Official OPPO BDP-83 Owner's Thread [technical talk only] - Page 1282

Hello: I'm having an issue with a BluRay disc that I'm hoping you guys might be able to help me troubleshoot. The disc is this year's Mormon Tabernacle Choir's "Once Upon A Christmas" and when I first put it in my BDP83SE, upon initial playback, the audio began to cut out plus it was was out of sync with the picture. I might interject here that I have the player connected via HDMI to my Pioneer plasma and then to my older Pioneer Elite receiver, a VSX56TXi, using the player's coax digital output. I had selected the 5.1 audio option in the disc's menu prior to beginning playback. I stopped playback after experiencing the aforementioned problems, went back to the disc's menu the selected the 2-channel option which played back fine with no dropouts and no sync problems. Not wishing to experience this concert in 2-channel, I then decided to switch to my receiver's multi-channel analog inputs, since I also have the player connected in this manner. The audio played back fine and wasn't out of sync. So here's my question: Presumably, the multi-channel analog audio is decoded by the player from the disc's 5.1 digital tracks, so why didn't I experience the same drop outs and out-of-sync playback that I did when I was listening to the player's coaxial digital output thru my receiver? Or, is there a separate multi-channel analog track on the disc, as well? I felt like in some way this disc was defective and I'm going to exchange it for another one. One other note, the digital audio from another disc played back OK, the night before, so I don't think it's a hardware or cableing issue. What do you say? Thanks! BTW, if you want to experience an absolutely glorious Christmas concert by the best choir and orchestra on the planet...get this disc!

It sounds like the receiver may be at fault here. If you are playing the Blu-Ray version, the digital coax output may not be able to handle the audio stream properly. If the disc has either Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD, the audio is supposed to have a core audio track (not lossless) that the digital coax should be able to handle since digital coax cannot pass lossless soundtracks and that is bitstreamed to your receiver for decoding. Your older receiver may not handle this properly or you may have to physically select the non-lossless soundtrack from the disc's settings menu. When you switched to your receiver's multichannel analog inputs, the Oppo was then handling the decoding and there were no problems.

Generally when playing Blu-Ray discs with an older receiver in your system, you are better off using the analog audio outs from the 83 and letting the 83 do all the decoding. The 83 can properly decode lossless audio formats and pass the decoded audio through the analog outs.

I'm not familiar with that disc, but it is possible the multi-channel digital track it was sending over the Coax output to your older receiver was in a format your older receiver could not handle well.

Blu-ray discs come with a "compatibility" track which is automatically used for Coax digital audio output since the Coax can't handle the full, lossless, digital audio. The compatibility track is often not shown on the disc's menus, but it is there nonetheless. Now, the legacy, lossless DD and DTS digital bitstream formats -- the type that CAN be carried over Coax -- come in different bit rates, and some older receivers can only handle the lower bit rate. The "compatibility" track uses these legacy formats, but most commonly it is authored to use the higher bit rate. The "compatibility" track may also include extra data designed to help get audio to rear speakers in a 6.1 or 7.1 speaker setup, and that too may give older receivers fits.

Either of these could explain why your older receiver was having trouble with this 5.1 Coax digital input. Alternatively, the Coax cable may have been damaged or may not be fully inserted into the socket at either end.

Meanwhile, when you use the multi-channel Analog outputs of the player, the player decodes the full quality, lossless, digital audio track that you've selected, and sends that as Analog to your receiver. Since the receiver has no decoding to do, there's no way for it to be confused by this.

As stated above, when playing Blu-ray from your 83SE into an older receiver with multi-channel Analog inputs, it is best to use the multi-channel Analog if for no other reason than that the full quality, lossless audio track is what gets used. (Also leave Secondary Audio OFF, unless you want to use a disc feature that requires it.)
--Bob

As far as I know, the tracks on this disc are NOT lossless, although it doesn't really indicate what format they are in. I thought it was regular DD 5.1, but maybe not. The menu just specifies either 5.1 or stereo audio. As I recall, I had a similar problem with their Blu ray last year (their first BluRay BTW) but when they sent me a replacement disc it played back fine thru the digital coax. Maybe on this year's disc, the compatibility track was corrupted. My digital cable is fine and I check connections and all was fine also. On all of the other Blu discs I have, I have always listened thru the digital coax and have never had an issue. I'll be interested to see if the replacement disc plays back OK.

If you are talking about their latest BD, "Once Upon a Christmas," the Barnes and Noble website lists the audio as 5.1 Dolby Digital. On a BD that can be 448 or 640 kbps. Your receiver ought to be happy with either one, as 640 kbps has been a Dolby requirement since the inception of Dolby Digital. Clearly it is not for some reason. Might try connecting the S/PDIF with optical instead of coax just to see if that matters at all.
If any of those discs use Dolby TrueHD, then you'd most likely be getting 5.1 DD at 640 kbps thru the S/PDIF, sort of proving your receiver is happy with that.

