Official OPPO BDP-93 Owner's Thread - Page 821

There is NO difference between FLAC and the original WAV. They are bit-for-bit identical, aside from the lossless compression method used to effectively shrink the WAV file by about 50% (it will vary, depending on the file). It's just like ZIP for data... bit-for-bit identical, except one is lossless-compressed. It IS the original data, so of course it will sound identical when expanded (like UNZIP) and played. It's just like recreating the original WAV from the FLAC compressed version and then playing the WAV file... which again is why it sounds identical to the original.

The FLAC.EXE encoder is contained within that FLAC Frontend package. Running the installer file expands everything into the same \Program Files\FLAC folder, both the FLAC Frontend program as well as FLAC.EXE itself (which is actually the command-line external encoder which can be invoked by programs such as Audiograbber). FLAC Frontend is a simple GUI interface to the command-line FLAC.EXE.

Honestly I don't know. I don't use my Oppo to play music from PC folders. Can't hurt for you to try it. My guess is that it would be yes.

I'm just a long-time user and fan of Audiograbber, going back to 1998 when I first discovered MP3. Been using it ever since, including encoding "non-favorites" to highest quality MP3 (through Audiograbber invoking LAME.EXE as an external encoder for MP3, with Audiograbber itself doing the ID3 tagging). So I simply continued to use it for FLAC for my "favorites", invoking FLAC.EXE as the external FLAC encoder.

I just like Augiodgrabber's user interface. I use Winamp as well for my default MP3/FLAC music player on my PC (including its Album Art window), but don't use it for any other functions. I use the "modern" skin.

Hi, you guys gave a lesson on this subject. Now I understand why they sound the same. Thanks.

I use a four port powered Belkin (~$18.00) hub with powered external 2T Seagate HD drives. I've had anywhere from one to four drives connected at the same time. Our OPPO isn't connected to the Internet, but I don't think that should be a problem. Will the OPPO recognize your drive when it's directly connected? What drives are you using? Which USB port on the OPPO are you using?

Yes, it`s working and i did check the power supply but no problem there.

There are no settings on the hub that i have found.

Yes, the Oppo recogonizes my drive when it`s directly connected to the drive so the problem is obviously with the hub somehow. My drive is a Seagate Expansion Desktop 2TB.

I`m using the back port on the Oppo and this is also the port i want to use for the hub/drive.

I did send an e-mail to Oppo support asking them if they are aware of some known issue with this specific hub or brand. Still waiting for a response.

Ok, now i`m a little confused. Just got this reply from Oppo support regarding my hub issue,

Dear xxxx

It is not possible to use a hub only one USB device for each input is supported, you can damage the player if connecting hub and splitters.

Best Regards
Bjorn
OPPO European Support Engineer


Is this really true? I had no idea about this..

You are using the same HDD that I use and connecting it the same way except for the fact that the hub is a different brand.

The only difference that I can detect is that you have a European version of the OPPO 93 and a very strange message from OPPO support. Maybe Bob can explain that message from OPPO support.

^ I've just asked through Beta Test Club, but this limitation is news to me too. I don't use a hub, so this is not something I've tracked closely.
--Bob

I'll wager the support person had confused eSATA and USB.

Turn your player off. Connect the hub and HDD to the rear USB port, then turn on the HDD and finally the player. If that doesn't work then you may have a hub that doesn't play nice. I've seen that "not supported" error in the past with a hub connected, but it resolved on its own. Been using a Belkin powered USB hub for a long time with no issues.

Edit to add: If that hub has ports on the side plus ports on the top, try using one or the other (top or side) to see if one works and the other doesn't.

Quick note: When I grab cover art through MP3tag, it saves the file as "folder.jpg" - not the "cover.jpg" name - so I decided to do a test.

I ripped two different CDs that I hadn't yet gotten around to, and found cover art for each, which I saved into the same folders as the FLACs, but I didn't embed the cover art into any of the tracks.

For one CD I left the name of the cover art file as the default "folder.jpg" and for the other I saved it as "cover.jpg.'

It made no difference to Winamp. When playing a track from either album - without even adding it to Winamp's library - the cover art window showed the album cover regardless of the filename - having a ".jpg" extension and being in the same folder as the FLAC file was good enough for Winamp.

