There is nothing plain about this player at all. A lot of the players I've reviewed as of late have the brushed aluminum on the front of the unit, and most Blu-ray players also have a large circular center button to navigate menus. The BDP-83 is no exception. I especially love the fact that you have the ability to dim the front display. If you turn the display off, it will turn on when it receives a command and then shuts off as soon as that command is completed.
The front and back of the unit also include USB connections. There is one on the front and one on the back of the unit, which can be used for playback of movies, music and photos. Both can be used simultaneously if needed. Also on the back of the unit, you'll find connections for HDMI, component video and composite video. The BDP-83 has two sets of analog audio outputs - a set for 7.1-channel surround and a dedicated pair of stereo outputs. Unfortunately, this player does not have an S-video connection.
Although most of the top-notch Blu-ray players offer a standard Internet connection, including the BDP-83, they do not have built-in WiFi which is a feature I have not seen on any other Blu-ray player to date that I've reviewed and think many people would find enticing. Therefore, you're pretty much stuck with the Ethernet connection...for now. You can purchase a wireless system directly from OPPO for less than $100. This is a convenient option if you're sold on your wireless service.
As for the movie itself, I chose 300 to review black levels, picture quality and OPPO's BD-Live! feature. Load time for 300 was around 20 seconds which is typical for high-end players such as the BDP-83. I thought that the level of detail the player exuded and its ability to show elegance in the dark scenes without damaging blacks was really well done. 300, although it's one of my favorite movies, was a great film to show facial detail, and the BDP-83 delivered. Not only did it produce excellent facial detail, but it also produced smooth lines. When it came to the BD-Live! feature, I wasn't very impressed. Load times getting in and out of this feature were a lot slower than I've seen with past Blu-ray players such as the LG BD390 and Playstation. It took approximately a minute and a half getting in and out of the BD-Live! feature for the BDP-83 and about 30 seconds getting in and out of the feature for the LG BD390 and Playstation, give or take a few seconds.
Companies Mentioned:
 |
sacd, dvd-audio and gold cds are still available and sound great. acousticsounds.com have lots of them, even reg CDs have a more analog type sound with this unit compared to other cd players i have heard.
"A lot of the players I've reviewed as of late" -- that would be two, right?
What is "elegance in the dark scenes" ? -- I don't think that's one of the parameters from SMPTE or ISF.
playing DVD-As and SACDs makes it sort of interesting, but not really practical since you can't buy those disc formats any longer and few people bought them when they were available. I'd much prefer network features like netflix, youtube and pandora to SACD.
This is an awesome player. Just bought it and it beats my previous player Sony PS3. Picture wise it is slightly better but the biggest difference is the sound. Its ability to deliver true bitstream data through HDMI makes it a real pleasure to watch movies encoded with DTS HD-Master audio in its awesome glory.
Here's another review that confirms the OPPO BDP-83's greatness:
http://bluray-players.net/oppo/oppo-bdp83-review/