As for the sync issue, when the HDMI connects to the TV it negotiates A/V sync -- for the TV. The S/PDIF is out in the cold.

Neuromancer, you are the man! It plays the disc like Hendrix plays the guitar now. Interesting fix though, i tried the turning off BD Live before but never cycled the player, and certainly never tried erasing persistent storage, could you explain what caused the issue?

I watched my copy of Finding Nemo on BR (thank you Santa) last night on my Oppo BDP-83 and I also experienced audio drop outs via my Onkyo receiver. I read through the last few pages of this thread, but didn't see whether or not Oppo has yet determined if this can/will be corrected with a firmware update. If anyone has any info on this, I hope you will post. Thanks to all of you for the great info in this thread.

OK, I'll try optical, but I don't see why this would work and coax would not. Also, I have not had any previous sync problems with studio-issued BluRays of movies...only this Choir disc.

It's in the Nemo thread, change to LCPM output is the official Oppo message for now.

It shouldn't. Just a shot in the dark. Seems strange you also had the problem on an earlier edition of their disc. Cut-rate pressings??
Is the sync issue also evident if you listen to the TV's speakers?

Actually not. My Pioneer KRP-600M display has a built-in 10wpc amp for connecting small speakers for "regular" TV viewing and I always have to remember to turn them down before viewing a DVD or BluRay; however, I did play back the BluRay in question just thru the TV's monitors and there was no skipping(cutting in and out) or sync issues. The only time I had a problem was from the coax digital. Hmmmm...

'motion surge' during high bandwidth blu-ray playback of panning scenes

any idea why playing panning or fly-by scenes in 'Planet Earth' would proceed linearly for ~.4 sec but smoothly slow for ~.1sec every ~.5 second ? this seems to happen only when a lot of the scene is moving... I'm connected directly from OPPO BDP-83 with HDMI to a Sharp 80" 3D TV (in 1080p 2D mode)... viewing the same 1080p scene recorded from DirecTV has none of this 'motion surge'... it feels like some element in the chain can't keep up...

IIRC, some versions of Planet Earth are 50i and others have been converted to 60i (or is it 24p?).

Since a USA TV is often unable to play 50i/p content, this is generally converted to 60i/p in the player and will likely show some form of motion artifact, especially if the TV is performing its own interpolation.

Alternatively, I'm not sure how smooth and consistent the 50i->60i/24p conversion is on those discs that implement it: same comment about TV interpolation of this conversion might also apply.

Depending on which version you are playing and your particular player/TV setup, I wouldn't be surprised at motion artifacting.

Planet Earth was shot with lots of different cameras and some segments weren't even captured in HD. The original cameras used had various frame rates (24, 25, 30, and maybe 50, 60). Blu-Ray, though, is almost always 24fps (though other rates are possible) but is encoded in such a way that it shouldn't make any difference since players are designed to handle the material to your TV seamlessly. The only issue with HD material on BDs is usually the region code. Extras on BDs, though, can be in SD and this may be either NTSC or PAL (depending on the country of origin mostly) and that material can be at 25i or 30i or 50p or 60p). Extras in PAL may present problems to many North American TVs that can't properly handle 25i or 50p. Now the specific issues you are seeing with panning in some scenes are probably artifacts of the conversion of the source material to the HD format. It's been quite a while since I viewed Planet Earth so I don't remember whether I saw anything like this. I do remember some of the material that was SD quality (during the snow leopard segment IIRC). If you could cite the specific places where you see these motion problems, I could take a look at it. Please state also whether you have the American version (Sigourney Weaver narration) or the UK one (Richard Attenborough narration). I have the UK version so it might be a little different. (Both versions were available in North America, BTW -- they are region-free.)

thanks for your replies!... the version of 'planet earth' is narrated by Richard Attenborough (recently bought at costco)... the scene i was comparing between blu-ray and direcTV was the tiger forest flyby at the beginning of 'seasonal forests'... i also checked an Avatar that i know didn't have 'motion surge'... it now does... i swapped hdmi cables with the direcTV box... no change... then i swapped blu-rays... a $90 panasonic dmp-bdt220cp for the $500 (new) OPPO BDP-83... the 'motion surge' vanished... that seems to reduce the probability that a funky conversion was causing the problem... but maybe the newer cheaper unit has more robust decoding... except that the OPPO appears to have 'broken' over time because of the originally good Avatar playback...

but i AM annoyed... i waited almost a year for the OPPO blu-ray to appear, then winced at the $500, and rationalized that i'd just keep it twice as long... bad plan...

p.s. i uploaded the latest firmware BDP83-59-0117 before my first post...

