OPPO BDP-103 and BDP-105 Networking Universal 3D Blu-ray Players

Thank you Sam, will give it a try...

 

My 103 sure points out who did a careful, loving 5.1 mix, and who just slapped one together. Granted, some could argue I need to realign my speakers for such travesties, but I prefere to take the lazy way out, and either live with the mix, or remove the disc.

Great mix : Fly Like An Eagle 40th Anniversary DVD-V
Not so great : Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East DTS Disc (emphasis on rear speakers where Duane & Dickey are)

 

I'd like to say this is impossible (digital errors don't cause frequency variations) but don't have the scientific terminology to clearly demonstrate it. Suffice it to say, for the overwhelming majority of listeners (nearly all?) increased jitter is heard as less detail and poorer imaging.

 

I have the BDP-103 and I'm an absolute beginner here with high-res audio. I'm stereo only, no 5.1 at the moment. A few questions if someone can answer. I have it hooked up in the most basic fashion possible. RCA cables into my receiver and out to my stereo speakers, and the HDMI cable directly into my digital TV. That's it.

Sometimes though, I'd rather just listen to the music from a DVD-A or Blu-ray audio without menus or images from the TV. Am I doing any harm by turning off the TV as the disc is playing? I've done this a few times and the audio signal cuts in and out 2 or 3 times before "setting itself" and then everything is fine. If I change the channel on the TV while the disc is playing, there is no disruption of the audio signal, BUT if I return to the HDMI channel, I get the same cutting in and out a few times. No big deal, but I am just wondering if this causes any undue harm to the player.

Also, My TV has two inputs for the HDMI cable. HDMI1 and HDMI3. On the HDMI3 input on my TV it says “RECOMMENDED”. Why is this? Should I use that input instead of the HDMI1, which is how I have it set up now?

 

I didn't say it was frequency variations. I said I could hear it and described how it sounds to me.

 

The cutting in and out of the audio when you turn on/off your TV is related to the HDMI handshake that the player must negotiate with your TV. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hdmi1.htm

You can try turning off the audio signal from the HDMI output via the OPPO's set up menu.

Never seen that before, but possibly your TV uses less video processing for HDMI3. Unrelated to your problem above, however.

 

You prompted me to do some searching to see if I should think I'm crazy and not really hearing what I hear (there were others):

"Jitter is simply inaccuracies in the timing of the bits that make up the data stream. It is like a clock that ticks every second. If the clock ticks at exactly each second time interval, then it is said to have no jitter. If some ticks come at .999 seconds and others at 1.001 seconds, then the overall time will be accurate over many seconds, but there is jitter in the timing. This is how actual real-time systems work. They all have some amount of jitter.

The effect of this jitter on the D/A conversion is to create frequency modulation in the analog output. This means that the point at which the top of the cymbol crash was supposed to occur actually occurs maybe 1 nanosecond later and then the trailing ringing of the cymbol comes maybe 1 nsec earlier. The rate of this change can be anywhere from 10hZ to 100kHz or higher. If there is only one sample that occurs at the wrong time, it will never be heard, but typical jitter signature is usually a constantly changing time error. This is why it is audible. The brain detects these things just like it detects moving objects with eyesight.

The time error has both amplitude and frequency or spectra characterisitics. Each CD player or computer audio device has different amplitude and spectra for its jitter, so they can sound very different from each other, even though the data is always the same. Data errors are very uncommon for both CD players and computer audio. Jitter is the difference that you are hearing, if you hear a difference.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio"

also:
"Wow and flutter exhibit the same results as jitter, frequency modulation, so the answer is yes, although some jitter occurs at rates and changes in ways that a turntable could not physically do."

Steve N.

 

Thanks, Sam.

 

I'm really not sure what he's talking about here. If you take (for example) a 1 kHz tone, you can increase the jitter in the A>D conversion by quite a lot (even more than the 4000-5000 psecs typical of an HDMI connection) and you won't get any variation in the frequency of that tone, and it won't sound warbly the way increasing flutter on a tape deck or turntable will. It is true that on complex musical passages, amounts of wow/flutter too small to be easily heard as "warbly" will slightly distort the audio signal, but I don't think that's what anyone means (for one thing, that distortion is extremely difficult to characterize and can really only be appreciated by removing it via the Plangent Process and comparing the processed file to the original).

 

As much as I joined in on the discussion about jitter here in this thread I feel any further discussion should be in a seperate thread. This thread should be more focused on the discussion of the Oppo 103 and 105. Just my $.02 .

Bill

 

OK...quick boil down please. I want a player that can play DVD's well and have excellent SQ while playing DVD-A's. Is this the player for me? This is all I'm interested in. I already have a killer SACD/CD player. Thanks

 

Yes. And if'n you ever venture into Blu ray, 3D, or need the CD, SACD, it'll be there waiting.

 

SWEET! Thanks myke. I havent tried any Blu ray music yet. How is it?

 

I love it ! High resolution, like Neil Young's Archives...24/192 sounds unbelievable.

 

+1
Best digital I've ever heard (Neil Young Archives).

 

Interesting. I've only played it straight through each time.

 

See if the same thing occurs if you use analog outputs.

 

I'm afraid that points to the Marantz as the source of your troubles.

 

Is everyone having audio sync problems with netflix on the BDP-103? I'm using the HDMI out to my TV for video and analog 2-channel outs to my stereo.

 

Can't believe I'm saying this - but you may want to visit the AVS forum - there are 'official' threads for the 103 and 105 players. Seems there are several quirks and bugs yet to be worked out on both these players. I'm gonna wait this out before deciding if I still want the 105.

 

Thank you Sam - aspect ratio now perfect on everything.

The audio performance of the 105 is quite remarkable. The stereo separation on There's a Kind Of Hush (Herman's Hermits) and Sunny Afternoon (The Kinks) becomes a lot more clearly defined and wider than when played on previous hardware.

One slight niggle. It seems to struggle with the menu on the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Damn The Torpedoes blu-ray disc. Is this likely to be a firmware problem?