A Brief "Stuttering" Issue on BDP-83...

[PearlcorderS701]

I watched Hancock on Blu-ray the other night (on the OPPO BDP-83), and at a certain point, the film started doing a "broken up" "stuttering" thing with the audio -- as Will Smith and another actor were speaking, the audio was broken up every second or so, and it got very annoying. The weird thing is, when I thought it was the disc itself being a faulty rental, I stopped the playback and went back to the beginning of the menus and such to re-run that sequence of the film. This time around, the problem didn't happen...leading me to believe it wasn't the disc, but a possible hiccup with the OPPO or an HDMI handshake thing...

Is this a common occurance? I know with my previous deck, a Panasonic DMP-BD10A, there were HDMI dropouts and audio failures all the time, where I had to stop a disc and actually turn the unit off and then back on for the audio to come back and stabilize -- but is what I am describing sounding like a possible HDMI audio transfer glitch, that perhaps was just random? This is the first "bug" of any kind I have found on the BDP-83 since owning it from last Christmas season. The BDP-83 is going HDMI OUT only for audio and video, straight to my AVR. No other connections.

 

[Ron Temple]

Might be the disk, might be the player, it's hard to say. Have you loaded the latest FW? I've had 2 issues with disks not loading past the movie main menu screen, both taken care of by FW updates. If you think it's the player, then notify Oppo, you might not be alone. However, Hancock has been out for some time, I've watched it with no issues.

 

[PearlcorderS701]

Might be the disk, might be the player, it's hard to say. Have you loaded the latest FW? I've had 2 issues with disks not loading past the movie main menu screen, both taken care of by FW updates. If you think it's the player, then notify Oppo, you might not be alone. However, Hancock has been out for some time, I've watched it with no issues.

Thank you for the reply, Ron...

I have not loaded any firmware since I received the player as a gift last holiday season -- I figured the "latest" was already loaded into the deck. I do not utilize any BD Live or internet features on my BD players, so the only thing I'm looking for is solid playback quality -- I assumed the player was already "pre loaded" for such demands. As I said, this was really the first glitch I experienced with this player...

What concerns me is that you said you never had an issue with Hancock...

 

[Ron Temple]

FW updates aren't just about BD Live, they address problems with certain disks that get reported to them. There shouldn't be any left for older disks since this has been going on from the players release. There are also improvements, some are important, some only for those that do esoteric media. So I'd suggest you do update from time to time. I've had mine for over a year and done it 3 times. All that said, you said it was a rental, so it's likely it's the disk, especially if it's your first issue.

 

[j_garcia]

They have had at least 3-4 updates since you got your player, not including betas. I've updated my firmware since getting my player at least 6 or 7 times so far. I've had a few discs glitch as well, but the firmware updates have fixed all of them so far for me. If it doesn't do it the second time you watch the same scene, it is most likely just a random thing.

 

[PearlcorderS701]

FW updates aren't just about BD Live, they address problems with certain disks that get reported to them. There shouldn't be any left for older disks since this has been going on from the players release. There are also improvements, some are important, some only for those that do esoteric media. So I'd suggest you do update from time to time. I've had mine for over a year and done it 3 times. All that said, you said it was a rental, so it's likely it's the disk, especially if it's your first issue.

Thank you for your continued assistance, Ron.

I understand what you're saying. I shall look into doing updates -- but what's weird is that it could be the disc based on the fact that the second time I played it, it did not happen. Yet, isn't Blu-ray media supposed to be coated with some kind of a "stronger-than-DVD" scratch element, as they advertised in their media campaign (the BD Association)?

Also, how do I narrow this problem down to the player causing the error or issue, a bad disc or a firmware update protocol? I have rented scratched and damaged DVDs before, which skipped and froze all over the place in the same sequences, obviously suggesting it was the disc itself, but with Hancock, after I stopped the playback and got back to the same scene, it didn't stutter in the audio the second time around -- would this sound like a disc problem?

Further...how do I go about getting a firmware update for my BDP-83? I don't have the unit connected to any kind of online network; can I download a disc or have one sent to me from OPPO?

 

[PearlcorderS701]

They have had at least 3-4 updates since you got your player, not including betas. I've updated my firmware since getting my player at least 6 or 7 times so far. I've had a few discs glitch as well, but the firmware updates have fixed all of them so far for me. If it doesn't do it the second time you watch the same scene, it is most likely just a random thing.

Thanks J...

I hear you -- wow; three to four updates at least since I got the player? Sheesh...I didn't realize the player needed this kind of updating, honest...but what would make the issue be a "random thing"? An HDMI handshake glitch, or something like that?

How did you update your firmware...via internet, or did you download a disc?

 

[skizzerflake]

A naively non-technical suggestion is to check the disk to see if there's a little piece of crud somewhere. I have seen rental disks do that and when I cleaned them they were OK.

 

[PearlcorderS701]

A naively non-technical suggestion is to check the disk to see if there's a little piece of crud somewhere. I have seen rental disks do that and when I cleaned them they were OK.

Thanks, Skizz...

This happens moreso with standard DVD disc rentals, I have found, where they were crudded up so bad they needed to be cleaned to be played...would this happen with the supposedly more "resistant" Blu-ray surfaces?

 

[Ron Temple]

I'm not connected via ethernet either. I've used both burned disks and now a USB flashdrive. Go to the Oppo site, click Support, for BD83, the firmware downloads show up with instructions. You load the burned CD or drive into the unit and it automatically refreshes within a couple of minutes. Done...easy peasy.

 

[j_garcia]

I do the USB thumb drive method. Works fine and I kept the zip files for all the releases so far, as one release actually caused a problem for one particular movie that I had just bought and I had to go back to the previous one to watch it. They are local, so I dropped by and showed them the issue and they fixed it shortly after.

Basically, you put all the files from that particular release into a folder called UPG and the player knows to look there for them and will do the rest. You may just need to answer some confirming YESs here and there to perform the update(s).

 

[PearlcorderS701]

I'm not connected via ethernet either. I've used both burned disks and now a USB flashdrive. Go to the Oppo site, click Support, for BD83, the firmware downloads show up with instructions. You load the burned CD or drive into the unit and it automatically refreshes within a couple of minutes. Done...easy peasy.

Thanks so much, Ron! This is how I did it with my previous Panasonic BD10A, in terms of the firmware, but wasn't sure about OPPO...

I shall do this as soon as I can; thanks again!

 

[PearlcorderS701]

I do the USB thumb drive method. Works fine and I kept the zip files for all the releases so far, as one release actually caused a problem for one particular movie that I had just bought and I had to go back to the previous one to watch it. They are local, so I dropped by and showed them the issue and they fixed it shortly after.

Basically, you put all the files from that particular release into a folder called UPG and the player knows to look there for them and will do the rest. You may just need to answer some confirming YESs here and there to perform the update(s).

Thanks to you, too, J.