Quote Originally Posted by Worf101
Oppo had two choices to bring down the cost of the flag ship, cheapen the up-conversion or drop the SACD and DVD-A. Oppo chose the former. To me the finest part of the flagship 83 is it's upconversion prowess. I don't own any SACD or DVD-A disks, I don't know anyone who does outside of this and other forums. To me I think they made absolutely the wrong choice in sacrificing up-converting prowess for niche audio formats that 99 percent of the market has never even heard of.

Worf
Maybe I've oversimplified this, but the BD80 is essentially the 980H, which performed remarkably well (an understatement) with standard DVD's, albeit with the additional Blu Ray capabilities. To hedge against the ability of the BD80 to provide above average video quality on par with the much-lauded 980H simply because it doesn't use the same chip as the 83 is probably a hasty assessment. The 83 is Oppo's flagship model. Sure, the thrill of driving down the coast in a convertible Stingray as opposed to a Ferrari is unquestionably different. But with the Ferrari, you pay for what you get under the hood. Most consumers would be very happy with the Stingray. It's the view they're after.

I think what Oppo should be concerned about, however, is whether or not the BD80 can thoroughly outperform the cheaper Panasonics, Samsungs, and LG's, etc., that you can purchase for half the asking price of the BD80 and get Netflix/Amazon/Pandora streaming to boot. My assumption is that Oppo isn't targeting only the audio/videophiles who covet an 83, but are too shallow of pocket.

That said, I do agree that there was no point in keeping DVD-A/SACD capabilities for the newer unit. But who knows... maybe it was cost effective for them to keep these dying formats in play?