Official OPPO BDP-83 Owner's Thread [technical talk only] - Page 372

Great, thank you for the details. I am debating setting up a bridge or just moving my wireless network (modem and router) to my entertainment center. The only reason I have hesitated to moving my modem and router is I did not want to degrade my cable signal by splitting it for the Modem and Cable TV. However the benefit would be that I can wire the Oppo directly into my Router with the CAT6. I may try splitting the cable first, before I go with the bridge. As long as my picture does not degrade I will be fine. Thanks again for the information.

Did you try the isolation experiment that I described? That is science. Your belief is mysticism.

AJ

Based on the bridge mode each wireless bridge can drop the network bandwidth speed by 50%.

For BDs, sending 720p to the plasma will result in double scaling, i.e. 1080p -> 720p -> 1365x768. Throw away data to get down to 1280x720 and then make up some data to get up to 1365x768. Is the deinterlacing of the Pio that bad? I wouldn't think you'd see issues. You shouldn't lose as much real video info by sending 1080i to the display - you only scale once.

larry

Sounds good. With a quality splitter, you shouldn't have any signal degradation. In my case, I have so many devices on my network (probably close to twenty ), that I wouldn't want all the associated network gear in my HT. But just a modem and router should be easy to hide.

I run a 802.11n network exclusively, so that's not an issue. The network's wireless speed is faster than the 10/100 ports on any of my AV components.

(You should clarify a statement like that to specify that mixing devices using different protocols can slow the network. A bridge itself doesn't automatically slow it down.)

I guess the question that kicked off this particular issue is grounded in the assumption that it is better to select the native resolution manually rather than select "Auto" on the OPPO and let it read the display and adjust accordingly.

Is there thought to be some decrement in performance in selecting Auto?

With the Oppo sending 1080i to the Pioneer 4270 the de interlacing test on the S&M disc was a mirror of their "bad" example. Sending 720p was much much better and equivelent to the "good" example on the test disc.

Note that the de-interlacing was the only real difference between sending 720p or 1080i.

Would you not be scaling twice anyway with BD's? You would still be going from 1080p > 1080i > 1365x768 or 1080p > 720p > 1365x768?

I'm not sure what you mean by "protocols" but the speed penalty (for WDS) is the result of sending the data twice or more times (once with each bridge)...

"The maximum wireless effective throughput is halved after the first retransmission (hop) that is made. For example, in the case of two routers connected via WDS, and communication is made between a computer that is plugged into router A and a laptop that is connected wirelessly using router B's access point, the throughput is halved, because router B has to retransmit the information during the communication of the two sides."

Now the good news is if the device is wired to the wireless bridge there shouldn't be any penalty... unless of course you are using two or more (wireless bridges).

"However, in the case of communications between a computer that is plugged into router A and a computer that is plugged into router B, the throughput is not halved since there is no need to retransmit the information."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireles...ibution_System

jam88, thank you for that reminder. Fortunately, I can continue to use the DCD3300 for that particular disc. There's no justice in finding fault with the BDP-83 when so much more is offered with enormous pleasure and versatility. Appreciate the perspective your link afforded me.
Best,
Richard

I mean wireless communication protocols. With some equipment, mixing 802.11g and 802.11n devices on a network will slow the wireless speed down to the lowest-common demoninator, i.e., the 802.11g rate. This is not an issue with networks that run a single protocol. As I said, I run 802.11n exclusively, so there are no 802.11g devices to cause the system to clock down.

Got my BDP-83 this past Saturday morning. The electric cord was not tight, but also was not going to fall out. Connected the network through a WGA600N connected to an 8-port switch. Got an IP address from the DHCP server on my router, no update available.

Connected to my 3808 via HDMI. Originally set output to auto, but later changed to 1080p to try to avoid so many HDMI resyncs, though that didn't seem to really help. Denon is set to pass through video only (no upconvert), and on the 83 I had 24p set to auto for BD, but not DVD. Monitor is a Sony KDL-46W3000. No 120Hz, but accepts 1080p and 24p. Because of the known problems between the 3808 and Sony TVs (intermittent HDMI dropouts), I have a Monoprice powered HDMI splitter connected between the AVR and the TV, but I've been using that since before I got the 83.

