the BDP-83 which does all the bass management properly.

When the 990 is set to BYPASS do the front and sub channel calibration levels in the 990 set-up have any effect or are those bypassed too? What about the 990's 2-ch sub trim in BYPASS?

Thanks Gonk!

The only thing I am stuck on is trying to match the volume of the sub through the 7.1 analog into my 970 so the applied settings on the SMS-1 are right...

Secrets has just posted its benchmark review of the BDP-83. Great for HDMI, a little less effusive if using component, but as they note, "OPPO has an out-of-the-ballpark grand slam home run. Highly Recommended."

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/blu-ray-players/647-oppo-bdp-83-blu-ray-player.html

The component video output doesn't use the ABT chipset, so most of their attention went to the HDMI output. That's why I recommend in my setup guide that you use the HDMI output for video if at all possible. I suspect that there are opportunities to refine the video performance of the Mediatek chip's scaling and deinterlacing (which is solely responsible for the component video output), but it was never the priority. My suspicion is that they will end up being able to improve on that in the future, particularly if (when?) they develop a little brother to the BDP-83 that lacks the ABT2010 since such a player would use the Mediatek chip for both HDMI and component video outputs.

Just saw this today on AVS:

Anyone know how AACS licensing might affect this being a firmware update in the future?

In any case, the language above (if true and accurate) seems to indicate that storage on media servers would be a possibility.

I'm not sure what will come of this, but having the support in players for copying to an outboard device would seem to be a bit clunky. Copying to BD-R or DVD-R would involve either BD recorders (which are common in Japan and available in several other markets but remain absent here in the states) or outboard DVD recorders with a compatible input (presumably HDMI). Copying to a media server would seem to be the more appealing option, though, and if you have a media server you would simply need a BD-ROM drive in it to allow the copy - no need for a standalone player that supports managed copy.

Just a heads-up for folks who are interested: the BDP-83 is now available for purchase from OPPO's site. They appear to have gotten to the end of the interest list and have inventory on hand. Enjoy!

I ordered my BDP-83 a couple of hours ago. I recieved notice on 6/24, but have been debating whether or not to spend this much for something that I may or may not use often. But I've put off purchasing a BD player for over a year now, waiting on Oppo to come out with one, so I went ahead and ordered it. Many of the comments in this forum helped me to decide to do so, and I thank all of you for that. (I'll blame you later if I'm disappointed. Just kidding. )

Jeff

Oh, you won't be disappointed with the BDP-83. I assume it will go into your HT so it will be quite a step up from 971H for DVDs and Blurays are amazing both for video but also audio decoded in the BDP-83. Plus it does SACD, DVD-A, etc, etc. I don't have a 1080p display and all that extra data on a BD disc creates a very nice picture. I'd expect you to easily notice improvement using your projector.

Gonk,
I assume that I should be looking at the setup guide for the 1050 as the basis for my 1070? Is that correct?

No - if you have a 1070, look at the 970. The 1050 is a much older platform than the 1070.

Gonk,

First I want to Thank You for all the good work you do on these forumns. I really do appreciate the articles you write and have learned a great deal from them as well as your posts.

I have a question for you about your BDP-83 setup guides. I noticed on the guide for the 990 (the only one I looked at, since that is what I have)that you made no reference to using the analog stereo outputs. Although I have a 5.1 system I quite often listen to stereo CDs. Personally I don't enjoy the 5ch stereo option or any of the other digital conversions. I guess I am kind of a purist in that regard. OK, back to my point. I have done quite a bit of A/B testing myself and with others and we are all in agreement that the DACs for the stereo outputs sound much better than the multi-channel ones. BTW, this was a stereo to stereo test. I connected the analog stereo outputs to the CD analog inputs. If you haven't tried this I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

On a similar note, again after doing quite a bit of A/B testing, IMHO, I think the multi-channel DACs in the BDP-83 are far bettor sounding then the 990's. Therefore, my only connections from the BDP-83 to my 990 are the two sets of analog outputs. Furthermore, I run the video over a HDMI cable straight to my TV. My thought being fewer cable and fewer connections could only improve things.

