Official OPPO BDP-83 Owner's Thread [technical talk only] - Page 953

on your subjective impression, how about the upsacaling to these files?

Hi,

I've got a really strange problem. Got my BDP-83 in yesterday and have been listening to some CDs and have watched the Planet Earth BD. Perfect. Except for now, any DVD that I load shows up with matrix-like splotches all over the screen. I almost suspect the graphics portion of the player is broken. I have everything connected through HDMI and have only an extra set of stereo cables between the AVR and the Oppo for dedicated CD listening. I've checked the setups and between watching the initial BD and today nothing's different. Anybody have an idea what might be happening? Help.

Friends - it just got even weirder. After the initial disappointment and pulling the player out of its cabinet, I reconnected and everything's fine. Even the BD plays fine; it's liek the artefacts were never there. No, the player didn't overheat as it was barely warm to the touch.

Has anyone ever seen this before? I will talk to Oppo Service coming Monday and will post what they tell me.

Probably need more info. Are you running source direct or Auto....etc.
What is the oppo outputting at? Use display button to see.

Could be Oppo or display is having problems with output resolution. Is display and/or AVR HDMI 1.3 compliant and have you set up for 1.3 compliance in Oppo set up wizard. If you set up for 1.3 HDMI operations and your display or AVR is 1.2 only then this could result in PQ problems.

Well, the Oppo is running in Auto mode, not Source Direct. The AVR is an Onkyo 875 so it's HDMI 1.3 compliant. It did play the BD without hiccups.

You do have the AVR configured to pass though the video untouched, right?
Trying to use Reon on top of what the player is doing could cause problems too.
Simple things like a slightly loose hdmi cable could also be the culprit... which could explain why it was fixed after reconnecting the player.

Dave, maybe you need to educate me on the option of pass through. I believe it is, as all connections are HDMI. But I'm not sure of your question.

Something else, how warm does the player typically run? I have it now out of the cabinet, but it never felt hot, barely warm. I don't see a single artefact on playback except for one thing. On the splash screen with the Oppo logo there is a blue streak just underneath the Blu-ray Disc trade mark. This streak has a lot of white pixels in it that I don't recall being there. Sorry, maybe I'm paranoid but I don't believe in mood swings on binary equipment

I'm not positive on how to configure the 875 for pass through.
I use the 805 which is the same as the 875, only minus the Reon chip.
You may want to check in the 875 owners thread.

The player will get warm over top of the section where the hdmi output is, but other than that, it should never get "hot".
This of course is one of those subjective things of what any individual considers "hot", but I digress...

The sparklies under the OPPO logo are supposed to be there. That is an effect of the logo.
If you were to use any type of detail enhancement in your player, processor, or display, then the effect of those sparkilies will be much more noticeable.

Just checked another thread on AVS and that one confirmed that the 875 will do HDMI pass through.

I fully realize how subjective "warm to the touch" is. Believe me, my 875 does run hot but that's pretty much documented. I was uncertain of the Oppo player. The fan in the back may or may not run; it's just quiet.

Thanks for confirming the sparkles. Just wasn't sure.

I just had the player freeze up on me. Does this feel like one of those twilight episodes? Nothing but vertical green bars on the screen and no response from the player except on "power off". After the reboot things seem okay (for now). I guess I will want to talk to some of the service people.

Hello Experts!

I have been a happy Oppo customer (two units from this company so far). I wondering if you can give me some insight about this error that I see has appear recently to other participants in the forum.

I just installed the new firmware. The process was flawless. After that, I put "Sweeney Todd" blu-ray disk. At the middle of the movie it has freeze for about four seconds, but the show continues. Just to chapters before the end, the unit stop and the "Unknown Disk" message appears! Now my BDP is unable to read previously played disks. DVD or Blu-Rays, the message is always the same "Unknow Disk".

Should I assume the the new firmware is damaging some units so I need to send the unit to Oppo for hardware repairements? Doesn't exist some "soft" way to fix it?

I'm living now in Mexico and since there is no local repair center, sending my unit to USA for repairment is a little complicated.

Thanks and regards,

Jorge.

Check your FW info do you see the following?

Main Version: BDP83-48-1224
Loader Version: BE2650 or BT0350
Sub Version: MCU83-25-0811

Have you reset to default? Cleared persistent memory?

