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When should you upgrade your hi-fi? How to control ‘upgradeitis’
Looks an awesome piece of kit, but still no Dolby Vision yet but soon with a firmware update.gel said:
buzz_lightclick
Well-known member
bigboss
Moderator
Main money is on better DACs for analogue outs. If you use HDMI for connecting, the difference is minimal and not worth the premium over 203.Benedict_Arnold said:
"The UDP-205 provides reference level sound quality through the analogue outputs, improves the clock precision of the HDMI audio output and increases the power of the built-in headphone amplifier. For the analogue output stages, the UDP-205 utilises two flagship ES9038PRO DACs, which are the flagship of the ESS SABRE PRO series delivering best-in-class audio performance."
jjbomber
Well-known member
buzz_lightclick
Well-known member
Frank Harvey
Well-known member
bigboss said:
looks like the 203 would meet my needs in that case. Any word on HDR passthough on the input, i'd still like to use a Shield TV with the oppo as the player but as far as i've seen it would have to pass the signal to the oppo via in the HMDI input for external processing?
Just a quick heads up is 4k UHD worth it - is it worth investing in.
When it first came out the answer was mixed. I saw a glimpse of it at Gecko and I thought it showed massive promise.
I am not fully up to spec - I have 4k res, I am make shifting Rec 2020 colour and only SDR. So I am only getting about 30 - 40% of the overall boost in performance, maybe 50%. It is a big screen and I sit close less than 8 feet 100" screen I think that is important.
Night before last I was testing UHD discs as I have an issue where I get a bit of light fluctuation in scenes and | was trying to work out the cause. So I had on about 5 different discs. I was also messing with settings.
Last night I watched Rogue One on Blu Ray. I first watched it day it came out and was very happy with its video quality.
Well after a night of UHD blu ray - then a night of normal blu ray the difference is huge - the benefit of UHD is massive, far more than people were letting on initially. Even a good blu ray like Rogue One looks flat, dull, weak and flawed when you compare to UHD. It was a real shock to me last night.
Now interestingly with the Oppo you can change settings on the fly. So I can turn on and off Strip Metadata - this is similar to turning on and off HDR / WCG.
When you turn it off it looks flat and dull - when you turn it back on again the life to picture comes back - that is inline with earlier said comments by people at AVF.
However in terms of resolution you can still see the benefit of 4k - but as you move away from the screen you lose it fast. Moral story for that one is go big with the screen.
In terms of contrast - this is massively important to picture quality - massively important.
My PJ doesnt have very good contrast - it has setting called contrast enhancer and messing with this is interesting. When you compare off to High the difference is marked with UHD - on normal blu ray there difference is not that big - there is so much more contrast mastered into UHD discs that the better the display the more contrast you are going to get. Blu ray is really limited in this regard, really limited.
The colour difference is massive as well - I am not setup accurate - only by eye but its a big improvement to the amount of colur richness and saturation there is to the image.
Brightness - Strip Metadata lets you take WCG from the signal but leave HDR off.
You have a brightness slider for this depending on the display brightness. Initially I had this set quite high because its taken me a while to get used to an image with this much vibrancy. It feels wrong to have it - however once you adjust to it, it feels wrong for it to not be there. I have gradually lowereed the slider to give a brighter more vibrant image and this is improving the overall image for me.
I dont know exactly how this will translate to TV owners and what you will and wont get more / less than what I am. I am guessing more in some areas, less in others is it worth the jump to the UHD format.
There is not a lot of content, its expensive at the minute but the benefit is there simple as. So it is big pregession in overall image quality a really big one.
When it first came out the answer was mixed. I saw a glimpse of it at Gecko and I thought it showed massive promise.
I am not fully up to spec - I have 4k res, I am make shifting Rec 2020 colour and only SDR. So I am only getting about 30 - 40% of the overall boost in performance, maybe 50%. It is a big screen and I sit close less than 8 feet 100" screen I think that is important.
Night before last I was testing UHD discs as I have an issue where I get a bit of light fluctuation in scenes and | was trying to work out the cause. So I had on about 5 different discs. I was also messing with settings.
Last night I watched Rogue One on Blu Ray. I first watched it day it came out and was very happy with its video quality.
Well after a night of UHD blu ray - then a night of normal blu ray the difference is huge - the benefit of UHD is massive, far more than people were letting on initially. Even a good blu ray like Rogue One looks flat, dull, weak and flawed when you compare to UHD. It was a real shock to me last night.
Now interestingly with the Oppo you can change settings on the fly. So I can turn on and off Strip Metadata - this is similar to turning on and off HDR / WCG.
When you turn it off it looks flat and dull - when you turn it back on again the life to picture comes back - that is inline with earlier said comments by people at AVF.
However in terms of resolution you can still see the benefit of 4k - but as you move away from the screen you lose it fast. Moral story for that one is go big with the screen.
