I got the early adopters program e-mail today too. It looks like we would be guinea pigs while they sort out their firmware issues. I don't know how much I like that idea. We would be paying retail for it, and it may not be entirely functional. They already mentioned that DVD-A wouldn't be available yet and we would need a firmware upgrade in order to make it work.
Don't you think if we are one of the 50 lucky few, we should get some type of discount on the unit while we work with them on fixing bugs in it? Here is the e-mail I got. Let me know what you guys think...
OPPO BDP-83 Blu-Ray Disc Player EAP
Dear ,
We would like to thank you for the tremendous feedback that we have received from the community in response to our first BDP-83 Blu-ray player notification update. There were many great comments, suggestions and concerns which we will try to address in the release of the BDP-83. In particular, we would like to address the Early Adoption Program.
We have decided to take a democratic, by-the-people approach to the implementation of the Early Adoption Program. For the initial batch we will randomly choose 50 customers to participate in the Early Adoption Program. These 50 customers will have the opportunity to purchase the BDP-83 for $499 before the official release. After using the player for about a week, they will be required to vote on whether the program should be expanded or suspended based on end-user experiences. If a supermajority (at least 70%) votes in favor of expanding the program, we will expand the Early Adoption Program by another 100 randomly chosen customers. The player will be shipped with a pre-production firmware version. Firmware updates will be available from time to time.
The initial 50 Early Adoption Customers will be chosen no later than February 25th using the random number generator at random.org. After being contacted by us, the customer must place the order no later than 3pm February 27th Pacific Time; otherwise the opportunity to participate will be passed on to another customer. A simple "Yes" or "No" vote on whether to expand the program needs to be cast no later than March 15th.
Terms and conditions for the Early Adoption Program, as well as the current program status, can be found at our web site:
http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/EAP.aspx
We would also like to take this time to update you on the status of BDP-83 developments. The last two months have been very fruitful, as the player now supports BD-Live (Profile 2.0) and can internally decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats. DVD-Audio has yet to be implemented through firmware, but we are working diligently on this feature. A preliminary features and specifications list will be available on our web site on Tuesday March 3rd.