Try downloading the FW onto a USB thumbdrive and re-install the latest FW again.

It is very possible that pressure on the HDMI connectors caused this temporary problem, perhaps due to a cable snag or an abrupt bend against the back wall.

Gary

Hey Jorge!

My BDP-83 behaved similarly after the latest firmware. I was half way through the movie Forest Gump, when it froze for a few seconds. I turned it off & on again. Since then it won´t recognize any discs at all. The tray opens & closes as always but no mention of discs. "Mine was hardware region modded, so I removed the mod". Following is the advice given by Oppo Support:

Disconnect the BDP-83 from the power source for no less then an hour. Press and hold the POWER button on the front panel for 5 seconds. Release.

Reconnect the power to the player directly to your walled power outlet, bypassing any switch or power conditioner.

Download and install the 48-1224 Firmware (http://oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-8...e-48-1224.aspx).

Perform a Reset Factory Defaults (Device Setup), Erase BD-Video Data (Device Setup->Persistent Storage) and disable BD-Live (Network Setup).

It didn´t work for me, so mine is on its way to Oppo Digital in Ca, USA. (Not that my last sentence is especially encouraging...)

Well for BD playback, it will be strictly through HDMI to get lossless.

For SACD and DVD-A it will be analog outs. The Onkyo SR605 is not capable of DSD through HDMI for SACD playback, although I think most Onkyo's convert to PCM anyway. No matter which AVR I'd buy, I'll use the analog outs. Maybe the SR605 is better than I had given credit for though regarding that (SACD and DVD-As sound pretty good) but I'm pretty sure Denons would trump it.

If I get a new amp, it benefits other components I have as well. Thinking through it last night, I suppose that answers my own question.

Trust I'm not unhappy with the combo I have, rather surprised actually. But if I can get good quality with the 80, I was just considering the 83 for $200 and getting probably better still so long as the Onkyo amp was sufficient enough to do so.

Well it ends up that I now have a better piece of equipment with the 80 than what I actually spent on the LG BD390, the PS3, or the Panny BD30. And maybe some current more expensive non universal BDP players besides!

I'm in an apartment, going the room treatment route for a bang for buck upgrade isn't something I ever attempted before but may be more than likely worth considering.

The strength of ABT processing is in it's deinterlacing. If the media files are already progressive then it will have less of an effect.

My subjective impression on my small low-end LCD: media file playback looks the same on all the OPPO players.

-Bill

It was showing everything fine (as the web site says) except the loader was at BE2600 instead of BE2650. I asked Oppo if that was the previous fw update loader version or did I miss the loader loading then as well? No reply.

I tried Oppo's suggestion of burning an iso image to cd. That worked the loader 'loaded'! CD update is much slower though. The loader really seemed to hang up with the display holding at LDR 62% forever, then it kicked in and went to 100%. The USB drive update just would not recognize the loader files DVD.bin and dvd430.bin, it acted as if they were not there. Any ideas?

It always does that. Kind of scary.


No really. You have current firmware now, right? If you want to experiment, download a fresh copy of the USB zip file and try again.

-Bill

Yes, current!! No thanks to the experiment. I threw away the cd, so I don't want to go through that again!!

In the future I'm going to carefully evaluate fw updates and evaluate their necessity. This one was not for me. My primary usage is DVD upscaling, music (both cd and SACD), although I do buy bd for new stuff where I really want a copy.

Here's some OT unsolicited general guidelines to optimize your SQ at reasonable cost:
Get the best speakers you can reasonably afford (spend roughly 1.5-2X what your AVR costs), place them as well as you can in your room, eliminate whatever awful acoustic problems you can with curtains, wall hangings etc (first reflections are 1/3 down your side walls) and get a modern HDMI-equipped AVR with good room EQ. On the latter, your Onkyo has Audyssey 2EQ. Now this is sophisticated but entry-level room EQ; the sub channel is not corrected at all in this version. So you may want to do the "sub crawl" to find a good spot for your sub relative to where you sit.

When shopping for an AVR I recommend the full Audyssey MultEQ suite with DynEQ/Vol. This currently is offered in Denons at a far more affordable level (such as 590/1610) than in the Onkyo line. This is high value for a number of reasons. The bass freqs are the most problematic in a HT room and with MultEQ those freqs get excellent filtering. Plus with DynEQ you get well balanced SQ even at low listening levels.

