Oppo BDP-83

By Michael Wong

September 2009

Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player. $1450

When Oppo announced a Blu-ray player back in 2008, various internet forums quickly filled with posts from vociferous fanboys long before the first prototypes were delivered to beta testers. It wasn’t long before the official announcement confirmed key features like multi-format playback (CD, DVD and BD in its various forms), high quality video and audio processing, including full on-board audio decoding and 7.1 analogue audio outputs, coupled to the ease of use and convenience features familiar to users of Oppo DVD players. Controversial was the omission of region-free playback for BD and DVD, historically a major draw card for prospective OPPO buyers.

The official response was that Oppo had to enforce BD region coding to get a Blu-ray Disc Association licence. Not a big concern in the USA but rendering the player next to useless for overseas markets like NZ. It didn’t take long for modders to defeat the Oppo’s default DVD R1/BD A region coding. There is a firmware hack, liable to be rendered useless with future official firmware upgrades.

Much sturdier is the hardware chip modification offered by the New Zealand Oppo importer, RapalloAV. This provides automatic region switching for DVD, manual switching for BD and is covered under the normal 12 month warranty when fitted by RapalloAV.

First impression counts

A large part of the Oppo experience is the excellent presentation. Under a full size display card, the player is safely cradled in large pieces of protective foam and wrapped in a large cloth bag, much like the popular re-usable shopping bags. There’s a well written manual, a stylish black box containing the remote control and supplied cables, including a decent HDMI cable.

A bonus is a copy of the Spears & Munsil High Definition Benchmark, Blu-ray Edition test disc; chock full of test patterns and demonstration material.

This latest Oppo is a much classier looking player than past Oppo players. The front panel is a luxurious piece of brushed aluminium carrying the basic controls needed to operate the unit. The minimalism extends to the exclusion of the roll call of brand name technologies that festoons modern disc players, the only logos on the Oppo are for SACD, DVD and Anchor Bay’s VRS.

Setup and use

On first power up, the user is greeted with an easy to use on-screen Set-up Wizard that will have you ready to go in six simple steps, helped by the attractive on-screen menu and the responsive, clearly labelled remote control.

A major bugbear with almost all BD players has been the very slow start-up and disc loading times and sluggish disc navigation. The Oppo was a revelation. Against the stopwatch it posted start-up and loading times as fast as the reigning speed champ, the Sony Playstation 3 and about twice as fast as my resident Panasonic BD80. Jumping from chapter to chapter was equally swift.

Audio performance

In a dedicated two-channel music system the Oppo produced mediocre CD playback. Tonally it was a bit bright with a thin midrange and subdued bass response. The soundstage was well reproduced with good dimensionality. Images had realistic size but were slightly forward and lacked body, enclosed in a dry-ish acoustic. The Oppo sounded flat and unsatisfying, aloof and lacking in toe-tapping pace.

SACD and DVD-Audio opened up a whole new dimension of musicality. Every aspect of performance was improved over CD. Better tonal balance, greater body and impact made music much more enjoyable.

Home theatre performance

For home theatre evaluation the Oppo was hooked up to a Rotel AVR with HDMI, coaxial digital and multi-channel analogue connections. Video was viewed on an ISF-calibrated Pioneer plasma and a Sony full-HD LCD TV.

DVD playback was excellent with bright, colourful, noise-free pictures. Sharpness and fine detail surpassed that of the highly acclaimed OPPO DV-983 DVD player, a matter of necessity as the 983’s lead in picture quality had been eroded by the big manufacturers’ proprietary video processing.

Blu-ray was played back in all its high definition glory. Picture quality was superb with smooth, natural looking images. Detail, contrast, colour saturation, dimensionality were all top notch. For even higher quality the OPPO has a Source Direct mode that passes the video from disc to your display au naturel, without any processing.

Sonically, it was more of the results we got from the audio-only sessions. Through the HDMI connection there was the same slightly bright, forward sound, lacking in involvement and authority.

Sound quality improved when the supplied HDMI cable was replaced (surprising because the supplied cables worked so well with previous Oppos) and improved again when HDMI was bypassed and coaxial digital (where applicable) or the multi-channel analogue connections were used. The bottom end gained in impact and pace, the brightness was reduced. The sound was sweeter, more engaging and importantly, some of the lost goosebump factor was restored.

A class of one

Unusually for the brand, this Oppo does not win on outright performance. In New Zealand it is not as big a bargain as in the US. For similar money you can get better sounding audio from a dedicated CDP. For half the Oppo’s price you can get just as good BD playback from the latest Panasonic BD player. But if you want a Swiss Army Knife one-box solution, the OPPO’s combination of features, performance, build quality, ease of use and reasonable price puts it in a class of one.