OPPO Digital Ceases Development of Hi-Fi Audio Products and Universal Disc Players

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
Popular AV brand OPPO Digital is saying goodbye to the audio and Blu-ray player industries: the company announced this week that they will gradually stop manufacturing new products. Existing products will continue to be supported (e.g., firmware updates) and warranties are still valid, however. Many are calling this another nail in the coffin for physical media.

Though OPPO Digital will gradually stop manufacturing new products, existing products will continue to be supported, warranties will still be valid, and both in-warranty and out-of-warranty repair services will continue to be available. Firmware will continue to be maintained and updates released from time to time. Customers can rest assured that they will continue to receive the high-quality service and support that they have come to expect from OPPO Digital.
 
I'm sad, but not really surprised. Their upconverting dvd players were incredible, but there were some definite diminishing returns when it came to blu ray players and such
 
I think they're pulling out prematurely. hehe

Seriously though, even if there's a natural evolution away from physical media it's got a while to go yet and honestly, streamed 4k has the pixels and nothing else. Truly sad though, Oppo is one of the best.
 
Wish I'd bought an OPPO 203 last year. $829 from Amazon right now...don't think so. They were always expensive though.
 
bmg said:
Wish I'd bought an OPPO 203 last year. $829 from Amazon right now...don't think so. They were always expensive though.
Click to expand...
Too true. I could never justify the costs but always read amazing reviews, both professional and in the posts.
 
bmg said:
Wish I'd bought an OPPO 203 last year. $829 from Amazon right now...don't think so. They were always expensive though.
Click to expand...

You know you can buy from Oppo direct. I did just last Tuesday and got it for MSRP ($549) and it's still available.
 
LurkerLito said:
You know you can buy from Oppo direct. I did just last Tuesday and got it for MSRP ($549) and it's still available.
Click to expand...
Good info! They do still seem to have them in stock. My collection of 4k HDR disks is small enough it's hard to justify a new player, but so tempting. OPPO Dolby Vision support for Sony compatibility is supposedly still going to happen. I've got a Sony 930E. My Sony player will never support Dolby Vision, but the OPPO will and I doubt anything will ever be better.
 
bmg said:
Wish I'd bought an OPPO 203 last year. $829 from Amazon right now...don't think so. They were always expensive though.
Click to expand...

I bought one this week from crutchfield for $549 shipped.
 
just wait till 8k content till we all have 1gb/s to the home physical will always have its place
 
I personally think this is a great thing. With music we had the push to MP3s, and eventually they took over, but audiophiles would still purchase CDs. The thing was the audiophiles and average consumer sort of split into 2 independent markets. The companies had no reason to make higher quality digital formats. Now that physical media is completely dead we are starting to see renewed interest in upgrading the quality of digital delivery, if for nothing else its a chance to resell people the same music. The benefit is that audiophiles may finally get to be rolled back into the main market, and that in turn allows the audiophile market to grow as it reexposes new consumers to higher quality products and audiophiles will get to take advantage of the advantages of digital services.

To put it simply I personally like high quality audio and video but I don't care for collections of CDs and BluRays or ripping my own media and running servers and needing to manage all that so I just gave up. I like the idea of being able to stream or download lossless high quality audio and video and maybe when physical is completely dead companies will offer that service. Bluray quality Netflix would be great.
 
bmg said:
Good info! They do still seem to have them in stock. My collection of 4k HDR disks is small enough it's hard to justify a new player, but so tempting. OPPO Dolby Vision support for Sony compatibility is supposedly still going to happen. I've got a Sony 930E. My Sony player will never support Dolby Vision, but the OPPO will and I doubt anything will ever be better.
Click to expand...
Heh I bought it without a 4K TV lol. I was really planning on waiting till this fall or early next year for a new TV and then buy the 4K oppo, but I went ahead and grabbed one as soon as I heard the news.
 
I heard this several days ago, and really, I'm not surprised. I've owned a few Oppo products over the years, and while they made exceptional products, the market in which those products are appealing doesn't exist anymore. They had some excellent CD players back in the day, for example. They stood out because they were using audiophile grade DACs and analog components. But high end CD players aren't a thing anymore, and when we are talking about blu-ray players, I see little advantage to owning an Oppo product. There is no doubt they are a higher quality, but what does that quality get you? Faster disc loading and a quieter tray? All of the high end components ultimately mean very little when the unit is outputting a fully digital signal. Your TV or AV Receiver are what are responsible for the quality of what you see and hear, not the blu-ray player. Where it matters most, the Oppo is on par with players a fraction of its price. They simply don't do enough to demand the premium they used to.
 
