Oppo BDP-831?

[Anonymous]

hammill:kaotician:

Will Harris:Now, in my experience, there is no difference between the cheaper and most expensive BluRay players in their 1080p24 output over HDMI. I think that the differences are basically not there. BluRay is a digital medium, being read and transmitted digitally with no interpretation, at 1080p24, aside from the unpacking of packets of data. To suggest that one player looks different from another is in my experience blatantly misleading and can only be seen as a means to allow manufacturers to continue to mislead the public and sell on a differentiation that doesn't exist.

But you know this can't be true. DVD is a digital-only medium too. I have a Pioneer 610 DVD player, a cheapo, for SACD playback currently, which runs into my amp via hdmi that's exactly the same brand of cable as my Panny BD350 uses, yet if I run exactly the same disc through either machine, both upscaled in exactly the same way, the PQ difference is massive, with no disrespect to the Pioneer which does a fine job at its' price.

I think the point is your DVD is beiing upscaled, which requires some clever circuitry and presumably your two different players have different upscaling circuitry.The Blu-Ray is not being upscaled, so theoretically presenting the picture should be far simpler.

It's early morning and I don't think I put myself across too clearly. Whilst I don't have 2 BD's to compare, I have a fair few DVD transports all in all, and there are genuine differences relating to PQ apparent amongst them all. I discount my hdmi's as they're all the same brand and they're all going into the same amp, so I discount that too. That being the case, whilst every piece of kit is doing exactly the same job with the 1's and 0's, differences are nevertheless readily apparent, something I'd hazard a guess we've all experienced. Will's point therefore is more rationalizing than true, and is disingenuous in the way he makes it, in my view (as someone who's been looking for a good quality all-rounder for close to two years now).

 

[John Duncan]

Clare Newsome:The irony is not lost on me that if the Oppo had won the Award, strictly speaking we would have had to disqualify it and remove the Award for not being on sale by October 20th....

Would you issue a product recall for the mag or would you just ask everybody to rip that page out?

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Will Harris:Andrew, you would agree totally, you work at What Hi-Fi.

The_LHC is spot on. Players and other pieces of kit, have all previously been assessed on their merits. When you want to run a shootout you compare an aspect (usually the main one) of performance of a range of items all broadly trying to do the same thing. In this case, you didn't.

Now, in my experience, there is no difference between the cheaper and most expensive BluRay players in their 1080p24 output over HDMI. I think that the differences are basically not there. BluRay is a digital medium, being read and transmitted digitally with no interpretation, at 1080p24, aside from the unpacking of packets of data. To suggest that one player looks different from another is in my experience blatantly misleading and can only be seen as a means to allow manufacturers to continue to mislead the public and sell on a differentiation that doesn't exist. If you don't need analogue outs and only care about the picture and sound over HDMI and aren't too fussed about loading speeds, I'd buy a Sony S350. It's indistinguishable from a Denon DVD-A1UD at £4500.

On the subject of which, you awarded the A1UD five stars. It does exactly the same job as the Oppo, but much more slowly. The A1UD costs £4,500 and the Oppo £450. Excuse me for making the comparison, but if we discount the analogues, which I thought sounded very alike over stereo only, the HDMI outputs were identical. How on earth can a machine costing 1/10 of the price of the Denon, doing the same job, more quickly, receive only 4 stars.

Basically, you're setting yourselves up as a consumer magazine but you're not showing the impartiality I would expect from a consumer magazine.

The Oppo is sold via the company's website. This counts out all of the hi-fi stores up and down the country who make their livings from the sale of hi-fi with a margin they're able to tack on. Giving the Oppo five stars would clear the way for many people, who've been waiting for a What Hi-Fi verdict on the player, to buy one. The four stars has nothing to do with what the player deserves, I think anyone reading this thread by now would have figured this out, it has everything to do with protecting the hi-fi retailer business model and protecting the largest source of revenue to Haymarket, which undeniably comes from advertising. I won't suggest that anyone asked you to mark down the Oppo. But it's a fairly basic business reality, that you don't bite the hand that feeds you. This is where my disappointment in What Hi-Fi really comes to a crunch. I'd have expected a little professional integrity.

