OPPO Says Farewell

cageymaru

cageymaru

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Oppo has released a farewell letter via their website as they are shutting down their manufacturing and development of new devices. They say that they will continue to provide warranty and service for existing products. I know that some of you loved their products so thus the post. Nenu

Farewell
https://oppodigital.com/farewell.aspx


Will OPPO Digital develop and release future generation of products?

From now on, OPPO Digital will focus our main effort on organizing and ensuring long term support for the existing generation of products. As such, we will not have the resources to develop and release new generations of products.
 
will the 203 be half price?

if not, who else make Universal player that support SACD w/ HDMI output?
 
Super sad. I've been buying their gear since almost day one. Untouchable value for the dollar.
 
cageymaru said:
Oppo has released a farewell letter via their website as they are shutting down their manufacturing and development of new devices. They say that they will continue to provide warranty and service for existing products. I know that some of you loved their products so thus the post. Nenu

Farewell
https://oppodigital.com/farewell.aspx


Will OPPO Digital develop and release future generation of products?

From now on, OPPO Digital will focus our main effort on organizing and ensuring long term support for the existing generation of products. As such, we will not have the resources to develop and release new generations of products.
Click to expand...

Its a shame what happened to them in the UK.
I was treated badly by their support and Manager and as a consequence returned my Oppo 205 (which had a firmware issue with my hardware). I no longer have any of their products.
I get the feeling there were too many issues which could be a clue why the close down.
Not such a fond farewell from me unfortunately.
 
Nenu said:
Its a shame what happened to them in the UK.
I was treated badly by their support and Manager and as a consequence returned my Oppo 205 (which had a firmware issue with my hardware). I no longer have any of their products.
I get the feeling there were too many issues which could be a clue why the close down.
Not such a fond farewell from me unfortunately.
Click to expand...
I came close to buying OPPO's Sonica DAC. Production delays convinced me to go with a Schiit Gungnir Multibit, instead. Looks like I made the right choice.
 
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They have always targeted corner case shoppers, and those shoppers have slowly bled away over the years. Because most saw the rest of the industry rapidly become "good enough" on video scaling.


And as for audio, I mean, how many people need an SACD player? And the world is now full of choices for high-end music players and headphones, they're just another brand on the wall somewhere.
 
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defaultluser said:
They have always targeted corner case shoppers, and those shoppers have slowly bled away over the years. Because most saw the rest of the industry rapidly become "good enough."


I mean, how many people need an SACD player? And the world is now full of choices for high-end music players and headphones, they're just another brand on the wall somewhere.
Click to expand...
Their price kept me at bay - but I've always wanted one.

I owned a Bravo D1 DVD Player back in the day - it was $200, but yes it threw a better DVD picture than anything else.

The Oppo was like that same niche, but the entry point was escalated to more like $500. It's tough for me to consider paying $500 for a bluray player, when a entire gaming console like the PS3 or PS4 is only $400 and also plays blurays really well. Enter standalone video enhancers for cheaper like the Darbee DVP 5000 (which I did pickup) and you can make all your sources look a touch better, instead of just the BluRay disks.

Besides SACD, it also support playing m2ts (blueray clips) directly - which was a big thing and hard to find a player that does that outside of HTPC.
 
defaultluser said:
They have always targeted corner case shoppers, and those shoppers have slowly bled away over the years. Because most saw the rest of the industry rapidly become "good enough."


I mean, how many people need an SACD player? And the world is now full of choices for high-end music players and headphones, they're just another brand on the wall somewhere.
Click to expand...
Oppo Blu Ray/SACD players also had HDMI in ports.
I used the Oppo 105 and 205 as high def surround DACs for my PC.
They also accepted PC USB, USB hard drives Network shares + DLNA, optical ...
Because the Sabre32 DACs were 32bit internal they had a digital volume control.
No need for a pre-amp, I connected them directly to my power amps.

The 105 also had apps like Youtube, BBC iplayer.
It was a one stop shop for many things and was fantastic for playing Blu Ray discs and SACDs.
The 205 was bland sounding, the excitement in the sound was gone. It was very detailed but not much fun.
And they removed all the apps.
The golden days were gone.
 
I initially liked the IDEA behind their players, but I realized that I probably couldn't tell the difference without an ultra-high-end plasma and top-end sound system. Neither of which I owned.

That's a lot of dosh to drop just to notice some improvement over a regular Blu-Ray player. At a time when I had so many other hobbies that I was spending that money on (photography, PC gaming).

