Farewell to OPPO Digital

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by SamS, Apr 2, 2018.

  1. Humbuster

    Humbuster Staff Emeritus

    Sounds like a regular discussion in my home too.
     
  2. Lovealego

    Lovealego Senior Member

    Audio format wars are hard to predict. Usually comes down to labels choosing sides.

    Video format wars are easy to predict. First one that offers porn takes off running.

    Happened with VHS vs Betamax (Betamax was the higher quality format, but Sony refused porn)

    DVD vs DIVX was close until the first few porn titles hit DVD.

    Blu-ray vs HD-DVD same thing.


    I remember reading some of the highest sold titles are not blockbuster films but porn films on formats. I think I read there are porn titles that compete with Star Wars level of sales.


    By the way I’m loving my new 205. It definitely processes video smoother than my old 93. Can really notice how more stable credits are.
     
  3. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    I don't know if your porn theory is correct (no offense, not doubting, just literally never heard that before) - bit if it is, that's a fascinating theory!
     
    HiFi Guy likes this.
  4. mongo

    mongo Senior Member

    What you say was true for VHS & DVD but not for Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD.
    Pretty well-known that that format contest came down to studio support.
    Once Warner pulled the plug on releasing HD-DVD that "war" was over, bang, done.

    I have no idea what hi-def media porn sales are but I have to believe that the Internet has all but killed that market.
     
    sunspot42, tmtomh and lv70smusic like this.
  5. SandAndGlass

    SandAndGlass Twilight Forum Resident

    I learned something important about my new Oppo 203 4k player yesterday and I are still in limited production.wanted to pass this along, since may are jumping on the 203's, while they are still in limited production.

    I had an Oppo 93, which was purchased after the 103/105's were on the market. I got it for under $400 and I deliberately bought it for two reasons. I don't have any SACD's, never ever listened to one through my system. Since I use a processor to decode the digital HDMI, 5.1 surround and then send the analog signal to what were stereo amps that I might have in the system at the time it served my purposes for HT. For handling CD's, I send that to the DAC in the iNova, that serves as a central point of control in my system, from there, I use all outboard amplification. I just wanted to have legacy inputs/outputs and I wanted to avoid having any unit that was manufactured after the sunset laws came in and mandated that players have copy protection.

    When I bought the 4k TV last summer, it was because the old Texas Instrument DLP TV bit the dust. My processor's LFE's channel went out, so I bought another processor a couple of months back. When I bought the new TV, I discovered that the height of the TV's stand was just barely high enough to allow me to slide the 93/103 between the processor and the top of the table / equipment rack that the TV sits on.

    I only bought the Oppo now, because they are still in production, and like many of us, I had my concerns about getting one in the future.

    In the process of removing the 93 and replacing it with the 203, I just left the HDMI cords in place and put them on the new processor, done. I did have to replace the power cord, because the old cord did not have a ground hole and the 203 has a ground prong, so I changed out the Oppo's power cord.

    I had some guests over and we were listening to music, and I decided to try out the new Oppo, and put a TSO (Trans Siberian Orchestra) DVD in the player. This was two days back.

    The sound was perfect, the picture up-scaled to the 4k TV perfectly, there was just one problem, the TV image would go completely black for a a second or two, every five seconds or so. It was like there was a camera shutter closing and opening again, over and over.

    So yesterday, I decided to pursue the matter further. I had read through the manual and when I came to the set-up section, it stated that there really weren't any settings that I as a consumer had to be concerned with before using the player, it said that everything should work with the standard factory default settings. I don't remember having to set much back when I installed the 93, some years back. Mostly the default screen ratio settings. I figured that I would watch and see what the default settings were, before making any changes.

    I decided to test it with a standard DVD and a Blu-ray disk. Same problem with both.

    So, I sent in a request for technical assistance from Oppo, by email. I briefly described the issue that I was having and made them aware of the fact that I was already an Oppo owner for many years, with only a few major issues.

    After I sent in the tech support request, I had an idea. I have used the 4K TV since last summer with my old Emotiva processor without any major issues, successfully.

    While I was waiting for a response from tech support, I decided that there may some mysterious issues with the 4k player talking to the 4k processor. I took the audio + video HDMI out on the 203 and ran it directly into the TV and ran the other audio only HDMI directly into the processor.

    That seemed to solve the problem, no more shutter-like blackouts. All seemed good.

    However, another issue popped up. I decided to re-watch The Florida Project and make some notes. After I put on the movie, I was occupied doing some other tasks and would look up at the screen from time to time. Somehow, my brain was not remembering the continuity of the movie, even though a have viewed it once before.

