Introduction

There has been a lot of anticipation for OPPO Digital's brand new BDP-83 Blu-ray player. This is in part because OPPO has had an excellent track record for producing top notch affordable DVD players, such as the DV-983H (one of the only players in Secrets's history to score a perfect 100 on Secret's rigorous DVD Benchmark) and in part because the BDP-83 is the first Blu-ray player to hit the market offering the features to make it a truly all-in-one solution media solution for high definition playback. With a vast feature list that includes BonusView, BD-Live, DVD Up-Conversion, 1080p24 and source direct output, bitstream, and internal decoding of Next Gen audio codecs, USB Media support, SACD playback through PCM or DSD (direct stream digital), and DVD-Audio support, the BDP-83 offered at a price of $499 is in a position to steal the Blu spotlight.

OPPO has had the BDP-83 in production for some time now and instead of rushing it into a market crowded with average performing players, they took their time developing a product with high quality standards and versatile features. In fact, OPPO decided on a bold "customer first" strategy for the release of the BDP-83. Through an Early Adoption Program, otherwise known as EAP rounds 1 and 2, three hundred fifty registered consumers were chosen by random drawing to participate in a pre-release evaluation of the BDP-83. OPPO Digital then chose to let the participants decide if the BDP-83 was ready for public release by making "Yes" or "No" votes on the product's website.

When the "Yes" votes reached 70% of the total votes, then the player would be ready for release. One obvious benefit of this strategy has been the substantial real world testing from a wide range of consumers nitpicking on issues that made a difference to their home theater systems. Issues such as Dolby TrueHD audio drop outs, better DVD-Audio support, and deinterlacing issues have been reported and OPPO, with an open ear, has released multiple firmware updates through the course of the program to address the feedback. OPPO Digital has always maintained a tradition of providing excellent customer support after the sale and rest assured they will continue to make tweaks and improvements to the BDP-83 far after its initial release.

Well, at long last it's here, so let's take a closer look at the OPPO BDP-83.