Upgrade to Oppo BDP-93 ?

[bluelightning]

Hello all,

I am new to audioholics here I currently own a BDP-83 and am in the process of slowly migrating my collection of CDs to lossless files. I originally bought the 83 with some hope that a firmware fix would allow it to play lossless files etc, but that didn't pan out. I am now thinking of migrating to the 93 for its ability to play virtually most audio files including multi- channel and hi res upto 24bit, 192 KHz as well as Blu ray , DVD files. I am also for its ability to stream from various sources over the internet as well.

What I would like to know from members who have some experience with the 93 in this mode of operation as a media player and if you'll think it is a viable option ?
I have a reasonably large collection of CDs (1000+), I have managed to convert about 300 or so to lossless so far and have them well organized in directories.

I do not really care for a pretty/fancy interface, (in fact I prefer navigating directory structures) but I would like the navigation /playback process to be smooth at least.

I am also most likely going to upgrade to a Yamaha RxA-2010/3010 receiver since my existing receiver is fairly old and would eventually like to use the DACs in the receiver( if they are good enough) via HDMI.


Are there some other approaches that make more sense that I am missing ?
Given all the above I would love to hear your opinions ?
Thank you for your patience.


Noor

 

[baniels]

I use my 93 in this manner all the time.

I navigate my music and video library using the directory structures. The format for browsing will be determined by your media server. I use twonkymedia - and it lets me choose to browse by folder (directory), or by meta tags - artist, album, genre, etc - but I never do that. It relies too much on having all files with the same tagging structure - and since I've done my ripping over many years, I haven't done it all the same way. Mostly it is the same, but I've run into enough snags that it is just easier to use directory browsing. With Various Artist albums and compilations, careful thought has to be put into the tagging structure and the desired playback mode if you plan to use tags.

The navigation is smooth enough. Some people create root folders for an alpha letter range (A-F, G-L, M-R, S-Z, etc). With a massive library, that might make sense. For me, I only have about 300 first level folders for music - usually just Artist name, with album subfolders within. I also have a surround folder with another list of artist folders for DVD-A flac rips.

Browsing with the remote you can go up or down by one row at a time, or you can "page" down, which I believe is something like 8 or 10 lines at a time, whatever fits vertically on the screen.

If enter the library knowing I'm going to be listening to Steely Dan, I hit the GoTo button on the remote, and type in 200, then enter. This jumps me to the 200th folder in the list, somewhere in the range of the S's. This, of course, is much faster than paging down through 200 folders to get to Steely Dan.

I recommend using a hard wired ethernet connection between your Oppo and the server. BUT, I can say before I ran cables across my house a few weeks ago, I was getting good performance from a strong wireless N connection. The only problem I had was that half the time my surround flac's, some of which are 24/96, didn't play smoothly. Stereo up to 24-192 was never a problem wireless.

 

[sholling]

The 93 can do some network media playback but it relies on DLNA and the media player is still little more than a crude beta. I gave up on using my BDP-93 for anything more than playing Blu-Rays and DVDs. Instead I'm using a $100 Netgear NeoTV 550 network media player and it just works so much better. It's also great at playing BD rips. Unless you need 3D I wouldn't spend the $500 on a new Oppo.

What the NeoTV 550 does not do is Netfix etc and I use a Roku 2 XS for that and again the Oppo gets spanked because the Oppo version of Netflix doesn't do 1080P.

Audio:
Dolby Digital (AC3), Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD
DTS 2.0+, DTS HD and DTS HD MA (passthru)
MP3 up to 320 Kbps or variable bit rate (VBR)
Gapless playback MP3, FLAC, M4A, M2TS
WMA8 and WMA9 up to 192 Kbps or variable bit rate (VBR)
WMAPro, AAC, 16 and 24bit FLAC (to 5.1, 192Khz), PCM LPCM/WAV (to 5.1, 192KHz)

Video:
Codec Format:
H.264 HP@L4.1 up to 1080p
VC1 MP@HL, AP@L3
WMV 9
MPEG-2 MP@HL up to 1080p
MPEG-4 Part 2 ASP@L5 to 10 Mbps (Xvid)
MPEG1/2/4 SD
H.263
Container format: AVI, Xvid, MOV, MP4, MPEG2 PS, MPEG2-TS, DVD ISO/VOB/IFO, MKV, ASF, AVCHD, DivX, WMV, M4A, M2TS, MTS, MP1, MP2, MPG, DVR-MS, BDMV​

 

[bluelightning]

Thank both of you for the responses so far.

