[The News Bot]

Reviewed by David Mackenzie
If you're irritated at the sluggishness of your current machine and/or don't mind paying a little extra for a BD player which at least matches your DVD player in terms of usability, then Oppo's BDP-831 is for you.
Read the full review...

[paulst10]

Nice to read another one of your Oppo reviews David

With the amount of detail you go into explaining the numerous settings available, you should be writing the user manuals for them

Brilliant review

[Cyprio]

A first-rate review and moreover, a reference which can be used when setting up one’s own device.

[Russell.Williams]

Finally, a machine that means I can dump my PS3 (I don't game) and Yam DVD player which I only have for MR DVD because the PS3 only does one region and badly.

The question is....

What's it sound like with CD and SACD?

Russell

[willharris10]

Russell, blooming marvellous is the answer. Over HDMI there is no difference between this player and a Denon DVD A1UD in my experience and over analogue 2ch., hardly any difference either and that's really saying something.

[andymc]

Is this Multi Region for both DVD and BD??? I read somewhere that it was but cant find reference to this in the review or am I missing it?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by andymc

Is this Multi Region for both DVD and BD??? I read somewhere that it was but cant find reference to this in the review or am I missing it?

There is a hardware mode available for £50 for the US version and this will probably work on the UK version but I don't think anyone has confirmed this yet.

[MeanDorris @ AV Aficionado]

Great review, thanks David, and the detail you went to regards the picture processing options are very useful.

A couple of questions that you may or may not be able to answer:

Did this unit have a European specific firmware, or was it the same as the BDP-83?

I owned an 83 for a short time and had some issues with it's Auto resolution setting. The player wouldn't send a 1080p 24 signal to my non Full HD display that would accept a 1080p 24 signal (but not 1080p 50/60). A bigger issue was that for DVD it would send a PAL 60Hz signal to my JVC HD1 projector. I emailed Oppo about it at the time but the reply basically blamed my displays rather than any issue with the Oppo (in terms of EDID preferred resolutions).

Any idea whether these issues have been addressed on the 831?

[David Mackenzie]

Did this unit have a European specific firmware, or was it the same as the BDP-83?

I haven't tried upgrading it yet, but will do when I get a spare second. Contrary to what some other sources are implying, the hardware is the same as the American version. Even the small bugs are the same.

In the future, Oppo Europe will probably devleop their own firmware updates independently of the US company, but when this has happened in the past, the firmware has been totally interchangable across units.

Sending PAL at 60hz - ouch! Never seen that. You could probably force it to use PAL (50hz) in the menu, right? But that's hardly convenient?

[MeanDorris @ AV Aficionado]

Originally Posted by David Mackenzie

Sending PAL at 60hz - ouch! Never seen that. You could probably force it to use PAL (50hz) in the menu, right? But that's hardly convenient?

Yeah, the issue was only really a dealbreaker because I was using the player with two different screens with different native resolutions.

If I went from "Auto" to forced 1080P that would display PAL fine @ 50Hz on the PJ, but I couldn't leave it that setting as I would get no picture on the plasma, and hence would have to keep switching resolution settings depending on the display, not the family friendly solution I was looking for.

I think they may have addressed the PAL 60 issue with firmware (I'm going to confirm), I can live with 1080i from Auto with the plasma.

I was interested in whether the UK firmware was different - may be a little more PAL friendly - so will be very interested in anything you find...

[mabo]

Great review David.

I'll be very interested to see whether the niggles with PAL playback are addressed.

[sapper]

Excellent review, thank you.

I am very impressed with my Oppo BD player. Maybe I am not an expert, but not yet had any PAL issues, though t may be down to my naivety!!

On the audio front, using only the 6 channel audio out, compared to my DV 139 player, the sound initially is very similar.

Only difference over time is that the top end is slightly harsher (through a denon AV amp and MA Gold references); and not as musical as the arcam; the arcam has a better sound stage and is more musical, though not £1400 worth!!

Adrian

[namuk]

Great Review David as always I take it you like the Finish
One Question though when you say Super Audio Cd Bitstream via DSD codec is this Direct or up or Down converted? Am a bit Confused on this mate..

[Pecker]

Excellent. AVF reviews are simply indespensible. Manythanks, David.

RE:

Just to make sure that the Anchor Bay VRS chip wasn't accidentally performing any Gamma alteration to the video, I ran the player in both "Source Direct" (VRS bypassed) and "1080p" (VRS on) modes and measured Greyscale patterns from both on a calibrated Pioneer KURO PDP-LX5090. The results were the same on both occasions: you can use either mode with the Oppo BDP-831 and be sure that nothing is going on behind your back. BD player owners who so badly want to see quality differences should begin investigating the encoding and pre-processing techniques that exist between different releases - it is at this stage that problems and visual discontinuities can appear. The players are doing their job of decoding and displaying the encoded contents correctly – at the very least, this one is!

David, can I just ask you to clarify this a little.

I presume the Pio was calibrated using a signal generator. Are you saying that the Oppo outputted identically in the two modes (VRS bypassed and VRS on), or are you saying that the Oppo was outputting correctly for the display - in other words, would the Pio, calibrated correctly to the signal generator, need to be re-calibrated for the Oppo?