OK enough on Audyssey from the Audyssey fanboy. As to running analog out of the Oppo, IMO if you don't have great speakers in a well-treated room you will do quite well with the Oppo-80 running HDMI. Then put that $200 saved towards better speakers +/or a Denon 590 if you want better SQ.

Back to your regular program...

Well folks, after having agonized over the new BDP-83 for just 2 days, I can tell you that I've decided to send it back. I will give Oppo a chance to make good on this first one, which I think can only be called a lemon. In all fairness, I paid good money for it and although I do not dispute opinions of my fellow posters, I have never seen so many problems as with this player.

Now, it might have been the firmware upgrade (48-1224) as I did see others having issues after an upgrade. But, as of this morning, the system hung on playing Righteous Kill after barely 2 minutes into the movie. Hm.

I wonder now if anyone else has done this upgrade and came out okay?

Work with Oppo against this problem, usually they will let you know up front what the resolution will be. Occasionally stuff happens.

yeah, will do that. It's just not what I expect from stuff priced at half a grand. Add to this the reviews and overall perception of the company - it's just too bad. Will keep you posted.

I am strongly considering the purchase of the BDP-83 for my home theater system. For years, I have enjoyed my collection of SACD and DVD-A discs with the traditional setup (6-channel analog output, bass management, and LFE output to a subwoofer).

However, I just purchased new full-range front L&R tower speakers and have ditched my subwoofer. If I use the BDP-83 to listen to SACD or DVD-A source material via HDMI (no analog connection), will this eliminate the need for bass management and allow me to run my L&R speakers as "large" and get all the bass information without using a discrete LFE channel and subwoofer?

I haven't purchased a new A/V receiver/processor yet, so PCM & DSD are still up in the air.

Thanks, we are always curious to what issues crop up. The BDP-83 has been shipping to users since May 2009 as I recall, occasionally you have some kind of operational fault with a shipped player. The 1224 FW you are using has been tested for some time before public released.

Odds are high that your issues have nothing to do with the firmware upgrade. Odds are even higher that Oppo will fix things for you.

If you are listening to source material via HDMI, then the bass management will occur in the AVR, which usually also offers microphone calibrated equalization (example Audyssey). I have very large front L+R speakers with no discrete LFE subwoofer, and works great. If you setup the BDP-83 to output 7.1 signals via HDMI, then the receiver speaker setup will provide the appropriate 5.0 output.

I have a KRP-600M. My OPPO set to 4:4:2.

Hi palm. If you will not be using the better analog dedicated stereo outs of the 83, unless you need the additional video processing capability for DVD's on a big screen, you might consider getting a BDP-80 and saving the $200 to put toward your AVR, as I advised in an earlier post today. With HDMI there is no bass management in the Oppo, that will be up to your new AVR. There was a recent discussion as to the relative lack of importance of DSD capability compared to some other features such as Audyssey MultEQ here on the 80 thread.
Now I see John's post-what he said!

Thanks for the quick replies and the links! I know my question was lame, but I am coming from a 10-year old Denon AVR-1800 and I just don't have any experience with these modern digital formats to fully understand how they work.

Regarding the 80 vs. the 83: I have a large DVD collection and superior SD upconversion is a high priority for me, so that's what originally led me to the BDP-83. You make a really good point about pairing the BDP-80 with a Denon AVR - I hadn't thought about that. Up until now, I've been thinking about getting the BDP-83, and then pairing it with a Pioneer Elite SC-25 or Onkyo TX-nr807. I do believe they have superior amplifier sections compared to the Denon. The Pioneer has MCACC and the Onkyo has the same MultiEQ as the Denon. I'll have to think about it some more...

As for the SACD/DVD-A question, from the answers I've received, as I understand them, the BDP-83 (or 80) will send a "pure" 5-channel SACD or DVD-A output over HDMI to my receiver, which will then see that my front speakers are "large" and send the full frequency range to them - just like any of the other digital surround codecs (DTS, Dolby Digital, etc.). In other words, the receiver will handle SACD and DVD-A just like any other multi-channel audio signal it gets - no bass management required.

So, I guess it's down to deciding between Denon, Pioneer, and Onkyo for an AVR. Thanks again for the advice, I really appreciate it!

What upgrade, the BDP-83SE upgrade?