Have your say & ask the experts

as above

sorry might be wrong this could be us only might have gone to the wrong amazon site.

From what I can make out from another forum (you know the one), they're bringing out a 'lite' European player soon, the fully loaded Euro version of the BDP-83 isn't out until December 2009.

I don't know if I can wait that long! You can get a hardware modded version of the US BDP-83 from a UK based company for £599. It's zone free for blu-ray and region free for DVD, the player doesn't need a step down transformer either.

£599 compared to $499 Almost double the price.

The euro based site is more reasonable for the other players (£143 to $169) which would come out a little over £500 .

If the UK site can offer a mod, why would Oppo not sell a European version of the BDP-83?

hammill:

£599 compared to $499 Almost double the price.

The euro based site is more reasonable for the other players (£143 to $169) which would come out a little over £500 .

If the UK site can offer a mod, why would Oppo not sell a European version of the BDP-83?

I'm sure they will sell a zone b machine, but the date of release is apparently Dec 2009. The machine coming out soon is a cheaper version with less features, e.g. no Anchor Bay.

The modded BDP-83 is a zone free machine, i.e. you can play all zone locked blu-rays as well as all region DVD's.. In that respect some may see the £599 price tag reasonable. I think it's likely that the Zone B machine when released in Europe by Oppo will sell for £500 anyway, this will obviously be locked to zone B. I think there is a remote hack, for blu-ray and dvd, but it needs to be re-hacked after every firmware update. In that respect the hardware modded version available now seems a good bet.

http://www.crtprojectors.co.uk/region_free_bpd-83.htm 

Had a friend with the hardware modded Oppo BD-83 come over to mine this morning with his player. It is the most remarkable bit of kit I've ever used.

It's quick. Staggeringly quick to boot up and to load discs. It loaded The Quantum of Solace in about 6 seconds from hitting play off the main menu. So the 30 seconds+ my Pioneer takes to load the Java off the disc is blown away.

Sound quality is amazing, just as it should be over HDMI, same as every other player over HDMI (that is, my Pioneer, and the Denon 3800 being the comparisons). Video quality is outstanding, and this time sent 720p50 to my screen.

But the best thing is the flexibility. No region coding and SACD playback. It bitstreamed the SACD to my Arcam ARV600 which sounded unbelievable. Bye bye CDs. Why on earth hasn't SACD taken off? It's amazing. Listened to Queen, Dire Straights and The Flaming Lips (yup, never heard them before either). Incredible. The Arcam did a better job than the Oppo's multichannel analogues, so we agreed that HDMI was the best output from the Oppo.

There is no excuse for WHF to not test this machine, just because a European version hasn't been launched officially. It sets the benchmark. It does everything a player will ever need to do before we dump players altogether and start downloading content. The logic for spending £1000 - £2000 OR EVEN £4,500 on a universal Denon is utterly defunct unless you must have analogue outputs and even then, they're on the Oppo, though the Arcam's DACs proved better.

WHF please buy one from CRT Projectors and get it in the mag. It's a bit like denying penecilin has been invented because we don't have it yet and so pretending it doesn't exist. Maybe if you broadcast the fact, then Denon wouldn't be able to ask such silly money for their players and Arcam would have a re-think about launching an utterly pointless £1800 BD player later this year.

This player is the best BD player / transport I've heard and for the money, should be everyone's high end choice. And even without taking the money into account, is 4 times faster and identical in sound and picture to the Denon 3800 AND is universal and multi region.

I've said my piece, WHF you've had months to get one and test it, get some professional integrity, stop shoving overpriced underspecified kit at us and test the Oppo.

Have a nice weekend all.

The Oppo is a very good unit but still has some minor issues with PAL output at anything other than source direct . Oppo has indicated it will fix this with a FW update. Beyond that it really does represent the best price peformance of the current Blu-ray players.

Dasp

Will Harris:

Why on earth hasn't SACD taken off? It's amazing.

I was a fairly early fan of SACD, my old pioneer DVD player sent the signal via firewire to my Pioneer amp. You're right it is awesome, not just a little difference, it's massive, more so than DVD Audio. Unfortunately it came out when everybody (except me) was busy compressing their music to 128kbps mp3's which sounded rubbish. I think that's why there was never the mainstream releases that I always craved.

Now with bigger hard drives, people still compress, but to lossless and the sound quality has come back, but with more and more downloading I don't see SACD being anything other than a nieche market.

