Q About Oppo BDP-83 USB Media Play Capabilities

[basspig]

I'm considering the Oppo BDP-83, after reading a lot about it and following the EAP trials on their web site.

I currently have a Sony BDP-S301. It plays my BD-R/RE discs and looks great. However, it is SSSSLLOOOOOOOW to boot and slow loading media.

And it cannot read non industry-standard formats, such as MPEG and h.264 files simply burned to a BD-RE at UDF disc format.

I read that the Oppo can play media files off the USB port, via a hard drive or memory stick.

Here's what I'm getting at: I'd like a way to view our daily rushes without having to spend a day authoring a Blu-ray disc, just to play it on the projection system with the full quality that a dedicated player decoder can produce.

I would like to be able to render out short, editing sequences in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, either to MPEG2 or h.264 at 40mb/S peak bitrates, copy them to a USB HDD and connected it to the Oppo and play those files minutes later.

Can the new Oppo Blu-ray player do this? What CODECs and wrapper formats does it play? If I write an h.264 file with an .m4v extension to the disc, will the Oppo play it? Also, do the rules for Blu-ray stream data bandwidth apply? Ie., will it work if I use the Blu-ray format for rendering the files in the same way as if I were prepping for authoring a disc?

Hopefully someone here has tried this and can shed some light on it. It would be sheer heaven if the Oppo can do this, because it means that I can show clients rough edits on our 154" screen with almost immediate reviewing, and save a day of authoring a 'review' BD-R disc.

 

[j_garcia]

I don't see in the manual where it talks about file formats supported. It says the disc must be FAT32 and if it is a HDD, should have an external power supply. Most thumb drives should be fine. I haven't tried movies, but I don't see why it wouldn't read MPEG2.

You might want to give them a call on this one.

 

[jostenmeat]

You're talking way above my head, and I presume over a lot of heads, but at least I am experienced with search engines.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=16900960&postcount=17965
* 582 pin BGA package
* Existing DVD player features plus BD-R/RE/ROM playback
* Hi-Def H.264/AVC, VC1, MPEG2 video decode, DivX, Nero support
* Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital+, Dolby TrueHD
* DTS Digital Surround, DTS-HD
* 500MHz ARM1176 core
* Still picture format support
* Security processor and hardware crypto engine for
1DES/2DES/AES/AACS/BD+/CSS/CPRM/DTCP
* 2-D graphics engine with font rendering acceleration
* Six 12-bit/148MHz TV encoder supporting up to 1080@60p output
* HDMI 1.3 transmitter with HDCP1.2
* USB 2.0 x 2
* Serial ATA x 2
* Ethernet MAC with MII"

I don't know if this is helpful, but I'll link a post regarding the formatting of any hard drive attached to it?
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=16604025&postcount=13808

Hopefully current (posted in late May), someone else copy/pasted this from the FAQ as UNsupported codecs:

* ac3
* bmp
* dts
* fla
* flv
* m4v
* mlp
* mov
* mp4
* mpc
* m2ts (except in AVCHD directories)
* ogg
* ogm
* tif
* ts
* pcx
* wav
* wmv


I would pose your questions in the thread above, as well as simultaneously asking Oppo themselves. Good luck! I don't own this player, not that it would help me much in understanding what you're asking.

 

[basspig]

The list of file formats it WON'T play includes most of the common formats found on DVDs and Blu-ray. It can't play ac3? They've got to be kidding! It looks more like a CAN play list than a CAN'T play list. I wonder if that's a typo. A DVD player that can't play ac3 would mean it would not be able to play 99%of DVDs in circulation today.

I think I'll write Oppo and ask them about this.

 

[jostenmeat]

I think this might be the FAQ the guy referred to?

Unofficial OPPO BDP-83 Frequently Asked Questions

ok, I clicked on supported "Media Files", and here's that:

http://watershade.net/wmcclain/BDP-83-faq.html#media-files

AC3 is listed as a supported audio codec, but it still is listed in the "unsupported media file types". I'll leave the understanding to you!