This is, of course, only my opinion. I no longer know how much of your editoral and reviews I can believe. Thank goodness that other sources of information exist, but what a shame that my favourite and my most looked-forward-to monthly read has turned out to be what I can only call an industry stooge. You undermine the rest of your work, when you make such a blatant misjudgement as this.

Will, Will, Will!!!

The £4500 Denon gives the same picture as the £150 Sony 350???? And you say that it's because Bluray is a digital medium?? DVD is digital too and I've heard you talk before about how much better the top end Denons are compared to the midrange Denons, let alone silly priced dvd players against £50 ones. This just doesn't add up. Either your eyes are not that great and you cannot pick up the little nuances that the reviewers do, or your love of the Oppo is just blinding your view. Either way you should pack up now, you are making yourself sound silly - and I've always regarded you as someone to listen and learn from on here.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Folks,

Very interesting reviews in the Awards Issue which prompt a few questions I hope the team can shed some light on....apologies if some has been covered elsewhere, I am very much an AV newbie and keen to try and get best value for limited funds available!

1. What are the loading times like for the Sony S760 compared to the Oppo?

2. Ditto for comparison of DVD upscaling?

3. Does the Sony have the ability to zoom the picture on 'letterbox' format movies which the Oppo appears to (judging by what reviews and comments I have read)?

4. Does the Sony memorise last position for discs if switching between discs?

5. Other than SACD and DVD-A, what file formats does the Oppo play which the Sony doesn't / vice versa and does either machine play FLAC and OGG files?

6. How would the CD, DVD and BD performance compare when played via HDMI to my amp and Kef 3005SE? The Awards first look indicates a negative for picture and sound via analogue outs but I'm unclear as to whether this would impact me?

I don't own a dedicated CD player and whilst I know a dedicated player will likely always be better at a given price point, I'd like to try and get the best sound I can from a multi-disc player and the surround speakers..... an upgrade to dedicated CD player in future could happen I suppose, likewise obtaining a pair of reasonable speakers (Dali Lektor 2 / Diamond Wharfedale 10.1 ?) but not for a couple of years I don't suppose due to impending wedding bills hehe...

7. Any tangible benefit to pairing a Sony disc player with my Sony amp, or would either machine do as well?

It's a real shame not being able to demo the Oppo alongside the Sony and I guess it is always going to be a leap of faith in that sense but any light the team can shed on the above would be very useful... I realise that such points may well be the subject of future group or supertest features but an indication would help muchly when it comes to buying time (assuming the Oppo ever becomes available

!

 

[Big Aura]

Will Harris:I shalln't Is that the opposite of Insha'Allah?

May I clarify something - I read above that the Sony costs £100 less that the Oppo - was it the price-point it was reviewed at? Most retailers (other than SevenOaks and a few web sites) are selling at RRP, being just £50 less.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Big Aura:

May I clarify something - I read above that the Sony costs £100 less that the Oppo - was it the price-point it was reviewed at? Most retailers (other than SevenOaks and a few web sites) are selling at RRP, being just £50 less.



It was reviewed at £400, but we'd already seen pre-orders at £349. I'd be amazed if that doesn't fall further by Xmas, but that assumption was not made when testing.

 

[Big Aura]

thanks for the speedy reply, Clare. I guess I should wait even longer for the hope of further discounts!

 

[carter]

im gonna wait a couple of months for the sony most of there bdp have droped in price in the first 6 months

 

[Anonymous]

Gerrardasnails, yes, I'm saying that for BluRay only, over HDMI the S350 performs just as well as the A1UD. This was my experience, testing on a 3m wide screen using a JVC DLA HD950 projector (brand new model) and a Denon AVP A1HD processor and POA A1HD power amp. Basically, with BluRay there is very little for the player to do other than faithfully read the disc.

