Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 2016 Blu-Ray player recommendations

This is topic 2016 Blu-Ray player recommendations in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-06-2016, 11:27 AM:

Our wonderful Oppo blu-ray player (which has always been kind of quirky, requiring a lot of unplug-and-reboots to make it work) has finally just stopped working completely.

What are the latest and greatest BR player recommendations, specifically those where the onscreen pause/play etc. displays can be turned off?

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 06-06-2016, 11:47 AM:

Mike,

How old is your Oppo? Oppo will repair it. It came with a 2-year warranty. The Oppo BDP-103 remains a good seller for us and none of our customers are reporting issues with them. The only one that did have an issue said that after a firmware update, the problem they had vanished.

Oppo has three current models. The BDP-103 (99.99 % of our Oppo sales), the BDP-105 (esoteric with better audio D/A converters and forces the Darby video enhancement) and the new, lower cost but less feature laden BDT-101CI.

Watch out on the newish Denon DN-500BD. It claims to remove the OSD with its OSD OFF button but it does NOT keep the play/pause icons off the screen. I hear there maybe a fix for that on the next firmware release.

Note, that this is the year of UHD so I suspect that Oppo and others will have something out in that world before the end of the year.

If you are interested in giving Oppo another try, contact me off line and I'll get you pricing.

Posted by Andrew Leist (Member # 8354) on 06-06-2016, 12:09 PM:

Oppo just repaired my BDP-83 for $79 (plus about $15 to ship it to them). Works great.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-06-2016, 05:45 PM:

I think that Oppo is still the way to go. I am actually surprised that Mike had issues with his, as the ones that I know well tend to be pretty solid. When I have had issues, they have been with the disks themselves or the format, not the player.

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 06-06-2016, 06:46 PM:

I know what Mike is talking about. My Oppo BDP-103 is a fine machine, but I notice if you get a little too fast with the remote control buttons, push multiple things a little too quickly, it will freeze. Sometimes waiting a few minutes and then pushing power off will unlock it, sometimes you have to yoink the power cable. Annoying, but otherwise a great player.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 06-06-2016, 09:11 PM:

Have you reported it to Oppo and are you on current firmware?

I must admit, those that we have in in more complex environments, we have on RS232 control, not remote.

Posted by Jason Raftery (Member # 6291) on 06-06-2016, 09:53 PM:

I have run into problems with the BDP-103 and its HDMI inputs not switching cleanly resulting in HDMI handshake issues or (less commonly) a total lockup of the Oppo. I have 25+ of these units out in the field and it can happen with any of them. I've called Oppo about it multiple times but it's clear they don't particularly care about addressing problems with player's the HDMI inputs. I, too, have seen the remote control problems Mike and Mark noted. Blu-ray and DVD playback has been very reliable, however.

Curiosity question: has anyone successfully used a GDC to control a BDP-103 over RS232?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 06-06-2016, 10:58 PM:

quote: Mark Ogden
My Oppo BDP-103 is a fine machine, but I notice if you get a little too fast with the remote control buttons, push multiple things a little too quickly, it will freeze. Sometimes waiting a few minutes and then pushing power off will unlock it, sometimes you have to yoink the power cable.

Yes! That's exactly what mine was doing. I got used to pressing the buttons more slowly. When it would freeze up, usually the power reboot would fix it, but now it just won't come on at all. I've tried a new power cable and I know the AC outlet works.

Mine is a BDP-83 and is 6 years old, and I haven't done the firmware check yet -- but, if it won't even power up, that probably won't work anyway.

The last time we had serious problems with it (maybe 3 years ago), it would load a disk but wouldn't play. I did find a firmware update and that fixed the problem. Since then I've checked the firmware a couple of times but never found another update, so finally a year or so ago I stopped checking. But that'll be my last resort... if I can get it to power up, that is.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 06-07-2016, 10:03 AM:

I have heard about the HDMI switching not being clean (it is a "glitch-switch" and not a proper switcher. We've normally used it to allow for things like a lap top to be plugged in...not for proper switching.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-07-2016, 07:35 PM:

The Playstation 3 is still the best Blu-ray player available, however it may not be what you need. I don't recall if there's way to have the disc auto-play upon insertion without having to wander through the GUI first. It won't support 3D and high-res audio out simultaneously (but 3D's already a dead format anyway... once again) and it doesn't support 4K Blu-rays (which are only upscaled from 2K anyway).

Oh, I guess Playstation 4 is pretty good as well but they cost more monies.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 06-07-2016, 10:26 PM:

Funny thing is that the PS3 had a hell of a better Blu-ray player than the PS4 in my opinion, mostly due to the software interface and options for setting either lossless audio bitsream or LPCM bitstream.

Too bad you can't disable the OSD because besides that, it's a terrific all around player, inexpensive, and you could fire up Grand Theft Auto on your movie sized screen whenever.