Official OPPO BDP-83 Owner's Thread [technical talk only] - Page 89

Nobody knows. But it's still a bargain at $599. If it doesn't have that value to you then you're looking at the wrong player.

I am trying to reply to this inquiry again as the thread was temp. suspended yesterday.

Rdgrimes, I sincerely hope that you have insider info and your statement of "very much under control" is correct. I also hope that it is just 1 of those silly mistakes a programmer can make and not part of a more complex issue. Think about it, DD decoding problem in 2009? A scary thought, isn't it?

If it comes from a lossy codec that may be the case, I don't know. Otherwise I don't agree. The DVD-Audio discs at 96/24 that I've listened to sound from very good to phenomenal, certainly better than CD versions. One example is the Dire Straits Brothers in Arms 20th Anniversary Edition dual-disc, the DVD-A side sounds excellent, way better than the Vertigo SBM CD remaster or the West German Vertigo CD that I also own. Actually, Chuck Ainlay, the engineer that mastered both the DVD-A (MLP) and the SACD discs, prefers the sound on the DVD-A.

That's alright, I had guessed that little slip-up. It is I who thanks you for all the excellent and informative posts you've published on this thread and that I've had the pleasure to read; I've learned so much.

Jam, I believe that he was being sarcastic with his post, and meaning that 24/96 is great sound as it is, and to not worry about getting 24/192. As for that Brothers in Arms disc, it was one of the discs that broke the 980 when it was under development, and Oppo was able to very quickly remedy this with a firmware fix. Their staff is quite adept at diagnosing a problem and then quickly fixing it.

Up to 40 YES votes now.

Some of the comments by EAPr's indicate the product's stability is beyond my pre-release expectations. OPPO is being very conservative, which I appreciate. Spent a few moments over on the DISH DTV PAL thread--an entirely different approach to new product release over there!

Are you kidding?!? When the emails start arriving we'll have 500 new posts in hours chatting up the event: winners, losers, sour grapes, nervous breakdowns...

Should be entertaining.

If we said more, Oppo will send over their knee-cappers and take our players away.

Neuromancer, I assume that bug has to do with the LFE channel being the only one active, was I wrong? Something that never occurs in normal DD discs.

I was thinking the same thing.

BTW, any word yet on the newly chosen?

?? How can I possibly put a value on a player that I have not seen in action? If Larry, Curly and Moe all love the performance of the 83 on their displays does that mean that I am going to like it ? No it does not.

"If it doesn't have that value I am looking at the wrong player"
What value are you reffering to ?

Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you said above?

The 17-18 "key" features are darn nice (including the bag)- but most important to me is day-after-day reliability. Disc "freezes" (which sometimes require the need to unplug the player to re-boot) are beyond embarrassing when you have guests over for a movie. Hopefully the BDP-83 will be superb in this area.

So sorry but that is YOUR opinion only. Others may have different monetary priorities. Especially in this economic uncertainly. To some, including myself, the difference of $100 is a lot. If its not to you, good on you.


"If it doesn't have that value to you then you're looking at the wrong player."

It's not complicated. If the feature set in this player doesn't have the value to you then you should look at a different player. If you are interested in THIS feature set then the value is a no-brainer.

There is currently no other player available with this feature set at any price. There will soon be one other player with a similar feature set that will sell for 6-7 times the price of the Oppo.

Used Oppo 983s are currently selling at full retail. Here you get that, plus a BD player, plus even more features for another $200. That is a screaming good deal.

I think you will be pleased in that regard. This was a key element the Beta testers were looking at before the EAP units were released.
--Bob

It has my stamp of approval on it. That's all you need (and yes I also own a $1200 BD player and $2000 BD player). I have been putting through its paces and find I am using my $2K player less and less....

Doesn't mean you won't. Unless you've decided not to.

I don't think Larry, Curly or Moe were in the EAP. Maybe second round?

Oh well, maybe I missed the sarcastic intent. It left me somewhat wondering...

Oppo service certainly seems above and beyond most companies in this business, certainly the big name players that don't care anymore.

Just as an example, when you read the manual, it's so well explained and laid out. When I go through some of my Panasonic, Toshiba, Samsung, etc. manuals, it's difficult to find an answer, they're terrible.

This is a very good example - and a personal pet peeve. I find many of the electronics user's manuals to be almost a hindrance to using the equipment, but OPPO has made a point of trying to produce manuals that are well-structured, informative, and actually helpful. In this specific case, OPPO has put probably three generations of the 83's guide in front of the beta testers and listened to every comment that the testers offered.

After reading the comments and reviews from the beta testers and EAP(ers) I believe that the BDP-83 will be ready for general release by the end of the month (if not already). But, I think OPPO has misjudged the demand for this player and does not have enough inventory to meet the current demand. Which is one of the reasons they are dragging out the EAP program.

(just my opinion based on reading between the lines and indirect comments I've received from emailing OPPO)

So in essence, the bug was due to the specific test discs being authored incorrectly or at least out of the norm.

However, the question (originally brought up by Princess Aurora) remains as to how exactly a player goes about downsampling audio data that it apparently does not have sufficient processing power to decode in the first place. I suggested that this would be possible if DTS-HD MA has a lossless 96 kHz extension layer between the core DTS layer and an additional 192 kHz lossless extension layer, but I do not know whether this is the case. If it is, then the BDP-83 could simply be ignoring some data while producing a lossless 96 kHz version of the soundtrack, but if it isn't, then it may only be decoding the lossy DTS core in the specific case of 5.1/192 soundtracks. Some clarification from OPPO would be nice. Would a beta-tester (who has a closer connection to OPPO and a BDP-83 on hand) like to fire off a query to OPPO, or should I go ahead and do it?

There is also an issue with the BDP-83 manual claiming support for 7.1/192/24 Dolby TrueHD soundtracks, which is beyond what Dolby currently claims (as far as I'm aware). In this case, the concern is certainly not a lack of capability (in fact it's the opposite), but this raises questions as to who really knows what is going on nevertheless.

Nothing is being dragged out. The player will most certainly be in full release on the day that Oppo decides it's ready. If past experience is any guide, they are usually no more than 2-3 weeks behind on orders, so they have a fairly short lead time for new production runs. There's no real incentive for a small company to have inventories sitting around.

A good point, but in the absence of any 7.1 24/192 discs to test with, we'll never know.

I suspect that this piece won't be sitting around for long! My prediction is that the 83 is going to fly off the shelves. I know I want one and I already have a Pio 51FD (which I am very satisfied with) that will be moved to a second TV.

Do get the feeling there will be a deluge of Pioneer 51s and panny 55s on ebay in about two weeks!

Well, if they jumped into full production then folks would be complaining they did not spend much time evaluating concerns. Ya just can't win, I tell ya!!