In terms of contrast - this is massively important to picture quality - massively important.
My PJ doesnt have very good contrast - it has setting called contrast enhancer and messing with this is interesting. When you compare off to High the difference is marked with UHD - on normal blu ray there difference is not that big - there is so much more contrast mastered into UHD discs that the better the display the more contrast you are going to get. Blu ray is really limited in this regard, really limited.
The colour difference is massive as well - I am not setup accurate - only by eye but its a big improvement to the amount of colur richness and saturation there is to the image.
Brightness - Strip Metadata lets you take WCG from the signal but leave HDR off.
You have a brightness slider for this depending on the display brightness. Initially I had this set quite high because its taken me a while to get used to an image with this much vibrancy. It feels wrong to have it - however once you adjust to it, it feels wrong for it to not be there. I have gradually lowereed the slider to give a brighter more vibrant image and this is improving the overall image for me.
I dont know exactly how this will translate to TV owners and what you will and wont get more / less than what I am. I am guessing more in some areas, less in others is it worth the jump to the UHD format.
There is not a lot of content, its expensive at the minute but the benefit is there simple as. So it is big pregession in overall image quality a really big one.
bigboss
Moderator
What we also need is the studios to pull their socks up and give true 4K discs with high quality transfers consistently, and not fool people with upscaled 2K pictures. People will more drawn to 4K once that happens.
For me, 3D takes precedence any day. Star Wars in 3D looked amazing. It's a shame that the format is dying, when it would have benefitted immensely from 4K resolution.
For me, 3D takes precedence any day. Star Wars in 3D looked amazing. It's a shame that the format is dying, when it would have benefitted immensely from 4K resolution.
I was concerned with the 4k investment and future proofed with a new TV and receiver. I downloaded some samples and played with the 4k youtube apps. In so far as UHD goes, a good upscaled 4k from 1080p means you have a debatable cost vs benefit argument. However, i think HDR is the game changer.
The image quality in the Sully sample was outstanding, the image depth that HDR gives add a level of realism that 4k cannot reach with pixels alone. As a consumer i don't think skyline vids and the usual arty demo vids are enough to convince mopst users to make a significant investment above upscaled bluray but seeing content that i would sit down and watch as convinced me further investment (the 203) is worth it.
The image quality in the Sully sample was outstanding, the image depth that HDR gives add a level of realism that 4k cannot reach with pixels alone. As a consumer i don't think skyline vids and the usual arty demo vids are enough to convince mopst users to make a significant investment above upscaled bluray but seeing content that i would sit down and watch as convinced me further investment (the 203) is worth it.
The content does seem to be coming slow - and therefore a lot of what we are getting is 2K upscaled older films.
When you compare actual 4K DI Deep Water Horizon to The Shallows - the shallows looks soft by comparison with a soft edge to everything
The UHD also shows up the good and bad in the production in that film - poor green screen at times etc.
But its still a big improvement from UHD to Blu Ray on that film - so its not the end of the world its only a 2K DI. Same with Pacific Rim for example and I dar say Life of Pi - not got that in UHD.
It needs Disney to be on board - to get disney on board discs need to be being sold, some every man must do their part and start buying
When you compare actual 4K DI Deep Water Horizon to The Shallows - the shallows looks soft by comparison with a soft edge to everything
The UHD also shows up the good and bad in the production in that film - poor green screen at times etc.
But its still a big improvement from UHD to Blu Ray on that film - so its not the end of the world its only a 2K DI. Same with Pacific Rim for example and I dar say Life of Pi - not got that in UHD.
It needs Disney to be on board - to get disney on board discs need to be being sold, some every man must do their part and start buying
I have to say I am finding the price a bit high for Oppo. The old 105d cost what about £1000? And the 103d £600 and the new 4k 203 only a £50 increase at £650 but the 205 and increase of £400 on the 105d! That don't seem right, part of Oppo's charm was that fair pricing seeing the quality you got. I know it's still seems reasonable compared to the Pioneer bop-lx88 at £1400 and especially that it's 4K too, but that price seems to knock a fair few people including me of reaching, whereas £1000 seemed a lot more reasonable.
Nah I don't. But say if I did I personally wouldn't pay £1400 for one. Image processing chip looks to be the same on the 203 and 205, so it must have some pretty impressive Dacs right?ellisdj said:
I just read the 205 specs it said to be silent in operation, whereas I can hear mine at times with some discs.
jjbomber
Well-known member
No. Say if I did though what would that be called in the AV world? What term would that be?jjbomber said:
jjbomber
Well-known member
Frank Harvey
Well-known member
Let's not forget that the 105 was no different to the 103 in terms of picture - the difference was in the audio - better DACs, dedicated two channel output (balanced and unbalanced) which could also be used independent to the 7.1 output on the back, having a headphone socket, and overall flexibility that the 103 didn't have. That was twice the price of the 103, just as the 205 is to the 203.gel said:
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