BTW, I don't think I've ever heard you say "exceptional", "incredible" or "wow" when describing any product before. Pecker will presumably be along shortly to complain about inappropriate use of hyperbole in AV circles.
yes not normally my style at all, prefering a more feet on the ground approach but this is a bit special.
Playback and features
Remote is a departure for Oppo. It is backlit and well laid out though is of the study plastic variety. Works well though and I am using channel B so not to mix up with my national Oppo collection here (983, 981, 971 (straight and SDI'd) and 970. Must get around to getting that 980 one day
Remote doesn't have the class of the player but no real complaints here. Channel A is the same as the DVD players, and I will use my Oppo region B2 player, if we ever see it, on the channel C.
IR can be passed from other Oppo devices like the excellent HDMI switch box around the place.
Set up wizard is simple and easy to get you going. Tag owners will remember this well. Menu structure is a typical home based ones as opposed to a Sony style one. It will be familiar territory to all.
CDs play fine
DTS CDs I am not sure about atm!!
SACD play fine (inc DSD output)
DVD A sometimes plays but is still a little flakey (though only just added this capability to the firmware in the last week and this was expected)
Dual discs I also got playing!!! Which considering they are not supported and the discs was scratched was quite an accomplishment
DVDs play fine
Blu rays play fine
Haven't got around to other formats yet.
So just throwing a random assessment of discs at the player all seem to work atm though it is obviously very early days. I have experienced no glitches or drop outs except on DVD A and CD DTS but this is on a digital connection but at this stage I don't even know if it is an Oppo issue or Onkyo. Analogue may be different again.. The discs appear to run fine
The player is region locked, I can confirm that
There is plenty of information available on the player if you need to find out what it is doing. The player is a speed king and POTC 1 loaded in just over 25 secs I think, tbh it is difficult to time due to other components in the system now becoming the limiting bit. Certainly on par with the PS3 and probably better at certain things. A quantum change from my original Samsung 1000! It basically behaves like a normal DVD player and I can't see anyone being bothered by timings once you get to this level. Waiting 5 mins is a different kettle of fish and is now a thing of the past for me.
Setting / and features out of the box seem to have been well considered as the defaults and I literally plugged the unit in and was up and running in seconds.
At this stage I am starting to feel quite guilty as I usually find all the chinks in a players armour in 30 mins but this is looking more and more like a throughbreed. My desire to even bother to try a Pioneer 91 are going very rapidly (when they bother with the firmware update)
PSU is multi voltage. Player is fully loaded with digital and analogue interfaces. [a digital only one could give decent cost savings here].
For those that hate black bars, well this is the player for you. I spent many minutes playing last night on this. It has a smart Zoom feature with well set out presets. Cool feature if you want it. Usual quality restriction apply but great feature. One I didn't expect to like as an OAR purist.
All sorts of bit depths etc, many of which I can't even exploit in my pretty upto date system so very future proofed for that new projector in 2 years time.
Firmware updates are by CD-R and USB. Worked well on the 983, see no reason that it won't again. I hope the front USB2 socket will allow updates, have to wait for an update, which knowing Oppo will not be too long. It will make updates very easy. The player will also let the user know when updates are available as well if you want (and are connected).
Layer change fast and faster than their 983. It should not bother anyone.
Cooling is essential for all the processing under this hood and it appears the majority of this is done passively (and silently) but with a fan for back up. Best of both worlds and a quiet solution on my system. Good stuff.
Looking just at DVD playback features, the 83 looses these features of the 983, MR and component output at 1080p but the 83 adds these 24p output with ‘NTSC' disc, 480i over HDMI, source direct, new controls for edge enhancement, detail enhancement, NR and a fun Demo Mode.
tbh it would really be easier to state what this player doesn't have and that is wireless capability. Pretty much everything else has been put in there. It is a hugely complex player, certainly the most complex I ever have tested and reminds me more of the latest receivers than DVD / CD players of old.
Calibration disc allows set up of HD or SD VC1 or SD MPEG2 and there is a whole pile of SD and HD stuff on there.
Any suggestions for PinP disc? In the setup you can enable PinP and still have bitstream as the HDMI output. I will test to see if bitstream drop to PCM for PinP.
MORE TO COME