I was having menu problems with a couple of Blu-Ray discs and contacted the Oppo customer service. They said that there was a firmware update that came out December 22 ( http://oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/bdp-83-firmware-48-1218B.aspx ) that should fix the problem. For some reason the newest firmware doesn't come up automatically on the Oppo even though I have an ethernet cable hooked up to it. Anyways I notice that there now a subtitle shift option available with the new firmware. If you are watching a foreign film with and have a 2:35 lens on your projector, you have move the subtitles out of the black bars (where they are many times) and into the image so that you can even see them. Once in a while, with foreign films, the subtitles are far too low in the black bars so that there are problems watching a 16:9 movie as well, so this feature would help there too.

- Nick

That firmware is still considered beta, so it won't be offered to people who have only used official release firmware up to this point. Because now that you've installed a beta firmware you will be notified of other beta versions in the future.

Thanks for the heads up, it drives me nuts when the subtitles are down there and I can't see them, very cool feature.

I noticed this in Inglorious Basterds, half the subtitles are on the black bar at the bottom, bad for people with masking systems or 2.35 setup. I didn't look if there was an option to move them up, although I imagine most players have that.

On another note, the movie wouldn't even play without updating the firmware on my Panasonic, so don't feel too bad.

I watched Inglorious Basterds last week and thought all the subtitles were in the picture for me on my Oppo... if there were some in the black they weren't missed as I watched the picture zoomed in to 2.35 on my 2.35 screen and they would have been project oned my wall and I didn't notice them. Which languages ended up down there?

It was english subtitles. I remember thinking they messed up as well, because someone would say "Merci" and instead of saying "Thank you," the subtitle would say "Merci." This happened at least 5 or 6 times in the movie, perhaps it was intentional.

Edit: You know, now you have me thinking. I watched Pride and Glory on Video on Demand a night or two after... Maybe it was that. In fact I think it was, because IB had yellow subtitles if I am not mistaken, and P&G had white, and I remember them being white on the black bar. Makes sense... Still sucks for people with 2.35 screens though.

I'm sure Tarantino was being a dork with those subtitles.

It was intentional. I joked, "that's the problem with the French; they don't have a work for merci."

So many scenes in that movie were hilarious just because they made no sense whatsoever. When the camera zoomed in the whipping cream for the strudel for about five good seconds... Funny stuff.

It's a bingo!

LOL

Since this is a beta firmware should I proceed with caution? Are these features being tested out by users and then going to be added to official firmware updates when the bugs are worked out?

- Nick

Plenty of people are running the beta firmwares, mostly because of the compatibility issues with new BDs. I still follow the 83 thread on AVS (even though I don't plan to buy the player now). I've never seen any problem reported with someone upgrading to a beta release. The only case I saw trouble was someone trying to downgrade to a much older release which bricked his player, and it has to be sent to Oppo for repair (the issue was Oppo changed something in the newer revisions of the player, all firmware releases since that change were compatible, but the old one he tried didn't know how to deal with the difference).

But yeah, that's correct. The subtitle moving feature isn't completely bug-free yet, but seems to work in most cases. So it isn't in the official release, but will end up there once they feel it is working properly. There's also a problem with the current beta, and people who have modded their players for HD-SDI output. Oppo is aware of the problem and trying to fix it. Now, that's actually really impressive, they're trying to see if they can make a third-party modification (that basically illegal, because it bypasses the HDCP) continue to work with new firmwares.

Chris, I'm curious to know which direction you are heading if the 83 isn't the player for you.

I'm going to just stick with my 60GB PS3 + DV-79AVi combination which covers all the formats which the Oppo can play (plus some it can't, like wave files).

I'll just wait to see what Oppo does next. They're off to a good start, but "good" isn't enough for the cost of the player.

My official list of dislikes (in the order which I remember them):
1. Doesn't play .wav files on removable media (which is the format of all my ripped music, and it just silly to not support).
2. The general recommendation is to turn off BD-Live because of compatibility issues.
3. The general recommendation to to turn off secondary audio because of sound quality issues. (Sorry if I get a BD 2.0 player, I want to make use of the BD 2.0 features.)
4. Doesn't play many new releases on the day they come out; requiring a firmware update. (I've never had a BD that the PS3 has not played perfectly.)
5. Doesn't take into account the HDMI handshake delay, and cuts off the beginning of the first track of CDs and SACDs.
6. Having to pay for fancy analog circuits which I'll never use.