Tested SACD, DVD-A, BD-A, as well as several BD movies, audio included TrueHD, DD5.1, and DTS Master HD. Also used both the S&M disc as well as DVE Blu-ray edition. Also tested a writeable DVD (I think it was DVD-R) with avi and mpg files on it. All played just fine with varying quality. Just because I wanted to try it, I put a region 2 DVD in the tray. I didn't expect it to play, and it didn't, but I wanted to verify for myself.

The first thing I really noticed about the video quality was not about the 83 itself, but about how good my 983 has been. At first, it wasn't extremely obvious how much better BD was than DVD through the 983. I was almost disappointed when I started watching. After paying more attention to close detail, I could see that the BD quality was better than the SD (the movie I used for this comparison was Speed Racer -- I had both the DVD and BD handy), and I began to appreciate the better detail of BD.

The only real glitch I've had so far is probably laid at the feet of HDMI as much as it is the 83, but I do see some differences when comparing to the 983. There are a lot of HDMI/HDCP resyncs when playing different material, and not all of them work. Some times, the display went black and never completely synced with the signal, some times I got the "blue-tinted" picture, and most of the time, everything worked fine. As far as I can recall, I've never had an instance on the 983 where the sync didn't eventually work, even it it took longer than usual.

Interestingly, some material seemed to have more trouble than others. I never had a resync problem with the 1080p demo material from DVE, but with the 720p demo material, I got blue tint 3 out of 5 times. I also got the blue tint from an mpg file, which at first I thought was similar to a problem on the 983 that is caused by a confirmed decoder error. However, sometimes that file worked just fine. It appears to me that with all the resyncs that are occurring, sometimes things just don't sync up right, and I have to do something like switch the AVR input away and back to get the sync to happen. I noticed the "black screen" version of resync errors mostly after playing the BD-A (Rachmaninoff piano concertos, 7.1 DTS-MA that has no video at all), but it happened sometimes with the movie file DVD as well. These problems can be annoying, but I can live with it for now. I hope some of these can be eliminated with more testing.

I had one oddity that is not really a glitch, per se, but is noticeable. Twice when retracting the disc tray, it seemed to "shudder" a little as it closed. Don't know what the long-term implications of that are.

Anyway, I'm generally very happy with this unit.

Running in WDS mode (which is normally used to extend the network) is different from running a wireless-to-wired bridge that is acting only as a wireless client on the wireless network. In the latter case, there should be no additional slowdown of the wireless network due to the presence of the bridge, other than having to share the overall bandwidth.

This is not true... see the link I provided. If you are using N only and there are two or more bridges you pay a penalty and you can also with only one bridge based on how you are using it.

Yes, "reverb"-like sound is an adequate auditorial description when the HDMI audio is not set to "off" with a setup for non-HDMI capable AV(R). The difference for my unit was night and day, when I made the correction in the setup configuration. And, obviously no longer an issue. As for your experience, I regret the problem you're having. Sort of out of ideas. I do have a PS3 in my bedroom to takeover Blu-ray duties. The BDP-83 delivers extremely enjoyable sound stage in my HT, so I can not help you sort this out. Is it time to address your concerns with Support staff at Oppo with all due respect.
Best,
Richard

Those sync issues are perplexing, because they seem to be so inconsistent. Some people (like me) have never seen it at all. Yet others have a real problem with it.

As for the tray, a recent firmware update changed its "behavior." It does slow perceptively in the last inch or so of retracting. Might look like a shudder or snag, but it's supposed to do that.

Since you brought it up, I have been testing the BDP-83's lip sync performance on SD disks (BD in the future). I run it 1080p/24, to see if any frame judder shows up.

The first movie I tried ended up being the most instructive: Enter the Dragon. The lip sync was impossible to pin down. I set various scenes from 40 ms to 130 ms. Within each scene was very consistent. It turned out that from scene to scene, this movie's sound track has no consistent timing relationship between audio and video, though scenes with Bruce Lee talking tended to be more consistent with a 60 ms delay.

All later movies have been very stable at 60 ms delay. I never noticed any A/V timing issues after the Dragon. The movies spanned the last few decades, but haven't included any Anime yet (sorry, Neuromancer)

BTW, except for one glitch early in Serenity, I haven't seen any frame judder from using the 1080p/24 output. My projector does frame interpolation up to 120 fps, so pans are smooth.