This differs completely with what takes place with DVD playback. Taking a Standard Definition image, stored on a DVD interlaced, (only half the lines in each frame are recorded) and then asking the player to upscale it to 1080 lines and deinterlace it requires some very complex analytics to be performed on every frame, ideally using the frame before and frame ahead so that interpolation of where the image is going transfers accurately to a smooth image on screen. this is completely different to replay of BluRay. This is really in reply to Kaotician. If at any point you want to come over to mine with a stack of players and take a look at the Oppo you're more than welcome. Sadly, at home, I only have a 720p plasma. My testing was, as described above, done on the JVC PJ.

This coming weekend we plan to do a blind shootout of DVD material. I don't think it'll be a surprise if differences are more readily seen, but I won't presume to know the outcome until after we've done the test.

From the above howling protests from What Hi-Fi at my stooge remark, you're missing the point, as I'm sure you believe I am too. Ignoring the wrath with which you feel owing to an accusion you don't feel you deserve, you have completely passed up on the opportunity (and what an opportunity it was!) to make any comment on the comparision of the Oppo to the Denon A1UD, a player costing litterally 10 times as much and performing in many regards just as well, and in some much more poorly (speed of operation in particular).

Now, if the Sony is really as good as What Hi-Fi say it is, then what is it doing differently from the Oppo, or any other BluRay player, to display a better BluRay image? I'd love to know. Ontop of which, how does that effect the player ratings of all the more expensive players?

My view is that BluRay has a hidden quality that people are being trained to believe doesn't exist. That is simply to say, it has no performance variation in the player. None that I have seen. Nor should it. If you keep it in the digital domain from player to processor, then you move the place of differentiation up the chain. The only differentiators I've seen for BluRay players, is format choice, and DVD and CD playback.

That still doesn't answer the question of how the A1UD deserves 5 stars at ten times the price of the Oppo.

 

[pete321]

Gerrardasnails:The £4500 Denon gives the same picture as the £150 Sony 350???? And you say that it's because Bluray is a digital medium?? DVD is digital too and I've heard you talk before about how much better the top end Denons are compared to the midrange Denons, let alone silly priced dvd players against £50 ones. This just doesn't add up. Either your eyes are not that great and you cannot pick up the little nuances that the reviewers do, or your love of the Oppo is just blinding your view. Either way you should pack up now, you are making yourself sound silly - and I've always regarded you as someone to listen and learn from on here.

I'm half way between the two of you. I don't think it's fair to say that there's no difference, but do those differences really warrant the massive price differences with a digital 1080p picture on a good player?

My experience of blu-ray is limited to the Sony BDP-S350, Denon DVD-2500BT and the Oppo BDP83. Having the Sony first and then progressing to the Denon was a massive disappointment, the Denon had a sharper, less noisy picture, but these weren't massive differences, certainly not worth an extra £400 or so at the time. The sound, well I'm pre-programmed that Denon sounds safe and I preferred the Sony's more lively feel. Like Will, I don't understand why with digital medium there should be a difference, but unlike Will, I've found there is, albiet from a 1080p video point of view it's minimal.

The Oppo is a far better machine than either of the other two I mentioned, the most noticeable improvements coming with SD scaling, but ease of use has to be praised as well. I do agree with the stereo sound though, I tried the analogues with music and they sounded flat as described by WHF, I thought I'll connect digitally to my modded DacMagic, but the sound was still flat by some margin. I compared it to the same CD ripped (lossless) to my hard drive, again through the DacMagic and the Oppo was quite poor. I can't explain why, when with SACD digitally to my AV amp it's excellent.

I'm willing to accept that the Sony 760 is be better with 1080p, I'm sure it's negligible when you're sitting on the sofa, but it's also cheaper. It's got to be the choice for people who don't want SACD/DVD-A/MKV playback, but if you want them, the Oppo has to be 5 stars at the price, it's excellent value for money.

It's the value for money thing that causes me to sometimes query some of the WHF ratings and reviews, especially more recently, not with the Sony 760 (which I haven't seen but sounds like a bargain at £350), but for example, the Denon DVD-2500BT and also having just replaced my £3000 Arcam AVR600 for a £1500 Yamaha DSP-Z7, as with the Denon vs Oppo, I just can't see or hear £1500 worth of difference in the AVR600 compared to the Z7.

