Oppo BDP-83 BluRay player.
Posted by: tonym on 17 July 2009
I took delivery of one of these players yesterday, to replace my Panasonic BD55 - a pretty good player actually but I just fancied something a bit better, and I can relocate the Panasonic somewhere else.
The Oppo's been adapted by CRT projectors (the UK dealers) for multiregion DVD and, pretty uniquely, for A B & C region BluRay discs. I can't try the latter feature because I haven't got any region A or C disks, but it works fine on region 1 DVDs. In addition it can play DVD-A and SACDs, plus more types of video files than you can shake a stick at, on either disc or USB.
Having owned an Oppo DVD player previously (still got it) I was expecting good things, and so far I'm not disappointed - very well packaged and finished, excellent documentation and the best setup procedure and menu operation I've seen. Nice big clear remote, backlit buttons.
The player's very sophisticated and offers lots of setup options but using the quick setup routine it was up and running in a flash.
I'm using its analogue 7.1 outs into my AV2 for HD sound formats, and configuring these was very easy. I'm also using SPDIF for "Standard" DD/dts.
Once it was all set up I popped in a SACD followed by a DVD-A. Not bad! Alas, the 555 sounds much better, but then one would expect it to! (Not had a chance to give TDSOTM 4.1 DVD-A special Alan Parsons mix a try yet.)
Anyway, I watched a couple of BluRays last night (The Bourne Ultimatum & Jeff Beck in concert at Ronnie Scott's) and I was very impressed. The normal view is that when it comes to Bluray there isn't much difference in the various players but the Oppo was significantly better than the Panasonic, having an almost 3-D picture with a lovely colour rendition and very deep blacks. The sound was streets ahead; Quite surprising as I thought it was pretty good with the Panasonic before. The Oppo certainly loads in discs a whole lot quicker than either of my previous BluRay players.
Another attraction is the Oppo's "Source Direct" which bypasses its internal scaling - important to me because I use a Lumagen video processor. The DVD I played looked very fine indeed. (If I had a long enough HDMI cable I'd try bypassing the scaler & see what sort of a fist the Oppo makes of things.)
So far I'm very impressed with this player. I suppose at nigh-on £600 it's not quite the bargain the Oppo DVD players were, but then I don't know how it compares with the £1K-plus players from the likes of Sony, Pioneer and Denon; I suspect pretty well.
The Oppo's been adapted by CRT projectors (the UK dealers) for multiregion DVD and, pretty uniquely, for A B & C region BluRay discs. I can't try the latter feature because I haven't got any region A or C disks, but it works fine on region 1 DVDs. In addition it can play DVD-A and SACDs, plus more types of video files than you can shake a stick at, on either disc or USB.
Having owned an Oppo DVD player previously (still got it) I was expecting good things, and so far I'm not disappointed - very well packaged and finished, excellent documentation and the best setup procedure and menu operation I've seen. Nice big clear remote, backlit buttons.
The player's very sophisticated and offers lots of setup options but using the quick setup routine it was up and running in a flash.
I'm using its analogue 7.1 outs into my AV2 for HD sound formats, and configuring these was very easy. I'm also using SPDIF for "Standard" DD/dts.
Once it was all set up I popped in a SACD followed by a DVD-A. Not bad! Alas, the 555 sounds much better, but then one would expect it to! (Not had a chance to give TDSOTM 4.1 DVD-A special Alan Parsons mix a try yet.)
Anyway, I watched a couple of BluRays last night (The Bourne Ultimatum & Jeff Beck in concert at Ronnie Scott's) and I was very impressed. The normal view is that when it comes to Bluray there isn't much difference in the various players but the Oppo was significantly better than the Panasonic, having an almost 3-D picture with a lovely colour rendition and very deep blacks. The sound was streets ahead; Quite surprising as I thought it was pretty good with the Panasonic before. The Oppo certainly loads in discs a whole lot quicker than either of my previous BluRay players.
Another attraction is the Oppo's "Source Direct" which bypasses its internal scaling - important to me because I use a Lumagen video processor. The DVD I played looked very fine indeed. (If I had a long enough HDMI cable I'd try bypassing the scaler & see what sort of a fist the Oppo makes of things.)
So far I'm very impressed with this player. I suppose at nigh-on £600 it's not quite the bargain the Oppo DVD players were, but then I don't know how it compares with the £1K-plus players from the likes of Sony, Pioneer and Denon; I suspect pretty well.
