OPPOBDP-103D Universal 3D Blu-ray Player (Darbee Edition)

I've owned a lot of high end DVD players during the SD era, several $3,000 plus models from the likes of Denon, Panasonic, and EAD. So, I feel confident in the assertion that the quality that Oppo delivers with the 103D is nothing shy of reference. Easily the most value priced, high end featured player I've seen. While I've owned a number of Blu-ray players too, including a Panasonic that originally went for over $1k, I've since been content with using a PS3 for BD playback, as most discs are properly encoded at 1080p24 requiring no extraneous processing, unlike the DVD era, where so many discs were improperly flagged as video or film based content, etc etc. Meaning our BD playback doesn't demand all the bells and whistles as the previous generation to optimize PQ. But I was genuinely surprised, if not a little elated to see the impact Darbee has on image depth.I've always been an early adopter when it comes to home theater. But with most UHD discs being 2k upscales (effectively the same resolution as 1080p - which is the UHD equivalent of watching a DVD upscaled to BD resolution as opposed to a genuine 1080p transfer) and laser projectors that might actually be capable of rendering HDR for front projection still in the "don't buy me" price ranges, we continue to use a 1080p Mitsubishi DLP projector in our HT. As once you've gone to projection screen sizes, there's no going back to conventional tvs. Even 75" screens seem relatively small compared to just 92-100" home projection, much more so compared to 120" or larger. And the introduction of the 103D may cause us to hold out even longer. I've experienced $50,000 systems and literally never experienced a more satisfying video presentation in a home environment.If you have a projector, you will want this player. It doesn't have some of the bells and whistles of our former $3500 Denon DVD player. But the features it does offer are far more satisfying than advanced gamma. At one time the PS3 was THE most reliable BD player to have, as just about every BD was tested on it. But that's not the case anymore. The Oppo will play Sony's botched Total Recall remake perfectly. Something that neither the PS3 nor PS4 can do.That said, while it's video playback and collection of highly functional, well designed video adjustments and other features (like dual HDMI output and input so other devices can benefit from Darbee) are second to none, it's not quite perfect. We miss the customizable home screen interface of the PS3/PS4, the 15sec jump feature on the PS3 remote, and a few other little things. But the biggest and only real drawback to getting this player now, is that it's been discontinued by the manufacturer and is no longer supported by updates, should any aspect of Blu-ray spec be changed. So, there is a possibility of some newer releases not playing properly in the future.In fact we've already experienced one such issue with the extended cut of Baywatch going badly out of sync with the audio for several minutes before correcting itself, along with a number of related dropouts, presumably at branching points. Though the problem is not exclusive to Oppo and may have more to do with the discs Dolby Atmos track than anything, as our Marantz AVR doesn't support Atmos and there are always learning pains us consumers have to endure, related to inexperienced or just plain delinquent disc authoring with new audio formats. Remember all the playback problems when DTS ES came out on DVD? No other Atmos track has caused problems, so I suspect it has a lot to do with the discs complicated branching too.This player does everything we wanted and then some. It's build quality is better than the $3000 EAD we once owned. Even the remote feels very well made. It's deinterlacing and scaling (pivotal for low res DVD) appear to be as good as any player we've ever owned. And it's BD playback is even better than expected thanks to Darbee. Bearing in mind that I have never been one to condone extraneous video processing, but Darbee definitely offers a positive impact and so far I haven't found any negatives. The 103D also features a newish sharpness enhancement that supposedly doesn't come with a side of ringing. But we haven't found need to experiment with that feature yet, as most of what we watch is BD, which doesn't need any help in sharpness. In terms of detail-defined resolution, at screens sizes of 100" and smaller, 1080p looks about just as detailed as even genuine 4K, much less the 2K upscales that are currently being passed off as UHD. It takes cinema size venues to fully appreciate the detail that even 1080p can produce. So that's another reason we're in no rush to upgrade to UHD until laser projectors, more capable of rendering some of the UHD formats other perks, hit affordable prices.