What are the setting for your Oppo with regards to handling 50 vs 60 hz? It may be in your settings.

This is not a typical player failure. Most likely there is a settings problem somewhere you have simply overlooked -- the usual culprit being some sort of video processing setting enabled on that input of the Display.

Check the input you are using in the Display to make sure "motion smoothing" is disabled for example. See if the problem happens with 1080p/60 input instead of 1080p/24 (set 1080p/24 OFF).

Also do a complete reset of the player including a re-install of the firmware (from a freshly downloaded copy), then reset AFTER the firmware install (including erasing Persistent Storage), then power down and pull the power plug for about 10 seconds. Then re-enter your personal settings.
--Bob

I have seen that surge happen on a friends LCD TV with the adaptive motion crap. I would suggest turning off any type of 120Hz or 240Hz setting your TV might have and set the Oppo to source direct. Ideally your TV should play the content at a multiple of 24p without "creating" new frames, but just repeating each frame (the same number of times for every frame, like "5:5" for 120 Hz or "4:4" for 96 Hz, and so on).

Hello all,
As I'm not to tech savvy in a few areas, the more I think about this question and research it, I get myself confused. I'm looking at buying the Australian region free import blu ray of The Librarian.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Librarian-Trilogy-Blu-ray/48913/

My problem is that one of the disc video resolution is : 1080/50i ( http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Librarian-Quest-for-the-Spear-Blu-ray/13003/ )

I have an Oppo BDP-83 ( region free ) that is connected to a Onkyo 875 reciever, then to my Pioneer Elite PRO-FHD1 tv. All USA equiptment and I live in the USA.

My question is will the combination of my equiptment play back the video of the 1080/50i disc ?

Thanks in advance.


Note...I'll be posting this in the PRO-FHD1 thread too, just in case.

Yes, the player supports 1080i50 content. If the rest of your gear supports 50hz input you can send that from the player. If not, you can have the player convert it to 60hz. Works great.

See the FAQ for more: Does the player support 1080i50 Blu-ray sources?

-Bill

Your Pioneer plasma TV should also support 50hz. I know that the 9th generation Kuros support 50hz and I believe preceding generations did as well so you should not have to set your Oppo to change 50hz to 60hz. I have never had to do that with my setup and have played a number of PAL and 50hz Blu-Rays on my 83SE and Pioneer plasma.

Thanks for the input guys. wmcclain, thanks for the link to the Unofficial OPPO BDP-83 Frequently Asked Questions site. I had seen that quite some time ago, but could not find it yesterday. It's now bookmarked in my favorites.
Thanks again for the help.

Back when I had a Pioneer plasma briefly, I remember there was a setting that created very uneven playback: it was as if it was trying to perform IVTC incorrectly on 24p material leading to some weird 19fps surging effect. More recently, playing 720p24 mkv upscaled to 1080p on a cheap Bluray player with 1080p24 On resulted in a similar surging/framedrop effect that was cured by setting the player to 1080p60. Even more recently, playing a 720p24 mkv on an Oppo 93 resulted in a surging/framedrop effect that was fixed by remuxing the mkv. There can be many reasons why framerate is not as expected on playback.

Incidentally, playing 24p back on an LCD without frame interpolation is identical regardless of how many times the TV repeats frames as the pixels don't actually update until they change at the source and there is no phosphor decay as there is in plasma (where repeating frames does improve the result). Consequently, there will still be a small jump between each source frame as it appears in a different position on the screen for objects in motion. For LCD, frame interpolation improves the appearance of objects in motion as the jump between frames is only 20% for 120Hz compared to 24p native, so it is a lot smoother if done well.

Plasma is a different kettle of fish, where it is necessary to repeat frames to reduce flicker, due to phosphor decay, but where this can also improve the perception of motion smoothness without interpolation.

Where things might get bizarre with frame interpolation, is where a 24fps source is played at 60i and then frame interpolated at the TV to 120Hz or 240Hz, because in the course of converting 24p->60i mixed frames are created in a 3:2 pattern that are then further distorted when interpolated.

Ideally, 24p sources should be played back at 24p and frame interpolated at the display, or not, depending on the viewers preference. This requires source material to be true 24p and the hardware display chain to do the right thing and be setup correctly. Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world and home theatre equipment settings are becoming increasingly complicated. I loaned a Bluray player to a friend recently, so he could gain an appreciation of what the format is like on his older plasma TV, but he complained Harry Potter Bluray did not work after the menu: after much investigation, it was discovered that the TV would not accept 1080p24, so setting the player 1080p24 option to OFF fixed the issue (although it is sad he won't be able to appreciate smooth motion with his equipment).

