Official OPPO BDP-83 Owner's Thread [technical talk only] - Page 428

No. It does what it's supposed to do, and it does it well.

The only things that mattered to me were:

- Solid profile 2.0 BD player
- Best DVD upscaling (I have a 92" screen)

I went from an OPPO 983 to the BDP-83 and haven't regretted it. The BDP-83 is the 2nd most-expensive component in my AV setup, behind my projector. It costs more than my receiver and my 7.1 speaker set.

My only nitpicks are the lack of DTS-ES decoding (grr) and the fact that I lost my ability to matrix 5.1 to 7.1 (not OPPO's fault, but something that could be resolved on the player end without me having to upgrade my receiver). Neither are deal-breakers though.

Now these responses are more like it!! Okay, I'm sold. Thanks to all that responded. As Steve advised, I will come back and let you know how great it is (if I can ever get one delivered!).

Thanks guys!

oh well....it WAS a great player

http://www.widescreenreview.com/news...l.php?id=18503

What does the Oppo display on your tv when you are playing this SACD. Does it say stereo or 5.1/Mch?

I would need to hear more about that before deciding deep color is actually harmful. I don't see how what the OPPO does can send weird or out-of-gamut colors. Obviously if the other gear is flakey about how it handles the signal you could see weird things.

As always, let your eyes be your guide. Revisit the settings at long intervals to see if you see things differently after the passage of time. I know I do.

-Bill

Thanks, wasn't trying to be rude. How can I find which models? Which is yours? Mine is KV-36HS500.

The 5.1-to-7.1 matrix issue is one that I've talked to OPPO about a couple times. It sounds like they do plan to work on incorporating some sort of steering logic (similar to what the 980H offered), but they are waiting to get some higher-priority firmware work done first. It's not a guarantee, but they are certainly going to look into it.

I just connected analog outs from the 83 to tape -in on my 805. I also have HDMI > bitstream going to Game/TV imput & 2 ch. as I said to the Tape imput, makes it easy to switch back and forth. I have SACD in the 83 set to DSD and when I play the tape - in imput (2ch analog) I can get my (2) subs to work if I set the 805 on Stereo. Of course setting it to pure audio or direct will take out bass mgt. Question> some say that when using 2 ch outs I should be setting the 83 to SACD> PCM, what am I missing? It all sounds very good to me.

I have read through the list of proposed changes for HDMI v1.4 several times lately and found myself mostly just annoyed and confused. I don't see a need for an HDMI v1.4 Blu-ray player yet, even if the format were already published and hardware existed to allow players to implement it.

Still is.

They've barely scratched the surface of HDMI 1.3. The specs on that are sheer fantasy for all intents and purposes.

With multichannel SACD over stereo analog outs, it must be set to PCM or you will get no down-mix of the 5.1 audio, just the L and R channels.

just when you think you caught up, bd throws us another curve

you would think they would concentrate on getting all existing players up to snuff first, before starting on another perilous journey

When you set the 805 to "stereo" in this arrangement, the 805 takes that analog signal (which was created directly from the DSD bitstream since you have SACD output set to DSD), converts it from analog to digital (specifically PCM), applies bass management, and converts it back to analog. Setting to Pure Audio or Direct eliminates the analog-to-digital-to-analog cycle, which is why you lose the bass management.

If you seriously want to experiment with analog output, I'd suggest connecting the multichannel analog output to your 805 and using that. You can still get bass management in the BDP-83 if you set SACD output to PCM.

Hi Mr. JKozlow,
I don't post too often so I am going to try discuss the DVD issues you've seen using PMs. What gonk said in post # 12616 about the "menu overlay" is technically correct. However, the menu is just graphic, any el-cheapo upscaler would have been able to produce a nice/sharp looking 1080 image of it. I am afraid this menu thing is just the same "soft" issue you're having with DVDs in general.

I too have a front projector, Benq W5K, with a 110" screen and almost all of my DVDs, especially the 'big name' ones, have been nothing short of spectacular when played from the BDP-83. My suggestion would be to try all output resolutions from 480 up to 1080p and see if you get incremental sharpness improvements as you try them. I would also try out the component connection at various resolutions and take out any receiver in the chain, if you do have one. Out of all these tries, the HDMI 1080p output should give you the best and sharpest image (because your FP is 1080p native, right?). While you're doing all these changes, make sure your FP is reflecting the same resolution that's being fed to it (I don't know, your FP should have some status display somewhere). If the HDMI 1080p output DOES give you the best and sharpest image, then maybe your expectation for upscaled DVDs was a little bit too high. In my experiments, the lower HDMI resolutions and the component gave me "smoother" images, but not softer ones; meanwhile the direct HDMI 1080p is giving me a picture that's almost as good as local OTA HDTV.

Not sure if I've helped much but I hope you figure out the issue soon and you should never have to watch DVDs at 1/2 the screen size.

Good day,
Vic.

Edit: Sorry, I meant to send a PM, but it's alright.

