# Oppo / Sony / Pioneer / Panasonic



## Oleson M.D. (Feb 3, 2010)

Have been doing a lot of reading on these Blu-ray players.

Everyone raves over the Oppo. But the upscale models from Pioneer (Elite) and Sony (ES) seem to offer some features that Oppo does not care about or just simply ignores.

Pioneer offers great flexibility in picture adjustment/calibration which seems like it would be a desirable feature. Plus, they have the Wolfson DAC's which are generally thought to offer superior audio.

In a recent online review of the Panasonic DMP-BD60, the reference source was the Oppo. The reviewer stated that "you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two players using good quality blu-ray material".

Is Oppo the "Holy Grail" of Blu-ray?

Just curious..................


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

The DACs will only be used if you don't go digital...which most will.

Haven't side-by-sided them myself, but the Panasonic is probably better forthe $$ and the Oppo is better than most at twice the $$. All depends on your budget.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

The Oppo is a very well built player it offers everything that you can stuff into one box including SACD, analog multi channel outputs, multi region capabilities, built in memory for BD live content and stellar up scaling capabilities. You would be tough pressed to find a player with all those features in one unit.
That said the Panbasonic BD60 (that I have) has been said to do just as well if not better at upconverting SD DVDs as the Sony PS3 (I have put it side by side my Toshiba AX2 HD DVD player that has the Raon video processor and cant see a difference) and the audio DACs and video processing are very high end.


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## Jungle Jack (Jul 28, 2009)

Hello,
OPPO does indeed hold a certain cult status. All the same they do back it up with stellar performance.
One of the best features of OPPO BDP's is the rapid load times.

Sony makes quality BDP's as well. I still think the best BDP to get from them is the PS3 Slim. Rapid load times and practically guaranteed hassle free playback make the PS3 Slim a compelling choice.

I am a huge fan of Pioneer BDP's and own 3. While the load times are less than ideal, the build and parts quality is excellent. This applies specifically to the BDP-51, BDP-05, and BDP-09. The current entry level BDP of Pioneer is made by Sharp (BDP-120). The middle tier models BDP-320 and BDP-23 do not share the same build and parts quality as did their predecessors the BDP-51 and BDP-05. No more Wolfson Dac's and large chassis.

Panasonic makes excellent BDP's that offer fast loading times and stellar values. They have often been difficult to obtain due to shortages. That being said, they are really quite good machines.
Cheers,
JJ


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## mactuna (Jun 28, 2008)

May i ask .... parts, build , loading times and aestethics aside and focusing *only *on video/audio quality what are the TOP players to get ?

Video : HDMI direct to projector
Audio : Bitstreamed or LPCM to AVR


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## Jungle Jack (Jul 28, 2009)

Hello,
The OPPO would certainly be one of the top BDP's to get. Denon's current lineup is excellent as well.
As is Pioneer BDP-09.

Given your description, it looks like you need a BDP with dual HDMI Outputs. In this case, your choices get much smaller. Denon's flagship and Pioneer's BDP-09 both offer dual HDMI Outputs.
Cheers,
JJ


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## subzero (Jan 25, 2010)

Oppo BDP-83 is an outstanding universal disc player with excellent performance on Blu-rays and DVDs and lightning-fast operational speed, but most home theater fans will balk at the high price.


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

subzero said:


> Oppo BDP-83 is an outstanding universal disc player with excellent performance on Blu-rays and DVDs and lightning-fast operational speed, but most home theater fans will balk at the high price.


Actually, most home theater fans will recognize the Oppo as a fantastic value and save up their money to purchase one. Most consumers will balk at the price of the Oppo or any other brand/model above $199.


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## recruit (May 9, 2009)

The Oppo does everything so well and tbh for its price it is a bargain, and now there are more flavours if required with upgraded models like the SE and Nu Force model and even The Upgrade Company do specific mods for the BDP83 too!

Sony/Panasonic/Pioneer all make solid products but none are universal players like the Oppo is.


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

recruit said:


> The Oppo does everything so well and tbh for its price it is a bargain, and now there are more flavours *if required* with upgraded models like the SE and Nu Force model and even The Upgrade Company do specific mods for the BDP83 too!