Scholling, I had almost made up my mind to go ahead and buy the 93. I had intended on selling the 83 that I have if the 93 panned out. Now your response has got me thinking some more. I have a few questions on this setup, some may be irrelevant but ..

1) Does the Netgear 550 support reading Blu ray movies directly from an external Hard drive connected via USB ?
2) Is there a netgear version with wireless ? I prefer using a wireless connection if possible
3) Does the Netgear make external HDs connected via USB available over the network for other devices to see ?

4)Do either of these mentioned work with Youtube ? I sure would like this to work

5) What about vudu ?

6) Does the Netgear support external HDs greater than 2 TB or does it have that limitation similar to the oppo 93 ?

7)Given that I intend on upgrading my receiver (likely to yamaha rx-a2010); Any thoughts on how the sound of the 93 via analog out will compare
to hdmi out via the netgear/other streaming device ? From the measurements I see at least it seems the DACs in some of these receivers seem good fairly close to measurements for 93 . Any comments ?

Thanks.

 

[sholling]

1) Does the Netgear 550 support reading Blu ray movies directly from an external Hard drive connected via USB ?

Rumor has it that there might be a firmware update to allow that but I have no idea of the status. Franky I wouldn't count on it.

2) Is there a netgear version with wireless ? I prefer using a wireless connection if possible

After trying to stream 10GB/hour of 1080P to my old 1st gen Western Digital TV Live over 802.11n (stutter, stop, stutter) I personally prefer hard wired but to answer your question no the netgear does not have built in wireless and you'd need an external bridge. You might also consider some of the latest powerline networking devices but don't expect a sustained throughput of more than roughly 10-20% of advertised speeds from either powerline or wireless although they might peak higher.

3) Does the Netgear make external HDs connected via USB available over the network for other devices to see ?

It does but I haven't tested that function.

4)Do either of these mentioned work with Youtube ? I sure would like this to work

At Google's request Youtube was removed from Roku products. The NeoTV550 has limited and buggy support for youtube. Some resolutions and formats it can play and some it cannot and signing in to your channels doesn't work at all.

5) What about vudu ?

No not yet but Roku is always adding channels so maybe someday.

6) Does the Netgear support external HDs greater than 2 TB or does it have that limitation similar to the oppo 93 ?

I have a wired network and servers so I haven't tried it but I think it still has a 2TB limit.

7)Given that I intend on upgrading my receiver (likely to yamaha rx-a2010); Any thoughts on how the sound of the 93 via analog out will compare to hdmi out via the netgear/other streaming device ? From the measurements I see at least it seems the DACs in some of these receivers seem good fairly close to measurements for 93 . Any comments ?

I simply don't know. I'm running audio from my 93 into my Onkyo TX-NR906 via HDMI. As you said the DACs found in modern receivers are pretty good.

Your best bet for technical info on the NeoTV is Netgear's NeoTV forum. I haven't got deep under the hood because frankly it's done everything I care about and there hasn't been a need but people on the forum have.

You might also look at the newest version of the Western Digital TV Live (WDTV LIve). I owned the older version that did not support lossless BD audio formats. Supposedly the new version supports Dolby TrueHD pass-through, has built in wireless, and plays Netflix. I have not tested it and do not know if it supports DTS-HD pass-through or 24bit flacks or multichannel flacs but it might be worth researching.

Trying to get 24bit flacs from a server in my home-office to the system in my family room has been a long series of expensive and frustrating experiments. My old 1st generation WDTV happily streamed 16bit flacs but down-sampled 24bit flacs to 16bit and did not pass through BD lossless audio. The Oppo 93 was supposed the solve that problem but it's been badly crippled by the chipset supplier and needs a DLNA server (no access to network shares) capable of serving up 24bit and multichannel flacs and MKVs and the only DLNA server that did 24bit 6 months ago was a Media Monkey beta. After much pain and suffering I built a really nice HTPC which works great but is a pain to use. I finally settled on my 2-box (plus a Blu-Ray player for rentals) solution and I'm very happy. It doesn't not do everything but it comes close enough for me and is as easy to use as a cable box. The bottom line is that network media playback and streaming are still in their infancy and no single media player does everything yet, and darn few even come close. If you must have a single do everything device then be prepared to sink $500-600+ into a HTPC and playback software and live with the limitations of HTPC keyboards/mice and media playback software.