 

[AndrewH13]

Clare Newsome:....remove the Award for not being on sale by October 20th....

Well it's the 20th and I just heard a thud on the floor from the postman. Was it my subscriber issue of What Hi-Fi? No, it was Windows 7 DVD and I'm sure that's not meant to be out for a few days!!! So PCWorld/Microsoft beat WHF mag and Oppo websites

 

[Clare Newsome]

Will Harris:Now, if the Sony is really as good as What Hi-Fi say it is, then what is it doing differently from the Oppo, or any other BluRay player, to display a better BluRay image? I'd love to know.

Directly from the Sony review:

Sony's HD Reality enhancer allows you to fine-tune the picture on the fly, and
tinker with aspects of performance such as grain and noise reduction.

Precision Cinema HD claims to help produce a smoother, sharper image. Finally,
the 'S760 also includes Sony's SBM (Super Bit Mapping) technology that
helps match the image to your display's bit depth (whether it's 8, 10,
or 12-bit).

And yes, we're currently re-evaulating ratings of a range of products due to Awards debutants.

(BTW, I note you haven't withdrawn your clumsy accusation re retail when faced with my factual points about the many Award winners that are sold direct.

)

 

[Gerrardasnails]

pete321:
Gerrardasnails:The £4500 Denon gives the same picture as the £150 Sony 350???? And you say that it's because Bluray is a digital medium?? DVD is digital too and I've heard you talk before about how much better the top end Denons are compared to the midrange Denons, let alone silly priced dvd players against £50 ones. This just doesn't add up. Either your eyes are not that great and you cannot pick up the little nuances that the reviewers do, or your love of the Oppo is just blinding your view. Either way you should pack up now, you are making yourself sound silly - and I've always regarded you as someone to listen and learn from on here.

I'm half way between the two of you. I don't think it's fair to say that there's no difference, but do those differences really warrant the massive price differences with a digital 1080p picture on a good player?

My experience of blu-ray is limited to the Sony BDP-S350, Denon DVD-2500BT and the Oppo BDP83. Having the Sony first and then progressing to the Denon was a massive disappointment, the Denon had a sharper, less noisy picture, but these weren't massive differences, certainly not worth an extra £400 or so at the time. The sound, well I'm pre-programmed that Denon sounds safe and I preferred the Sony's more lively feel. Like Will, I don't understand why with digital medium there should be a difference, but unlike Will, I've found there is, albiet from a 1080p video point of view it's minimal.

The Oppo is a far better machine than either of the other two I mentioned, the most noticeable improvements coming with SD scaling, but ease of use has to be praised as well. I do agree with the stereo sound though, I tried the analogues with music and they sounded flat as described by WHF, I thought I'll connect digitally to my modded DacMagic, but the sound was still flat by some margin. I compared it to the same CD ripped (lossless) to my hard drive, again through the DacMagic and the Oppo was quite poor. I can't explain why, when with SACD digitally to my AV amp it's excellent.

I'm willing to accept that the Sony 760 is be better with 1080p, I'm sure it's negligible when you're sitting on the sofa, but it's also cheaper. It's got to be the choice for people who don't want SACD/DVD-A/MKV playback, but if you want them, the Oppo has to be 5 stars at the price, it's excellent value for money.

It's the value for money thing that causes me to sometimes query some of the WHF ratings and reviews, especially more recently, not with the Sony 760, but e.g the Denon DVD-2500BT and also having just replaced my £3000 Arcam AVR600 for a £1500 Yamaha DSP-Z7, as with the Denon vs Oppo, I just can't see or hear £1500 worth of difference in the AVR600 compared to the Z7.

But you have said it yourself here, the differences, albeit minimal, were noticeable - and that was a £130 bd player going up to a £300 player (in today's money - we all know the Denon was way over priced because it was their first bd player). If that's the case, I would imagine that there is a small improvement as you go up the chain to the very top. No one is saying that the improvement has to be calculated by the cost difference - of course your brilliant Z7 is not going to sound only half as good as the £3000 Arcam. Similarly, a £4k bd player is not going to show 10 times better picture than a £400 player. However, saying that they are all look the same with a bluray spinning is hard to believe.