You have to admit, Jim's findings are puzzling especially as his AVR shows only 5.1 LPCM coming in.

This would suggest it is the AVR doing it, and again strange as it does not do it when the HDMI signal is DTS-HD MA only when it is 5.1 LPCM!

Bryan

Well, it didn't for me. I have had the HDMI audio 'off' since day 1 and still have the issue

Mine exhibits the same "problems". My Harmony 880 doesn't.

Well I'm already using the multichannel analog outs via a Denon 2200 - DVD/DVD-A/SACD player into my 805. I just wanted to try the balanced 2 ch stereo outputs. I really enjoy the sound of the pure audio mode played LOUD, around +10, on the 805. I have my 5.1 speaker set up using 80Hz all speaker crossover. I have a front l/r pair of Rogers Studio 1 monitors that can go down to 45Hz +/- 2db. In order to get more bass impact in Pure Audio mode does it make sense to drop the crossover on the front L/R to maybe 60hz.?

Guys, can I access USB drive when disk inserted.
If I play BD and stop it I can't switch to USB drive.
Only way to remove the disk, and access USB is it right?
If I am at uSB I do have access to BD movie, but not vice versa.
Any advice?

Are the HOME and SOURCE buttons not working? They should bring up the Home menu; you select the media type, then there will be a device chooser. Is that not happening when Blu-ray playback is stopped? What if you press STOP twice?

-Bill

Thanks Vic. Do you not notice a softer setup menu from the Oppo on your 110" screen when watching a SD DVD than when there is no disc in the player or while watching a Blu-Ray? My setup menu is definitely softer (it's very apparent to me anyway), as are the DVDs themselves. Again, it may just be a matter of expectation like you said. OTA HDTV is also nowhere near as nice as Blu-Ray at 106" either, so I'm not seeing dramatically different results between the Oppo and other sources. Blu-Ray is the only thing I would describe as "fantastic" on my setup, while DVD & OTA HDTV is more or less "decent".

Yes, this is puzzling because I don't send any information to the AVR in this manner, but tried it out per Bryan's request. HDMI is not "speaker perfect" in this case, so I'm only passing this along as a possible scenario for research. It doesn't affect my normal setup.

Thanks much, narkspud.

Tried this out today--and then I remembered why I turned off Secondary Audio to begin with--high-definition audio such as dts-HDMA et al are disabled.

Any way to get the best of both worlds or am I doomed to never listen to PIP audio since I'd MUCH rather have the HDMI 1.3 audio formats?

Thanks.

I don't think there is a way to get streamed HD audio with the secondary audio mixed in. You'll get the core.

This always seemed a non-issue to me (but I am not much interested in audio anyway). Who cares about the high-rez fidelity of the main track when it is semi-muted and a yak-track is overlaid on top of it?

-Bill

Exactly. If you want to enjoy the "movie", turn off the SA. If you want to listen to the SA, then so what, it could be in tin_can_mono for all I care.

Great point, Bill--and normally I'd agree. This "Enhanced Viewing" feature is kind of like "Pop-up Video". Every now and then there's a PIP box. Sometimes there's 2 in 5 minutes and sometimes there isn't one for 20-25 minutes. It'd be great to be able to enjoy HD audio during the time's there isn't a PIP box, especially since the dts-HDMA soundtrack is so great on the True Blood discs.

Regardless, I never buy a disc for the extras--the A/V quality is always of most import--but in this case it'd be nice to enjoy both.

We can hope, in vain probably, to see it in the future.

Okay, I have definitely found a firmware bug, and it was a very frustrating experience. I was experimenting with different methods to achieve proper bass management with my Denon AVR-4800 receiver and Outlaw ICBM, and decided to try just setting the subwoofer channel trim to +10 dB and leaving the other channels at 0 dB (which combines the redirected base and the LFE at the correct levels in the ICBM). When I first entered these settings in the BDP-83, the calibration tones measured perfectly on my SPL meter, so I was a happy man and powered down my system.

However, the next day when I decided to check the settings again, the LFE test tone was measuring 10 dB too low. I checked the subwoofer trim setting in the BDP-83 speaker configuration, and it was still +10 dB. After many frustrating hours trying to figure out what was happening, I isolated the problem. The BDP-83 resets the subwoofer channel trim internally to 0 dB every time it is powered down (the setup screen will still say +10 dB or whatever). If any change is then made to the subwoofer trim (no matter how small), the output will be correct. I verified this theory by power cycling the player, measuring the LFE test tone (it was 10 dB too low as expected), lowering the channel trim from +10 dB to +9.5 dB, and then measuring that the LFE level had increased by 9.5 dB! I could repeat this experiment every time the BDP-83 was power cycled.

So, to get around this problem I left the subwoofer trim at 0 dB and lowered the trim on all of the other speakers to -10 dB (as previously suggested by others on the forum). This seems to work properly, as the BDP-83 always defaults the subwoofer trim to 0 dB internally when powered off. This firmware bug should be simple for Oppo to fix, but it was certainly difficult to find!