So what I have now, provides me with what I really need, and while a single player would be nice, Oppo's first go has enough little niggles which would have enough impact on my ability to enjoy the player, for the price which they are asking.

They're planning a new BDP-80 for release in the coming months. It's supposed to be cheaper than the 83. But it has yet to be announced where the price reduction is coming from. I'm hoping it deals with #6, but still keeps the SACD and DVD-A support. A slightly faster DSP would take care of #3. #2 and #4 will improve as the firmware matures, and more studios test their discs with Oppo's player before shipping (that's why the PS3 never has trouble, because no studio would ship a disc which doesn't play on it). #1 can be fixed in firmware, and having the balls to stand up to the copyright cops. Unfortunately all Oppo DVD players with HDMI have always suffered from #5, but enough people are complaining now (because nearly everyone is using HDMI) that they may finally deal with it.

Thanks for that, that was a great recap!

I enjoyed my PS3 for a long time before finally pulling the trigger on a used Oppo. The main feature it has that can't be touched at it's price point (That I'm aware of) is rs232. I hope when they come out with the 80 that it will still have the rs232 as optional on it.

I was thinking about an OPPO sometime in the (not too near nor distant) future but that review has reset my thinking back to probably never getting an OPPO.

I wouldn't say never. It's just usually a good idea to not buy the first iteration of anything.

Things Oppo did right:
1. If it's a 5" optical disc (and not HD-DVD) the Oppo BDP-83 plays it.
2. Put one of the best video processing chips available today (the DVDO Edge which is just a stand alone processor using the same chip costs $700) inside the player.
3. Included one of the best analog stages in any player under $2000 (if you're into that kind of thing)--and if you go with the SE it's one of the best analog stages, period.
4. Used a fast enough CPU that it's load times and BD-Java support made it one of the first players to give the PS3 some competition in that area.
5. Have customer support like Axiom owners have come to expect.

I can pretty much guarantee the next optical disc player I buy will be an Oppo. They build excellent products, and stand behind them. As I said, the 83 was a good first go; better than any other manufacturer managed to pull off (of course they had a couple years of studying before they tried), just not enough to satisfy my picky tastes. Although, I wish some of the reviews would call them on these short comings, Oppo is too much of a media darling.

I bought one just before Christmas and I am not trying to refute Chris's post. I will say that Quality is excellent. PQ - excellent. SQ - excellent. I do not care for any of the live stuff and do not have any SACDs. The posts of customer support sold me and at this point, I have no regrets.

Forgive me, but I am little perplexed as to what is referred to as the "price they are asking" for the Oppo BDP83 and it's possible shortcomings. I have the 79AVI and it is an excellent player for what it does but remember when it was first introduced(around 05-06) it cost close to a $1000 and THEN we add the cost of the PS3 to the mix. If we are to use cost as one of the comparisons, it is not even close! All my BD discs are NEW releases and NONE of the issues raised have ever occurred and that includes both SACD and DVD Audio discs AND CD's ALL of which I have had for a number of years so unless one owns and actually uses the player, perhaps early Beta tests aren't a particular measure of the player's current performance.

Aside from gaming, as a Blu-Ray player, Sony luckily hit it right with the PS3 because it didn't translate in to reliability in its subsequent stand alone players. I shied away from them because, to this day, I am reading all over the internet about intermittent HDMI handshake issues.

I would be curious to see if Pioneer, Sony and Denon with some of their "grossly overpriced" players even remotely provide the service and updates that Oppo has and will continue to provide their customers.

I am in the A/V consulting business and much of what this is about comes from my clients, not only me. When it comes to attention to detail and helping their customers, Oppo wins hands down every time.

The price they are asking is $500. That's more than a PS3. Yes, I paid $1000 for my DV-79AVi, but I'd never do it again. Unless you're using the analog outs on the BDP-83, it's BD picture and sound quality is exactly the same as any other $150 player out there (digital is digital). Yes, it upscales DVDs better than any other player, but that's not enough, and the PS3 (along with other less expensive players) come close.

If you follow the BDP-83 thread on AVS, you'll see with every batch of new releases there's a few which don't play properly. The most recent were: European version of "Terminator Salvation", Indican's "The Wonder of It All", and "(500) Days of Summer" from Fox. All of which still require the beta firmware for their menus to work. Before that was: "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", "Lie to Me", "Dollhouse Season 1", "12 Rounds" and "The Haunting in Connecticut". This is well documented in the firmware release notes.

