Oppo to make a Blu-ray player

[Radec]

Oppo fans left on the HD format sidelines can rejoice, as word comes that the company will add a Blu-ray player to its well-received line of DVD upscalers. According to the VP of product development, the company is "very early" in their development cycle, and we should expect more details sometime this summer. While sooner would definitely be better than later, we can't argue with a timeline that leads us to expect nothing less than a fully featured BD Live compatible player from a company with a reputation for delivering more bang for the buck.

Source: engadgetHD - Good news for Oppo fans.


Bang for the buck, Oppo's DVD players are heard to beat IMO.

[Sonnie]

Maybe they will get it right.

[mike c]

alright! it's always good that these "small" manufacturers always build a better product at a cheaper price than the big and selfish manufacturers. at the very least, this will provide options for people and the competition it generates will drive prices down even from the big manufacturers.

[bubbs16]

lets hope they do make it a lot cheaper too. the current prices of blu-ray players are well just a tad high.

[SteveB]

I will definitely be watching for this to happen.

[SteveCallas]

Is the PS3 the only current player that has enough built in horsepower and memory where it can update it's firmware to future spec iterations? I see this as a huge limiting factor for any other model of blue ray player, especially smaller companies like Oppo.

[eugovector]

I want one. I'm hoping for $299.

[Ray3]

SteveCallas wrote:

Is the PS3 the only current player that has enough built in horsepower and memory where it can update it's firmware to future spec iterations? I see this as a huge limiting factor for any other model of blue ray player, especially smaller companies like Oppo.

The nice thing is that the PS3 will continue to get the updates Sony makes to their players AND you can do the updates to the PS3 via your network.

[tonyvdb]

Ray3 wrote:

AND you can do the updates to the PS3 via your network.

All BluRay players have this ability so nothing novel about that idea.
I have no doubt that Oppo will come out with a good entry level player that will do a great job. But as with all new first time devices it may take a few updates to get it right. Remember the problems with Oppos first dvd players. Lots of people had issues.

[Kal Rubinson]

eugovector wrote:

I want one. I'm hoping for $299.

Since the SD-capable 983 is $399, I would not think so.

[bobgpsr]

tonyvdb wrote:

All BluRay players have this ability so nothing novel about that idea.

Not really true. There are a lot of standalone Blu-ray players that do not have an ethernet jack. Not a requirement until players meet profile 2.0 (BD Live) but some players already have ethernet jacks for doing updates -- others do not.

So for those players without ethernet -- you download a ISO image file on your PC to burn to a CD-R for updating the player's firmware.