Have you sorted out that AVR yet then Tony...? 
Oppo HDMI into a decent AVR vs analogues into a AV2 based system is the comparison that may be interesting....
Steve.
Oppo HDMI into a decent AVR vs analogues into a AV2 based system is the comparison that may be interesting....
Steve.
Hi Steeeve! Back in blighty then! 
Slight change of plan - I'm going to move all my AV stuff to the other side of the room & keep the AV2/145,2x150 arrangement for the time being. The chaps at Signals, who incidentally sell the AVR I was looking at, put me off the idea of ditching the Naim amplification.
During a recent hiccup with my Sky HD box (needed a new power supply) I thought I'd try bypassing my Lumagen processor. PQ was OK, but so much better with the Lumagen, so I think I might just try an Arcam 888 processor at some stage.
Slight change of plan - I'm going to move all my AV stuff to the other side of the room & keep the AV2/145,2x150 arrangement for the time being. The chaps at Signals, who incidentally sell the AVR I was looking at, put me off the idea of ditching the Naim amplification.
During a recent hiccup with my Sky HD box (needed a new power supply) I thought I'd try bypassing my Lumagen processor. PQ was OK, but so much better with the Lumagen, so I think I might just try an Arcam 888 processor at some stage.
Cheers Tony ! You're a star.
May well take you up on your offer for sure....May even bring you a bottle of luke-warm English beer !
I'm just working on finding somewhere to live first before I get all this sorted..!
So, in the meantime just researching whether to stick to the AV2 plans or jump ship as I've been threatening all along...
I understand what you say about having to do the distance settings on the analogue source, and this would be no problem on the players I'm thinking about, but the rest of the usual stuff also has to be set: Crossover, speaker size, etc - so will this not be replicated when it then hits the AV2 ? I'll have a read of the AV2 manual again instead of keep hitting you with boring questions...!
Will email soon !
Steve.
May well take you up on your offer for sure
....May even bring you a bottle of luke-warm English beer ! I'm just working on finding somewhere to live first before I get all this sorted..!
So, in the meantime just researching whether to stick to the AV2 plans or jump ship as I've been threatening all along...
I understand what you say about having to do the distance settings on the analogue source, and this would be no problem on the players I'm thinking about, but the rest of the usual stuff also has to be set: Crossover, speaker size, etc - so will this not be replicated when it then hits the AV2 ? I'll have a read of the AV2 manual again instead of keep hitting you with boring questions...!
Will email soon !
Steve.
Thanks,
Unfortunatly, I have no possibility of listenning to the Oppo
In fact my choice is between a Panasonic BD recorder to replace my BD player + DVD/HDD recorder because my TV lacks 1 HDMI input, and the Oppo + keeping my DVD/HDD recorder (and I will go on with pluging/unpluging the HDMI cables)
So knowing that the image quality of the Oppo is the best but that my TV is not top-notch, sound quality only is what will determine my choice :
- If the gap is important between mutlichannel HD format VS coreDD/dts SP/DIF on the AV2, I would go for the Oppo solution.
- If the sound difference exist but is light between mutli-channel HD format VS coreDD/dts SP/DIF I would go for the Panasonic BD recorder.
What do you think ?
I've always red that unless buying units like Sony 5000ES or Pioneer BDP LX 91, it was not really worth using multi-channel outputs over SP/DIF ? But may be the Oppo is the exception ?
Unfortunatly, I have no possibility of listenning to the Oppo
In fact my choice is between a Panasonic BD recorder to replace my BD player + DVD/HDD recorder because my TV lacks 1 HDMI input, and the Oppo + keeping my DVD/HDD recorder (and I will go on with pluging/unpluging the HDMI cables)
So knowing that the image quality of the Oppo is the best but that my TV is not top-notch, sound quality only is what will determine my choice :
- If the gap is important between mutlichannel HD format VS coreDD/dts SP/DIF on the AV2, I would go for the Oppo solution.
- If the sound difference exist but is light between mutli-channel HD format VS coreDD/dts SP/DIF I would go for the Panasonic BD recorder.
What do you think ?
I've always red that unless buying units like Sony 5000ES or Pioneer BDP LX 91, it was not really worth using multi-channel outputs over SP/DIF ? But may be the Oppo is the exception ?