Official OPPO BDP-103 Owner's Thread - Page 214

The easiest answer is to try it yourself, with your equipment, and see. For example, if you buy direct from the OPPO Digital web site, they offer an easy, 30 day return period. You only risk the shipping cost.

However, when you use HDMI audio, the primary factors for sound quality are things going on in your HDMI-equipped AVR, etc. That's where the sound is being processed. People using HDMI audio primarily buy the 103 for OTHER reasons, such as the range of things it can play, its speed and flexibility, and video capabilities. As well as secondary factors such as OPPO's highly regarded customer service.
--Bob

Assuming you connect with HDMI and the AVR decodes the audio, it makes no difference what player you use - in terms of "audio quality" they are all the same. This is true regardless of what type system you connect the player to.

Buy the Oppo for its universal disc and media compatibility or other features. Digital audio is all the same regardless of the player.

Just some additional remarks on this: Dolby IIz and DSX generate the heights content - in case of DSX also wides - artificially, by using algorithms to generate the signals from the other channels.
For DTS Neo:X there are two BDs -Expendables 2 and Dredd, I know of - containing so called DTS HD 7.1 tracks optimized for DTS Neo:X 11.1. There are discrete tracks on these disks, muxed or matrixed in the L/R and SL/SR channels.

Every player can play this and hand it over as bit-stream to the AVR. But this must have Neo:X for decoding and the necessary outputs - 9.1 or 11.1.

crussader, you will never hear these tracks in your setup, but I believe you are aware of this. My opinion is do it, and if you like it, keep it, why not. gsr described the drawbacks clearly.

The SC-67 does in fact decode DSD.
I've had it set up both ways. Both do sound good but somewhat different.
That said, comparison is difficult as I have to change some menu settings to switch between the two.
Never thought about it bypassing the audio processing.
Sounds like setting the OPPO to PCM is the best option.
Thanks

Neither Theoretically, a Pioneer transport such as the Elite BDP-62FD with PQLS enabled would provide the lowest jitter for your SC-67.

Reference: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1422205/official-pioneer-sc-68-67-thread/60#post_22304799

"We're going to need a bigger [screen]"

I just set up my new BD-103. Love it. The only thing causing me grief is the seeming "touchiness" of the required wifi strength. After messing around with public DNS, etc, etc, I have it working ok, but.... the "front end" of the apps in my 2nd Gen (720P) Apple TV are simply better than those duplicated apps on the OPPO. Netflix and YouTube primarily. Also, as part of the Apple "walled garden", I can use my iPad's HBO GO to stream to the ATV. Then ATV via OPPO to my HDTV. Nice.

I plan on using the OPPO to process the output from the AppleTV. I think the OPPO upscaling to 1080p will allow me to pass on the ATV3. I do like those HDMI INPUTS. I'm also planning to get a ROKU3 and feed it through the OPPO. I've tried simply plugging the output of the AppleTV into the front HDMI input and it works just fine. The setup allows me to use a wireless bluetooth keyboard for all the ATV apps and take advantage of Apple's superior (IMHO) front end software. I assume the rear HDMI input will work just as well.

As I mentioned earlier, the wifi is the only issue. While I do have it worked out, at least for the moment, the ATV doesn't appear to have the streaming finickiness that the OPPO has. I would like to see the OPPO go "dual band" so I could use the 5ghz stream from my router.

And, as one more stream of thought.... I have McIntosh equipment, including a McIntosh SACD/DVD/CD player. The audio feeding my McIntosh MX134's external inputs (coming from the OPPO...) sounds outstanding. Even playing back files on my home network that reside on a NAS to primarily feed my SONOS system, sound great. This OPPO is one heck of a package.

Any thoughts or comments from the community?

I love it, got it this week as an upgrade but am still waiting for a more knowledgeable person to reply to my post of 5 hours ago....on best audio settings ...I am using it with 3 Polks a new Onkyo 5.1 only.
You are in the bigger league and the quality is impressive, also the sound and loading time is excellent.
My LS50's sound really warm and I like the universality of it....I feel that you get what you pay for here...a sturdy machine but then again I do not know if sound can be broken down into what component makes the difference but thus far this new set up is ideal. DVD's etc. play wonderfully and the USB handles Pandora,Netflix etc. well..I am using it from our wireless Time Capsule and connected rapidly...The graphics and ease of use and sturdy remote makes it all a very pleasing experience.... I think I got the right settings but just wish someone can offer me a tweak or a checklist for my simple set up....I am hooked. I may add I bought it primarily for music....down the road planning on surround bar or separates ....

