Good value & performance

Philips USA PH 62050 MD To Cassette Adapter

My previous Blu-Ray player was the Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD. A fine player as far as picture goes, but no 3D, no Internet capability and as slow as molasses to load and operate. I had read many praises of Oppo's players and when I got a new 3D TV I decided it was time to make the switch. I am glad I did.

The first impression on opening the box was that of elegance and care, right down to the woven polyethylene bag protecting the player itself. (Oddly, printing on the bag suggests reusing it as a shopping bag, but it is much too narrow to be useful for that!) I was also pleased to see that a hefty HDMI cable was included, something pretty much unheard of nowadays.

The player itself is nice to look at, though not super-fancy. I liked that the tray open button lights up when the player is powered on, and I was delighted at how quickly it went from power on to ready. But nothing prepared me for how quickly a BD disc started to play! Faster than many CD players I have used!

The picture quality was wonderful - the ISF technician who calibrated my set loves the Oppo players (he has a -93) and used it as the source for his test patterns. It delivered a perfect 1080p picture with full dynamic range and 4:4:4 color encoding. I then played a 3D BD (Avatar) and it was at least as immersive as in the theater, if not more so.

I'm not using the network apps on the Oppo, having a Roku box for that, but it was nice to see it there.

A big plus for the BDP-103 for me was the dual HDMI outputs. Since my A/V receiver has HDMI 1.3a only, I could not route 3D signals through it. So I ran one HDMI out to a HDMI switch and the other to the receiver for the audio. At the urging of the ISF tech, I tried using the unusual HDMI input of the Oppo, running the HDMI switch output to the Oppo input, and then Oppo to the TV, but I could not get that to work - the TV would show no signal, give an error or, more often, show me a screen of green stripes. Perhaps I'll try it again sometime later.

Oppo includes a USB wireless dongle, but I used Ethernet instead. I also used the IR input for my remote control distribution - I wish more devices had that!

Get your Philips USA PH 62050 MD To Cassette Adapter Now!