And now that high-end TV scalers are no worse than OPPO, there's even less reason to buy. And most people with the kind of setup they're targeting already have a high-quality DAC in their HDMI receiver.

So again, the corner-case market they've always targeted has become smaller every year. And they're unwilling to go mass-market (entry-level products in the $100-200 range), so they died.
 
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defaultluser said:
I initially liked the IDEA behind their players, but I realized that I probably couldn't tell the difference without an ultra-high-end plasma and top-end sound system. Neither of which I owned.

That's a lot of dosh to drop just to notice some improvement over a regular Blu-Ray player. At a time when I had so many other hobbies that I was spending that money on (photography, PC gaming).
Click to expand...
If you dont have a decent hifi there isnt a lot of point in getting an Oppo for the sound quality.
But there was 2 versions in each series, the lower priced was less than 1/2 the price of the top player and still sounded good with exactly the same features otherwise.

And now that high-end TV scalers are no worse than OPPO, there's even less reason to buy. And most people with the kind of setup they're targeting already have a high-quality DAC in their HDMI receiver.

So again, the corner-case market they've always targeted has become smaller every year. And they're unwilling to go mass-market (products in the $100-200 range), so they died.
Click to expand...

Do you have proof of this and price efficacy?
DACs in HDMI receivers were not comparable at the same price level.
 
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Nenu said:
Do you have proof of this?
Click to expand...

For 1080p upscaling (regular blu-rays), it's indistinguishable from internal. You have to drop down to DVD resolution for it to be an improvement, and that's something less and less people are going to play on that Oppo.

Several threads on AVS Forums:

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/149-b...official-oppo-udp-203-owner-s-thread-516.html

1080p->4k seem very similar on the OPPO and my LG E6. I would use the player for standard definition upscaling. The easiest solution is to use a UHD output resolution from the player, as explained in the FAQ.
Click to expand...

http://www.avsforum.com/forum/40-ol...lg-e7-upscaler-vs-oppo-udp-203-upscaller.html

I had tested my Oppo 203's HD>4K upscaling vs my 77G7's upscaling of the same source. I found, using the Oppo's HDMI input from my Directv receiver, the LG did as well or slightly better. The difference was only seen at closer than normal viewing distances and even then, it was slight. At normal viewing distances, they both looked the same.
Click to expand...

And our own front page news article here:

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2017/04/27/your_4k_tv_probably_only_converter_you_need

The comments thread, here people basically agreed:

https://hardforum.com/threads/your-4k-tv-is-probably-the-only-4k-converter-you-need.1930906/

And as for your DAC quality discussion, you know that comes down to personal preference, right? Most people are more than satisfied with a $200-or-less DAC.

You can endlessly argue your points about tiny audio/video differences all day, but since the rest of the world has made up their mind Oppo is dead. You can't argue with me over that.
 
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Thats cool, I wanted to see what made you take that stance.

The Oppo 105 was a great machine, good sound quality, great apps, great connectivity.
It is hard to argue against the Oppo 203 and 205 having much of a market to start with because most people already had what they wanted.
Then the design decisions they took cut out a lot of people that wanted an all round good tool, it no longer was one.
Having no apps was a major problem.
Only allowing 1 HDMI in or out for video was stupid.
The Oppo 105 was a great video in switch and allowed dual video out which is very handy if you have a projector, as many high end AV enthusiasts do.
The bland sound killed it for a high end high def DAC.

It wasnt about the scaling.
 
for a co. who makes primary 1 product, along w/ DAC and heaphone that an average customer never of such a brand, it's very tough to compete. I am in the market for an univeral player, but I keep delaying the idea of Oppo because they are a small co. I'll most likely stick w/ Yamaha 1060 for my purchase.

An average person will go w/ a big brand because they won't go belly up. So for universal high end player, we have Denon, Yamaha

For smaller brand, there is Arcam and Cambridge Audio (I don't think I'll go w/ them knowing what happened to Oppo can happen to them)

The last part of their co. link is suspicious. They cannot open to give support and firmware upgrade and warranty when they don't have revenue. No sale of 203 & 205 means no $. Who's going to pay for those employee wages? Who's pay for the rent of that building? Noone in the right mind would fall for that
 
Love my oppo players, so I bought the 203 yesterday on this news. I was going to wait to buy a 4k player till I bought a new 4K TV but for me I have had nothing but good experiences with Oppo so I bought the 203 before the TV. I have owned both Denon and Yamaha before and honestly they were mediocre products, though that might have changed lately as I am not as current in this area as I once was. Still I hate to see them go. If they make an 8K format disc I'll really miss being able to buy an Oppo player. I still have Oppo DVD universal players that still work perfectly that are over 10 years old and my universal BDP-83 is running strong. As far as support goes, it might be an issue later but I have had all of (IIRC) 3 updates since I bought the BDP-83 9 years ago and nothing since 4 years back so I am not too concerned about it.
 
