Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater New Oppo 983

Checked out the Oppo website last night and noticed the new 983 dvd player is now up for sale. It looks like a hog, and apparently scored 100 on the Secrets dvd benchmark, but I'm thinking $400 bucks is getting a bit steep for a standard dvd player now that blu-ray is the goto format.

The audio specs look pretty good...probably not enough for me to upgrade from the 981.


http://www.oppodigital.com/dv983h/default.asp

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My next upgrade will be to the Oppo Blu-Ray player whenever it comes out. I'll do the wait ... Early Stages.

way too expensive for standard def.

later.

I too am going to take a look at the Blu-Ray player when its out.

....and it won't pass SACD in digital DSD format like the 980. I think they missed the mark with this one.

Agreed, if I am going to perform bass management, I would prefer to do it outside the player.

Oppo's 983 will also not do 1080p/24. An insider from Oppo mentioned that the 983 will be equally as good as the Toshiba's XA2 in upconversion, and to his eyes, 983 was perhaps slightly better. For those of us who already have the XA2 and an older Oppo player for SACD and DVD-A, I am not sure it makes sense to buy the 983 at $400.

Sony's BDP-550 BR player is expected to cost $450-500 when it comes out this fall and will be able to do 1080p/24, internally decode and bitstream all four formats (DD+, True-HD, DTS-HR, DTS-MA), will have profile 2.0, and offer 7.1 analog output among other features.

Oppo's BR player is expected to come out in '09, and I am sure it will offer outstanding value consistent with its prior offerings.

john

I agree for owners of existing Oppo's. It makes sense to wait, especially if the BDP-550 and/or Oppo's BR player will handle SACD and DVD-A.

This is perfect timing for the flagship Oppo to come out for me. Having purchased a new HDTV I am now in the market for a good upscaling player. I didn't know a week ago that I could get the best that is offered for only $400. Previously the the best was the $1500 Denon which is far too much money to spend (The best within reason, since you can buy a $30,000 DVD player still that will only be a small fraction better in performance). The reason that I would like to get this player is because I own about 650 dvd's and over 100 seasons of different television shows on DVD. I would like to make those look as good as I possibly can on my new TV. Also, I have a little over 100 dvd's (out of the 650) that aren't region 1 and some of those are PAL rather than NTSC. The Oppo is region free and will correctly convert PAL to NTSC. So the Oppo 983 would be perfect for me.

My only hesitation with purchasing this player is if Oppo offers a blu ray player (coming next year) that has the same chip as this model to do upconversions. If this is the case then I may hold off and get the Oppo blu ray player next year. Does anyone know the answer to this? I know the Oppo blu ray is in the early development stages and even if I contact them directly they may not know yet.

- Nick

Nick,

You should be able to find a used 981, great unit. Very pleased with it.