    At one point, I looked up to see a scene that was happening in the last 5-10 minutes of the movie. I thought I was a bit confused. Could I have been zoning out for the movie and we were already at the final scenes? I friend was sitting on the other couch watching the movie, for the first time. I asked him, "about how long has this movie been on"? He replied "about 45-50 minutes. It wasn't a real long movie, but I knew that it was over an hour long. A check on the box confirmed that it was 111-minutes long.

    I kept watching, and instead of continuing to the last scene and the credits, all of a sudden, it had jumped back to a much earlier part of the movie. As I continued to watch, I noticed that it was skipping around the movie, moving forwards and then jumping to earlier parts. I realized, that was why, I wasn't feeling the continuity of the movie.

    I have never experienced this before. I have had issues where the Blu-ray would skip, but only in a forward direction.

    I did get a response back from OPPO on the subject, which included the suggestion that I try bypassing the processor and going directly into the TV.

    That was OK to test the problem and see if it corrected it, but not a long term solution, since it involved removing the processor from the video chain. I would no longer have the OSD (On Screen Display) from the processor to see the track information when playing CD's or to navigate the on-screen menu's.

    But, the significant problem was solved by following the tech support's suggestion that I use a different HDMI cable, because the one that I was using did not have enough bandwith and that was causing the black out issues. He suggested using the one that came in the 203's box.

    Since the HDMI cable that I was using between the processor and TV had worked fine with my Oppo 93, I used it to run from the processor to the TV. I then connected Oppo supplied HDMI cable from the Audio + Video HDMI output from the 203, to the Emotiva 4k processor.

    Once I did that, everything works perfectly. But I am going to order a higher bandwidth HDMI cable to replace the old one between the Processor and the TV, plus a couple of extra high bandwith HDMI cables.

    I know that many will be purchasing 203's now, while they are still available. Most will simple use the supplied HDMI cable.

    Myself, when I change out any component, that comes with a cable, I usually keep them unopened back in their original boxes, which I always save. That way, I don't have all these extra cables laying around, in the way. Besides, when I am installing a newer component to replace an older one, I know that the cable that is already in use, is working correctly, so if I so have any issues with the new component, I know that it is not due to a cable.

    Since I have yet to play a 4k disk, or any 4k source material, I had never given it a thought, about the newer 4k standard, requiring higher bandwidth HDMI cables. Since I have been using the new 4k Emotiva processor with the TV, without having any issues, It is rational, that I would have never thought about it.

    I do a fair amount of reading on the subject of audio hardware, and I don't seem to recall reading anything about replacing your old cables, with newer, higher bandwidth, when moving to 4k.

    F.Y.I. everyone!
     
  6. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend Thread Starter

    Location:
    Texas
    ^^ Always a great idea to use a “certified” HDMI cable, like the ones from Monoprice.
     
  7. Dave Garrett

    Dave Garrett Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    If you use one of the small form factor portable hard drives, there's no need for a separate wall wart to power it as with the desktop USB drives - it will draw power from the USB connection. I have a portable 2TB drive that stays connected to my 95 unless I'm transferring files to it (it's not on my network via Ethernet, so I have to resort to old-fashioned Sneakernet to transfer files).
     
    tmtomh likes this.
  8. I have the selfie stick but not the thumb drive.
     
  9. Lovealego

    Lovealego Senior Member

    I didn’t mean to give the impression that the porn theory was mine. I read about it when Blu-ray took off and saw there were already Blu-ray porn titles being cranked out pretty early on. I have a feeling it’s less so with Blu-ray was well since the porn industry is a renter industry if there was one and rental shops are gone. So just adult video stores which I believe are still around. In any case when i read the articles on the topic and tried to find more evidence. There’s plenty written about it and seems very plausible.

    I adopted dvd because i couldn’t believe the circuit city false promises about DIVX over DVD. It was empty incorrect salesmanship. When blu came I went for it. HDDVD didn’t feel new enough in the name. The little blu cases were cooler. And Disney and Sony had better offerings promised.

    Now i have over 2000 blu titles. Not one is porn! I do have the full criterion collection though and it has some pretty “interesting” titles.

    Hope my 205 lasts a long long time!
     
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  10. ZenArcher

    ZenArcher Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham, NC
    Which hard drive are you using? The manual warns that the USB power may not be enough for some drives, so it would be nice to know one that works. Thanks!
     
  11. tmtomh

    tmtomh Forum Resident

    IMHO the ultimate solution is an external SSD: USB-powered, quiet, fast, and likely to draw less power than a portable external unit with a conventional spinning hard drive inside. More expensive per GB than a conventional hard drive of course, but SSDs have come way down in price so the price premium is real but no longer outrageous.
     
