Official OPPO BDP-83 Owner's Thread [technical talk only] - Page 1254

Quick question - I have the tray issue in my 83 and am going to send it in to get repaired. Do I need to take out the region-mod (hardware mod) before sending it or do they not really care about it?

You can leave it in. If they have to remove it as part of the repair they'll return it to you. I'd attach a note telling them about the mod.

-Bill

Thanks Bill, appreciate the info.

Found JazzGuyy's previous Post and came racing home to reinstall the Mod again.

Tried everything and it still does not work.

Looks like I will have to call the Card Company if bluraychip.dk does not respond and then it be off to ebay.

This machine is too nice not to have it Region Free.

I heard from OPPO last week most of their repairs are due to botched Region Free installations.

Find it very unlikely they we will be upset about it

I received an email from OPPO today letting me know about the availability of firmware version BDP83-59-0117. This is the first time I've received an email about firmware updates. Is this process new?

Yes. I got one too. Apparently they will be doing this from now on to registered customers to keep us all up to date.

I guess it is. However the message is a little late saying the firmware was available last week(March 7th). However I guess for those of us that don't read the forums it is helpful! ;-)

I received one to. I think it is a nice touch as this player will be out of production two years in the summer.
The email was even addressed to me personally. I never had any A/V company do this.

Did the recent Official FW fix the issues introduced by the latest Beta FW?

It's unlikely, unless the problem was a firmware install problem that magically goes away on the 2nd try. The Official firmware is the same build as the Beta -- i.e., no changes.

Has anyone having such problems with this particular region free hardware mod been able to reach whoever made/sold that mod? They ought to know by now what's going on.
--Bob

I just emailed bluraychip.dk if they are aware of this problem. I know other people have already tried to contact them without success so I don't see why they would answer me. But you never know.

Bluraychip.dk is having radio silence because they boldly promised "This hardware kit is guaranteed to work with all existing and upcoming firmwares from Oppo."

Surprise surprise. I got lengthy reply immediately.

Main points they claim.
-There are no known issues
-They have only got one complaint so far (reset factory defaults needed after region change)
-They cannot reproduce this issue on their Oppo 83
-Other similar chips are copies of theirs and it is highly unlikely that they would work but theirs would not (because essentially they are same hw).
-They ask me if I could test the region change through a special factory mode on the player (what on Earth this means?).
-They can help me debug this problem through this factory mode if I wish. They will send specific instructions if I wish.

One thing though. I'm not experiencing this problem right now because I still use previous Official FW which is working normally. If I upgrade to new FW, can i downgrade back to previous FW.
Second thing. How many reports there have been about this problem with Danish 83 mod? Is it only here with few people or has it been "proved" in the community that this is truly a problem for all 83 owners with Bluraychip.dk mod?

Yes.

-Bill

I encountered an issue with the newly remastered French Connection Blu-ray. The SD featurette about the movie was displayed in a small window in the upper left corner of my display. It reminded me of the issue with the Alien Blu-ray. Has anyone else experienced this? I have installed the most recent firmware. I will be sending this info to Oppo.

Quite some time ago I saw a similar error on the BDP-93 (SD supplement to TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH). This was fixed on the -93, but the -83 never showed the problem.

You should get the details to OPPO. If there is some authoring technique in the wild which causes this they need to know about it.

-Bill

I received the same e-mail as well. First time for me also.

Extraordinary customer service, Oppo. Thanks again!

Hi all,

I also received Oppo's email today so I came here after a long time without reading. Due to work-related issues, I'm now living/working far away from home (where my 83 is) and last time I did the update was probably around March-April 2010. Is it possible to install this firmware version on top of that one? (no idea which one at the moment). Thanks.

Yes, you can install any new firmware regardless of the previous version. Each firmware is a complete replacement for the earlier versions.

-Bill

Good to know, thanks.

Bill, maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but my experience yesterday with this most recent update clearly showed that it's important to not skip any updates.

After installing the update I noticed that my Loader Version # was different from what they listed. An e-mail to Oppo got me a quick reply (about 20 minutes) indicating I had missed applying the previous update (which they linked) with instructions to first apply that update, then go back and apply the current version. Evidently the previous update had the loader update while the current version didn't repeat it.

For various reasons I download an iso image of the update and then burn it to CD. which then goes into the player. It's quite possible that this particular method is the cause, but I thought it might be worth mentioning.

You're right, that's a good point. I was thinking only of the main firmware file, not the Loader and MCU portions, which are separate.

All three are not in every update. I think OPPO wants to avoid updating what hasn't changed, but when not updating for a long time you may miss the smaller files.

Contacting OPPO and asking is probably the best approach. You can update with the latest and check the version numbers; if something is out of date ask where to find that bit. The update procedure allows you to install each portion independently.

-Bill

Out of curiosity, if I update over ethernet, will it automatically include all parts? I haven't updated in a while in order to keep the better MKV support.

No. It will update the parts that need updating. It won't re-install parts that are already up to date.
--Bob

Ok, I'll just let it do its thing, if I decide to go for it. Thanks.

I recently bought a used bdp-83 and updated the firmware to bdp83-59-0117 via iso cd. Everything went well, but when I hooked it up to the internet and enabled notification of firmware update, it says there is a new version to update. It doesn't say which version; it just gives me the option to update or not. I thought the version I loaded is the latest version. What gives?

Network notification sometimes gives false alerts. We're not sure why.

However, as I was just reminded, there are three components to the firmware: (1) main firmware, (2) loader, (3) MCU. Check your versions shown in Setup against what is shown on OPPO's support page to verify that you are current on all three.

-Bill

The Oppo gods are watching you.

I just wanted to add my comments to the long list of happy customers.

I was in EAP2 (Mar 09), and my 83 finally had the drawer lock up. I sent the machine out on Tuesday, OPPO received it Thursday morning, repaired it, and shipped it out that afternoon. And, even though long out of warranty, the only cost to me was shipping it to CA.

OPPO is great!

Hi I too haven't updated in while to keep the "old" mkv support. So I'm curious to know if you've tried the latest firmware and if it has re-introduced the "good" aspect ratio mkv issue that's been lacking in the later updates. Cheers