I think the Oppo 83 generally does the right thing, although the same can't necessarily be said for source material or other display hardware.

thanks so much!... i did all of this, and it worked!... since i did everything at once, i don't know which fixed the 'motion surge', but it's gone... i experimented with some settings like turning 1080p/24 and "motion smoothing" on and off, but couldn't get the 'motion surge' to reappear... maybe it was the firmware upgrade with the reset (which i hadn't done)... i now feel fully vindicated springing for the bdp-83...

all of you: thanks for the great suggestions... you all ooze competence!

p.s. i must admit my wife latched onto some 24 fpm 'jitter' in the fixed bdp-83, and i had to swap players twice more to convince her it was the same as the Panasonic... she finally revealed she was also interested in the 3D... tough for me... i have a lazy eye and can't see it... hopefully, i can return the Panasonic without her noticing... (fat chance)...

how does one know whether the audio in a media file, played via usb, is 2 channel or multichannel when the audio in the file is in the AAC format?

I recently got a used Oppo BDP-83, and it's now had two major problems.

The first problem involves playback. Most discs play fine, but there are two titles that have frequent dropouts (i.e. the screen goes black for a fraction of a second, and often the sound goes too). FWIW, these titles are "Ladies & Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones" and Studio Canal's reissue of Godard's "Contempt." Neither title was listed by Oppo as a title that had issues with this player, and when I contacted them, they suggested it was a problem with the HDMI connection. I tried swapping out the HDMI cable with a new one (same model though) but that didn't change a thing. FWIW, the cable was an AmazonBasics High-Speed HDMI cable (max1.4 hdmi 3m). Here's the URL: http://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-High-Speed-HDMI-Cable-Meters/dp/B003L1ZYYW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347378790&sr=8-1&keywords=amazon+basics

I never solved this problem, and went on to other things, namely acquiring a region free mod kit from ebay. The one I got involved a ribbon replacement, and it's this exact one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/150657714322;jsessionid=FBE9C20A5017C60773E81B1CE34E71EA?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_sacat%3D0%26_from%3DR40%26_nkw%3D150657714322%26_rdc%3D1

At first, it seemed to work, but a few weeks later (during which time it was left as a Region A player), I tried changing the region to Region B, and even though the player still indeed beeps when you hit the blue button for 5 seconds, and even though it still beeps the appropriate number of times when you hit 1, 2 or 3, the region will not change. (This was made very obvious when I played a Region B disc that displayed a title card that stated "This disc will only play in Region B Blu-Ray players.") Is this common with mod kits? If it still does all the correct "beeping," has it become faulty or perhaps it wasn't connected properly, even though it did work temporarily?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It pays to have the instructions handy so that you can go through them and refresh your memory: I'm getting completely confused by the differences between my Oppo 83 and Oppo 93 region switch operations when relying on memory, especially as the instructions for 83 seem to work for 93 (apart from actually changing the region) including the beeps.

The pitfalls for the 83 include: not having the player turned off when changing regions or leaving a disc in the player when changing regions (turning the player on after a change is self-evident).

A new one for me for the 93 was having to erase persistent storage after changing the region, before it would play the disc I had originally attempted to play and been blocked.

And that is assuming one remembers correctly whether one has a standard or pro mod as the instructions are different.

I think it was easier when I had the Oppo 93 setup for Region A and the Oppo 83 setup for Region B and just switched between them as necessary.

HDMI problems can involve timeouts in handshaking as well as physical cable problems. Sometimes the situation can be improved if the video chain goes directly to the TV, so that there are only 2 devices involved and not a 3rd AVR in the middle. Othertimes, reducing handshaking by fixing certain parameters and not allowing AUTO might help. When I used to have a Pioneer player, CEC activated used to do strange things at random during playback. I still occasionally get a pink streaked screen with my current setup, that I have just learned to live with. I think of HDMI as more of a black art than science.
Edited by IanD - 1/5/13 at 4:32am

I didn't realize leaving the disc in would be problem in switching regions, which I did do on a few tries, but unfortunately making sure the disc tray is empty doesn't solve the problem. It still won't switch regions. (Also, whenever I tried switching regions, the player was definitely always in standby mode whenever I hit the blue and number buttons.)

The mod instructions that came with the region free kit for my BDP-83 are as below:

How to use the mod:

By default your Oppo player is now region free for DVD. To set the bluray region to A, B or C, please press "1", "2" or "3" on the remote when the player is in standby. (red light at the front power button). The player will automatically power on, when "1", "2" or "3" is pressed. To disable the automatic power on, press the blue button on the remote once. To enable automatic power on again, press the yellow button once. To select a specific DVD region, press the green button followed by a number from "0" to "6".
For automatic region free - select "0".

Hope this helps...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

There are at least two major types of region mods. One uses the sequence you just cited to change the region, the other uses a different sequence that involves the colored keys on the remote. It seems the OP has this latter kind so your instructions probably won't help him.