For me it was a no-brainer and I put 2-box (Roku and Netgear) solutions in both my family room and my bedroom for less than the cost of a single HTPC. I can access my network shares and 24bit audio and don't have to deal with buggy or limited DLNA and I can tie it all into my Harmony remote.

 

[baniels]

The Oppo 93 was supposed the solve that problem but it's been badly crippled by the chipset supplier and needs a DLNA server (no access to network shares) capable of serving up 24bit and multichannel flacs and MKVs and the only DLNA server that did 24bit 6 months ago was a Media Monkey beta.

I've been using Twonky media server for the above purposes since I got my 93 last Christmas.

 

[sholling]

I've been using Twonky media server for the above purposes since I got my 93 last Christmas.

24bit/96khz flacs? Because when I looked into it everything I read said it downgraded on the fly to 16bit.

 

[baniels]

Yup. Even 24/96 multichannel. I'm running it on a Qnap NAS which runs linux. I have all transcoding turned off.

24bit/96khz flacs? Because when I looked into it everything I read said it downgraded on the fly to 16bit.

 

[sholling]

Yup. Even 24/96 multichannel. I'm running it on a Qnap NAS which runs linux. I have all transcoding turned off.

I wish I'd know that before all of the pain of the Media Monkey beta.

 

[baniels]

Can you point me to some discussions of Twonky doing this? Everything I seem to find confirms my belief, but you've planted a seed of doubt.

What I was using as a confirmation was the bitrate readout of my AVR when playing music from the Oppo over HDMI. It states 192 khz, 96 khz, etc. It doesn't, however, state the bit depth. I suppose I can't now say without a doubt that it isn't truncating 24 bit to 16 bit, because I have no way to verify that with my own equipment. Know of a windows DLNA client that will supply the bit depth of the files be played?

I've read enough on the Qnap forums and elsewhere that I think I would have stumbled upon a discussion if this were to be happening.

I wish I'd know that before all of the pain of the Media Monkey beta.

 

[sholling]

Can you point me to some discussions of Twonky doing this? Everything I seem to find confirms my belief, but you've planted a seed of doubt.

What I was using as a confirmation was the bitrate readout of my AVR when playing music from the Oppo over HDMI. It states 192 khz, 96 khz, etc. It doesn't, however, state the bit depth. I suppose I can't now say without a doubt that it isn't truncating 24 bit to 16 bit, because I have no way to verify that with my own equipment. Know of a windows DLNA client that will supply the bit depth of the files be played?

I've read enough on the Qnap forums and elsewhere that I think I would have stumbled upon a discussion if this were to be happening.

I'm of the opinion that if it's saying 96khz that it's probably 24bit. It's something that I researched the heck out of when I bought the Oppo but I'm not finding anything that casts doubt on Twonky anymore so perhaps I was mistaken or lead astray myself.

 

[bluelightning]

Let me back up, I guess : Currently I use my laptop (quad core, what not) connected to my external HD to play Blu ray /DVD rips , and Netflix /Youtube streaming via wireless. I have no problems streaming Netflix wirelessly since I have a pretty decent internet connection (12 -15mbps). I connect the laptops HDMI out to my TV and use its audio out to my receiver (my receiver is only 14 years young and has no HDMI). This laptop is sort of my HTPC if you will. For physical media I use the oppo 83.

But I am looking to break this loop and migrate away from this. Every time I want to play a movie etc I don't want to have to connect the laptop.

However it appears there are no complete choices currently.


Not being able to play Blu-Ray from external HD is somewhat undesirable to me. I understand that streaming Blu ray directories wirelessly be can be problematic. As a stop gap measure I had intended on connecting my external HD (3 TB) to the player and let it access my music & files until I figured a better method with a NAS box or something.

Neither of these choices will directly read 3 TB external drives., which means one of the following:
1) Buy another smaller external HD
2) Start looking at purchasing a NAS box and connect that to the player
3)Stream wirelessly from my laptop to oppo with external drive connected to laptop. It seems like this should work at least for audio and dvd, lower res video
4) For use with Netgear, will need wired ethernet connection


I did some research on the WDTV Live Hub and while it seems to support 3 TB drives as well as stream 1080p wirelessly, it does not seem to properly support hi res & multi channel flac.

 

[TheWarrior]

Is this Dan?

I'll be picking a BDP-93 in a couple weeks, you can always fly/ride out here to Laguna and check it out!

 

[bluelightning]

Is this Dan?

I'll be picking a BDP-93 in a couple weeks, you can always fly/ride out here to Laguna and check it out!