And just to be clear for anyone in the market, and Oppo themselves will tell you this, unless you are using the analog audio outputs, there will be no advantage to choosing the SE model over the standard model.


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## recruit (May 9, 2009)

eugovector said:


> And just to be clear for anyone in the market, and Oppo themselves will tell you this, unless you are using the analog audio outputs, there will be no advantage to choosing the SE model over the standard model.


Very true, if you have legacy equipment then the upgraded models are the way to go but also if you just wanted to have superior CD sound then the upgraded SE model makes a lot of sense and not just for movies as it is a very good CD spinner too.


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## mactuna (Jun 28, 2008)

Thanks for your answers, i am really kind of new to HD and do not own a single component that is HD compatible (i know...i know...i should and intend to). I am however a huge fan of HT/Music and have been investing my €€ for more than 10years on this hobby now.

And thus my doubts and reasons for questioning. I found it very odd regards to what people "think" what's "expensive", "cheap", "bargain", etc on BD players.
Most people say praises about the OPPO player and others find it too expensive. I should say i find it rather "bargain" if it does what people say it does. I should say again i NEVER owned a HD player.
I do however, owned and still do own very expensive (and GOOD) SD players and Decoders.

I went from Toshiba players, Onkyo players and Receivers (top of line) to TAG Mclaren Audio DVD32R and the acompanying AV32R DP. This is my current setup for DVD and quite happy with it.
Some may say that a 8000€ combo is crazy money (i bought them used so got a good deal) for DVD+AV but i can confirm that they are that good. 

However i never compared them to HD content. And from my gatherings....i am definitly missing something. I am not talking about Video because that is obvious...but for audio too.

So, summing up, to me to move from a 5000€ DVD player to a 500€ BD player sounds kind of strange.
Are we talking the same language here? Does technology evolved so much that the 500€ OPPO trashes away the TAG DVD ? What about AV processor? 

I also find odd, to see people that buy expensive HD AV processors (like the Arcam AV888) find the OPPO to be expensive ???
Also...how come people invest 10.000$ in a dedicated room, and then only spend 200$ on a player?

And for last...this is what bugs me the most : How come people spend 5000$ on a projector...and only spend 500$ on the player ??? Is this what it should be ?

So you see...my main doubt is...if i have 10.000€ to spend on a Theatre...on wich should a spend it ?
Projector? BD player? AV proc ? Amps ? Speakers ?


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## Oleson M.D. (Feb 3, 2010)

I would spend the greatest portion of your cash on the items that will actually produce the sound that your ears will hear......speakers! Buy the best you can afford , and the ones you like.

Next, spend a large portion of your cash on a good PJ. You should be able to get state of the art performance for $2500 or less.

Then spend what is leftover on your source components.

You ask other questions concerning pricing. The short answer is that you can buy a state of the art BD player for $250, or even less. Oppo will set you back $500, or $900. As has been reported here, most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference between an Oppo BD83 and a Panasonic DMP BD60. I'm not saying there is no difference.......only that for the money, the Panny is more bang for the buck. If money is no object, then go for the BD83 SE, or even the $2000 Denon BD player. But it is not necessary to spend that much money!

Yes, you can get state of the art performance today for very little cash.


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## mactuna (Jun 28, 2008)

Oleson,

I appreciate your sugestion, i do not know what kind of experience you have with audio gear, but one thing i know for granted and this was learned the hard way throughout the years, is that the source component is always more preponderant on the overall perceived sound than the end of the chain. That said, i have had more than 10 types of speakers in my own system (Stereo and 5.1) and as i previoulsly said a lot of DVDs, CDs, Amplifiers and processors.

My findings tell me i can get a great sound say investing 40% on source (CD or DVD) 40% on Amps and 20% on Speakers....and in get a BAD sound investing the same money with say 20% on source, 20% on amps and 60% on speakers. This is mostly true with very revealing speakers (owned Proac, Sonus Faber, B&W) and in the late scenario the speakers would show all the defects in the source components. The 1st scenario however, not beeing the most revealing and detailed one, would sound more relaxed, correct and enjoyable. I would 100% prefer that.