How do you have your player connected to your receiver, and the receiver to the TV? Analog, or S/PDIF are fine for CD playback. But if the player is HDMI to the receiver and the receiver HDMI to the TV, you're likely to miss the first second or two of audio CDs, and especially multi-channel SACDs. (I've experienced this first hand with an Oppo DVD player I installed for my boss at work, I was embarrassed that I couldn't solve the problem, and that I had sung the praises of the player. He's since gotten used to hitting Play, and then immediately hitting Track Back. Those two together solves the missing second.)

I'll never buy another Sony product except for their video game consoles. Yes, it was lucky/smart of them to do all of their BD decoding in software which can easily be updated to add new features, unlike all other players which have fixed chips. Oh, that's right, another niggle, the chip which Oppo uses for H.264 decoding has a bug so it doesn't support playback of files created with the current version of x264, the most popular encoding software on the Internet. They are now at the mercy of MediaTek to fix it.

No, Sony, Denon, Pioneer, etc. don't have players which best Oppo's offering. They are all pretty much equal over HDMI for BD playback, and Oppo's video scaler is better for DVD. But that's where I come to my stance, that it doesn't make sense to buy this current Oppo model. It has enough little problems, that it isn't worth $500 to me. When I can get another player for $150 that also has a few little problems, or an excellent PS3 for $350 (or say $375, to deal with the remote control issue).

Just remembered another issue I have. The newest beta firmware adds a service called BluTV. It works like Netflix's disc for the PS3. By using BD-Live, it connects to a server and streams video. It uses BD-Java to generate the interface, and requires secondary audio for sound. There's the problem. All the tuning reports say to turn of BD-Live, because it causes loading problems with many discs. Even Oppo has advised in disabling secondary audio, because when it is on the player doesn't have enough DSP power to decode the lossless track, and falls back to the lossy cores. But here's a feature included by Oppo, which requires both of these to be on.

I'm not anti Oppo. But I'm saying that if one can wait, and make do with an exsiting PS3, or pick up a cheaper BD 2.0 player to fill the hole for now, that's probably the better way to go. Just wait for Oppo's next offering.

“I'll never buy another Sony product. . .” I’ll stop there. Plus I was really rooting for HD-DVD to win.

Just wondering Neon, as happy as you seem to be with the PS3, why would you rule out ever owning another Sony product?

I currently have the ability to try out 2 different low end BR players, Samsung BDP-1600 and the LG 350c. The Samsung is the better of the 2. The LG (Running the latest firmware on it) appears to have some issues with loading some movie titles, the most recent one I watched on the LG was UP!, I had to turn the LG on and off a few times before it finally started reading the tracks right, it even had center channel dialogue coming out the Left surround speaker for awhile. We had chapter titles popping up on and off through out the movie. I played the movie on the Samsung and it had no problems at all. I am quite impressed with my $100 purchase of the Samsung.

I had a BD-P3600 for a while, but returned it. One problem it had was lip-synching problems with the NetFlix streaming option. But the biggest pet-peeve I had was the fact that it looked like a toy, not a $350 dollar Blu-Ray disc player. If they were to package it differently, make it more solid looking/feeling... make it out of aluminum or something else besides that cheap plastic, I would definately consider another Samsung. The picture quality was outstanding!

I've owned plenty of Sony products over the years, I've just learned my lesson.

1. Early Discman, cold solder joints on AC adapter input cracked after only a few months, repaired by me, laser diode failed 6 months out of warranty.
2. Early DVD player, laser diode failed after 2 months, replaced with the same model, laser diode filed 18 months out of warranty.
3. Handycam, connection broke for controls on fold-out screen after 2 weeks: repaired under warranty.
4. Medium-high end receiver, went into fault under warranty, repaired after 2 months at repair center, warranty expired during that time, they tried to bill me. Cold solder joints on speaker selector switch broke out of warranty, repaired by me, solder joints on surround relays cracked, repaired by coworker.
5. 36" Wega TV, tuner failed out of warranty, given to my brother who still uses it, but with a cable box.
6. Pair of surround speakers play at levels 4 dB different from each other. Probably like that from the factory, but didn't notice until I go serious about setting my system up correctly.

