Initial thoughts of the OPPO 93

So I finally replaced my first DVD player, Denon DVD-1710, that I paid $135 back in 2004. The player sucked. You could never hear the dialog in movies, it will hardly play copied or custom disks and had no HDMI.

Packaging was very good and the reusable carry bag was sort of a nice touch. The unit is nice looking and solidly made. The power and eject buttons are not easy to find in low lighting and the remote response is quite poor for a unit at this price level. The only other thin I could whine about is the cheesy detachable cable supplied. Again for a $500 unit at least provide a quality cable.

I set it up in about 10 minutes.
HDMI to TV
XLO Digital Cable to HK635 that has no HDMI
Tara Labs ICs from FR/FL to the Rotel

Went through the base setup procedure and everything worked as expected. Without any tweaking I watched Robert Plant w/ New Sensation from PBS on DVD. Great PQ and SQ.

I then watched some Animusic 2 on DVD and was blown away at the improvements I just got.
Avatar on a compressed copy DVD was also still stunning.
Ratatouille was again clear as can be and awesome.

I don’t own a Blu yet so a rental is in order.
Today I setup the DLNA Server and Wireless Networking via the USB adapter that was supplied. Which is a nice touch compared to other players. The included HDMI cable is also decent quality. It is also very fast at loading, menus and ejecting.

I streamed several AVI movies which all looked so much better than going through my pc. Next I tried the music which also works nice.

I’m a pretty happy camper to say the least. Since the old Denon DVD is all I have to personally compare, there is really not much not to like. All the different configuration options and settings are easy if you’re not a 1st timer.

I have been following the 93 thread at AVS Forums and there is a lot of great info about issues and fixes.

Highly Recommended!