If OPPO went to the extent to install room correction, why not go a few steps further and just create their own processor? They already have the audio and video down as SOTA. Implementing HDMI is solved and they have a volume control. A few new chips and a bigger power supply and voila!! Mageek!!

The subject of an Oppo AV Processor was previously discussed at least once on these forums, on this page for instance, look for my post preceding the last one. Many Oppo owners have made requests to Oppo to develop an AV processor, including this forum's Kevin C Brown when he was beta testing their players.

They seem to be ever so slowly moving in that direction, who knows, maybe one day. Coming from them, I would buy one almost with my eyes closed.

Audioholics interview with OPPO about the 103/105 for anyone interested:

BDP-103/BDP-105 Q&A

Some of you get my drift. I think an OPPO and Outlaw collaboration would get SOTA video and audio within affordable reach of most people. I'll shut up now.

If you pair an OPPO player up with the new Outlaw 975, are the internal DACs and decoding in the OPPO player basically unused if using HDMI out? I imagine you can use the analog out for 2 channel stereo. Do I have that correct? Thanks Bob

After a couple months of procrastination, I finally finished up my BDP-105 review this weekend - which mostly meant getting what I'd written weeks ago ported into HTML and adding some pictures. You can read the review here.



The capabilities of the System-on-Chip hardware available to OPPO has improved significantly over the last couple of generations, aided by pressure to make MHL work for the HDTV market. Before that happened, it was impractical to include HDMI inputs. It's still rather difficult, which is why you don't see many other people doing it - and you only see the coaxial, optical, and USB inputs on the flagship player. If the System-on-Chip makers that build for disc players get together with Audyssey or some other room correction software company, we might see this happen. Unfortunately, it only makes sense if the player is also doubling as pre-amp/processor, and that may be too niche a role for the players involved to have interest in pursuing this. After all, room correction upstream of a surround receiver or processor is conceptually different from video processing upstream of a display. Video processing upstream of a display's been happening for a long, long time now, in a variety of ways (in players, in set top boxes, in receivers and surround processors, and in standalone video processors). Room correction outside of a surround receiver or processor has been rarely done, and then only in expensive dedicated room correction systems. I could certainly be wrong, but I still doubt you'll see room correction in a Blu-ray player unless it happens to be purpose-built as a surround processor with a disc player added in as a bonus. At that point, room correction is going to be an appropriate inclusion, but I'd have a hard time calling such a device a disc player.



You are half correct. The internal DACs are unused when you rely on the HDMI output for audio. The decoding (converting bitstreams to LPCM) is still available, however.

Thanks (as always) Gonk, for the thorough review. Just got my BDP-105 up and running using my 990 and am still discovering its capabilities and quality.

Question -- I have the BDP's 7.1 analog outs connected to the 990, with the BDP's outputs all set to "large" and "0" ft. distance (per your 990/BDP-83 set-up guide). The question is for CD playback -- is there a benefit to running stereo out cables from the BDP-105 to the CD inputs on the 990, or, since the 7.1s and the stereo outs each use a (separate) ES9018 DAC, do I get the same output quality from either sets of BDP analog outs?

I use the 7.1 outs on the BDP for SACD/DVD-A playback.

Thanks!

Bob

Gonk -- Think I found my answer in one of your responses in the discontinued products (990) forum on a question for hooking up the BDP-95, where you indicate you could use the BDP's 7.1 analog outs for both multichannel and stereo.

Bob

You can certainly use the 7.1 outs for everything, but with my BDP83SE I've always prefered using the 2 channel outs as these are supported by stacked DACs. I also use a Grant Fidelity tube buffer between the 2 channel outs and the 990 CD in. This certainly isn't necessary but I like the effect.

Thanks, I'll give it a listen!