I already own a lot of speakers. I do not intend to spend money on new ones for now. I am in fact acquiring a new home in the next few months and it will have a dedicated room. That will be a large improvement on my current setup and i do wish to "upgrade" from SD to HD. I will have to match the speakers to the new room and see if i like them, if not, trade them for something else.

But there are a lot of questions in my mind right now, regarding new technologies.
HD format may be quite stable and defined, but other are not.
Blue-Ray keeps upgrading from 1.2, 1.3, 1.4...will it ever stop ? It does not makes sense to buy a 3000$ Denon player and find out a year later that it wont play the new media.
What about 3D ? Wich technology will really get into our homes ? With what Players and Projectors?
Same story in investment here....and screens ???

The old DVD format seemed to stop evolving much quicker, single layer --> double layer and that was it. The BD keeps upgrading and upgrading....


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## Oleson M.D. (Feb 3, 2010)

It appears that the age old issue of when to upgrade is what you are facing.

When it comes to DVD vs. Bluray, there is no comparison. I would go out and buy an inexpensive Bluray player now so you can enjoy it now. You can always upgrade down the road.

And most models have firmware updates so as to stay current.

Just like on my HP computer........if I waited for the state of the art to stabilize, we never would have made the initial purchase!

I'll pass on to you what was passed on to me........buy whatever sounds good to your ears, and what you like. Audio/video is a highly subjective item and everyone's ability to hear is very different.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

mactuna said:


> Oleson,
> 
> 
> But there are a lot of questions in my mind right now, regarding new technologies.
> ...


Dont get to caught up in the so called versions of BluRay. 1.2 HDMI versions of BluRay still play todays discs without a problem you just dont get BD live and some other useless features. 3D is a long way off given that there are no movies available in the new format and if you dont like wearing the glasses then 3D is not for you anyhow. You also need to upgrade allot more than just the player, you need a new receiver and display as well.


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## conchyjoe7 (Aug 28, 2007)

And to be even clearer...I have the OPPO 83 and use the analog outputs into what is considered quite a high end rig. I'm sure they get better if modded, but the standard 7.1 analog outputs of my OPPO are just fine thank you very much OPPO.

For those who balk at $499.00 for the OPPO, those folks either do not have a system to see and hear the difference, or just don't care...that is of course excusing those that simply cannot afford one! Anyone at this juncture in time looking to spend the entrance price of the OPPO, or in fact a good deal more, and pass it over...well; it's your dime!
Cheers...


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

What are folks thoughts on the often overlooked Oppo BDP-80. Looks like the scaling chip is the biggest difference and the BDP-80 would likely be more in the class of the Sony/Panasonics, or is there a distinct advantage to the Oppo still?


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## recruit (May 9, 2009)

eugovector said:


> What are folks thoughts on the often overlooked Oppo BDP-80. Looks like the scaling chip is the biggest difference and the BDP-80 would likely be more in the class of the Sony/Panasonics, or is there a distinct advantage to the Oppo still?


I have been considering an Oppo BDP-80 as a second BD spinner as it would sit quite nicely as a backup player, or even for another room.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

If your not interested in 1080p 24 upconversion of standard DVDs then the Oppo is a good choice however the Panasonic DMP BD60 or 80 do offer that and so does the Oppp BD83


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## mactuna (Jun 28, 2008)

Excuse for my ignorance, and i should add that i do not own a single BD player.

Why would anyone want to upscale DVD image to 1080p, versus playing the DVD in a standalone DVD player in its pure resolution?

I own some DVD players, one of wich is a Pioneer that upscales to 720p. The image from it when upscaled is by far worse than the image played from my TAG DVD32R in 480p.
And i also thought that upscaled 720p looked worse than 480p direct from Pioneer DVD.

This upscaling story is just inventing pixels that are not there in the first place! My experience tells me against it, but i would like to hear testemonials from who had better experiences.


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## recruit (May 9, 2009)

It all depends on the quality of the video chip set/scaler being used, but you are right in the fact that the information is not there in the first place so it could make the image quality worse rather than better, that is why the good players out there have source direct which means it turns off the scaling and outputs the image to either 480p or 576p depending on the region.

