Sound is perfect, plus can watch BD and DVD's - great second life product!

I've used my Oppo for a few days now and am very happy with this purchase. I thought I'd post a few of the pros and cons. This isn't an exhaustive list, of course -- just some of the things that jump out at me right off the bat, which could be useful to some, since SOME of these things aren't much discussed elsewhere, as they may be too minor. Others of these are much discussed:Pros:SACD is an amazing format and this unit does SACD extremely well. I recommend the RCA "Living Stereo" series. They are still cheap, and very well mastered into SACD format (they are all 3 or sometimes 2 - channel, but sound spectacular in SACD. For 5.1 experience, so you can really see what this baby can do! -- I recommend Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon" SACD.)Upscaling of DVDs is exceptional. The good things everyone's been saying about this is true.FFing at double or higher speed is smooth and the subtitles still show. So you can get through slow or boring things quickly, without missing anything.It remembers where you left off on the last 5 items played, whether DVD, CD, SACD, etc.It starts up very fast. Put in a DVD you'd stopped midpoint earlier, and you are back to where you left off in about 10 seconds. Blu-Rays load amazingly fast compared to what I am used to.The time display on the unit is large, so you can read it from 10 feet away without problem, if you have decent vision.It includes for the time displays how much time is in and remains in the chapter (as well as the title). My previous player (a Sony) did not display chapter times. In fact, it didn't even display the current chapter number -- very weird.It has a quick, easy "go to" function. This is good, since one of the cons, below, is a poor rewind function.I like the convenience of the "resolution" button on the remote. If you want something in 4:3 instead of widescreen, just use the remote button and it can change it instantly, without stopping play. (On my old Sony, I had to stop play, go into the menu, and do some work to get resolution fixed - and had to do it all the time.)Two USB ports, including one IN THE FRONT!! Now I can routinely play items on a USB memory stick -- which is a huge deal!! -- and opens up big new ways of listening to non-audiophile recordings through the home theater. Especially since you can fit up to 32 GB (or is it 64 now?) onto one of those sticks. And the onscreen display you get of the data on the disc is well designed and easy to use.Cons (I'm hard-pressed to find much of anything, except a couple of piddling little things):Rev'ing is not smooth and is very slow. The max is by 10 second increments. And you can't quickly increase each increment. You have to wait one or two seconds between pressings. The increments are something like: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 seconds. I find I use the "go to" function a lot when I want to go back.The remote is weak and sometimes takes multiple pressings to get it to act. I put this into a universal remote, and now will rarely use the Oppo remote anyway, so this is no big deal for me.But these are very very minor and certainly not deal breakers for me.

Never heard of 'em. I was all set to buy either the Panasonic BD30K or the Sony Playstation 3 ... until my son told me not to do anything until I looked at the Oppo. Well, who the heck is Oppo? Turns out they are a company that sells their products via the internet. That's not a bad thing (Zvox is another such internet company, a speaker system company, and I found out first-hand that their products are very solid indeed). So I began reading the professional reviews on the Oppo, and read ... and read. I haven't read so many glowing reviews in my life. Even more surprisingly, EVERY review was glowing. They weren't just positive, every review was absolutely effusive in their praise, and I must have read nearly 20 reviews.The difference in viewing a dvd on the Oppo vs my older and trusty Panasonic is clearly visible, even to my untrained eyes (but then again, it should be ... my Panasonic is about 5 years-old, cannot up-convert, and costs a fraction of this unit). The up-converting ability of the Oppo does what is claimed (there must be something to the Anchor Bay VRS technology hype), while its blu-ray capability is truly top notch. Of course, not every dvd (or blu-ray for that matter) is created equal. Some are quite spectacular, while others less so. There are even some very bad dvds out there, so even an Oppo won't help much here (garbage in, garbage out). However, what this player has done is bring fresh life to my large dvd collection. They appear clearer, with more impact and definition. Is the up-converting technology as good as watching a blu-ray disk? No, but you'll find that most are pretty darn impressive.One example of what this machine is capable of is when there is a layer change. Too often these can be fairly long hesitations (sometimes as long as a second or more), and are very distracting. But not on the Oppo. These layer change pauses are often not noticeable or just barely noticeable. One such layer change occurring on the "LOTR - Return of the King" dvd was done at an inappropriate time and was very noticeable on my son's Sony (I counted the usual way ... did the, "one-thousand-one, one thou..."), which means it was almost a second and a half long. On the Oppo? We didn't see the pause, period, and we played that scene several times to try and detect it. We were both a bit stunned.As has been mentioned by almost everyone, this model is packaged with loving care (very Apple-like). So good is the packing that the box could probably fall off a truck and not damage the unit. As far as the looks of this unit are concerned, it has an industrial-type look that's a bit bland and muted for my tastes (and this coming from a guy who has 30 year-old McIntosh audio equipment), but it's a solidly built player with some heft and people seem to really like its understated and professional look. The transport mechanism also seemed solid and not flimsy or noisy (different reviews have different opinions, so perhaps this has been fixed -- Oppo seems to take customer comments very seriously ... unlike most manufacturers). However, the power cord did get dislodged when placing it in my cabinet (it easily pulls out). This is no big deal, but thought I should mention it. The remote control has large, back-lit buttons and I thought it was laid out nicely. The manual is first class all the way. I'm a video novice, but I found the manual very easy to understand, while the diagrams are all quite good.The Oppo bdp-83 does far more than I'll probably ever know. Please check out all the professional reviews on this machine, including its audio capabilities. Oppo provides a "Spears & Munsil" benchmark blu-ray disk to check out and modify the player's (and the TV's) video parameters.Anything bad about this unit? Honestly, I haven't found anything bad yet (it's almost a month old now). Unlike one reviewer, I thought the five levels of fast-forward and reverse was more than adequate for me (but I don't do a lot of searching). I do think the price is a bit steep (but similarly priced to the Panasonic BD30K). Yeah, I know there are dvd players that can cost a lot more, but these are players for purists. Let's face it, 500 bucks isn't exactly chump change these days so this model will appeal to a limited number of people. And prior to the Oppo bdp-83, the Sony Playstation 3 was the unit to judge "most" other blu-ray players (especially for speed ... i.e. ... time from insertion to actual playback), and the Playstation can sell for significantly less, is considered a top blu-ray player, and it also plays games. Still, this Oppo is one top-notch blu-ray / dvd up-converting player that plays a lot of formats and matches or betters the Playstation for "speed" (I think that's a first). You'll also find out that many of the professional reviewers have changed their reference player (the player that they judge all others by) from the Playstation to the Oppo.For me, it has performed as close to the hype as possible (a nearly impossible task, considering all the unabashed love for this machine). And even though I haven't as yet played with all its audio capabilities, I'm sold. To me this is clearly a special player, a 5-star player, so between 1 and 10, I give the Oppo a pretty enthusiastic 9. And even though I believe it is a bit over priced, I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to find a better, more versatile player at this point in time without coughing up serious dollars (high-end units from Marantz, Denon and others come to mind ... and of course, Meridian ... which is obviously just for the rich or famous -- try putting your head around Meridian Audio prices, especially the 20-30 grand 800 series dvd player!).