I won't be back till next week, but I wish you luck. Look forward to the impending completion of your theater when I do.

 

[j_garcia]

I think this might be the FAQ the guy referred to?

Unofficial OPPO BDP-83 Frequently Asked Questions

ok, I clicked on supported "Media Files", and here's that:

http://watershade.net/wmcclain/BDP-83-faq.html#media-files

AC3 is listed as a supported audio codec, but it still is listed in the "unsupported media file types". I'll leave the understanding to you!

I won't be back till next week, but I wish you luck. Look forward to the impending completion of your theater when I do.

I presume that means that if it is on a disc it works but from a thumb drive it may not? You can switch between disc media and USB media and it handles them differently.

 

[basspig]

Well here's what Oppo tech support said:

"We do not support any MP4 wrappers. We support standard MPEG2 (.MPG, .MPEG, .M2TS (on a properly designed AVCHD disc) and MKV h.264 (VC-1, AVC), but we do not support any MP4 containers.

A 40MB/s bitrate should be supported. We support most external HDDs which have been formatted as FAT16 or FAT32."

Now I have to get clarified what is meant by "properly-designed AVCHD disc". If it means I can't just through MPG files onto a thumb drive or a USB HDD, then that complicates matters.. I'm trying to keep it simple and quick. As easy as playing the files off the workstation, connected to the projector as a second monitor, but with the higher quality that the Oppo chipset can provide.

 

[Robaird]

I used an mkv wrapper with a h.264 codec to convert a iso of a dvd with ac3 audio and it worked flawlessly on the BDP-83. I even did a side by side with the dvd and the mkv (on my computer) and could not tell the difference (actually the mkv looked a tinny bit sharper--and was less than 1/3 the size of the dvd). My receiver confirmed the audio coming from the BDP-83 was dolby digital.

I used h.264 to save space on my thumb drive, but mpeg 2 should work without a hitch as well (unless you are pushing the limits on bit rates, as older flash memory won't support 40 MB/s--which is the max video bit rate for BR disks. Although 9.8 is the max vid bit rate for DVD's, a H.264 transcode gets them down to less than 2 MB/s).

The BDP-83 has a simple and attractive gui to play the media files. As long as you save using an mkv wrapper (which is a robust wrapper and fairly common), I doubt you would have any problems.

Also, the scaler on the Oppo is phenomenal. I could tell I was not watching a BR movie because it was not as sharp, but that was it. There was absolutely no blockiness or artifacts and the image was rendered beautifully on a 50" plasma screen. It looked as good as most of the 1080 broadcasts off my satellite receiver.

For what it's worth, I used handbrake to convert iso of a dvd--just selected "film" preset, file location, wrapper type, and go . . . and waited 4 hours to transcode file. Simply rendering from Premiere will be much quicker obviously.

 

[Robaird]

Re thumbdrive bandwidth, the 8 GB Corsair Survivor I use reportedly maxes out at 34 MB/s. Many have reported that an h.264 compression of HD video cuts the file size/bitrate in half, which would also be much lower than the 40 MB/s max (which is probably for BR encoded in Mpeg 2).

Re rendering, I should clarify that if size/bitrates are not an issue, as you likely know better than I, rendering HD video from Premiere to Mpeg2 should be much quicker than H.264.

 

[basspig]

I took delivery of my new Oppo BDP-83 this week, and am currently experimenting with the media stick playback via the USB thumb drive connected to the front panel port.

So far, I have only been able to see and play MPEG2 .MPG files. No luck getting it to play h.264 videos, which comprise 96% of everything I've produced in HD. Oppo seems to avoid the most popular formats and flavors of media files for some inexplicable reason.

 

[gonk]

The media file support is limited by what the chipset manufacturer provides them. They have been working with Mediatek chips for many years now, and the partnership has by and large been very good, but they have been pressing for expanded file format support for some time now and had limited success. Until Mediatek builds support for additional formats into their code, OPPO can't do much.