Unfortunately I sold all my SACD's when I got rid of my Pioneer DVD player, when I get the Oppo I'm gonna have to buy them all again!

If you haven't already tried them, XRCD's come close to rivalling SACD's in my opinion and they'll play on any CD player. Not too many mainstream releases, I managed to get Brothers In Arms - Dire Straits and Private Dancer - Tina Turner. https://www.elusivedisc.com/products.asp?dept=859

Yes you are!

And DAS, exactly what increase in performance do you get by spending more? Describe what you mean?

Aside from it's analogue outs, what does the Denon A1UD do that the Oppo doesn't do? And how much better does it do it?

I think the answer to that is nothing and no better. What do you think?

I agree, one of the reasons I was so disatisfied with my Denon DVD-2500BT was it's relatively modest improvements in picture and sound over my Sony BDP-S350. There's no way it was worth £450 more. Where it did excel was DVD playback, but that's not really what you buy a blu-ray player for. For the same price as I paid for my Denon, I can get the Oppo which will probably play blu-ray's better, DVD's better, all region BD's & DVD's, plus SACD & DVD Audio.

With 1080p pictures at normal viewing distances, budget players from Panasonic & Sony would suit most people.

Will Harris:

Yes you are!

And DAS, exactly what increase in performance do you get by spending more? Describe what you mean?

Aside from it's analogue outs, what does the Denon A1UD do that the Oppo doesn't do? And how much better does it do it?

I think the answer to that is nothing and no better. What do you think?

Where did I suggest anything about spending more ?  I'm simply pointing out that anyone doing a detailed review including PAL using the latest fw would come across this issue so better to have it in the open. I'm sure it will get fixed.

Currently the BD83 has an issue when PAL is processed via the ABT2010. This
affects all output resolutions other than the source direct option. The
issue means data on the PAL DVD doesn't fit the active image area
properly and results in the image being shifted to the right and some
image data being cropped from the right.If you have a display that is
set to show the image as output from the player pixel for pixel, rather
than rescaling and applying overscan  in the display, the PAL image will
have a black border on the left and be missing some image data from the
right. Oppo have confirmed the issue and I understand they plan to
fix this via FW as I mentioned. This issue doesn't affect NTSC or
Blu-ray.

Dasp

Will Harris:

I've said my piece, WHF you've had months to get one and test it, get some professional integrity, stop shoving overpriced underspecified kit at us and test the Oppo.

Have a nice weekend all.

Yes you have – and when there'a an official European version available, we'll test it.

Why do you need that? It's available to buy in the UK and it exists. It relegates a whole swathe of machines to the rank of also rans crossed with over priced rip-offs.

If Oppo can produce and sell at a profit a machine that does everything a Denon A1UD can do, at least everything in the digital domain, then how can Denon, Pioneer, Sony and soon Arcam, sell machines that do no more than the Oppo, and far more slowly for huge multiples of times more money?

If you independantly test it and find it performs (or doesn't) that may force the big manufacturers to alter their approach to the market. It may even get BluRay off the ground, by reducing the cost of entry once realism hits. But most likely, it will result in a final realisation, that once a perfect digital transport has done it's job there is no point spending any more money on it. The performance differential moves on up the chain to the DACs, amp and speakers.

I just wish you wouldn't keep waiting for a European version as that could be Christmas, if at all. We have a modded version, region free. That's good enough for everyone in Britain, so surely it's time you tested it. Are you a consumer magazine or a manaufacturers magazine? And don't tell me that consumers are better served by waiting for a European release. You're rating it, not selling it for Oppo. Or any other manufacturers.

Out of professional curiousity if nothing else, I'd have though you'd have got one into the office by now anyway. I'll bet Denon and Sony have been ringing you daily and begging you not to publish anything about it. I would in their shoes. The emperor is about to find he's got no clothes on. He will not be happy. At the moment I feel you're letting us down as readers. We're your customers, so come on and do your thing. We trust you. In return, you owe it to us to do the best you can on our behalf as consumers.

Will Harris:

Why do you need that? It's available to buy in the UK and it exists.

We don't test grey imports.

Will Harris:

I'll bet Denon and Sony have been ringing you daily and begging you not to publish anything about it.

No, neither company has spoken to anyone on the magazine regarding this product.

Andrew Everard:

We don't test grey imports.

...I would call it a charcaol rather grey I think!