Jailer said:
And the world takes one more closer step to acceptable sub par quality media. What's the point of 4k + if your only choice is shitty quality streaming media.
Click to expand...
I don't think this matters from that perspective. There are plenty of other UHD 4k players out there and they're a lot cheaper. There's also a Chinese company selling essentially the same player (albeit without analog outputs and in a cheaper casing). Can't remember the name, but it was discussed on some forum (likely AVS).

Many have said they think that it was the lack of apps, along with the high price, that killed Oppo. Also, one of the main benefits was it's ability to play DVD-A and SACD and those are not widely used formats.

I could certainly afford this player, but I just don't see much point in buying one. If I decide I need a standalone player, there are plenty of decent ones that sell for far less money. Even a Pioneer Elite with DVD-A/SACD support (along with streaming apps) is 150 less, and that's an Elite. For the masses, you can buy one for around a hundred bucks.

bmg said:
Wish I'd bought an OPPO 203 last year. $829 from Amazon right now...don't think so. They were always expensive though.
Click to expand...
You can buy it for 550 directly from Oppo.
 
Maybe when they post their final firmwares before closing up shop forever, they will region unlock them all, remove cinavia, and allow ISO playback!
 
Hard to justify an expensive player when the audio and video output are all digital these days - spend more on the display, speakers, and receiver.

I would barely consider BluRay a physical media anyways - I have a few that wont play on my PC without paid software due to the DRM. Even if I wanted to "own" more quality content on physical media, I hesitate because of this kind of stuff.

I see nothing inherently wrong with streaming media, its just the providers don't want to cough up the kind of bandwidth to give us the quality we want at the price everyone will pay.
 
What's an OPPO?

QqN4.gif


Lets see how much their shit costs.
https://www.amazon.com/OPPO-UDP-203...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=HE3ATMMNTQW2ADN5F4PS

Over $500 for a UHD Blu-Ray player?
xpa38.jpg
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Now THIS is a damn shame :(

So, they are just a phone company now ?
 
That really sucks. Streaming in no way compares to the quality and reliability of physical media.
 
Streaming is the future, once they got uhd streaming down, netflix/amazon etc, it was game over.

In a few years time we will look back with rose tinted glasses and say, “oh do you remember when we had to buy/use cd’s and dvd’s for music and movies”, like folk do now when looking back to cassette tapes and 8track.

Thats one of the reasons I stopped buying dvds/blurays, I gave my collection away in small clumps and now everything I have is on harddrives, I just hope they dont die on me as I can only backup so much.

I love just being able to turn on the tv and pick what I want to watch, from Sky Q UHD tv to netflix, amazon, plex, serviio etc, even if I only had Sky Q I would be happy as I like their boxsets, movie, uhd sport and uhd tv/movies. But adding netflix, amazon and plex to the mix gives me a huge library of shit to watch.

We are living in extraordinary times, in years to come, our generation will be remembered as the internet generation, where physical media was replaced with 1s and 0s and where basically everything was done online.

Mind you, when they do look back, they will be saying to themselves, “these are the fukers to blame for skynet and the global eradication of the human race”.

Just to add, my city is second in the UK to get full fibre to the premises for all houses starting this summer, another excuse to rape usenet for distro’s.
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
Streaming is the future, once they got uhd streaming down, netflix/amazon etc, it was game over.

In a few years time we will look back with rose tinted glasses and say, “oh do you remember when we had to buy/use cd’s and dvd’s for music and movies”, like folk do now when looking back to cassette tapes and 8track.

...

Just to add, my city is second in the UK to get full fibre to the premises for all houses starting this summer, another excuse to rape usenet for distro’s.
Click to expand...

Agree-ish--but that future won't get here that quickly.

In the US and I'd guess a significant portion of the US...it's going to be more than a decade before a lot of people have access to reliable streaming of 4K content.

Plus, what compression will they use? What are we giving up for the convenience of simply streaming? How much color, dynamic range, sound options etc. Some people really like to get a fuller experience when it comes to movies and the like.
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
Streaming is the future, once they got uhd streaming down, netflix/amazon etc, it was game over.
Click to expand...

Streaming quality in no way touches physical media. The streaming bitrates for 4K are absurd. But if convenience is the overriding decision maker, then yes.

And when the ISPs have their way completely, a family of 5 will get to stream ohhh let's call it 6x 4K movies at full bitrate maybe? and the remainder for the rest of the general internet usage per month before whoops hit data cap and now you get to pay lots of yummy overage charges.