Well, that's just my two cents. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Thank You,
Mark D. Rodriguez

Posting from them road, so I will be brief.

Both the 990 and the BDP-83 offer a lot of options for setup. My guides are intended to get the combo or one of the other Outlaw combos set up optimally for most typically use. I have heard or more than one 990 owner using the 7.1 analog input almost exclusively, and I think that's an excellent choice. I think people should try the coaxial or optical connection for DVD/CD first, just so they have made an informed decision.

The stereo analog output on the BDP-83 is more robust than the 7.1 analog. OPPO designed it that way on purpose. I didn't mention it in my setup guide because I was trying to keep it focusd on the "essentials."

I got a present today from OPPO, a set of blue lenses for calibrating my display and an AIX audio disk for audio calibration. I assume all of you will get them as well.

The package arrived unannounced from Customer Service.

Yes, they are being mailed out to all BDP-83 owners. The blue lens is for use with the Spears and Munsil disc. I haven't gotten mine yet, so don't know what all is on the AIX Blu-ray disc - there are some sample music tracks along with the calibration stuff.

Like Bob Backer today I received the AIX disc and blue lenses for the Spears and Munsil disc today. This is just one more reason I like OPPO. Besides a great product they back it up, even unsolicited, I'm looking forward to trying out AIX disc.

I think it's neat that Oppo sent it, but now I understand more about why they sent it. It appears the commercial version of the Spears & Munsil BD comes with the blue lenses. But those of us in the EAP, at least, did not get the lenses with the disk packed with the BDP-83.

The AIX disk, which in part is a sampler designed to sell AIX recordings, uses the BDP-83 in illustrations accompanying the calibration stuff.

That is correct - Spears and Munsil had not get decided what blue filter they wanted to use when the BDP-83 started shipping, so they didn't include any filter with the discs OPPO bought to package with the BDP-83. New shipments include the filter, but they had always planned to ship the filters later. They ended up waiting a little bit so they could ship the filters and the AIX discs at the same time.

I ran into a problem when I tried to use the AIX calibration tools to set up my BDP-83 with my 1070. I cannot set the subwoofer properly.

I am using the analog outs from the BDP-83 and my system is set up as 5.1. I have the 1070 set with the mains large (B&W CDM 7NTs), center small (B&W CNT), and surrounds small (B&W CDM SNTs). The sub is set to LFE. On the BDP-83 all speakers are set to large and distance is 0. To get all audio channels the 1070 must be set to Ext. 7.1 and the only format choice is Bypass.

Using the 1070's calibration tone I made sure all channels were balanced on the receiver first. Then I tried to use the AIX channel calibration, all 3 of them, to set the BDP-83 volume levels for all speakers to make them equal. When I got to the sub I cranked it all the way up to 10db, the max, and I still get a very low reading on my SPL meter. I can make the setting for the sub match by boosting the level on the 1070, but that makes the system way out of balance for all other sources.

Am I missing something? Where should I be looking for a fix for this?

This latest discussion has caused me some thought. I have been disapointed with the 7.1 analog setup on SACD as well as Blue Ray discs. With the 7.1 on and watching a movie, the actors vioices cannot be heard. I need to switch back to the optical feed from the BDP-83 to my 990 and all is well. While playing an SACD through the 7.1 setup not all of the speakers are activated. I have two 2200 connecting the center speakers to the 990 analog inputs and five other speakers to the 990 analog inputs as well. Add the sub and you have eight connections into the 990's analog inputs. The resulting sound is disapointing since I am sure music is not produced through all channels. Any thoughts? :rolleyes:

Anybody who has considered picking up a BDP-83 might be interested in this link . AV Guide is giving away a BDP-83.

I was watching X-men 3 BR last night and everything loaded and played fine except for something weird with the sound.