Update April 2014.Unfortunately I ended up having a defect in my Oppo. I'm writing this in case anyone else sees the same issue. When I copied a couple of my movies on DVD+DL Discs the Oppo froze up when it got to the dual layer change point. It would then give an error message stating that there was no disc detected. I called Oppo service and they thought it might be related to either the media or the software that I was using to copy the disc. They asked me to send in the disc for them to analyze. After they received it, they told me that it was playing fine on their machines, so I needed to send my machine in for repair. It was strange because it would play every other piece of media I had just fine. This same media played fine on my PS3 and Toshiba HD DVD player so I also suspected it was a problem with the Oppo player.To Oppo's credit, they did pay for the shipping of the machine back and I trust they will be able to sort the problem out. Of course I am disappointed that I have to be without my machine for nearly three weeks but I guess a defect can happen to any manufacturer; even Oppo. Even so - this shows that even Oppo doesn't build totally bullet proof machines.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I was looking for a Blue Ray player that could also play DVD Audio and SACD Discs as I have many in my collection. I previously had to have a separate, older, Panasonic Blue Ray player to play my DVD Audio Discs and a Sony CD/SACD player. I wanted to consolidate both into one player as my Panasonic Blue Ray player was becoming very outdated and slow.The only player on the market that could do this was the OPPO 103. I thought the price was a little steep but, considering all the positive reviews on OPPO and their excellent customer service, I decided I would spend the money and get the Darbee Edition.The product came extremely well packaged. Other Companies should take a lesson from OPPO here. In fact the presentation of openning the box was excellent with a very nice fabric cover protecting the actual unit.The second thing that impressed me was that I found an actual printed manual in the box. Many Companies are eliminating this due to cost these days. Not only that, but this is the best written manual I have ever seen in any product. The directions are clear and explain everything the unit does in detail. Bravo!The unit was easy to setup even without the directions. The first thing I did was to connect everything to the unit including two HDMI outputs to my Yamaha Aventage Receiver. One output was for my Blue Ray and DVD playing and the second one was to output DSD digital SACD streams directly to my receiver as the first HDMI output will not do this. I had to change a setting in the menu options on the video outputs in order to accomplish this. (Which was clearly documented by OPPO)The unit then told me there was a firmware update available which it updated over the network. I also burned an ISO disc of the latest beta firmware and installed that. Both processes went without a hitch.The unit played everything I threw at it. The first thing I noticed was how fast everythingn loaded and played. Blue Ray and DVD playback were both excellent. I turned on the Darbee effect on a couple of my DVD's and noticed a nice improvement. As others said, it won't blow you away, but does offer a very subtle enhancement. Having the demo function on the Darbee is nice as you can see the visual effect of having the processing on and off with your own content. I haven't had a chance to try it out on some of my better Blue Ray discs yet. Others have said the Darbee effect is best with better content.The unit also played my DVD-Audio and SACD discs without a hitch. I am extremely impressed that it will output a pure DSD stream directly to my Yamaha receiver. There, the Yamaha processes the audio stream directly to it's DAC's. This produced excellent results. (My Yamaha receiver uses quality 192khz Burr Brown DACS so the audio results are impressive)Next I attached a large hard drive of FLAC files directly to the units USB connection. Once again - it played these files with great results. My only niggle is it is quite difficult to navigate through hundreds of FLAC files using the Oppo and it does not seem to have a search function or the ability to create playlists. I have a media server which can do those tasks so this is not a big deal to me. It does appear to read playlists created by Foobar. It would be nice if they also incorporated this ability with Media Monkey, which is my main play back application.I also have a nice collection of HD DVD discs which the Oppo cannot play. It would be nice if it could also play these discs, but in fairness to oppo, HD DVD is no longer a viable standard.I just can't find any real negatives with this player. In fact, I couldn't find a single player that could do everything the Oppo 103D can. There really wasn't any competition. Adding the Darbee video processing was a very nice bonus for the extra money and I'm sure this will play dividends as the Darbee software can be upgraded through future firmware updates.The build qulaity of this product is excellent. Fit and finish are quality and its obvious that OPPO spent a lot of time engineering this product designing it close to perfection.The product just gets out of the way and plays your media content the way it is supposed to.I'm very impressed and I'm not easly impressed with products these days. I don' regret spending the money on this product at all. In fact, for everything it does so well, Oppo could have priced it higher.