My Sony subwoofer still works! And the main channel speakers aren't too horrible, but they were the most expensive the local Sears sold at the time. My PS2 is a little slow at reading discs, but it was purchased in July of 2001.

I was just curious because at one time I thought of Sony as the Honda of audio.... safe, reliable, and just all around goodness. I never thought of Sony as the ultimate high end equipment, but I thought it was a very solid brand that was bullet proof that you simply couldn't go wrong with.

I have since completely changed my opinion of them. Now I think of Sony mostly as an overpriced supplier of subpar equipment. I still have my Sony DVD player that I keep falling back on while my search for a BD player continues. But as well as it's held up my search for a BD player does not include any Sony's.

So I guess I was wondering how you, like me, could dismiss a company that has held up for you for so long. And the answer is that you, like me, have found them out for what they really are. Explanation accepted.

ahhh, Firmware upgrades. Anyone remember the good old days when if you did a bios upgrade on a PC it was like tossing a coin to see if it became food for the trash can?

Actually, I once listened to a very interesting CBC documentary about the rise of Sony and how there was some major infighting over becoming too diverse and how the need to feed the mass market eventually took over. I think at one time you were probably correct. Sony used to be real innovators and were at the top of the list for many products in innovation and quality. Unfortunately, they slowly succumbed to the temptations that almost always befall superpower companies and finally design became less important than production. Brand and the goodwill (not the friendly kind of goodwill) of the name kept them at the top while R&D per product went way down.

They need to start rethinking things if they haven't already. There is very slow but growing trend where consumers are becoming more educated and are doing more research before they buy. One of the features I love about online shopping is the [Compare] feature many sights have. Choose bunch of models and it stacks them together in a grid of features. It makes it very easy see when a particular brand has less features per dollar verses another. I'm almost always hesitant to waste the space by putting a Sony product on the grid as it almost always has less features per dollar than others.

To be fair to them. Their Playstation products have been pretty top notch and they now have some well regarded MP3 players, but again a price premium is again definitely involved.

I did not think about or consider myself an "early adopter" in purchasing the BDP-83. Typically, I opt for the strategy of waiting for the second iteration to allow the kinks to be worked out. It never occurred to me......having said that, I also was in the mind set that if I keep waiting for the perfect beast or the most future proof product, I would never purchase. So....I read the reveiews, read the AVS comparison thread in its entirety(the owner's thread was insanely long) asked here (thanks Grunt) and made my purchase. So far, I am extremely pleased. As for the firmware upgrades - I am always at the edge of my envelope on technical issues - that is why I appreciate knowledgeable posters like Chris - the general consensus that I have read on numerous AVS owner threads is that the BlueRays are designed to play on a playstation due to its market saturation. Primary reason for opting for Oppo was their responsiveness on the FW upgrades........

Despite the fact that solving the severe problems in the world today is light years ahead of this discussion in importance, I still will have to repeat my comments again; NONE of the issues discussed with regard to missing info in the first couple of seconds of CD's along with SACD and DVD Audio has EVER happened with my player and I was an early adopter in which I received the unit in early May/09 well ahead of the end of June official release and I DO have the player hooked strictly via HDMI in to my receiver and then on to my monitor. With any of these discs, what may or may not be happening to their playability aren't necessarily hard and fast problems with every single one of them. With software based equipment that we see today, like computers, they can be intermittent, IF it happens at all.

From my experience, the inconsistency STILL prevalent in even current HDMI connectivity tends to be the culprit when it comes to intermittent sound AND video dropout problems much more often than the actual players themselves, primarily due to having to send BOTH audio and video through the cable at the same time. Of course S/PDIF connections won't have the problem because they are only dealing with the audio. Pioneer is still having periodic HDMI handshake issues with some of its newer AVR's and even the new Onkyo's and Integras are requiring firmware updates weeks or even days after their introduction. As far as Terminator Salvation(a movie that I own)I guess since I don't live in Europe, whatever the problems may or may not be, aren't an issue for me. Incidentally, the feature of reverting back to the lossy core in secondary audio is nothing unique to Oppo. I also have a Panasonic BD55 BD player(a very good one) and it operates in the same manner.

