Oppo 103 Blu-ray Player Gets 3 Stars!

Well according to David you are going to have to change the Oppo picture settings to get a good picture from it to start with!  

gel wrote:

Well according to David you are going to have to change the Oppo picture settings to get a good picture from it to start with!  

Not really, but you can get an even better picture by playing about with the settings that are available on the player.

Oh my friend, I think you'll find we're ALL experts on every thread!

I think what seperates the experts from the hobbyists is whether people pay for your advice!

FYI - somone mentioned it already - I'm going to have to demo this player now.

Just a thought. I wonder if WHF have made some changes to their scoring. There's less 5 stars given out in latest edition than you normally get. Tbh I was getting a bit cheesed off the way 5 stars were getting chucked about. 

Viewed in isolation 3 stars is better than average. One might have expected its functionality to give it a bigger push though. 

There are still anomalies though, like the Arcam amp. I think that in 2013 a £650 product needs to offer more especially with cheaper amps giving a DAC or even more. 

Only in the real world...

I was very suprised on hearing the 3stars awarded becouse of the fact that the 2dealers i had spoke too realy rated it.The one thing i learned was that,in their opinion, the picture quality was better than the 93 on a projector,if you looked realy hard!!

Great thread by the way...will there be a fight soon.....

I have never seen so many people upset over one review. The player doesn't suddenly become useless as a result of the rating.

Slightly off topic but,

I went and had a demo today and seemed good not blown away I will proberly get one and try at home.

Just had one question I tried to conect My i phone to the oppo and just said error ? has anyone managed this ?

I've read the review and would say it's very fair. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, and indeed all the hifi rags have their own. To say WHF have been unfair towards Oppo is rubbish - did they not give the 95 five stars??

So onto the review - the appraised the CD replay as average, and picture quality as no better than cheaper decks. And it has a lot of features - but how many will one use now? Not the 4k upscaling that's for sure. And I politely disagree with bigboss about Blu-ray video equivalence across brands. Noise is my bugbear and I've found subtle improvements from Sony 360 to 370, and onto my CA-751BD. Also the Marvel/Mediatek Odeo decoders and scalers are now ubiquitous across makes like CA/Oppo/Onkyo. And I strongly suspect that the Anchor Bay video DACs found in the Denon's and Marantz's are superior in sheer picture quality.

In which case WHF are to be trusted then I'd rather put my money on a Denon 2012 - no question about it even if it's an older model.

Furthermore, I seriously doubt the picture quality in the Oppo 105/CA 752 would be any better than the 95/751BD. And right now, right here, unless you have serious moola to burn, I would also politely disagree with David when I say that 4k upscaling is by and large a red herring. Especially in a few years when 4k display prices will undoubtedly fall yet Sharp at CES have demonstrated 8k technology. 3D has been missed and gone, and 4k may very well go the same way. It's Betamax stuff.

Given all the debate and without wishing to appear easily led..... I need an option of a Blu ray with onboard HD decoding that will send analogue 7.1 to my amp.  Whilst the debates rage on around Oppo and I find a store which will allow me a test, are there any alternatives out there please????

There are a few players with 7.1 analogue outputs.

Panasonic DMP-BDT500

Cambridge Audio 651BD

Oppo 103

These are a few I found after a quick check, there will be others.

If you need 7.1 analogue outputs then probably worth a demo as the audio being analogue outputs they could/will be massively different from each other.

 thanks

While 4K will be the next thing for genuine movie enthusiasts (whether it becomes mainstream or becomes niche), I tell everyone that 4K processing at this moment in time is pointless. It's just another tick for the feature list. And chances are, if you have a current 4K screen to watch, the inbuilt scaling on that will more than likely be better quality.

While I would understand if 8K was adopted for broadcast instead of 4K, that doesn't necessarily make 4K obsolete. Who will be able to fit in a native 8K screen? I don't see why there can't be 4K and 8K screens to cover a wide price range to suit more people.

But where's the true 4k content? Sony talks about releasing '4k ready' blu-ray movies but nothing about native 4k material other than that supplied with their TVs. Looks like the cart has been put ahead of the horse if you ask me.

I will also state that even the well-heeled and video buffs will suffer from format-fatigue if yet another disc format is released - this is a dead-end as far as I'm concerned. I for one will never buy another new format disc player even if I could afford to.

Which also brings me to a question I've asked repeatedly, especially as more music chain stores bite the dust; why doesn't the idiotic record/movie industry save itself and retailers by storing digital audio/video onsite where customers can bring their own drives and load them up??? Oh I get it, copyright issues. So after everyone's haemorrhaging they still can't see beyond their own noses, or rather cut off their ears to spite their faces.

I must repeat - yet another new disc format is a dead-end.