Also another factor is some people use separate video scalers so would rather the output be set to either 480i or 576i and let the stand alone scaler output the progressive signal to 480p/576p for better image quality.

The Tag DVD player you own is a very good unit and that is why the image quality is so good compared to your other player.


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## Toby Jack (Feb 5, 2010)

eugovector said:


> What are folks thoughts on the often overlooked Oppo BDP-80. Looks like the scaling chip is the biggest difference and the BDP-80 would likely be more in the class of the Sony/Panasonics, or is there a distinct advantage to the Oppo still?


I can think of a few! 

• 1GB internal memory
• Universal (SACD/DVD-A)
• Same decoder as the BDP-83
• 7.1 Analog out
• Centered disk drive

In terms of features vs. price, the BDP-80 is still a fierce contender. Some of the newer Samsung models are finally mimicking these features but in terms of reliability & peace of mind my money still goes to Oppo.


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

mactuna said:


> Excuse for my ignorance, and i should add that i do not own a single BD player.
> 
> Why would anyone want to upscale DVD image to 1080p, versus playing the DVD in a standalone DVD player in its pure resolution?
> 
> ...


If you're sending it to a >480p TV (i.e. any HD TV), the DVD get's upscaled at some point, it's just a question of whether the player will do a better job than the TV or vice versa. Most of the time, it's better to have the DVD player do it.


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## mactuna (Jun 28, 2008)

What happens if you have a projector ? 480p from DVD displays a smaller image than a 1080p from BD? And that is why people use magnifying lens?


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

If you have a 480p projector, then it will display at 480 p. If you have an HD projector, it still needs to be scaled at some point to the resolution of the projector, unless you just use the 720x480 pixels in the middle of the display (smaller image) and then zoom in.


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## Dunedain (Apr 12, 2010)

I've heard nothing but great things about the Oppo players, everyone who buys them seems to become an instant fan, and the quality is top-notch. You can't go wrong with any of their equipment.


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## recruit (May 9, 2009)

Dunedain said:


> I've heard nothing but great things about the Oppo players, everyone who buys them seems to become an instant fan, and the quality is top-notch. You can't go wrong with any of their equipment.


Absolutely, for what you get and constant updates backed by excellent customer services it is a no brainer really


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## event horizon (Nov 12, 2009)

I can't help much with any comparisons to the Oppo or Pioneer player, but i can help out Sony vs panasonic :T I own a slightly old Sony BDP-S550 which i bought simply because it had the 5.1 or if you like 7.1 decoding built in & audio outputs. Reason being is i have a nice Audio Research MP1 pre amp. I recently upgraded (& that is an understatement :rofl2 to a Panasonic DMP-BD80, again because it has the analogue outputs, but also because it was modified so it'll play any region blu ray...

The picture difference was to put it mildly absolutely staggering. I honestly wouldn't have thought it possible seeing as i was more than happy with the picture from the 2nd generation Sony & yet it was immediately obvious. This was or is being reproduced on what must be classed as oldish gear (Toshiba 42Z3030 & Mitsubishi HC5000 projector. On either the difference was more than noticeable.




mactuna said:


> Excuse for my ignorance, and i should add that i do not own a single BD player.
> 
> Why would anyone want to upscale DVD image to 1080p, versus playing the DVD in a standalone DVD player in its pure resolution?


Well let me tell you a true story. Having been blown away by my recent purchase of the above mentioned blu ray player i thought i'd see how it performed with a dvd which was upscaled. Originally i used to use a Denon DVD2930 & like yourself i prefered to output the native resolution to the TV & let that scale up. Even though the Denon could scale it to 1080P i prefered the TV to scale it as it looked more lifelike, better.

Anyway, i tried out the Panasonic with a few dvds. I'll be perfectly honest & say that some upscaled dvds look better than native blu rays. You just need a machine that'll do a good job & man does the Panasonic do a good job. I played Attack Of The Clones (Star Wars) & i was gobsmacked at the picture quality. A friend popped round today & i said to him "when is a blu ray not a blu ray? When it's a dvd" & i loaded it up again... The poor guy had trouble pulling himself away even though he had other things to do.