Practically speaking, as far as AVS is concerned, it has been mentioned on this and several other forums some of their "rants", at times, can be VERY problematic. For some, small little issues become monumental. Unlike any of the other forums that I have ever seen or read, for whatever reasons, they have just too many individuals there that seem to have "axes to grind". Before I even think of talking about the strengths and/or weaknesses of any piece of equipment, I will make sure that rather than read someone else's "whines" on an internet site, I will make sure I have spent a considerable amount of time using it in every day "real world" situations, since without that, I cannot realistically, make a proper assessment of its capabilities. That is my job and that is what my clients expect.

Considering the pretty well unanimous positive reviews from the dozen or so reviewers who have written about the BDP83, I am quite sure several of them have refrained from "kissing" Oppo's backside.

The biggest problem with Blu-Ray is the movie studios. They are so worried about people stealing their products that they go to increasing measures to protect their product, even at the expense of alienating the consumer. All of this extra crap is a problem with almost any Blu-Ray player, since things are constantly changing and have to be fixed by firmware updates. I've only had a few Blu-Ray's that wouldn't play on the Oppo and they were all ones that were just released. How many DVD's have I run into that wouldn't play on the Oppo? Zero! And I watch more DVD's (from many regions) than I do Blu-Ray's.

Now, I've had the PS3 longer than the Oppo and haven't had any problems ever with a Blu-Ray not playing. Though the PS3 won't play PAL discs or discs from any other region, which is why I got the Oppo. If you want the most stable Blu-Ray player I say it is the PS3. If you want a standalone player that pulls the most out of any optical disc you put in it and is 98% as stable as the PS3 then go with the Oppo.

I'm well aware of the nit picking which occurs at AVS, and I like it. I'm pretty good at figuring out what matters to me and what doesn't. So I do like to know the worst-case, and determine if it is something which would bug me or not.

Regarding the use of the lossy core when the secondary audio is in use: yes, you're right, the only player (that I know of at this time) which can mix the lossless HD audio with a secondary source is the PS3. But that's just it, the PS3 is $350, and I have one already; the Oppo is $500. I expect that a more expensive device of any type be able to perform the tasks of any less expensive one at least as well.

That's all I'm saying is the Oppo is priced at a point where I demand a little closer to perfection before I buy. Even if there is nothing else in that price range which compares, it still has to live up to my expectations of what I think I should get for that money. I would rather have no BD player, or just settle on a less functional device which costs much less until there's something available which ticks all my boxes, and then cost stops being an issue.

Murph, perhaps I misled a little in my Sony response. I don't think Sony was always overpriced, subpar equipment, I just feel they fell into the trap of becoming too big for their britches. I think they definately came out with quality products in the beginning, but then as their reputation grew, they let their name carry them to places they didn't deserve to be.

I still remember the day I stopped looking at them through beer googles, it was back in the mid 90's and a friend of mine & I were both on the market for a 36 inch tv (the biggest CRT you could get at the time). We had both always been Sony fans, but when we got down to visit our local electronics stores, the Sony's were damn near twice the price of the other brands, and to my eye, was exactly the same, not twice as good!

I was asking a salesman about a Sony and another tv which looked identical to it, and I can't remember which brand exactly the other tv was (I'm thinking maybe JVC?), but the salesman told me that both of the picture tubes came down the same assembly line & had all the same parts, but then one went into a Sony, and the other into the other brand, and the Sony got marked up because of their name.

That turned me right off... Why should I pay $500 extra bucks to have 'Sony' stamped on my television? So when it was all said and done I wound up with a Toshiba which cost me like $1200 bucks while my buddy plunked down something closer to $2000 for a Sony Vega or whatever they were called. And everytime I was over at his place watching tv I couldn't help but to laugh under my breath as I thought to myself, "this thing isn't any better than my tv, poor sucker".

Since then I've only bought a couple Sony products (including the DVD player I currently use), and that was only when the product in question was priced competetively with the direct competition.

You and me both, on both of those points. I've had way too much success with Panasonic and Toshiba to even really consider anything else. Speaking of which, I haven't been keeping up on BD players lately, but I noticed at Best Buy the other day that Toshiba finally has a BD player out... Too bad the day had to come.

I had my first movie the other day that wouldn't play as well, Inglourious Basterds. I have a Panasonic BD-55 and this was the first movie to not play. After upgrading the firmware, it worked fine, but I thought it was a bit odd as well.

I do also find handshaking a pain with the BD player as opposed to my other components, but it seems pretty stable once it has finished. Rarely (10% of the time perhaps) I'll get a dropout in the first couple minutes of a movie, but it comes back on for good pretty much every time.