I believe that to many the Oppo would be a better choice - a player that plays mkv?! That's great news for many but the 99% of others don't even know or care what .mkv is. My point though is the WHF review would not state that the Sony is a better bd player, if it wasn't.

 

[Anonymous]

any steer on the questions I put on the last page folks?

 

[Clare Newsome]

I've got the test team working on those, which they will add into the review (where relevant) as well as answer up here. Just a little pre-occupied with getting the Awards site live for the next little while (Oppo, we feel your pain

)

 

[Anonymous]

Cheers Clare, you're a star! Looks like the Awards issue could even be saving me a hundred squid for a, possibly, better machine for my needs.......

 

[Anonymous]

Clare Newsome:
Will Harris:Now, if the Sony is really as good as What Hi-Fi say it is, then what is it doing differently from the Oppo, or any other BluRay player, to display a better BluRay image? I'd love to know.

Directly from the Sony review:

Sony's
HD Reality enhancer allows you to fine-tune the picture on the fly, and
tinker with aspects of performance such as grain and noise reduction.

Precision
Cinema HD claims to help produce a smoother, sharper image. Finally,
the 'S760 also includes Sony's SBM (Super Bit Mapping) technology that
helps match the image to your display's bit depth (whether it's 8, 10,
or 12-bit).

And yes, we're currently re-evaulating ratings of a range of products due to Awards debutants.

(BTW, I note you haven't withdrawn your clumsy accusation re retail when faced with my factual points about the many Award winners that are sold direct.

)

I'm sorry that I made the critisism that I did, but it still stands. There are some very strange things said about players and ratings that don't add up. That is really a conclusion born of all the other points rather than the main assertion.

When we tested our batch of players we ran all of them in source direct 1080p24 for BluRay where we could. The idea being that the screen should show the disc as it was recorded and mastered. You may choose to enhance the image but in so doing you also introduce new data which wasn't part of the presentation on the disc. The reality shouldn't need to be enhanced on a BluRay, just re-produced. However, if it's a feature that's available and you like applying it to every disc you play, then great. I'll check it out if it's really very good, be churlish not to.

That doesn't change the fact that you've applied a strange set of criteria to the Oppo. It plays SACD and DVD-A but you don't think many people will be interested in that so haven't given the player any credit for having the capability. It'll even output DSD from an SACD but again, no credit given. It starts up incredibly quickly, reacts brilliantly to remote commands (no delays) and have 2 USB ports, one front and one rear as well as network capability. All of these things are ignored, which in your view means you can concentrate on testing it's picture and sound. Even here, I know of no-one who's seen the Oppo who'd rate it at 4* and not 5. Only WHF. Perhaps that's how you like it. I think it's odd. And I think that other reasons must have crept in. That's my view. It's a ligitimate critisism, I know you don't like it, but you have every right to defend your position. Just don't consider it such a crime to have it raised. It should be expected and you appear well armed to defend yourselves so I'm sure you'll outlive me!

 

[pete321]

Gerrardasnails:But you have said it yourself here, the differences, albeit minimal, were noticeable - and that was a £130 bd player going up to a £300 player (in today's money - we all know the Denon was way over priced because it was their first bd player). If that's the case, I would imagine that there is a small improvement as you go up the chain to the very top. No one is saying that the improvement has to be calculated by the cost difference - of course your brilliant Z7 is not going to sound only half as good as the £3000 Arcam. Similarly, a £4k bd player is not going to show 10 times better picture than a £400 player. However, saying that they are all look the same with a bluray spinning is hard to believe. I believe that to many the Oppo would be a better choice - a player that plays mkv?! That's great news for many but the 99% of others don't even know or care what .mkv is. My point though is the WHF review would not state that the Sony is a better bd player, if it wasn't.