I am using the 5.1 analog outs and during the menu I could hear sound from all channels, but when the movie was playing, there was no sound coming out of the right surround channel.

I was wondering if because it is a 6.1 mix that the player did not decode it correctly to down-mix to 5.1. I think this was the first 6.1 movie I have played or if I have watched another, it was correctly down-mixed.

Has anyone heard of this happening with the OPPO BDP-83?

I haven't run into that issue, but I also don't have that disc (or any of the X-Men films, for that matter).

I just tried LOTR extended DVD which says it is 6.1 DTS-ES. However, I selected 6.1, started playing the movie and DTS appears on the OPPO display. I pushed the audio button on the remote and on the TV screen it says it is DTS 5.1. I get sound from all speakers.

I also put this movie into my OPPO DV-983H, which is connected with a coaxial cable, selected the 6.1 track, started to play the movie and my Outlaw 950 processor display indicated it was receiving a DTS-ES 6.1 signal.

Now I'm confused.

This is with MCA 5.1 with 5.1 down-mix selected in the BDP-83 settings menu.

I just found that I do have X-Men 2 on DVD here, but it's listed as a DTS 5.1 track. I'll try a few 6.1 tracks tonight, but I don't recall running into any decoding errors such as you describe.

The BDP-83 can't decode DTS-ES internally. It will decode it as DTS 5.1. Of course, with the downmix set to 5.1 it would end up as 5.1 even if it could decode ES. I will toss LOTR-EE in here later and see what I find.

The 983H was bitstreaming audio via the coax to the 950 - very different process. The 950 can decode DTS-ES tracks.

I did not realize that the BDP-83 can not decode the DTS-ES soundtrack, but like you said, I would expect the BDP to downmix to 5.1 properly if it could.

I'm aussuming that the BDP can decode a 6.1 BR soundtrack and downmix to 5.1 thru the MCA outs. But since no sound was being output thru the right surround speaker, I'm wondering if the BDP can not do that either.

There are not a lot of 6.1 BRs, but I need to find a few and give them a try.

Thank you for taking the time to try this out on your system. I'm looking forward to the results.

Paul

It can't decode DTS-ES or Dolby EX (standard limitation of disc players), so when encountering those tracks it decodes the basic 5.1 track. There should be no need to downmix to 5.1 because it will only see a 5.1 track.

When we start talking about Blu-ray, things change. DTS-ES tracks are not common on Blu, and DTS-HD is a whole different animal in many respects. A 6.1 DTS-HD track would be decoded internally to 6.1 and downmixed to 5.1 in your case.

I have been doing some more testing and actually the X-men 3 BR when set to the DTS-MA ES 6.1 track, is not producing sound from the front left or the right surround speaker. When I select any other audio format, the proper speakers play sounds, DD 5.1, Dolby stereo, etc.

I also stopped at BB to pick up a couple of BR that have a 6.1 soundtrack.

Disturbia has a DTS-ES 6.1 track and when selected all speakers play sounds.

Top Gun has a DTS-MA 6.1 track and when selected, just like the X3 BR, no sound from the front left and right surround. All other tracks play sound from all speakers.

I had to hunt around a bit for this one.

Fellowship of the Ring EE was easy enough to test. Internal decoding treated it as a DTS 5.1 track and bitstream output provided the processor with a DTS-ES stream. It worked fine.

I had a harder time finding a true DTS-HD 6.1 track. I have several DTS-HD MA tracks that are listed in Blu-ray.com as being 6.1, but based on the disc cases they are actually 5.1 tracks with a DTS-ES core track. (Wall-E is this way - it's a curious discovery that we made during beta testing.) I did find one DTS-HD HR 6.1 disc. The BDP-83 identified the track as DTS-HD HR 6.1 and decoded the track to LPCM 7.1. I had to hunt to find a scene that had any surround activity, but I was able to verify that the channels were all working.