Don't worry Micheal, I was not in anyway defending Sony. I just find the whole progression story from leaders to leaners an interesting one.

My sony buying expereinces are very limited. But when I bought my one and only sony tv, I don't know, 10 years ago now? I don't think there was a better looking tv on the market, the TAO(Does that sound right?) had just come out I believe and looked pretty great too, but I still preferred the sony.

I did pay almost twice as much as all my other friends did at the time, but I'm still using mine and they aren't. I think I paid about $3200 all in with a stand.

I bought a 32" XBR at the time, it actually does HD(1080i only, no 720p) on two inputs. To this day I still think the picture on that tv is better then any Plasma or LCD I've ever scene... I'm serious, this thing still puts out a FANTASTIC picture and I actually even noticed the sound on it the other day when I was watching the Dropkick Murphys open the hockey game up, it still sounds great too!

I think Chris’ assessment is fair and accurate, especially about Oppo being a media darling. One should remember he is clearly stating this in the context of his needs and preferences and as always others mileage may vary as did mine. I’ve never owned anything that didn’t represent making some sort of choice involving tradeoffs. For the average person I imagine an inexpensive stand alone BD player is the best choice. For us weirdos it comes down to features and performance.

I needed/wanted a player that would play almost any disk I put in it (BD83 doesn’t do VCDs), have analog outs, great BD playback quality, outstanding DVD playback quality, ability to do PAL and region free (after marked mod)(I travel a lot and buy things overseas), and reasonably fast load times since I hate waiting. Truncated audio has only happened to me on one Boston SACD so it’s a non-issue for me.

I didn’t need a gaming machine as I already have an XBox 360. I didn’t need lossless media playback or Netflix streaming, which my HTPC handles with easier more useful interfaces IMO. I don’t use secondary audio or BD live features while watching a movie (to distracting) so I don’t care about their effect on playback quality as I turn them off unless I want them for later less critical viewing.



I totally agree with your strategy for waiting for the second iteration unfortunately for my needs their was no other option even close to the price of the Oppo and I had already put off buying a Blu-ray player as long as I could. [rant] I’m still hoping the format dies and gets replaced by something else soon because overall I think it’s a crappy hodgepodge of ever changing standards and I hope HDMI dies with it. [/rant]

When I read the reviews of the people not happy with the Oppo BD-83 most seem to have one thing in common. Lack of due diligence in researching their purchase which IMO is why I’m glad Chris and others are sharing their findings regarding various players.

I hope Blu-Ray stays around as long as possible so that we can get as many Blu-Ray titles as possible. The next thing to replace it (since it already is getting its foot in the door) is going to be downloads and streaming. I love my Netflix streaming, but only because it is free. The substandard audio (and sometimes video) along with dealing with the fluxuation of your internet connection and/or the server that they have the content on is bad enough that I wouldn't want to pay for a streaming service. If downloaded movies go anything like music downloads then 90% of it is overly compressed garbage, that 90% of the people can't even tell is garbage. No thanks.

Jay:

I had the LG 350C for a couple of weeks as well. I found that it locked up a few times and ran pretty warm.

Recently I picked up a LG 360BD from Costco for $150 and it is miles ahead of the 350. It's actually the same as the LG 370C model...even has both the 360 and 370C model numbers on the manual...probably a special Costco version I guess. Regardless it plays just about any video format including DIVX, mkv, etc via disc and the front usb port and even has a youtube function that connects via wired internet. To update the firmware for this you just use the updates for the 370C. Very happy with this player for the money.

Wouldn't this "wipe out" the industry althogether, since Netflix would be the only entity buying disks?

Netflix wouldn't need disks. Just a huge 1 million tera byte hard drive... or two.

Thanks Lorenzo, I am going to mention to my sister that we should return the 350c and get either the same Samsung I have or , thanks to your post the 360/370.

Not exactly what I meant. Netflix, and similar, would be the only ones buying the "media", regardless of form. So, I guess Netflix would probably have to raise their prices and charge extra (if they don't already), to pay to the media makers royalties to make up for loss of disc sales.

CD's and cassette tapes are still around, but good luck finding anything on cassette tape. CD's are getting to be harder to find even though they are still around. What I mean is, it is easier to find a title that is downloadable vs on CD.

