Oppo Digital BDP-83 - Axiom Message Boards

Has anyone here been invited to buy one of these yet?

If you take the time to go to the "no" votes on their second EAP (and read at least 10-15 comments), you will see the product was not ready at that point. And I haven't seen any announcement from them for the next phase. The product seem very good for the complex stuff, but unstable for things like playing a regular CD!

If you look here they are only waitng fo 84 more votes OPPO
They require 70% yes votes for the units to go public, and they are at 89% right now. I would expect to see it on the market pretty soon.

Originally Posted By: EFalardeau

And I haven't seen any announcement from them for the next phase.

That's because it's been by invitation only, but it's been mentioned on a couple of sites.

Blu-ray.com

engadgetHD

I guess the release was closer than I thought. I received this e-mail 15 minutes ago.

Dear Michael ,

The BDP-83 Early Adoption Program has successfully come to an end with 89.1% voting in favor of releasing the BDP-83. Valuable feedback from our early adoption customers and beta testers has helped us shape the BDP-83 into a truly exceptional product.

Due to limited initial availability, we are offering priority ordering for customers that signed up early for the OPPO Blu-ray Interest List. If you would like to place a priority order for the BDP-83, please follow the special link below:

Just ordered mine! $\:\)$ Ship date May 5th - May 15th

Just received my e-mail also and will order immediately
Mel N.

Well, we'll be looking forward to your review in a month or so $\:\)$

I received the invitation and ordered the unit immediately. Considering the fact that this will be the first (and maybe the only one, despite Denon) "all things to all people" player, based on my previous experience with Oppo and their dedication to producing a first-class product, whatever happens from here, one can be sure any outstanding small flaws will be rectified and quickly. It is a complex unit and what is really encouraging is as they brought out the firmware updates during the second EAP the "NO's" start to quickly drop away. I am sure the final firmware update will eliminate any outstanding issues, no matter how small.

Yup, ordered mine as well. Good thing I registered way back when! I have 971 model and it was a very very solid DVD player. I have Samsung 1400 which has served me extremely well, but the load time is pretty long. I'll move the 1400 to the bedroom and stick the Oppo in the living room.

Well, tonight the BDP-83 prompted me regarding a new firmware for the first time. The upgrade went smoothly. Here are the release notes:

Quote:

Comparing to the previous official release version BDP83-22-0430, the major changes included in this version are:

1.Further improvement to DVD-Audio disc compatibility and navigation.
2.Fix for the issue of losing audio at certain DVD-Audio track/chapter transitions, such as "The Beatles – Love".
3.Additional on-screen audio information display for DVD-Audio: sample rate in addition to channels and format.
4.Support for viewing static pictures on DVD-Audio discs using the PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN remote control buttons.
5.Compatibility improvement for user-encoded DVD-Audio discs.
6.A two-tiered rotation speed control for DVD media: normal speed for DVD-Video/DVD-Audio and increased speed for AVCHD on DVD media. This change is to support the occasional peaks of bit rate required by the AVCHD programs.
7.Improved detection of 4:3 aspect ratio bonus material on Blu-ray Discs.
8.DVD subtitle quality improvement (sync subtitle to frame). Combing of film-based DVD subtitle should be eliminated.
9.Improved remote control response for SACD in fast forwarding or fast rewinding mode.
10.Support for bitstream output of HDCD
11.Adjustment to the sensitivity of the front panel EJECT and POWER buttons.
12.Improvement for handling chapter breaks on DVD. This revision passes the Microsoft WHQL DVD 3:2 Chapter PF False test.
13.Improvement for DVD navigation.
14.Fix for the issue of not able to set a manual IP address when the network cable is connected and there is no DHCP server on the network.
15.Fix for the issue of angle icon appearing when the setup menu option "Angle Mark" is set to off.
16.Fix for the issue of subwoofer trim setting not applied after power cycle.
17.Other general disc compatibility and performance improvements.

All features and improvements of the previous firmware are also included in this version.

Because of your info, Charles, I turned on my BD83 and was, indeed, prompted to update the firmware. Thanks. The new version, by the way, is BDP83-31-0620.

Just a quick caveat. Both the firmware and the loader are upgraded in two separate operations. When the firmware update is complete, there is a message to that affect displayed on the TV screen. I almost bailed but, fortunately, delayed long enough that the loader update started before I did anything stupid.

Don't touch any buttons or do anything until the player turns itself off. That's the signal that the entire operation is finished. I waited a minute or so to see if the player would turn itself back on. It did not, so I turned it on manually.

Yup I got mine too glad I decided to hook this in to my network to get these upgrades as soon as they are available

FYI, a new review located here. I'd be interested in what y'all have to say regarding all of the sonic character commentary.

It gets the bits off the disc and puts them on the wire. There's no "sonic character" of the transport when using HDMI.

Audio related, here's the reason I'm not picking one up, and will wait for Oppo's next model (it'll probably be about a year from now):

Quote:

With the BDP-83 you can't enable SAP and do high resolution decoding at the same time. It does not have the hardware processing required to do so.

Not a huge deal, but the PS3 handles this properly, so I'll stick with it for now. Basically, if a disc forces secondary audio, and you're not bitstreaming, it'll fall back to the core audio. There is an configuration option to disable secondary audio, but it can still be forced by a disc.

Really, the Oppo is a great player. But it doesn't tick every box I for the features I'd require before spending $500. My 60GB PS3 plus the Pioneer DV-79AVi, cover all my media playback bases. So until there's one box that does everything those two together do I'm holding off.

Does it stream?

The Oppo also does not support streaming (other than from withing a BD-Live disc). I have my PS3 pulling media from a server, which is another plus.

Now, if the PS3 got support for Rhapsody and Netflix I'd never leave the living room.

Originally Posted By: Micah

Does it stream?

Not well at the moment. It has Kidney Stones.