I will have to look around for a DTS-HD MA 6.1 disc to see if there's something different happening with Master Audio tracks.

I spoke to OPPO support and they were able to duplicate the no sound from the left front and right surround channels on the Top Gun BR. They said that they would be working on a firmware update, sometime in the future, to correct the problem.

OPPO stated that it appears to be an issue when using the MCA outs and the HDMI cable is connected directly to a TV. That's how I have mine setup right now. Soon to be changed since I ordered a PR-SC886P and it should be here this weekend.

I may be re-hashing earlier experiments, but have you tried setting HDMI Audio to "off"?

Last time I checked it was set to off, but will recheck tonight.

I checked again tonight and HDMI is set to off.

FYI - I tried to send you a PM, but your mailbox is full. Not sure if you knew that.

As I mentioned in above, I'm getting a Onkyo 886 and was wondering a few things. I know that you have 885, but it should be kind of similar to the 886.

Do you have a list of recommended settings for the 886 and the BDP-83?

Are you still using an SMS-1 (I have one also) in your system? If so, did you set it up before or after Audyssey setup?

If you run your HDMI cables into the Onkyo, will it pass video and audio in standby mode or do you have to power it on? I'm assuming that you would need to power it on to get it to send a signal to the TV, but I thought I would ask.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Paul

I'd bypass the video processing in the 886 with the BDP-83 (it's easier to do than with the 885, and it looks to be covered in Outlaw's setup guide). Personally, I output LPCM over HDMI from the BDP-83 most of the time, but I also bitstreamed a fair bit during beta testing. Both are equally good options. I took the SMS-1 out while getting some work done in the den (painted and had to partially tear down the system), but when I had it in the system I did the SMS-1 setup before running Audyssey. You will need the 886 on to get a signal to the TV, and you will want to have HDMI audio output on the 886 turned off.

Which worked better for you, having the SMS mixed into your system or letting Audyssey EQ the sub?

I'll have to actually re-run Audyssey to find that out - just took the SMS-1 out a week or two ago, and haven't had a chance to dig the mic out and run Audyssey on the system.

Have you had time to re-run Audyssey?

I tried to set up the SMS-1 and then run Audyssey and I don't like how the sub sounds, too loud and boomy. I need to try Audyssey and then the SMS-1.

Do you know of a way to see the EQ settings that are appllied with Audyssey ingaged?

This is an interesting development: a BDP-83 Special Edition is now available that has the RS-232 port standard and adds an upgraded ESS-based analog section along with some upgrades to the power supply. Here's a picture of the new analog board:



The whole package sells for $900.

I wonder how much better the audio section will sound? Damn, I just need a bigger bank account!

This is very interesting for those of us using the analog outputs on the BDP-83, especially with an upgrade offered for $299 for existing owners. I have been tweaking the set-up of the stereo outputs and been very happy with the results. The question is if I will stop using the analog outputs for HDMI benefits if/when I go to the 997 or other pre-amp solution in the future? The current BDP-83 analog output is pretty darn good but it sounds like for just $299 I can get a high end improvement. Love to see some reviews.

OPPO Recommendations:

• BDP-83 Special Edition: For use with high-end audio systems via analog audio connections.
• BDP-83: For use with all audio systems via HDMI and digital optical/coaxial connections

So this is for the analog connection crowd.

Yes - the improvements are focused specifically on analog performance.

Well, crap. I just ordered a BDP-83 yesterday.

I'm not sure I can justify an extra $400 for these improvements, but I certainly would have considered it.

Hmm...

If you call them right away you may be able to upgrade the order before they ship it.

A question for the Outlaws. I use the stereo analog output of the BDP-83 to the CD input of my 950 (and would sometimes use this in the future on the 997). I do NOT use the Bypass mode so that I can engage 7 Channel Stereo. Since I allow the 950 to process the signal via DSP, am I defeating the quality of the BDP-83 DACs? If yes then this analogue upgrade may not help me in the stereo mode. I would still see some benefit of the multi-channel outputs using input.