In short, if you have a Pio (or whatever) calibrated correctly via a signal generator, and you buy an Oppo, does it need re-calibrating for that new source?

Cheers.

Steve W

[forrestgump]

Good review boss. I will be ordering first thing 7th october. will have to dust off my sacd's and dvd-a's now

expect the oppo will sound fantastic with these anyway

i only have a 1080i plasma, will it be better than my BD50 anyone?

[Pecker]

Question bumped.



Steve W

Originally Posted by Pecker

Excellent. AVF reviews are simply indespensible. Manythanks, David.

RE:



David, can I just ask you to clarify this a little.

I presume the Pio was calibrated using a signal generator. Are you saying that the Oppo outputted identically in the two modes (VRS bypassed and VRS on), or are you saying that the Oppo was outputting correctly for the display - in other words, would the Pio, calibrated correctly to the signal generator, need to be re-calibrated for the Oppo?

In short, if you have a Pio (or whatever) calibrated correctly via a signal generator, and you buy an Oppo, does it need re-calibrating for that new source?

Cheers.

Steve W

[Phil Hinton]

Originally Posted by Pecker

Question bumped.



Steve W

Steve, as the Pioneer is calibrated with a calibrated signal generator then adding in a source will either need no adjustment, or it will need adjustment. This can be different for two identical sources or it could be close. Some fine adjustment is usually required to match. In theory it should be close, in reality it can be subtle or needs adjustment it all depends on the model, factory settings etc.
What David is talking about is looking at a matched source and calibrated screen and then seeing if the processing is making any differences and in this case it was not.

[Pecker]

Originally Posted by Phil Hinton

Steve, as the Pioneer is calibrated with a calibrated signal generator then adding in a source will either need no adjustment, or it will need adjustment. This can be different for two identical sources or it could be close. Some fine adjustment is usually required to match. In theory it should be close, in reality it can be subtle or needs adjustment it all depends on the model, factory settings etc.
What David is talking about is looking at a matched source and calibrated screen and then seeing if the processing is making any differences and in this case it was not.

Cheers, Phil.

I'd pretty much picked up that David was comparing the two modes, but I thought the question in general was still worth asking.

There have been a few threads/shoot outs, which are showing that almost all Blu-ray Disc players look extremely similar, if not identical to the human eye.

It'd be very interesting to have a similar shootout using calibration equipment to see (a) how close/far away players are from each other, and from outputting correct colour, etc.

I know that you're committed to the standards inherent in AV technology, and the need for correctly measured objective readings, so I thought this'd be something which might interest you and the team.

The theory is sound. It’d be interesting to see how the players measure up in practice.

Steve W

[the-demi-god]

Hi,
I am a novice when it comes to blueray & HD etc.
I need to replace the TV & thought that the Panasonic 42G10B which has freesat would be a good way to start.
There is no point if I do not have a blueray player also.
Well thats my story, I have dvds of different regions so I need a multiregional player and since I am not likely to change the habit of buying from a variety of places multicode might be a good idea too. I have seen one on ebay [they are remarkably hard to find in uk and europe is dearer than America] it is the OPPO 83 your review is great but for me a little too much info is the 83 the same as the 831 and will I have probs if I buy it from the USA. I know there will be no warranty that's why I want a half decent one. Also with the freesat do I need something like Humax I have Sky but am not taking + or HD for just now. Last but not least I have 2 dvd recorders attached to the system just now, is adding the Oppo going to overload it? I need someone to install this and I don't want them to look at it and run a mile.
Thank you

[TEEZR]

Great review.

One question though: When you say the brushed aluminium front was substituted by a mate one, is the front plastic?

[David Mackenzie]

Yes, but it doesn't feel cheap.

the-demi-god: nope, it's not possible to overload a TV by attaching lots of devices. Just hook the Oppo up to the TV with an HDMI cable and you'll be fine.

[Mike Silgar]

Many thanks for the complete review, David.

I'm very interested in this player since it was announced at the manufacturer's website, many, many months ago. I'm still waiting for the PS3 Slim review, but probably this will be my BD player. (Oppo, please, can you put it simpler for Spanish buyers? Maybe some kind of Main Europe online store? Thx.)

Well, I've a couple of doubts about what someone could call "redundant" performance. I'm talking about playing MKV, HD-JPG, and MP3 files from the USB port, which it's stated as "possible" between the features of the device. Have you tried to play some MKV with 1080 or 720 footage from an external USB drive? What about playing 10MP JPEG files? Can you tell us something about audio quality from MP3 files? And finally, does this player support non FAT32 external drives?

Again, thanks a lot.

...
Ooops... I've just find the BDP-83 owner's thread, and maybe those questions above have been answered before. I must done some advanced searching!

[High Fidelity]

This player has not been properly reviewed, It still has issues with SACD sound not yet resolved (Oppo Digital 26 October )nd NO mention of the Blu Ray sound I understand a European version is not available.

[David Mackenzie]

The review was of the video performance. And yes, the European version was cancelled after the review was written, which is why the review is now of the BDP-83 instead.