LurkerLito, how's the quality of a yamaha universal player? How many yr. did your one last? Denon has a fancy one made in japan for $2K but I don't need it
 
203 is on a very short list of UHD players that support Dolby Vision- unfortunately it's priced well beyond what I'd pay for a device whose only purpose is to play UHD disks.

I got the Philips, because apparently LG couldn't make one that didn't sound like a jetplane.
 
Great products, worth the price but sadly they couldn’t compete with the also good products from Asia. Sad to see them go, but I’m betting my 203 will triple in price soon.
 
Anybody remember Kuro?

Kenwood, Sansui, Thorens, Dual, Nakamichi, BSR and a few somewhat brands like Sharp, Panasonic and RCA are no longer the brands they once were.

Because Oppo was ahead of the curve, someone will buy up their IP and incorporate them in their own brands

Sry to see them go but when they thought to sell m̶e̶d̶i̶a̶p̶l̶a̶y̶e̶r̶ headphones

, I felt that something was amiss. Good ones I heard (npi) though. Maybe 8K discs will bring them back.
 
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see, that's what I wrote at avsforum, that Sony or Toshiba or someone else will buy them up. Toshiba bought out OCZ after they went belly up.
 
Happy Hopping said:
LurkerLito, how's the quality of a yamaha universal player? How many yr. did your one last? Denon has a fancy one made in japan for $2K but I don't need it
Click to expand...
The yamaha I had was real old and it is a Universal DVD player not even BR and it feels solid but it was just an (IIRC) OEMed Panasonic player on the inside for more money at the time. It ended up having tray issues where it would just refuse to eject anymore IIRC a few months after the warranty period ended. So I have had no real love of the company since. They basically took the guts outside of a panasonic DVD player and then put it in a nicer looking and heavier case (kind of like what Lexicon tried to do with their OEMed Oppo BR player).
 
interesting. Because I have some problem w/ yamaha. Not their player, their receiver. My receiver is about 4 yr. old, the sub-woofer out is creating static sound sometime, so the other end (sub-woofer out) has humming sound (cable has be replaced to brand new). Also, the same unit, sometimes when I turn it on, there is sound but no video, (I think it could just be a bug), by turn it off and back on again, I got it to work

But I need to dig an alternative of Oppo 203, what brand would you guys go for?
 
If you already have a universal player (DVD or BR based) then I'd just stick to that for the high end audio discs and then just get a cheaper 4K and BR player. It might not be the nicest solution as having only one device do it all, but it'll save you a lot of money. Just a suggestion since that's probably the route I'll take with 8K if a disc format comes out for it. Definitely not willing to spend $2k on any universal player, that stage of my life is past. ;)
 
Happy Hopping said:
see, that's what I wrote at avsforum, that Sony or Toshiba or someone else will buy them up. Toshiba bought out OCZ after they went belly up.
Click to expand...

Then Western Digital(?) bought Toshiba :cool:

We get the quality that we want, it just has a different name on it. Makes it harder to know what "it" actually is.

That new UHD player is actually a LeGoppoeneer with westernshiba memory.

....anyway.......:cool:
 
I was in the market for a UHD player for a 4k Samsung TV I just bought. The OPPO crossed my mind, but was too much $$. I ended up getting the Sony UBP-X800. It supports SACD and DVD-A, and plays 4k discs beautifully. It also has an extremely quick load time so you are not waiting long to view the movie. Might not be the ticket for some people, but definitely worth a look (I was able to score mine brand new for less than half price @ $125 shipped).

https://www.sony.com/electronics/blu-ray-disc-players/ubp-x800
 
Woot910 said:
I was in the market for a UHD player for a 4k Samsung TV I just bought. The OPPO crossed my mind, but was too much $$. I ended up getting the Sony UBP-X800. It supports SACD and DVD-A, and plays 4k discs beautifully. It also has an extremely quick load time so you are not waiting long to view the movie. Might not be the ticket for some people, but definitely worth a look (I was able to score mine brand new for less than half price @ $125 shipped).

https://www.sony.com/electronics/blu-ray-disc-players/ubp-x800
Click to expand...

Not a bad price, but it is missing Dolby Vision.

[I don't know if that's really a bad thing, but it is something that I specifically picked my Philips for, given that my LG OLED supports it]
 
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