Micah got stoned and has been waiting for it to crest the hill for three hours now....

It's not really a mountain, but one of those newfangled mountain simulator escalators you see in the Jeep showrooms.

Great post Mark! ...I got freaked out the other night when the lion blinked at me

That's odd. It's not winking at anyone else.....

Thanks Ray, I have the Harmony 880 that I'm using now and an MX-980 that I haven't finished programming yet (we've been busy with work!) .... whenever I get some free time in a couple of months I'll get that programmed into the 980.
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In the mean time, what are the issues that folks are having with the Oppo BDP-83? Seems like just about everything I've read on the player points to it as being a very good player.

Other than the remote (which I resolved with an adapter), my first generation PS3 has been bullet proof. It’s ugly, noisy and a dust collector, but performance wise, it’s been a great little machine. I suspect you have something not set correctly if you don’t like the image. Do you have it set up for 1080P/24, color space set up for 4:4:4 and not RGB, audio set to PCM and all the right boxes checked?

The Oppo has been trouble free as well, but I feed the DVDO VP50 Pro with it and have it set up for source direct. I basically use if for a transport and can’t comment on how it does with SD/DVD. Oppo is real quick to address any bugs with firmware, so I wouldn’t hesitate buying one now. Oppo is on a mission to have the best player on the market, and I think they’ve succeeded.

When you get to playing with the 980 Rick, feel free to let me know when and I’ll set up a time to talk you through it on the phone. My life is a little less hectic than the last time we talked and can give you some pointers. It would be best to do that when I’m sitting in front of the computer and have the software pulled up.

Oh, man, I need one of those. I want to be a mountain man, but I don't want to leave the city.

I haven't had a single problem with my Oppo. I don't play anything exotic on it, just Blu-rays, DVDs, SACDs, DVD-As, and CDs. Everything has loaded quickly and properly, played flawlessly (no glitches or refusals-to-play, freezes, etc). Couldn't be happier.

It is a very good player. It just isn't the image of perfection which some people are making it out to be.

Since Oppo isn't a big name, studios don't test on it before releasing a disc. This means Oppo will be chasing releases for firmware fixes. This may improve over time, as several studios have told Oppo they'll be checking compatibility with this player specifically in the future; the treatment the PS3 (and other big names) already get.

The "no sale" point for me is that it can't mix the full-quality, lossless tracks with secondary audio. There is no way to fix this with firmware either, as Oppo has stated the player just doesn't have enough power to do so.

I know there'll always been something better in the pipeline, and if you wait for the next best thing you'll wait forever. But when I do go to buy an electronic device, I make a list of must-have features, and will hold off buying until I find a model which meets all of those. Right now the PS3 actually does meet my demands while the Oppo doesn't.

Rick - just to be clear, you will need one of those Schmartz units I pointed you to (or something similar). They act as an IR to bluetooth converter. Without it, the IR signals from the 980 won't operate the PS3.