Oppo offers BDP-83 Blu-ray player to select few
updated 02:45 pm EDT, Thu April 30, 2009
Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player
Oppo Digital's BDP-83 Blu-ray player, first spotted at CEDIA last fall, now has a release date and pricing info for those early customers who e-mailed the company and expressed interest in the advanced Blu-ray disc player. This is Oppo's first Blu-ray player, as the company is most famous for its upscaling DVD players capable of supporting multiple formats that include SACD, DVD-Audio and HDCD.
This past February, Oppo initiated an Early Adoption Program that had 50 people purchase the players with pre-production firmware to gauge whether the product is ready for a mass-market release. Another 300 customers were added to the project and now that the release has been green-lit, Oppo is offering the rest of the more than 27,000 interested parties who did not make it on the early adoption list a chance to purchase the finished product.
The BDP-83 has BonusView and BD-Live support for added online content, as well as VRS de-interlacing and scaling capabilities. Like the company's DVD players, it can play back content from DVD-Audio and SACD discs. Connections include 7.1-channel analog output, a dedicated stereo output, and a USB port on the front and back of the unit for connecting external hard drives or thumb flash drives. PAL and NTSC video system conversion ensures content on discs from other markets can be played back. Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio codecs are supported. The backlit remote control can oversee the operation of compatible devices connected to the BDP-83 via its HDMI CEC connection. An RS232 serial connector can be added to the BDP-83 for home automation.
The BDP-83 is priced at $599, though those eligible who pre-order it now can buy it for $499. It will be offered to residents of the US and, for the first time, those in Canada, Argentina, Australia, Bermuda, Brazil, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates. [via Blu-ray]