Sure, DVD's and possibly Blu-Ray's will be around for a long time. But, eventually downloading and streaming will take over to the point where it is easier to find movies that way than on a physical disk. Netflix is moving in the right direction with their ever-growing catalog of streaming TV shows and movies, because eventually I'm betting their catalog of DVD's and Blu-Ray's will be smaller than their streaming library. The interesting question would be, in that case, would their pricing scheme be similar? If they can keep growing their streaming library and not change the price too much then I don't see why anyone would want a cable or satellite service in the near future. The ability to watch what you want, when you want, with no commercials and without the need of a DVR (that many times you need to pay subscriptions for on top of it) is how things should be. We are getting a taste of that right now and this is a good thing about downloading and streaming if it continues in the future.

Agreed.

"The ability to watch what you want, when you want, without commercials". I dunno, as usual, in the end, the people that provide the product and service and the means(infrastructure) of providing it will STILL have the "final" say of how all this plays out in the future.

I bet they figure out some way to work advertising in even if only at the beginning of the stream and not let you FF or chapter forward until you’ve watched it.

I can understand why watching TV via an antenna that you have to watch commercials, since you are getting a product for free. How in the world such a large percentage of Americans are okay paying at least $40 to $50 per month for cable or satellite service and still watch the commercials is crazy to me. I guess that it probably progressed slowly over time like with commercials at the cinemas. I've already got a home theater system, but only a 50 inch plasma set. Once I upgrade to a projector, I'm never going to the cinemas again just because of this issue with the commercials. They raise ticket prices on the one hand and then add commercials at the same time.

I bet there will be a hack to remove it so I won't have to watch it

Yes, similar to internet tv. That shit gets aggrivating!!!!!!!!!!!!

Which most people won’t have any idea how to apply especially to a gaming machine or receiver. But I use my HTPC so I’m good.

As the popularity of such things goes, more people will become savvy enough to run such things or at least know some one that could set it up for them

I started ripping DVDs just to remove the adverts, previews at the beginning so I could watch the movie. I keep the ripped version in the case with the OEM disc

hmmm, that reminds me to start looking for BR burners & discs.......

What? You mean you don't use those precious 10 minutes of preview time before a movie to pull one off using the internet porn on your cell phone so that you can watch the movie with a 'clear mind' like everyone else in here????














Everyone else in here DOES doe that.... right?

(notices complete silence... crickets chirping.... tumbleweeds blowing around...)



Ummm... oh yeah, me niether. Haha......ha, nah not me, I dunno who would do anything that strange! (gulp...)


(slinks off with tail between legs....)

haha... I was thinking of posting crickets after I read it earlier today... but didn't think people knew me well me enough

Classic!

If you annoy people enough, they will get creative. I remember a couple of guys in Vancouver years ago that used some wire, a soup can, and an on/off button to kill the sound during commercials well before the remote was available.

Me, I have found the ultimate revenge: don't buy stuff. They can pitch to me as much as they want, I still won't buy. Those pants from 1967 are getting a little threadbare though...

Polyester?

With vertical stripes?

...and suspenders?

As a matter of fact, yes, I did have a pair of polyester bell bottoms with vertical stripes. That was '71 though...

Me too. My grandma was a seamstress. We had purple polyester pants with matching vests. My 2 brothers and I looked like a scaled down model of the Osmonds.

OK, this thread had 62 posts so i figured we weren't talking about the oppo anymore.... hmmm I wonder how many posts were about the original topic.

1

Did your purple polyester pants have plenty of pockets for placing pennies, perhaps?

With an onion to your belt, which was the style at the time???

It seems that the firmware update containing the subtitle shift option is now official. I think it was official on Tuesday. I turned on my player last night and it automatically asked if I wanted to update. The funny thing is, I rented a Coffin Joe movie from Netflix that arrived on Tuesday and it needed this subtitle shift option to view the film with the correct aspect ratio on my TV. Running into movies that need this option are quite rare.

What does this have to do with Purple Polyester Pants???

Please stay on topic Nick!

Yes Nick, your attempts to derail this thread about bellbottoms is getting quite annoying!

So have you tried it yet? This feature is has been desired by 2.35 scope screen users for years. If it works well, the Oppo will be on 2.35 user’s most wanted list for sure. I know I’ve wanted this for quite some time. I just keep forgetting to plug the Oppo into the lan to download the update.

The rest of you old farts are dating yourselves. (coming from a 40 something old fart granfather)

I haven't been on a date for quite some time, whippersnapper!

