A few things need to be noted. First of all,
Oppo had no choice with respect to ISO support. The studios were unhappy and the studios are part of the
BDA and if the
BDA and/or
AACS LA are unhappy then chances are very big problems will subsequently occur. Having licensing revoked would kill
Oppo as a business.
Oppo directly replied to people upset about the loss of ISO support on their
Facebook page:
Oppo said:
@Johnny Stork: We understand your frustration, but at the same time you have to respect our decision to remain a reputable business. We want to remain a brand which is going to be around for several more decades, and not fade into oblivion because we were no longer able to manufacture and sell Blu-ray players. Our core business is disc based media, and we will do what is required to make sure that this business is protected.
ISO support can be seen as supporting playback of pirated material in it's full quality. Removal, of course, punishes the people who legitimately own all their Blu-Ray movies but want to store them on HDDs. I would expect someone to quickly point out that the
Oppo players support Matroska containers but HD audio is
not supported in MKVs and it's doubtful that it will be added. People have been asking
Oppo to such support since the player was released.
Furthermore,
Oppo has explained why ISO support was added to begin with:
Oppo said:
@Jorge Fernandez: And we are making a Blu-ray disc player. The ability to support ISO was added to the firmware internally to diagnose disc media playback, and was unintentionally left in the firmware when we released it to the public. As this feature did not degrade the performance of the player, we left it in there with successive firmware knowing that it may at one time be removed by studio or licensing protest. This is why ISO was never officially announced or supported.
The BDP-9x series of players is first and foremost a Universal Disc Player. Everything else is secondary. If we fail to do our primary objective as licensing is removed, or studios fail to support us, then the product no longer has relevance in the market, and our company no longer can exist.
We understand fully about the desire to keep ISO support, and you need to understand fully that we need to remain a company. We will not jeopardize this fact. Unfortunately this means that our brief support of ISO media has come to a close.
Lastly,
fast eddie, your statement demonstrates your lack of understanding the audience that
Oppo caters to and, frankly, your info on
Oppo is plain wrong. The company is consumer-oriented and they've said from the beginning that they would not support
Cinavia until and unless they were mandated to. With respect to ISO support they were threatened. They just worded it more nicely in the release notes. This doesn't show support for the studios and
Oppo hasn't demonstrated any support for loving studios and their draconian tactics. That said,
Oppo as a business that requires multiple licenses to produce Blu-Ray players has a noose around its neck just like every other company producing players and if they fall afoul of the licenses that they've signed then they could wind up out of business.
Oppo produces and sells quality products at a reasonable price
for the quality that you get. Some might see the pricing as being a premium and it was a bit higher on their older standalone DVD players but in the world of Blu-Ray players their models aren't priced outrageously. With Blu-Ray players there really should be no difference with respect to video output of Blu-Ray. Nonetheless, the BDP-93 does things as it should. Furthermore, the BDP-93 after a great deal of tweaking by engineers is now on par with the BDP-83 with respect to upconversion of DVDs. It took some work due to switching from
Anchor Bay to
Marvell for the chip doing the processing. Also throw into things the fact that
Oppo players come out as superb in bench testing the player. One such review is here:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/univ...players-part-1-audio-performance.html?start=3. Lastly, the quality of the
Oppo players can be demonstrated buy the higher-end manufacturers using
Oppo for their players. One such case involved
Lexicon taking an
Oppo BDP-83, not even removing it from the
Oppo casing and then putting that inside their own shell and marking the player up to sell for $3000. I believe their may have been a few audio improvements to the
Lexicon but let's remember that the BDP-83 retailed at $499. In effect,
Oppo has designed players for some other high-end manufacturers.
In short, while the loss of ISO support is unfortunate, the fact remains that
Oppo has a history of creating quality players and the BDP-9x generation is continues that legacy and while other players may have a few more bells and whistles the
Oppo players are top quality, solid players with great customer support. Benching proves the quality.