  12. bholz

    bholz Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    My new 203 arrived today. Been out at RSD events all, day so I haven't even unboxed it yet. Don't know if I will have time tomorrow, but I can't wait to get it into my system and start spinning some discs.​
     
  13. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend Thread Starter

    Location:
    Texas
    But do you have the pink selfie-stick? :laugh:

    If I told you how much drama the pink/blue OPPO selfie-sticks caused between my son/daughter you would not even believe me.
     
    Claus LH likes this.
  14. I’ve had good luck with Blue Jeans Cable HDMI cables, too.

    Right when the poster wrote that he saw black flashing screens, I knew the problem was that his HDMI cable did not have enough bandwidth for 4K HDR. The problem he experienced is not specifically related to the Oppo UHD players. Any UDH player or 4K HDR set top box requires HDMI capable that support a lot of bandwidth. The AppleTV 4K even has an HDMI cable testing tool to ensure the cable has enough bandwidth to carry 4K HDR content.
     
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  15. Ha! I have the powder blue one. Actually, my daughter has it.
     
  16. MikeJedi

    MikeJedi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Las Vegas
    Are the Pangea Premeir SE 4K certified ? It says they can do 4K on the website but I don’t see where it’s official... hmmm they look nice. ..
     
  17. The Beave

    The Beave My Wife Is My Life! And don’t I forget it!

    Very true. In fact I remember being a subscriber to VIDEO magazine when the middle part was born ads.
    Then they relegated it to the back of the mag and sealing the pages.
    In also remember numerous subs calling them on their intellectual hypocrisy.
    Porn did make the hardware industry.
    Beave
     
  18. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend Thread Starter

    Location:
    Texas
  19. Dave Garrett

    Dave Garrett Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    I've used a couple of different ones with no problems. The 2TB one currently in use is a Seagate - not sure of the model, but I'm fairly certain it's been superseded by their Backup Plus series of drives. Previously I had a 1TB Western Digital My Passport.

    I was a bit surprised at that warning about USB power, as I'd expect the small portable drives to not have significant power requirements. But I just checked the manual for my 95 and noticed that it contains the same warning, stating that the USB ports provide a maximum 5V/1000mA to a connected USB drive.
     
  20. Dave Garrett

    Dave Garrett Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    Past the edit window on my earlier post, but it occurred to me later that both of the drives I've used are the "slim" style portable ones, about the size of a deck of playing cards.

    I didn't see power requirements listed anywhere for the Seagate Backup Plus slim drives after some admittedly cursory googling. I did see some mentions of people having to use dual-port USB cables to be able to pull enough power for their external HDDs when using them with certain devices, which obviously would not work with an Oppo, so if you're going hard drive shopping, you should stick to the slim-style drives and check the power requirements to make sure they're not too far out of sync with Oppo's recommendations.
     
  21. PoetryOnPlastic

    PoetryOnPlastic Forum Reedmaker

    Location:
    Los Angeles

    Or you could just get a drive with a power adapter, that's what I use with my 105D.
     
  22. rbbert

    rbbert Forum Resident

    Location:
    Reno, NV, USA
    It’s already been noted that 6 TB drives work, and I have several 4 TB drives from both Seagate and WD that work fine. 5V/1 amp is a lot of power through USB, I would be surprised if any modern portable HD’s need more.
     
    Dave Garrett likes this.
  23. Dave Garrett

    Dave Garrett Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    Sure, that will always work. But if you're short of available power outlets, or would rather not have to deal with an additional cable, the drives that get power through the USB port are preferable.
     
  24. Postercowboy

    Postercowboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Nowhereland
    I was at an Adult Trade Fair back in 1996 or 97. and they were already toying with 3D-technology.
     
  25. MikeJedi

    MikeJedi Forum Resident

    Location:
    Las Vegas
    finally hooked up my 205 to my panny 60 plasma today along with my audio quest HDMI chocolates and my Audioquest Diamondbacks for stereo only and multi. And my Pangea AC14SE Mk 1 ....1st listen on my Getz Gilberto AP SACD.. default dac filter .. it seems like it has all the great sound of the 105D with more detail. Maybe a tad warmer I like it so far. !!!!! I think it will take some time to burn in ... only tried a few minutes of ST into darkness on blu Ray 1080p and I could’ve sworn it’s maybe a tad better than even the darbee in my 105d. But I need more time. ! So far so good ;). Really nice piece .. will report back when I listen see more stuff ;)
     

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