By the way, this was a UK dvd so we are talking 576 lines which was scaled to 1080P, it looked marvelous :bigsmile: No idea what the blu ray release of this film will be like though - bring it on i say!


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## Jungle Jack (Jul 28, 2009)

Hello,
In truth, when played on a 1080p HDTV, the differences between BDP's is slight. What is not slight is the differing abilities in BDP's when it comes to load times of BD's and DVD Playback quality. If you have a quality DVD Player, I would not be too focused on DVD Performance of the BDP's you are looking at.

It is here the OPPO shines. The Pioneer has excellent PQ, load times are longer than most. Apparently, Sony's new BDP's have much faster load times as well.
Cheers,
JJ


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## lcaillo (May 2, 2006)

I have to agree with Mark about the Panasonics. Even the BD60 is outstanding. It seems that all of the Panasonic products use similar resampling, interlace management, and filtering and do an excellent job. I see lots of systems with lots of component brands and models. The differences with blu ray disks is not that great, but with lower resolution sources, both the players and displays from Panasonic seem to handle them with regular grace. There may be other things that some products do better, but overall, this is an area in which Panasonic has done a great job.


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## bambino (Feb 21, 2010)

I like jungle jacks idea and comments. I'd go for the Oppo or the PS3.


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## usrsld (Feb 3, 2009)

One other big disadvantage (for me) in the Oppo is the lack of *Netflix* streaming. I love Blu-Ray video & audio quality, but the streaming quality is equal to DVD or better (on some films) and so convienient. I have a Samsung BDP2500 which is great player for both Blu's and upconverting DVD's (once you get past it's very slow load times).


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

Netflix streaming is fantastic, and I agree, if you can get it built in to another component, why not? But, I wouldn't call it a dealbreaker considering you can pickup a Roku box for about $100, it's streaming from every gaming system out there, and it's showing up in more devices every day.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Its been mentioned in this thread before but The Panasonic DMP BD60/70/80 are the very best BluRay players for the money particularly the $100 BD60 as the upconversion of SD DVDs is even better than the PS3 and rivals the OPPO. Load times are not lightning fast but not slow either. The only drawback is it does not do Netfix (not a deal breaker for most) but it does stream directly from U-tube.


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## recruit (May 9, 2009)

If I go for another TV it will probably be a panasonic and I will then match it with one of there 3D BD players which looks very nice indeed....


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## ohcello (Feb 3, 2010)

Oppo 83 seems to be tops on many lists.... I have the sony 1000es and it performs quite well with DVD...but never compared to the Oppo


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## antr (Jun 10, 2010)

Yes, Oppo is the ultimate solution. Have a OPPO BDP-83-Se nuforce edition and its fast and it deliver.


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## Laserfan (Feb 3, 2008)

ohcello said:


> Oppo 83 seems to be tops on many lists.... I have the sony 1000es and it performs quite well with DVD...but never compared to the Oppo


I too my the 1000ES and can't imagine the Oppo could be noticeably better (if better at all) in the PQ category. I'd like to have BOUGHT the Oppo myself but the Sony was at a price I couldn't resist! And I'm not sorry I did, it's a very very fine BD player.

The Oppo 83 is no doubt on top-of-the-BD-world but not everyone wants to pay the price, and some of us can't discern among the finer features of the thing (e.g. audio quality--my ears aren't any good any more). :sad:


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## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

antr said:


> Yes, Oppo is the ultimate solution. Have a OPPO BDP-83-Se nuforce edition and its fast and it deliver.


But won't produce any noticeable difference over the standard model if you're not using the analog audio outputs (even Oppo will tell you so).


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## Philnick (Jul 9, 2008)

My Panasonic DMP-BD50 Blu-ray player outshines my Denon 2910 Universal DVD player when it comes to playing standard DVDs, particularly in terms of automatically figuring out the correct aspect ratio, so I don't have to go into setup to manually switch between film-formatted widescreen disks and 4:3 formatted old TV shows. It also shows the (admittedly-rare) subtitles in English-language films like _Attack of The Clones_, when Chancellor Palpatine's holographic desktop intercom pops up, which the Denon didn't show. The Denon is now reserved for SACD and DVD-Audio playback.