Looks like NuForce has kicked the BDP-83SE up a notch.

web page

Well, the BDP-83 has already shipped, but I'll get the $299 upgrade price for having purchased before Nov. 9 -- even though I hadn't received it before then. Kind of the best of both worlds -- I'll get to try before I commit.

Yes, but I'm not exactly sure what they do. Maybe I missed the explanation, but it didn't seem very clear to me.

Chant, dance, shake a gourd and pocket the profit?

Glad I wasn't the only one.

I'm making another stab at setting up my BDP-83 and 1070 and getting some weird results using the AIX calibration disk. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, or maybe there's a better way.

I started with Gonk's setup guide for the 970/1070 and tried bothe the HPF/LPF and Digital switch esttings. With HPF/LPF if I set the output to Analog I get only the left and right front channels. If I use Ext 7.1 I get all channels, but then the only choice I get for surround processing is Bypass. Setting the trim for individual speakers, starting with 0 for LF & RF, I have to boost the ctr to 5.0 and reduce the SL & SR to -2.5. Even when the Sub is set to +10 its reading on my SPL meter is way below the other speakers.

If I set the switch to Digital and the surround processing to Digital, I have to set the trim as follows, LF -2, Ctr +5, RF 0, SL & SR -2.5, and the sub is way low at +10.

Then, if I use the coax input and treat the disk as a CD, and surround processing set to Dolby PCLII-C, I have way to much sub.

I don't understand what's happening here.

This is the correct behavior. The DVD input, when set to analog, uses the left and right channels only. The 7.1 Direct input uses those channels plus the others. You must use the 7.1 input to get all of the channels, and at that point you are moving all of the processing outboard to the player. The 1070 cannot apply processing to the 7.1 analog input, which is why it indicates "bypass" all the time.
Where are you boosting the sub? 1070 or BDP-83?

Gonk

All of the settings I made are on the BDP-83. Before I did any of this I balanced the 1070 using its calibration tone. If I were to change the settings on the 1070 to boost the sub for DVDs I would have way to much base for TV, radio and other sources. (Been there, done that).

Are you taking into account the inaccuracy of your meter at low frequencies? There was a correction table at SVS's site at one time for the Radio Shack meter

The coaxial input to the 1070 uses a digital output from the BDP-83 that is not influenced at all by the trim settings, which is why I asked. If you are getting too much bass from CD's via coaxial, it is not related to settings in the BDP-83.

Thanks, Gonk. I've looked at SVS's instructions for calibrating a sub. I probably won't get to it for a few days, but I'll report back after I try them.

So is the jury still out on whether the upgrade is "worth it" for those of us using our 990 and relying on the analog connections?

I'm in the same boat as well. I keep thinking about getting the upgrade for my Oppo BDP-83 since it is @ Oppo right now for repairs. I'd be saving on shipping and some time. I just don't know how much the sound will be improved in my system. The stock BDP-83 sounded great with my Outlaw 990 and the rest of my gear. JD

Anyone tried the new public beta firmware upgrade for the Oppo? Any first impressions? Had a heckuva time installing via internet, finally had to haul out the usb stick.

I'm running some similar firmware. The subtitle and OSD shifting is of the most value for folks with constant image height projection systems. The network media support is pretty handy.

The Blu TV link is pretty lame. But I am ever hopeful that OPPO's gurus are using it as a first small step toward streaming Netflix.

The DLNA link might be useful to some. My Samsung LCD came with DLNA server software and can stream directly, without going through the BDP-83.

But the DLNA link brings up an interesting question. Anyone know of good DLNA server software? The Samsung offering is clunky and needs tending on a regular basis to make sure the database is updated and the connections are still working.

I've updated my BDP-83 review with some notes on the DLNA support, including a couple of servers that I experimented with. I'm using TVersity at present and have been pretty pleased with it.