I can't tell you about the difference between the Panasonic BDT110 and the Oppo BDP103 because I don't know the Panasonic. However, I also tested several sources and players and found, there is always a difference even via HDMI, which surprised me most, because it shouldn't.

This said, I can only recommend everybody to test the unit in your own chain and your room and then decide. In my understanding there is no common better or worse, you really have to judge for yourself.

I can give you an example. When I received my 103, I compared it to my old Denon DVD 3800 BDCI and found they are different especially regarding the sound. Same HDMI cable, same length, HDMI only and just switched the inputs on my AVR.

Well, this tells me clearly and it was clear to me before - compared Denon 3910, 3930, 2500, 3800 and a Samsung player, I forgot the name - there are differences, even via HDMI. If you hear this or not, depends on your setup, room and your listening habits.

Ganymed4 provided a lot of good links, I'm also going to supply this Microsoft Knowledge Base article to supplement what s/he found:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2696547

I am happy that you found this useful. I will test it myself and report here. I am experiencing exactly the same problems with SMB, Windows 8 and the Oppo as you all do. I use DLNA with my server and this works excellent with the Oppo, even for 1080p HD via WiFi 802.11n (300 Mbit/s). This is for me one of the great things of the Oppo, this works flawless. However, SMB should work, I see this the same way.
I will try it over the weekend and let you know.

BTW to Google for 'Windows 8 disabling SMB 3' is not this difficult, isn't it...

PS: Thank you for using s/he, I am he. But the 'she' females should also post here their experiences and add to the discussion.
Edited by Ganymed4 - 3/7/13 at 5:42pm

Noob question here...I am interested in improving PQ for HD cable broadcasts on my Panny GT50. It looks good but is a little inconsitent and I often see more grainyness, artifacts and a generally softer picture than I am used to. I am more interested in getting the best PQ and not too concerned with audio quality so I do not have an AVR. I have a HT in a Box (i know, i know). So my question is would running my HD Cable signal through the Oppo 103 improve the cable PQ dramatically? Say I can only afford one of the following...an Oppo 103, a Darbee Darblet, or an upconverting AVR, which will give me the most improvement in this area for the $300 to $500 spent?

One other question. Can I use the 103 for video processing and still use my HT in a box for audio?
Edited by wattheF - 3/7/13 at 5:21pm

You didn't mention your current BD player so we don't know it's current performance level. With what you did mention PQ is what you're after thus I would try the Darbee. Doesn't sound like you would utilize an AVR, the 103 may just be a $500 PQ enhancer and the rest of its prowes would not be utilized. The Darbee is cheaper and all PQ.

And yes, as long as your HT in a box will accept an audio input I'm sure the 103 has an output that will be accommodating.

Cheers

Thanks. I have a PS3 and a newer Samsung 3D BD Player as part of the HT in a box.

I was leaning towards the Darbee but I just heard about how good the video processing on the Oppo is so I figured I would look into it.

The one thing I haven't tried with my 103 is the HDMI input and resulting upscaling. The only input I would have is my Dish DVR.. I've hesitated due to so so chat on PQ improvements and numerous comments on lip sink and/or handshake issues - of which I know OPPO is working a firmware fix.

The Darbee has been on my radar from early last year. Really wish I would of grabbed one when at the intro price. Some people disliked it or didn't see the improvement where numerous claim its the cats meow.. I'd like to try it in my HT as well.. Return shipping is the only risk with either the 103 or DD.

So from what you have heard, the upscaling PQ of the Oppo is just OK other than the fact that it may cause those issues as well?

Hopefully others who have utilized the 103s HDMI input will chime in. And yes, my comments stem purely from reading this thread and my perception of this topic. From user comments my take was running a cable box through the OPPO via HDMI was only a minor gain in PQ, some stating no improvement etc. The cable boxes that output "native" format worked the best. You didn't mention what service/box you have. May be run a search here on your specific box to see if someone has commented on PQ increases etc..

I have my 103 attached to a GT50 as well.

Cheers

Noob question ... I'm trying to use oShare as a dlna server so i downloaded it and selected my music/movie directories. Now what? How do i start to use it to play music or movies? I have many flc, flv and mp3 files.

My Dish VIP612 works fine. The PQ is awesome. I have it set on 720p. I occasionally have a lip sync issue, but if I just skip back 10 seconds, it corrects it.

