Oppo Blu-ray Player Shipping in May

Oppo’s BDP-83 Blu-ray player

Oppo Digital will begin shipping its BDP-83 Blu-ray universal player to those who have received invitations starting May 5, with wider rollout at a later date.

Well, we’re getting closer to a full rollout of Oppo Digital’s sweet BDP-83 Blu-ray disc player.

The news today is that it’s going to start shipping the fully baked product, after extensive early adopter program and feedback, May 5 to May 15 to those who have received invitations.

The company says that if you haven’t received an invitation but want to purchase the $499 player, it will start sending it out to others after all the invite-players have been fulfilled.

Just to refresh your memory, the Oppo not only plays Blu-rays, but will include support for multichannel music formats SACD and DVD-Audio, and include 7.1-channel analog outputs.

It decodes Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, includes dedicated stereo analog outputs. The BDP-83 upconverts standard-def DVDs via Anchor Bay’s DVDO VRS de-interlacing and scaling, and there’s even a vertical stretch mode so you can prep Blu-rays and DVDs for viewing in a 2.35:1 constant image height setup (to ditch the black bars) with an anamorphic lens, projector and CinemaScope screen.

At last check, Oppo was trying to work out the DVD-A support, and it looks like it’s been taken care of prior to shipping so you won’t have to grab it as a firmware update. Plus you get a free 6-foot HDMI cable, so there’s no need to rush out and buy a Monster Cable as attracted as you may be by the new reduced price.

Via: Engadget HD