new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Thought I would start a thread on this as it is about to come out..

This is what I know so far.

1) product should be available any week now.... definitely before Christmas
2) they will stop selling all other blu-ray players (!)
3) The new players will not have Darbee Visions, but they will support HDR and convert HDR to SDR for displays that can't support it.
4) Pricing TBD.. I hope it won't be too expensive... their 105D was pretty pricey. If the UPD player is their sole blu-ray product, then I hope it is more in line with the 103/103D prices. we will have to see

What bums me out the most about this is the after market SD/BD region free mods that exist today may not work for this beast... And we may have to wait a while until someone creates a new mod, or verifies that the old mod will work on this machine. I was planning on getting a 103D for xmas so I can watch the region B BDs and region 2 SDs that I have in my collection now.....

again, we will have to wait and see....

If others know more information, then please contribute to this thread!

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

I'm still trucking along with my region-modded BDP-83. I have a backup region-free player now so hopefully my 83 holds up until the this new model is able to be modified.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

All the reports I've read have the UDP-203 priced at $499.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

oh please oh please be able to play Dolby Vision discs....

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Are there even any Dolby Vision discs available to play on this new player?

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

not this year, but there's been talk that they will debut in spring of 2017 - and all eyes are looking at Disney Home Video.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

some more detail, and some interesting info on dolby vision support

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarch.../#4a6c09aa4d3a

http://www.trustedreviews.com/oppo-udp-203-review

as far as the price, I didn't like this --"The only downside is the price – at £599 (TBC), it will join Panasonic’s DMP-UB900 as the most expensive player on the market when it launches in November."

That's about $730 USD... but other reviews have quoted a $499 price tag.. so we will have to wait and see what it really is...

also, no darbee and no streaming (netflix, etc.)...

I suspect they will make these available later (hopefully) via firmware.. not sure darbee would be able to be installed later... might need another model....or perhaps they will not support it at all...

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Wonder if this includes a standard closed caption decoder (for DVDs and a handful of Blu-Rays), given that it doesn't have any analog video outputs? I heard players were "required" to include those lately but haven't actually seen a player that has one. (Most computer DVD playback software has included them for a long time oddly enough.)

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Interesting that it won't be streaming. Maybe they figure most TVs will offer this feature. I could care less about Dolby Vision. Just another company trying to be the king of the pile. It's crazy that they're still fighting over HDR. They need to make the standard the actual standard instead of letting this be a free for all. You'd think they would have learned from blurays vs dvdhd etc.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

They're sure not offering much for ~$750. No streaming, no darbee, no .iso playback, no region-free, no analog outputs! Seems pretty crippled to me! Easy, easy pass.

Not that I care about streaming, but what the hell??!!

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

1) we don't know the official price. It could be $500.
2) You would be paying for what very well could be the best 4k UHD BD player on the market
3) UHD BD are region free.. it is only BD that are region locked.
4) OPPO never officially supported region free hacking. Technically that voided the warranty (even with the external mod). There was just a "standard" after market mod that did that.
5) Streaming did concern me in that I buy 'dumb' TVs (to save money) and use my BD player for all streaming. If they never put out a firmware to support streaming, that would require me to get another BD player that does. Which might work out well for me anyhow, since I am not sure I would want to modify the UDP player anyhow. Too new. Wouldn't want to do anything that might interfere with firmware updates and/or warranty support. My thought right now is to get a cheap region free BD player and connect it into the hdmi INPUT of the oppo.. That way I will use my OPPO for all things US, and the region free BD for non-US discs. That's my thought anyhow.... so lack of streaming may end up being a moot point for me anyhow.
6) I just noticed that the 2nd HDMI output is audio ONLY - no video. This could cause me a problem as I feed 2 displays with my Sony BD now...

I think you pay for the great PQ, build quality and outstanding post-purchase customer support when you buy from OPPO....

Just my 2 cents.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

I asked Oppo a few times over the years about incorporating a CC decoder in their Blu-ray players, but they never seemed very interested in it. At any rate, I picked up a Panasonic Blu-ray player that includes the decoding to use when captions are the only option.

Interestingly, I have a 10 year old Toshiba DVD player which has a CC decoder built-in, so this is just not cutting-edge technology here.

I haven't heard anything about a requirement for this feature.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

They've probably left something open for the external region-hack devices to work with it. There's one plug on the back of my BDP-93 which I don't know what other use it has except for that to plug into.

I don't really see the need for streaming on BD players, though it's nice to have. The Netflix on my Oppo is worthless as it's the really old interface that doesn't get 5.1 audio (though it doesn't butt into the end of movies either the way their newest ones do, which drives me mad.) YouTube seems to no longer be supported on it at all; it did update Vudu to the newest interface even though I still prefer the older one, but at any rate I use my Rokus mainly for streaming and those in the Oppo only when I'm done watching a disc and want to kill a few more minutes afterwards. Streaming devices seem to get outdated faster than disc players do, and it's easier to just replace those (again with the exception of Netflix where an older device is sometimes preferred; I use a Roku XD for that as it delivers the best quality with none of their intentional intrusions.)