It also made no difference to the BDP-93, but not in a good way: the Oppo didn't find the art under either name.

So I'm back to embedding the cover in each track - which isn't a big deal in terms of disk space, given that a CD track ripped to FLAC is typically in the tens of thousands of kilobytes (i.e., tens of megabytes), and the typical cover art file is around 50k, adding 1/2% or less to the file's size.

So it takes five to ten seconds for MP3tag to embed the art in all of an album's tracks. It's not that big a deal, and makes the files self-contained and compatible.

Yes, many/most Windows media player programs will handle either folder.jpg or cover.jpg, or possibly even other variations:

front.jpg
cover.jpg
%filename%.jpg
%album%.jpg
folder.jpg

But my Cowon J3 (PMP) does not support folder.jpg, so in looking for a standard that would work for me when playing music on either PC or J3 I decided to go with the universally accepted cover.jpg.

I'm honestly quite surprised that the Oppo doesn't support external album art files in "album folders", and specifically not cover.jpg at the very least. This is a very very common organizational technique for music collections.

I'm curious as to what model your Belkin hub is? I'm looking to buy one and have been looking at the Belkin 4 port powered hub (model F5U234v1) but don't know if it'll work or not.

Just to add one more data point to this item... the BDP-103 also does not recognize cover.jpg for album art.

I find this quite remarkable actually, since most/all little PMP's are programmed to understand the cover.jpg approach to album art, as well as virtually all Windows-based media player programs. Don't know why it wouldn't have even occurred to the programmers at Oppo.

The Belkin powered four port Ver. 2.0 hub that I have is a F4U027. It only has two reviews at Amazon and it seems to have failed for those two owners. My assumption is that people don't bother to write a review for a USB hub that works. I've had ours for almost two years and it's been fine. Two of my drive are USB 3.0. I've connected one of those to the hub and it worked. I've also connected the same drive to my computer's 3.0 port and copied from a USB 2.0 drive through the Belkin hub to the USB 3.0 drive at 27 MB/second. Doing a copy between the same two drives when they are both connected to the hub was slower at 18 MB/second.

http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F4U027TT-Premium-Port-USB/dp/B0044F63TY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360833481&sr=8-1&keywords=Belkin+F4U027

Thanks for the information. It's much appreciated!

It might be something that Mediatek would need to take care of - I'm not sure if this is something Oppo has control over or not. You could always send them an inquiry and see what they have to say...

Unfortunately for me, Amazon sellers won't accept international orders for this item and after a quick google search i found that it's sold out everywhere.

Do you know of any store that sells this hub and accept international orders?

Belkin sells a plethora of various 4-port USB-2 hubs. I use the F5U304 with no issues.

It shouldn't be difficult to come up with something that works, just be sure its actually rated for USB-2, as there are still USB-1 hubs being sold.

You're welcome.

As rdgrimes says, any four port, powered version 2.0 hub should work. Here it's possible to buy such items and take them back it they don't work.

Nobody in Beta Test Club has piped up with any reason to be concerned about using a powered USB hub. An unpowered hub might result in putting too much draw on the power the player can send to the socket, but that would just keep the drives from working as opposed to damaging the player.
--Bob

Thank you for clarifying this.

Will try a Belkin hub instead and see if that works better for me.

I use this un-powered USB 2.0 hub from BestBuy
I have 3 external Seagate 2TB USB 3.0 drives connected, + 1 BlacX Duet with 2x 2TB SATA drives plugged in making a total of 5 2TB hard drives in use at the same time
Never any problems !!
All of my drives are 3.5" powered drives.

Dynex 4 port USB Hub

Refurbished OPPO BDP-93 players are now listed on the OPPO Digital on-line store page:

http://www.oppodigital.com/products.asp

History shows refurbs get snapped up pretty fast, so if you are interested, don't dawdle.
--Bob

This sucks. I would have liked to get one of these refurbs.

They sold out already?

Nope... I just don't know how to use the internet. I can be stupid most of the time.

Unfortunately they only sell to USA customers.

You can call them I'm sure.

If you can post here, odds are you won't have any trouble placing an order on the OPPO Digital web site.

I think you can also order from them by phone if you'd prefer.
--Bob