Yes they're noticeable, but in terms of 1080p picture the price differences don't warrant the improvement. I've been buying hifi long enough to know that you don't get double the quality for double the price, but the Sony BDP-S350 was £200 when the 5 star DVD-2500BT was selling for £600. In my opinion no way did the Denon warrant the extra £400, especially when it spat out quite a few discs, yet it got 5 stars and I bought it (my fault I know for not testing). As for the Z7, it sounds better on my set up with movies and SACD, and as I've tweaked it's settings over the last few weeks and it's run in, it's not far off the AVR600's stereo performance. That's the Z7 is better with movies and SACD, dosen't lock-up, more features, better upscaling and not far off with stereo music. That's why I'm hesitating a bit with recent WHF reviews, £1500 extra just isn't worth it when it's worse in some areas and only slightly better in others.

 

[pete321]

Gerrardasnails:My point though is the WHF review would not state that the Sony is a better bd player, if it wasn't.

And I've agreed that at the price it is, but it's a different machine to the Oppo, and because the Sony gets 5 stars shouldn't necessarily prevent a more capable player in terms of features getting 5 stars, when I suspect it's not that far off the HDMI 1080p performance of the Sony.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Will Harris:That doesn't change the fact that you've applied a strange set of criteria to the Oppo. It plays SACD and DVD-A but you don't think many people will be interested in that so haven't given the player any credit for having the capability. It'll even output DSD from an SACD but again, no credit given. It starts up incredibly quickly, reacts brilliantly to remote commands (no delays) and have 2 USB ports, one front and one rear as well as network capability. All of these things are ignored, which in your view means you can concentrate on testing it's picture and sound.

That's simply not true - they were not ignored; Andrew's 2000-word blog covers them all off, and is an ideal longer read for someone interested in those specific features.

Will Harris:

Even here, I know of no-one who's seen the Oppo who'd rate it at 4* and not 5.

But how many of them have also reviewed the Sony?

Will Harris:

And I think that other reasons must have crept in. That's my view. It's a ligitimate critisism,

Well it's not based on fact, merely (misguided) opinion.

 

[Anonymous]

Clare may i ask what blu ray player you have, out of interest?

 

[Clare Newsome]

I'm currently using a Panasonic 'BD55: I was waiting for the outcome of this year's tests - not to mention saving up! - before I decide what to upgrade to.

The Sony 'S760 is clear favourite at the moment, but while I hoard my pennies, i'm keeping an eye on the still-to-come BD player releases from Toshiba, Cambridge Audio and Yamaha (especially as I use a DSP-Z7 amp).

 

[Andy Grange]

Will Harris:Now, if the Sony is really as good as What Hi-Fi say it is, then what is it doing differently from the Oppo, or any other BluRay player, to display a better BluRay image? I'd love to know. Ontop of which, how does that effect the player ratings of all the more expensive players?

Can I just ask a quick question Will?

Why didn't you get an old PS3 which plays BD's, SACD's, CD's and can act as a games console if there's no difference between any blu-ray player on the market for BD discs? Could've saved yourself a few quid there mate

 

[pete321]

Clare Newsome:especially as I use a DSP-Z7 amp.

So you've got the true one box nirvana then, bang per buck taken into account!

 

[The_Lhc]

Clare Newsome:Directly from the Sony review:
Sony's HD Reality enhancer allows you to fine-tune the picture on the fly, and
tinker with aspects of performance such as grain and noise reduction.

Precision Cinema HD claims to help produce a smoother, sharper image. Finally,
the 'S760 also includes Sony's SBM (Super Bit Mapping) technology that
helps match the image to your display's bit depth (whether it's 8, 10,
or 12-bit).

Is that last bit automatic or something the user has to set themselves, ie do you need to know what bit-depth your display is to use this feature? I've no idea what the bit depth of my TV is (KRP-500a).

I didn't really want to go away from Pioneer for BD but I don't think I can wait long enough to save up for a new amp, so I might get the Sony for the multi-channel outs, it's not quite the cheapest I've seen with them but the only other one was a "Logik" BD player from Curries, which is getting a complete body swerve!

Maybe I'll sell the Sony once I've got an HDMI amp, to fund a BDP-LX52, how do they compare in picture quality terms?