Gonk

Have you gotten your BDP-83 to work with the TVersity server for video? I can see the mpeg files in the folder but I cannot play them. TVersity thinks the BDP-83 is PS3, which may be part of the problem. I do not know what profile to pick for it. It does not even see AVI files in the folder.

I was having similar problem with my Samsung LCD, but I found a profile for it in the TVersity Support Forum.

I have gotten it to work for files stored on my network. I have a folder called "MediaServer" with all my files stored in it (sorted into audio, video, photos, and DVD rips). Media playback device is set to auto detect. "When to transcode" is set to "only when needed." Using these settings, I've watched a lot of VOB files taken from DVD's (a bunch of my daughter's videos are stored this way) and a few other video files.

There has been a bit of chatter about high-end clones of the BDP-83 ever since at least CEDIA last September. One of the first to market has been the Lexicon BD-30, which lists for $3,500. Theta has a clone coming, as well, and there's at least one other that I'm forgetting. The internal pictures of the BD-30 at CEDIA had some rather substantial similarities - at least from a distance - to the BDP-83's internals, but Lexicon said that they had made refinements. There are now two reviews of the BD-30 online, and they make for interesting reading.

First is a review Home Theater Review that was posted on 1/11, which briefly compares the build quality of the BD-30 to that of the BDP-83SE but then doesn't say much more. All in all, it felt a bit sketchy as far as comparisons went and the reviewer had no prior experience with the 83. I'd be curious to have read a comparison of the analog sections, especially considering the next review.

The second review was posted this afternoon by Audioholics. I don't read many of their reviews, but this one caught my attention. It's not so much a review as an electronics autopsy comparing the BD-30 to a stock BDP-83 (not the more expensive SE).

I saw the audioholics review. Hehehe....not only are the Lexicon and Oppo units "similar," but it appears that Lexicon merely built an enclosure AROUND a stock Oppo chassis and otherwise didn't change a thing (not even the power supply)...for a $3000 mark-up. LOL

You don't get much more busted than this. The funniest thing is that Lexicon paid for THX certification (which the unit seems to fail due to bass management issues).

And lastly, here's a reviewer praising the Lexicon as being so much better than the Oppo unit. hahahahaha

http://hometheaterreview.com/lexicon-bd-30-universal-blu-ray-player-reviewed/

I posted a comment yesterday on the Home Theater Review article (pointing out that the BDP-83 came with calibration discs), but your post led me back there this morning. I saw the reviewer defending his review based on a comparison to the BDP-83SE and realized that he really isn't familiar with the BDP-83 at all. So I thought I'd push back a bit:

Let's see what he says to that.

I really think that Lexicon's biggest mistake (or at least the mistake that has led most directly to them getting caught at this) was their decision to base their player on the most extensively-reviewed Blu-ray player of 2009. Every reviewer (at least every informed reviewer, which appears to exclude the guy at HTR) has used the BDP-83, many have opened them, and many still have the player close at hand for a direct visual inspection.

At BEST, we've got an inept reviewer. At worst, it's clearly a case of payola for a positive review against (as Gonk mentioned) one of the most widely reviewed units around and what I'd consider to be the benchmark of quality for a higher end player.

I still can't believe the pair of big brass ones at Lexicon. I mean c'mon, did they think that nobody was going to look inside? Jeebus....

When Home Theater Review nuked all of the comments to their review except for the one I made Friday morning, they cleared out a lot of fairly reasonable posts that questioned the reviewer right along with the posts that were more "energetic" in their commentary. The other post of mine that died was:

I still would like for Dr. Ken Taraszka to provide a comparison between the BD-30 and the stock BDP-83 along with some actual listening tests between the three players' (BD-30, stock BDP-83, and BDP-83SE) analog sections. An honest evaluation of those three would be very useful, and could help reclaim some of the damage that Dr. Taraszka's and HTR's reputations have sustained in this debate. At this point, the two things that I'm waiting for are Lexicon's response to Audioholics and Kal Rubinson's article in the March issue of Stereophile.