The upconversion of that Denon won't be able to compete with the Oppo bpd-83.
Fact or speculation?
I think that all of us are just speculating since the Denon isn't released yet. But, think about this. How can the entry level Denon have more features that the Oppo BDP83 come in at a lower price. Oppo is an internet direct company with low profit margins and Denon has to sell this player to someone else who then sells it to you. Whenever somebody gets their hands on a product, they want to get their fair share. Denon has to be cutting corners somewhere and the most expensive part is the scaling. The difference in price between the Oppo BDP80 and BDP83 is a little over $200. The big difference between the two is the scaling and the BDP80 has a pretty good scaler (I think it is the same scaler as the Oppo DV-980H dvd player).
If you are still not convinced, thing about this. The Oppo BDP83 is neck and neck with the Denon DVD-A1UDCI flagship universal blu-ray player over HDMI in terms of video processing, video performance and even audio performance. The Oppo even has much better load times of blu-ray's. The flagship Denon retails for $4500. Yes, a good portion of that $4500 went to beefing up the analog audio section, but do you think that less than a year later they would take all of that digital and audio performance a stuff it and extra features into an entry level player? Not unless their sole purpose was to put Oppo out of business regardless of whether they are taking a big loss on each player sold.