Yea no thanks: lower quality, artificial scarcity, screw this model. Sad to see oppo leave this market, but thankful there's still a handful of players left.
 
I have to chuckle when (some) hardcore computer enthusiasts can't recognize that there are still hardcore AV enthusiasts.

And despite that it's "all digital", you still have color space conversions, chroma conversions, various forms of HDR content mastered for different luminance levels, etc... There's still plenty of ways for a shitty player to screw up (ie Xbox for example). And let's not forget that Oppo players also serve as streamers for local media, and they are universal disk players as well. Yes, all of these extras are niche features, but that was always their game.

It's fine to decide that these things, plus build quality, aren't worth the price.. but they exist and still have sufficient value for some. It's no different than buying a high quality power supply and case when shitty ones would hold your components and send power to them just the same.
 
Last edited:
Yes, its not going to happen over night but it will happen and I think it will happen sooner in europe and in some far eastern countries than it will in the states.

We know streaming a pure 4k movie without compression is nuts, but even though a UHD stream from say netflix is not as good when compared quality wise to a bluray copy of the same movie, it is however good enough for 98% of users and will continue to get better.

I dont know about ISPs in the states, but in the UK most of the big ones are unlimited bandwidth, the only limiting factor would be maxing out your bandwidth if streaming a few movies at the same time. The UK is slowly but surely being upgraded to full fibre to the premises so hopefully that wont be a problem.

I can forsee discs being faded out for another type of media, what that will be I have no idea but streaming services are going to be the next big thing, simply because of its ease of use and being able to instantly pick whatever it is you want to watch when you want to watch.

Sky TV is getting involved, Sky Q streams tv channels to other set top boxes in different rooms of your house and has a huge library of streaming TV programs and movies in SD, HD and UHD and has youtube and music streaming services built in.

Very soon we wont even need sattelite dishes to receive Sky TV as it will be streamed to you in its entirety via the net and will be available later this year.

Streaming is the future and it will only continue to get better and I dare anyone who has a decent internet connection and who streams a movie from netflix etc say that the quality was shit, because it simply is not.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
brentsg said:
I have to chuckle when (some) hardcore computer enthusiasts can't recognize that there are still hardcore AV enthusiasts.

And despite that it's "all digital", you still have color space conversions, chroma conversions, various forms of HDR content mastered for different luminance levels, etc... There's still plenty for a shitty player to screw up (ie Xbox for example). And let's not forget that Oppo players also serve as streamers for local media, and they are universal disk players as well. Yes, all of these extras are niche features, but that was always their game.

It's fine to decide that these things, plus build quality, aren't worth the price.. but they exist and still have sufficient value for some. It's no different than buying a high quality power supply and case when shitty ones would hold your components and send power to them just the same.
Click to expand...
And all but use less now days as you don't see Ultra HD Blu-ray player and disc flying off the store shelf even I wouldn't wastes my time with it, in fact our local Walmart stop carry them there cut back they even dial back on Blu-ray disc but not DVD disc there still just hot ever here.
 
I had an Oppo upscaling DVD player in the day, without a doubt the best DVD player I ever owned. The problem with Oppo is their DVD players were affordable, in fact they were an awesome buy - I can't say the same for their Bluray players. Sure their players are without a doubt beautiful pieces of gear, but I just don't think many can justify the price.

I'd love to know what the Chinese re-badged brand name is though.
 
haz_mat said:
Hard to justify an expensive player when the audio and video output are all digital these days - spend more on the display, speakers, and receiver.

I would barely consider BluRay a physical media anyways - I have a few that wont play on my PC without paid software due to the DRM. Even if I wanted to "own" more quality content on physical media, I hesitate because of this kind of stuff.

I see nothing inherently wrong with streaming media, its just the providers don't want to cough up the kind of bandwidth to give us the quality we want at the price everyone will pay.
Click to expand...

Until fairly recently, all Blu Ray disks required a paid player or AnyDVD to play on a PC (with the latter being of questionable legality, though i use it to rip to my server).
As for streaming a Blu Ray, you can, but if everyone is streaming 35-45mbps for hours at a time, it's going to cause problems. And while there are plenty of movies that streaming is good enough, if I'm buying something, I want a disk. Same goes for music, I don't buy MP3s. I'll buy a CD, Rip to flac files and convert, on the fly, to MP3 or Vorbis as needed.

EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
Streaming is the future, once they got uhd streaming down, netflix/amazon etc, it was game over.

In a few years time we will look back with rose tinted glasses and say, “oh do you remember when we had to buy/use cd’s and dvd’s for music and movies”, like folk do now when looking back to cassette tapes and 8track.

Thats one of the reasons I stopped buying dvds/blurays, I gave my collection away in small clumps and now everything I have is on harddrives, I just hope they dont die on me as I can only backup so much.

I love just being able to turn on the tv and pick what I want to watch, from Sky Q UHD tv to netflix, amazon, plex, serviio etc, even if I only had Sky Q I would be happy as I like their boxsets, movie, uhd sport and uhd tv/movies. But adding netflix, amazon and plex to the mix gives me a huge library of shit to watch.

We are living in extraordinary times, in years to come, our generation will be remembered as the internet generation, where physical media was replaced with 1s and 0s and where basically everything was done online.

Mind you, when they do look back, they will be saying to themselves, “these are the fukers to blame for skynet and the global eradication of the human race”.

Just to add, my city is second in the UK to get full fibre to the premises for all houses starting this summer, another excuse to rape usenet for distro’s.
Click to expand...
Bad analogy, because CDs are superior to Streaming audio (unless you're paying 15/month for Tidal) and Blu Ray is better than Netflix (never mind UHD).
 
shspvr said:
And all but use less now days as you don't see Ultra HD Blu-ray player and disc flying off the store shelf even I wouldn't wastes my time with it, in fact our local Walmart stop carry them there cut back they even dial back on Blu-ray disc but not DVD disc there still just hot ever here.
Click to expand...

Well if your local Walmart stopped selling them then I guess nobody should bother. Thanks for the great insight.
 
shspvr said:
And all but use less now days as you don't see Ultra HD Blu-ray player and disc flying off the store shelf even I wouldn't wastes my time with it, in fact our local Walmart stop carry them there cut back they even dial back on Blu-ray disc but not DVD disc there still just hot ever here.
Click to expand...

I'm just going to point out the obvious that Walmart is not a place that A/V enthusiasts typically go. And while you may love DVDs, I haven't bought one in at least 10 years and going forward I'll likely buy very few 2k Blu Rays...I'd rather get UHD disks. Certainly I'm picking about disks and I don't buy them at full price, but just like Blu Ray came down in price, so will UHD Blu Ray.

Doesn't mean Wallyworld customers will buy them, but so what? Can you buy good speakers at your local Walmart (rhetorical question, the answer is no). If I want a Blu Ray or UHD disk, I'm looking online, looking shopping at Frys and Best Buy...maybe I'll look at deepdiscount, but Walmart is low on my list...I guess if I ran across a great deal for Target I'd go there, but I'd have to see it in a forum, because I go to target maybe 5 times a year.
 
I honestly don't remember the last time I bought something on physical media, but it was probably a PS4 game. Even then, I prefer the digital version just so I don't have to switch discs all the time.

At some point you run up against the limits of what humans can actually perceive, and the minute differences don't justify exponential increases in cost for most people. I have a hard time even with the idea of 4k because even with glasses I don't feel the difference over regular HD is worth the $$$. Then again I may just be going this route:

 
Dang. This forces me to spend $700 on a region free UPD-203. Not that I would buy one, but the region free UPD-205 was sold out...they still have 2 other flavors of the UPD-203... 1 for almost $1,500 while the 2nd version is over $2k.
 
Devilpup said:
I honestly don't remember the last time I bought something on physical media, but it was probably a PS4 game. Even then, I prefer the digital version just so I don't have to switch discs all the time.

At some point you run up against the limits of what humans can actually perceive, and the minute differences don't justify exponential increases in cost for most people. I have a hard time even with the idea of 4k because even with glasses I don't feel the difference over regular HD is worth the $$$. Then again I may just be going this route:

Click to expand...


I tend to agree with this, I find that the differences between upscaled 1080p and native 4k aren't as staggering as you'd imagine them to be...
 
Owned the Oppo DVD player with SACD/DVD–A support. Great device, but sold it and now I would love to have it for my old dusty DVD collection...

And yes, I don’t care for the discs anymore, so let it go.
 
hmz said:
Owned the Oppo DVD player with SACD/DVD–A support. Great device, but sold it and now I would love to have it for my old dusty DVD collection...

And yes, I don’t care for the discs anymore, so let it go.
Click to expand...

I just use my Oppo upscaling DVD player for that, more cost effective and it works a treat! Best player I've ever owned.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top