I'll be surveying BD movies for A/V sync issues at some point.

Yes it's based on the wireless bridge's mode which is what I stated in my first post. Also it's how the bridge is configured regardless of what features you are or aren't using.

The receipt from OPPO said they would need a signature. But I left a note on my front door asking them to leave it anyway, and they did.

I don't mind 720p, but 1080i just seems sharper. I also noticed the moire factor when I compared using the supplied blu ray disc, but I think 1080i seems more dimensional. I noticed this on football games through my cable box earlier this year.

You are looking for problems that aren't there, or you're misunderstanding the setup I described. I am not connecting anything over multiple levels of bridging. Each bridge is connected independently and directly to the router....so every device is connected directly to one router through a single wired-to-wireless client. All that "connection to computer A" connected through a router "to a connection to computer B" stuff is an entirely different situation that just doesn't apply here. That's not relevant to most home networks.

Well, on the 6070 that I have (768p), I can't get dot-by-dot so the debate continues: 720p, 1080i, 1080p, auto or source direct for blu ray & dvd?

Sure. For example, some displays that are CAPABLE of 1080p/60 or 1080p/24 input will actually identify 1080i/60 as their preferred input resolution.

In such cases, you will almost certainly be better off setting an explicit 1080p output resolution (with 1080p/24 Auto as appropriate).

Some 768p and 720p displays will also identify their preferred input resolution as 1080i or 1080p. In such cases, you will have to do some experimentation to see what works better as the display may be optimized in subtle ways to handle the higher resolution input better even though it can't display all of it.

In most cases, you want to avoid sending 1080i to a modern, digital display (not a CRT-based display) even if it identifies that as its preferred input resolution. That's because such displays will have to de-interlace the 1080i prior to lighting up the pixels (and prior to scaling if it isn't a 1080p native matrix display) and the de-interlacing in the display itself is not likely to be as good as what's in the Oppo.

So for example, if a 768p native resolution display gives you the choice of 720p or 1080i input (but not 1080p) and identifies 1080i as its preferred input, it may very well be the case that 720p input will look better because the Oppo does the de-interlacing -- even though 720 is less than 768.

But some 720p and 768p panels have unusual behavior when fed 720p -- such as producing overscan (edges of the image lost off the sides of the screen) that you can't disable.

So you have to experiment and see what works best.

The bottom line is that the resolution the display tells the Oppo to use on the Auto setting *MAY* be best, but it is not guaranteed to be best.
--Bob

Just gotta say the standard def DVD playback on the BDP83 is SO damn good. So good in fact, that I can wait to upgrade my pj to high def until next year. I have other financial priorities at the moment and to me, the standard def DVD pq alone is worth the price of the BDP83.

I presume you realize that some movies may have lip-sync errors built into the transfer -- even to the extent of varying scene by scene. In many cases, those errors even existed on film -- i.e., in various versions of the theatrical release.

There's no guarantee that a new release of an old movie -- even a Blu-Ray release -- will have all of that fixed. Sometimes the audio elements no longer can be found, and sometimes the studio just doesn't think it's worth the money.

So when you find a problem disc (like your case with Dragon), you need to try it on other players to eliminate the possibility that the problem is inherent in the content.
--Bob

And HDMI too.

Just as with SD-DVD, the quality of commercial Blu-Ray transfers is all over the map.

Some of the Blu-Ray discs just don't look all that good. Some notorious examples (e.g., the original Blu-Ray release of "The Fifth Element") look even WORSE than their SD-DVD version.

So go over to the Blu-Ray Software forum here and find the Picture Quality sticky thread. The Blu-Ray releases listed as Reference Quality will be the best ones to use to see what your Blu-Ray setup is actually able to do.

Also, use the Spears & Munsil disc included with your new Oppo to double check your video calibration setup. The closer you get that to being correct the better your Blu-Ray discs will look -- and SD-DVD as well of course.
--Bob

The de-interlacing will be the final determination, and the S&M disc is the best way to answer the question. Use either 720p or 1080i, which ever gives you the best results. And don't forget to try some 1080i source material too.

Source Direct should not be used except when you have a high-end video processor in the chain. (exception being 1080i material if that's the resolution you prefer.)

Myself Bro!