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July 1, 2009 Oppo Digital BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player
Oppo spent the time between announcement and launch in an unusual effort to work out the kinks in its hardware and software. Calling it their Early Adopter Program (EAP), Oppo first picked 50 customers and sent them players to use daily -- to poke, probe, and push the machines to their limits, looking for anything that needed fixing or tweaking. Then, just to make sure the whole world understood how committed they are to transparency and achieving something akin to operating perfection, Oppo had the EAP members post their findings on the widely read AV Science Forum. They even set it up so that the EAP members could vote on aspects of the design, and promised that if a "supermajority" of 35 or more of the 50 early adopters agreed that "the features and stability of the BDP-83 player are suitable for my home theater," Oppo would "expand [to 100] the Early Adoption Program so more users can benefit from the player." The response was so strong that Oppo decided to expand the EAP to 300. Among that expanded crew, though neither voting nor reviewing, was yours truly. I swore not to review the BDP-83 until after the final production model had been released, something I would have done anyway: I don’t review products that readers can’t go out and get themselves. The early adopters found problems, and that was as it should be. How many companies go ahead and release a full-priced product, then sit back and wait while those buyers, in effect, do the company’s beta testing for free? Oppo, too, let the consumers do the final debugging, but also let them vote on what they liked about the product, and all this prior to the commercial release of the BDP-83.
Those features are nothing to take lightly. LG’s BD390 Blu-ray player offers onboard 802.11n, Netflix streaming, and YouTube, while all of Samsung’s BD players offer 802.11n, Pandora, and Netflix streaming. Although Netflix streaming is still in its infancy, it currently works wonderfully for old TV shows, and it’s only a matter of cheaper, broader bandwidth before they offer HD films on demand. And, after a few drinks, Pandora and YouTube can be powerfully entertaining at a party. As usual with Oppo products, the BDP-83 came packed as immaculately as do most players costing ten times its $499 USD price. A quick run-through of the components shows some real winners: Anchor Bay’s VRS System (the system used by Denon, Marantz, Arcam, and Esoteric), true 24-frame-per-second film playback, Dolby True HD and DTS-HD, source direct output (for those who have outboard video processors), 36-bit Deep Color support, HDMI 1.3, BD-Live, and many others. The player itself is gorgeous, and of course, Oppo’s after-sale customer service is renowned. Though the deep menu system lets you control every possible parameter, the initial six-step setup process is so easy the BDP-83 might as well be plug’n’play. Also, kudos to the folks who wrote the manual. Never once does it feel as if someone did a simple translation from the Chinese. Instead, you can tell that someone with a brain and some curiosity decided to write a manual that answers the questions the user really wants to know. Applause also for whoever redesigned Oppo’s remote control -- it’s now much easier to use, especially for big guys fumbling around in the dark.
The BDP-83 may handle virtually all current silver-disc formats, but its raison d’être is Blu-ray playback, and that’s what I started with. Hellboy II: The Golden Army offers all sorts of chances for testing a player’s abilities to resolve scenes of low-lighting and handle motion artifacts. The BDP-83 impressed me with its color resolution -- bright colors, as in Hellboy’s skin, really soared, yet the Oppo still had the ability to protect the dark sequences. The "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" segment of Across the Universe tumbled by with more psychedelic splendor than I’ve seen with any other player. In both cases, the Oppo seemed a bit more relaxed than my reference PlayStation 3, similar to the sound of a huge amplifier with loads of headroom. With older films, the Oppo’s dominance slid to the point where it was only the equal of the Sony PS3. Try as I might, I could see no repeatable differences between the players with Rio Bravo or Blade Runner. Both looked great, but the Oppo’s colors didn’t jump off the screen any more than did the PS3’s. Just to check whether the difference was age or animation, I tried a new movie shot on actual film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Playing this beautifully shot film, the Oppo’s superiority came through again. The bottom line: the more muted the colors, the less you’ll notice the Oppo’s superiority. And vice versa. I then tried the Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player against the best DVD player I know of, the Oppo DV-983H. My usual torture tests proved inconclusive. The flag scene on the Video Essentials DVD came through cleanly on both. Chapter 10 of the DVD of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me retained a clear picture as the camera panned across the staircase’s vertical balusters. With all the new Blu-ray players on the market, the BDP-83’s main competitor remains the Sony PlayStation 3. On the face of it, the PS3 wins in two major areas: It costs $100 less, and it has games. Can’t play Grand Theft Auto on the Oppo. But there are a couple things the Oppo does that the PS3 can’t. Perhaps most important for music lovers is that most models of the PlayStation won’t play SACDs or DVD-As. The BDP-83 -- which can also play CDs and HDCDs, as well as the music-only version of the Blu-ray format -- is the closest thing we have to a truly universal disc player. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (SACD/CD, Capitol CDP 582136 2) sounded superb -- the clock’s percussive striking had so much impact that I could feel it on my skin. Paul Daniel’s recording of Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony (DVD-A, Naxos 8.557059) caught the powerful Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at full volume, while preserving all the subtle points that remind the listener that it was performed and recorded in a real space. Elsewhere you’ll see reports that the BDP-83 either doesn’t play or has trouble playing DVD-As (it played everything else fine). First, some initial editions of the manual stated that it doesn’t, because originally, that's what Oppo had planned. Second, the player occasionally gets finicky when it’s played a DVD-Video or Blu-ray Disc just before a DVD-A. In that case, if you load the DVD-A, turn off the machine, then turn it back on, the DVD-A will usually work fine. It’s a hassle, but at least it’s one you can usually accomplish from your sofa with the trusty remote. Oppo’s representatives state that any problems with DVD-A playback "have been largely resolved with the latest public beta version of the firmware." Of course, assuming the BDP-83 is hooked up to the Internet, software upgrades can be set to happen automatically and in the background. The analog circuits of Oppo players have often drawn praise from the audiophile community, and that’ll be a resounding ditto for the BDP-83. Still, I preferred using the player’s HDMI 1.3 output, both for simplicity and because I want the benefit of using the Audyssey MultEQ room-correction system on board my Integra processor. All was not perfect. I wish the BDP-83 had the LG and Samsung players’ ability to stream Netflix movies. I asked the Oppo folks about that and got a typical Oppo response: "We felt like it was more important to focus on great sound and picture from discs. We think that’s what we do best." Still -- any chance of getting that streaming? "Yes. The machine has all the functionality it requires to be able to stream from anywhere. It’s simply a matter of business. We haven’t yet put together the agreements with the various companies." Good news.
The BDP-83 has two USB ports, one each in front and back. I can understand putting music or films on a thumb drive and inserting it in the front port, but I’d love to use the BDP-83 to rip lots of CDs to a 2TB hard drive hooked up around back. That way, I could then donate them to some deserving university. Unfortunately, for now the BDP-83 USB circuits work in only one direction. But all is not lost -- use your computer to load a hard drive with 10,000 songs and 500 movies and the Oppo will play them back. Just no ripping. One other problem: There’s no simple way to set the BDP-83 to region-free playback. No matter how hard I twisted the Oppo folks’ collective arm (it snapped in four places), this is all they would say: "There is really no code available to change the region code. The BD license does not allow any secret code or hidden menu for region code change, so this is a company line and also what’s implemented in the player." Still, someone will figure it out eventually. In the meantime, that means I’ll be keeping my Oppo DV-983H, so I can continue getting my fix of films released only in Asia. I’m keeping my Oppos and my PlayStation 3. The BDP-83 will play almost every silver disc I own, the PS3 works well with games and streams music from my network, and the DV-983H plays DVDs from every region on Earth. Oppo has come up with so many winners over the last five years that it’s starting to resemble a dynasty. The BDP-83 is yet another winner and, at $499, a stunning bargain. . . . Wes Marshall Oppo Digital BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player Oppo Digital, Inc. E-mail: service@oppodigital.com
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The pre-production version of
the BDP-83 was good enough that I knew it would be a hit with those who prefer quality to
deeply discounted prices. Still, I anxiously awaited the day I could get my hands on the
final production version and tell you about it. Given the rapid pace of development among
their rivals in the marketplace, especially in the realm of features, I knew Oppo would be
in for a fight. 