Warrior , No I am not Dan. I am your neighbor in Aliso Viejo Is that offer still open ? , My fingers are getting really itchy though.

 

[sholling]

Let me back up, I guess : Currently I use my laptop (quad core, what not) connected to my external HD to play Blu ray /DVD rips , and Netflix /Youtube streaming via wireless. I have no problems streaming Netflix wirelessly since I have a pretty decent internet connection (12 -15mbps).

Netflix is fairly easy. Blu-Ray over wireless is pretty iffy. On the other hand 100Mb Ethernet works fine because that's all the faster the Ethernet ports are in these devices.

I did some research on the WDTV Live Hub and while it seems to support 3 TB drives as well as stream 1080p wirelessly, it does not seem to properly support hi res & multi channel flac.

This is why I say there are no perfect solutions - not yet. There are so few customers that need 24bit and multichannel flac support that it's a low priority. Most customers and professional reviewers seem more worried about rating a device on how it plays Netflix and MP3s and maybe Youtube.

Anyway bear in mind that the "Hub" is last year's high-end model. The new "Live" is their latest tech. I just haven't been able to find out if it plays 24bit FLACs without down-sampling. The old "Live" reportedly down-sampled to 16bit and mine would choke on 88khz files.

 

[bluelightning]

I was looking at the new Live and not the Hub when I responded last night, but it was late and hence got the name mixed up. I rechecked and the new Live indeed has trouble with hi res audio and multi-channel flac files.

baniels: Does the Oppo 93 have any trouble reading Blu -ray files larger than 4 GB ? & On a separate note what NAS server are you using & are you happy with it ?



Thanks.

 

[baniels]

From the FAQ:

You are no longer limited to the 4GB file limit size imposed by the FAT file system on USB and eSATA devices. (NTFS on local storage also removes this limit).

I use a Qnap TS-209 Pro. I've had it for close to 4 years. It is quite outdated in most respect now, but performs well serving my audio and video. I would love to update to one with more bays and a faster processor/more memory - but they are costly and so are the drives it would take to fill it.

I have 2 single TB drives in it configured as JBOD. Not the safest way to do things, but to run RAID I would have to cut my storage capacity in half.

I would definitely buy Qnap again. It has been a strong performer serving many different duties.

 

[sholling]

I was looking at the new Live and not the Hub when I responded last night, but it was late and hence got the name mixed up. I rechecked and the new Live indeed has trouble with hi res audio and multi-channel flac files.

I found this streamer shootout yesterday and it's a pretty interesting read.

 

[bluelightning]

sholling: Thanks for the link, I finally had a chance to read it. They came to the same conclusion; there is no perfect media player yet. They seemed to mention that the Netgear had stability isues with frequent UI freezes and lock up issues. Has this been your experience ?

It would have been interesting to see the Oppo and WD TV Live included in the comparison.


baniels: How would you rate the stability of the oppo 93 interface, how often does the device lock up on you if so ?
Also while I know the oppo does not support gapless when streaming, how much of a gap is really there between tracks ?


I can't seem to make up my mind on this. I sometimes feel like I should first start out upgrading my receiver, that way I at least get a set of HDMI inputs so that I can exploit the inbuilt DACS.

 

[sholling]

sholling: Thanks for the link, I finally had a chance to read it. They came to the same conclusion; there is no perfect media player yet. They seemed to mention that the Netgear had stability isues with frequent UI freezes and lock up issues. Has this been your experience ?

Twice in 2 months I've had to do an unplug/replug reset in the family room and twice with the bedroom player. Once (each) for a freeze while navigating the menus. Once because the family room player dropped the network, and once because the bedroom player failed to wake up from sleep mode. I've never had a freeze mid movie or mid album. It's not perfect but it's at least as stable as the media player in the Oppo BDP-93 which drove me nuts. Of course I only use the NeoTVs 8-10 hours a week.

Also while I know the oppo does not support gapless when streaming, how much of a gap is really there between tracks ?

It's the standard CD gap which if memory serves is usually 2 seconds but don't hold me to that. It's enough to be irritating when playing music (like Speak To Me/Breathe from Dark Side Of The Moon) that wasn't intended to have a gap.

I can't seem to make up my mind on this. I sometimes feel like I should first start out upgrading my receiver, that way I at least get a set of HDMI inputs so that I can exploit the inbuilt DACS.

I would get the HDMI receiver first so you can enjoy lossless Blu-Ray audio. I'd also take the time to experiment with networking options.