In passing, I mention that there are other portable devices in the world besides Apple products, and in particular I own the very Windows-friendly (and SUPERB sounding) Cowon J3 PMP (which plays FLAC, MP3, and other common Windows-friendly music formats, as well as playing standard video formats like AVI and MPG, with common codecs like xVid and Divx, etc.) on which I have 96GB worth of storage (32GB internal, 64GB external) including about 25GB of FLAC and 35GB of MP3 music files (total about 7000 files). When the J3 is plugged into a PC via USB it appears as two removable drives with drive letters assigned, just like any USB drive should for 100% compatibility with 100% of Windows software and 3rd-party media products.

While the Apple products may connect in MTP mode, the 103 supports portable USB-connected devices in MSC mode, which in Windows would result in drive letters being assigned for the removable drives (i.e. internal/external storage of the J3). Apparently the 103 looks like a Windows computer to the J3, because when USB connected to the 103 both internal and external storage are directly accessible.

So all of the music folders/files on the J3's internal and external storage can be navigated through and browsed, and all of the MP3 and FLAC files on the J3 can be played by the 103, same as for network-available folders. In other words the J3 is just like two more external "network drives" to the 103, connected in MSC mode via USB.

"anythingbutipod.com"

^

I don't want to push this too far off topic, but I just wanted to say that I, too, love Cowon. I just wish the X7 had better support (and better GUI) than it did. I need the space for my big music collection. Here's hoping the next iteration has the ability to exceed 100GB (with or without external storage).

On the OPPO, go to the Home screen and select the Network icon. After some searching, all the DLNA and SMB servers available on your network should appear in a list. Scroll down and select the oShare server.

SMB servers are all shown with a generic "two-server" icon. DLNA servers provide their own custom icon.

-Bill

Apropos DLNA and icons, I have tried using two servers already (JRiver and Whitebear) and in both cases the Oppo does not display the album art when browsing down the albums / tracks tree, nor does it show the art on the now playing screen when actually playing a track.

This is odd, since I know that both those servers do include the album art in what they offer to the player, but it seems that the Oppo is not actually downloading the offered images from the server. (Note: other renderers - e.g. my Sony Tv - do download the art from those same servers). Does anyone else have this problem? Is this a weakness or a bug in the Oppo? Or is there some solution for it?

My album art experiments were long ago and perhaps out of date for the BDP-103, but it seemed to me the player would display images embedded as a tag in the file. This is the same as for local files. I did not see it for any external images, and I didn't think it was common for DLNA servers to support that (but times change).

How is your album art stored, and what DLNA client displays it?

-Bill

I can confirm that album art works okay for me when playing AAC (M4A), MP3 and Flac files via NAS

This makes sense as the Oppo or any decent VP in an AVR should have better SD upconversion than your average cable/sat box. As for HD potential improvements will not be dramatic. You are just converting one format 1080i60 or 720p to 1080p60 which should be a cake walk for any modern TV. The real limitation which some people call "grain" is actually excessive compression artifacts introduced by the broadcast process.

There is one more area for improvement when watching movies or programs shot in 24fps on cable/sat/antenna/DVD/etc. The telecine process converts 24p to 60i for transmission, using an uneven process which disrupts the natural cadence. I don't know if the Oppo supports this on the HDMI input (as it does when playing a DVD) but top notch VP's can perform inverse telecine to extract 1080p24 from a 60i source if a 24fps cadence is detected, resulting in smoother motion on displays that support 1080p24 natively.

Just a quick couple of questions I'm hoping someone can answer:

1. Is there a way for the Oppo BDP-103 to play a DVD directory on a USB stick or Hard Drive like it was a DVD-Disc? At the moment all I can get the player to do is play all the individual VOB files in a sequence.
2. Are Oppo aware of the crappy quality of the player-generated subtitles when playing a MKV with embedded subtitles?

1. No. OPPO players have never supported VIDEO_TS as a directory structure. I'm not sure any Blu-ray player does that, although some media server products do.

I convert DVD structures to MKV, but that is best for 1 title per file, no menus.

2. I'm sure OPPO has seen the embedded subtitles the player produces. If you want to register a crappiness critique you should send them some feedback so they don't forget.

-Bill

If you use the original 'graphics based' (VOBsub) subtitles from your DVD (instead of converting them to 'text based' subtitles) they will perform and look exactly the same as the DVD when placed within the .MKV container