I second Mark's observations about the image quality of _Attack of the Clones_, the mid-air chase scene early in the film being a wonderfully-immersive experience when shown with a projector. (I use a Panasonic PT-AE2000U 1080p24/i60 LCD projector to throw an image 9½' x 5 1/3' high.)

My theory is that the less video compression that's used to make a SD DVD, the better it looks when upscaled. I also find that close-ups of faces, and other large images on screen, tend to upscale more successfully than crowd scenes, since there's less detail crammed into the frame and thus less need to discard details in making it fit on a DVD. Even some Blu-rays lose detail in long shots. The Chick Corea DVD box set _Rendezvous in New York_, with 9 disks each containing a single set by a different acoustic group in Chick's career, each of them less than an hour long, also looks and sounds nice - in part, I'm sure, because very little compression was needed to fit them on individual DVDs.

I've got a pre-HDMI Yamaha 5.1 receiver driving Paradigm speakers, so I snapped up a BD50 before it went unavailable, since it was the first (and only) player at the time that decoded all the lossless formats internally and output them in 5.1 via analog RCA jacks (or 7.1 via HDMI as bitstream or PCM). A newer model that had 7.1 analog outputs had been announced, but since the BD50 had been in scarce supply for half a year after its announcement and had only really become available right as its successor was announced, I didn't want to risk having to wait another half a year. 

Of course, there turned out to be no wait at all for the next model, but just the same, I've never regretted getting the BD50. It has excellent sound and video quality and has never balked at any disk I've fed it, even though I waited nearly a year to do my first firmware upgrade. 

I can't testify as to either of my players' comparative merits vis-a-vis the Oppos, since I've never seen an Oppo except on the web, but I'll say this: the sound quality of a concert Blu-ray's lossless audio track played by the Panasonic DMP-BD50 is as good as the sound quality of an SACD or DVD-Audio disk played by the Denon 2910. 

I've got a shelf-full of SACDs and DVD-Audio disks, but I don't expect to see much more being released in those formats, given the acoustic parity of Blu-ray's lossless audio codecs - and Blu-ray's much greater market penetration, aided by the merchandising value of visuals.


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## Shackmonster (May 5, 2007)

Hi Fellas,

I'll add my $.02 here and some/all of my comments have been stated previously. There are many factors that come into play when trying to make this decision. For example what size screen are you going to be viewing your movies on? If it is up to about 60" or so maybe even 65" it will be almost impossible to tell a difference when watching Blu-ray movies. Of course your specific setup and your vision will play a part here. I have read reviews in the past that state even when using huge screen sizes it is just nitpicking when trying to tell the difference between picture quality for Blu-ray. From my experience I would agree with this. Remember also that you won't be running and comparing different players side by side in your home, once you have your player you will just enjoy it so even if there were some small advantage under certain circumstances it would be irrelevant. I know some may chime in saying this model tests out better for this or that, and it may be true on a test bench but can YOU see the difference in your setup?

As has been mentioned already if you are going to use the digital output then all the worry over DAC's is pointless as they don't come into play. You only need to be concerned with the DAC and other associated circuit design/components if you plan to use the analog out audio. Whether to do this or not again depends on your situation such as what quality level audio is available in your receiver/controller.

As far as watching DVD's on a Blu-ray player, in general the recent models all do a better job of de-interlacing and scaling than a standard DVD player would, with a few exceptions. There are going to be noticeable differences in performance of this aspect between players on a test bench and even if you are doing critical viewing on a large enough screen. I see differences on my 50" plasma, and even my wife and some friends have noticed a difference, and those people are not "into" home theater so it is a real difference not just something I perceive. Only you can judge this for yourself. By the way, some of the newer Pioneer av receivers use a Marvell solution for this and perform above and beyond even the best solutions offered by others. It is interesting that it seems Oppo is looking very seriously into switching to this solution for their next player(s). Keep in mind that NO solution will perform miracles if the original DVD is of poor quality, and even the best de-interlacing and scaling solution won't make even a high-quality DVD look just like a blu-ray although the picture can be more than adequate. Hope this helps.


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