Yes, I used it on the Coffin Joe DVD and it worked great for the couple minutes that I was testing the feature. From what I have read it is a more difficult thing to do with Blu-Ray's. I'll watch the entire movie this weekend and try out a couple of Blu-Ray's as well to see how it works on those.

That was a superb summation.
Thanks so much.

I had been considering this player sometime this year and although not all of your list would apply to me, i have to agree about #5 the most. For the price, one would not expect such an inadequate quirk in the machine.

Apparently not everyone is noticing or experiencing the cut-off beginning of audio discs. It may be dependent on the equipment involved. One of the people who continually complains about it on AVS, also experienced it with a previous Oppo DVD player. Several others noted the same.

While I've not seen a the Oppo BD player in person, the president of the company where I work bought one of their DVD players on my recommendation. It is completely repeatable on his player. Turn on the player, open the draw, insert a CD or SACD, and press play. The draw closes, and the disc starts to play as the HDMI handshake is still going on, and thus the beginning of the first track is missed. Hit, track back after the handshake has finished, and you'll hear the beginning just fine.

And I've never owned bellbottoms, nor any purple pants made of any fabric. I do have some shirts which are a 50/50 poly/cotton blend, but I generally prefer cotton t-shirts. -- Just to stay on topic.

Don't you just hate it when you give a recommendation and then some quirk that you just didn't know about pops up?
I put Abit motherboards in two systems a number of years back and then out of the blue Abit calls a bunch of boards back produced over a couple of years due to high RMA based on cheap caps used in their production.
I ended up replacing those two boards BEFORE Abit had the recall so these people forked out money for something else because of the failures.
I ended up selling my Abit board on eBay for $50 (got multiple bids) because although the board had blown caps, it was still functioning. I suspect some electrical amateur decided to fix the caps themselves and got a great quality board for cheap.

I was still stunned it sold at all.
One person's trash is another person's treasure.

While not exactly the same thing, I feal really bad when I really hype a movie that looks great on the previews, so I get a bunch of friends to go, and it blows! Even more embarrassing is when you've already seen the movie & you tell a friend they 'HAVE TO GO SEE IT' because you loved it so much, and they think it sucked!

After that happened to me a few times I stopped strongly encouraging people to go see movies I really liked & started saying, "well I thought it was pretty good, you might lke it", so that I didn't feel like to big a schmuck if they wound up hating it.

The last movie I pushed really hard was 'No Country for Old Men'... I seem to be the only one in my group of friends who liked that movie. Everyone else I told 'HAD TO GO SEE IT' said it was interesting up until the end, but then it was a huge let down.

Oh well, to each his own.

The "professional" catch phrases that the advertisers slap all over a new release...."Must see movie of 2009"...."Inspiring"...."Leaves the viewer breathless"....usually set up many of these movies for a disappointment by making the public expect so much.

I wonder if they hire someone to think up these phrases?

"Hi, I'm here to apply for the Catch Phrase job. I've got a PHD in BS, and ten years of writting AMAZING! HEARTWRENCHING! SIMPLY ASTOUNDING! catch phrases."

Probably the same reviewers that claim speaker wire dances or sparkles. I guess a short could make them sparkle

Aren't they quoting reviews most of the time? It would be interesting to read the reviews they're referencing, though, and see how many sound a bit different in context. But yeah, more than anything it just makes movie critics sound like they can't come up with new ways to describe movies. I guess if they could write, they wouldn't be critics.

Advertising departments/companies?

The best ones are from the old movie trailers. It’s hard to believe people didn’t laugh themselves out of their seats when you see/hear some of those things. I’m sure people will some day be laughing at what we all watched.

I have a number of movies that have the original trailers included with them, lol. Some of them are priceless....

I just updated my firmware this afternoon and this is a pretty cool feature. I have a sample size of one entire movie but it worked for that one.

I tried terminator salvation on my ps3 and it had the subs half in the picture and half in the black bars, there for projecting onto my wall. I then put it in the Oppo, held the subtitle button, pushed the up button a couple of times and presto! Subs in the picture. This was on the blu ray version.

Bob's your uncle!

Jane's your aunt!

... but Mary Jane is your best friend.

I remember when Marina was my homie.

This weekend I watched a Blu-Ray and two DVD's that had subtitles. I used the feature and it worked perfect.

- Nick