I can't even find a decent sized TV that DOESN'T have at least some streaming built in, unless you're talking about a projector.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Or you could just get a Roku box. Even though my "main" TV has some of the smart apps built-in, I still use the Roku for all my streaming needs. nice easy interface, and has someone else had said about some of the built-in apps going out-of-date, the Roku keeps up with the latest versions of the apps.

And, it's probably cheaper than most additional BD players (and way smaller).

Since I don't have a 4k TV, this player is an easy pass for me, too (I'm still chugging along with three BDP-83s. If they do cease production on all other players, this might bring down the price for their current line from resellers, which would be nice (the only thing I don't like about sticking with my current players is that there won't be anymore firmware updates).

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Damn three of them? Very nice. Do you have region-free mods on any of them? I went with an internal ribbon cable mod years back but I was curious if there are external mods too.

It was nice there was a firmware update to address one of the X-Men movie a couple years back. I don't expect that again though. In a pinch I can use my PS3, PS4 or my Sony region-free player but my 83 is still the workhorse.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

I think the 83 was Oppo's flagship product, and everything since then has been disappointing. The 93 was good as well, because it allowed playback of .iso files and still had analog outputs, but since then- no way.

Oppo needs to try harder.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

I bought two of them used, though (for about $200 each, as I recall).

Two of the three players have the hardware mods (both internal, both different, so slightly different button sequence).

I use the SuperDisk software download for DVD region-free on all three players.

I seem to recall hearing about at least one "semi-external" mod...you still had to plug it into the spot on the circuit board, but I think part of it hangs out the back, like a dongle.

Although future incompatibility worries me (like the "X-Men" situation you describe), so far, I'm okay. I only ever had two problem discs: an imported DVD of Would I Lie To You: Season 4, which was fixed with one of the firmware updates (that disc had RipGuard and other nasty CG stuff on it), and a used copy of the Iron Man 3 blu-ray that must have just been a bad disc (it was an ex-rental), because I exchanged it for another one at the store and that one worked fine.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Damn! This came as a complete surprise.

Not that they would come out with a 4K player, but that they would immediately discontinue the 103 and 105's. I'm finally embarking on a long desired, higher performance speaker upgrade and in a few months was hoping to pick up a modded 105 for the premium DAC. The 103 I've had the last two years has been my favorite player ever. Looking around now at the few vendors that still offer one, the prices have shot up by $1K! $1500 was going to be a stretch I was willing to make because of how I've felt about the 103, but over $2K is just a bridge too far.

I really wish they were going to segregate these and keep the 103/105 in the line-up.
4K (and HDR tarted up catalog titles) are just not something I give a flying F about.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Surely those prices will come back down once the new 4k players come out.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

I should have clarified that my 103 is region modded via hardware. The $2K+ price I'm seeing is actually for another region modded one, not just stock. The company I bought mine from doesn't even have any 105s anymore. Almost tempted to get another 103 for a spare (even that has increased by $100).

But then I've always had this impulse anytime I get a piece of gear that I'm extremely happy with.
Invariably something gets released a year or two or three later that ends up eclipsing that unit in features or performance and I'll breathe a sigh of relief that I never did sink money into a spare of the earlier model.

While I'm confident that Oppo will eventually a UHD/Bd player with an audio feature set equivalent to the 105, I'm slightly concerned that the UHD architecture may make region modding more problematic.

That and simple fact it won't be coming anytime soon (with six months) if it does come.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Maybe you just need to have more reasonable expectations.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

I can set my own expectations for 1/5 the cost!

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

You'd better believe it! In this case, quite true, too. Since Bluray players have now become a commodity product, it seems foolish to settle for an essentially crippled product from Oppo at 5x the cost when I can get 99% of the raw functionality (if not, perhaps, the longevity) of an Oppo at that cost. Plus a few bonuses like Region-free, .iso playback, and streaming included in the gander.

It just doesn't make sense to spend $500-700 for what is an ephemeral, commodity product unless you're a real pro in the business and / or have a lot of cash to burn (like throwing out $100s on the sidewalk). It's just a blu-ray player! Maybe I'm wrong and that is indeed Oppo's intended market, but I don't see how they can survive on that demographic alone...

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

Oppo has such a reputation that this new UHD player will sell very well at a high price. I have no personal interest, but I have friends that are checking daily wondering when the preorder will go up. Oppo will continue to survive well into the future, but a lot of us are not willing to shell out ridiculous money for it. Especially now since new UHD hardware can be had at a relatively low price point at such an early time in the new format.

Re: new OPPO UDP203 player
 

I am very happy with my 103D so I am anxiously waiting for this new player.

Given the lack of quality options I would gladly buy this to support my new LG OLED 55E6P