[dogorman]

I am editing the OP in this thread because of a gracious correspondence I received this morning from Jason in Oppo technical support, offering to address the problems I've had with the 980H, item by item, despite my blistering appraisal of the product.

I'm still switching (the personal backups issue is a deal-breaker for me) but I think Jason's correspondence speaks volumes about the company's commitment to fostering long-term relationships with their customers, and I hope Oppo is not harmed out of proportion with my experiences, as a result of my reactions here.

Let me just say: Despite their plow-horse status, if you own a lot of personal backups you need to be looking at Sony. In my limited experience they seem to be the only company to get the compatibility side of the DVD game consistently right.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Regarding your comment about firmware updates: I'd have to disagree with you on this one.

Firmware updates are a positive thing. They give us 'upgradeability' without having to spend any money. Granted the updates also may fix bugs and glitches that were not discovered during R&D, but you'd be hard pressed to find a flawless manufacturer of any piece of sophisticated electronics now days. Yea, your Marantz was maybe flawless out of the box, and that's great, but you did pay (about) three times the price. I would sure hope you'd have fewer glitches.
Personally, when the time comes, I'll be getting Blue-Ray in a PS3 for the same or less than the Marantz. 
Thanks for the review. It's good to hear what's going on out there nowdays.

Bob

[dogorman]

...about the firmware upgrades, I guess I should say that the ability to do it is in theory a very good thing, you're absolutely right. I'm the last person to complain about downstream flexibility because I probably swap-out gear less frequently than any other member of this entire community.

But when a person starts seeing bulletins about firmware upgrades that will standardize break-point insertions and prevent cut-out of the subwoofer channel -- in other words, when firmware upgrades become a company's excuse to crash a product to market and then let the customer assume partial responsibility for debugging -- then that's a problem for me.

As for Blu-Ray, I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum: With over 3,000 conventional DVD's in hanging sleeve briefcases, I'm not about to start over with zero any time soon.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Good point about the consumer being the last link in quality control. I agree 100%. But in my opinion this is going to be "the future" and I'd start getting used to it dude. Sorry to say. Almost all of the lastest game systems and 1080p players have been riddled with problems, some of them "repairable" at the consumer level before you can even use the darn thing. Nobody likes it, but it's going to be a fact of life. If for no other reason, it's due to the fact your prized new toy was built six months ago and the R&D department has new software that couldn't be installed while the unit is sitting in a warehouse. That's another fact of "high demand" items like we're talking about.
Hell, my XBox360 had serious issues right from the box. So did it's replacement. So does IT'S replacement. But they're physical issues that can't be solved by firmware upgrades. They're just plain crappy designs.
So, I'm all about the ability to fix my unit by plugging in a USB cable. At least the damn thing can be fixed without mailing it back to the child slave labor that assembled it in the first place so they can fix it for me. 

I'm not saying you should render your 3000 DVD's obsolete. But if you got the PS3 you could still use them AND have the ability to buy those occasional 'special' movies on Blu-Ray.  aa

Bob

[dogorman]

Well if you've noticed any pattern in my posts, it certainly wouldn't be to call me "Mr. ready to accept change." 

And your point about "at least it doesn't have to go back" is really good, too.

I'll consider a BD player eventually, I'm sure, but part of the beauty of this Marantz being such a door-blower-outer is that it forestalls the happy feet that precede any big new plunge into a new component by.... gosh, in my case, probably about ten friggin' years. 

[Toka]

Sorry you had a bad experience...I had nothing but a positive dealings with Oppo both before and after the sale (and no, I'm not "on the payroll"). Diff'rent strokes, I guess.

[dogorman]

Yeah -- I guess I could've kept the whole review to one sentence and that one sentence would've been, "If you have a lot of personal backups, especially older-vintage personal backups, you're going to want to keep shopping for a different player." Probably a lot of the rest is just hot air from yours truly. 

[Bob in St. Louis]

I understand exactly what you mean about buying a "door-blower-outer" type product. I've had the same thing happen and it really does spoil you for everything else. It's a super cool thing when that happens.

I bought an Oppo a year or so ago, but the HDCP/HDMI 'handshake' wasn't compatable to the other pieces in my system, so I'm NOT on their payroll either.  

Bob

[sleepysurf]

Sorry to hear about your Oppo experience.  I've had the 980H for over 9 months, and have had no problems whatsoever.  Just did another firmware upgrade yesterday, and it worked without a hitch.  From my perspective, the unit is a tremendous value, and it seems the designers/company have gone the extra mile to address user/bug issues.   Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[ted_b]

Sorry to hear about your Oppo experience.  I've had the 980H for over 9 months, and have had no problems whatsoever.  Just did another firmware upgrade yesterday, and it worked without a hitch.  From my perspective, the unit is a tremendous value, and it seems the designers/company have gone the extra mile to address user/bug issues.   Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

+1

[rydenfan]

Sorry to hear about your Oppo experience.  I've had the 980H for over 9 months, and have had no problems whatsoever.  Just did another firmware upgrade yesterday, and it worked without a hitch.  From my perspective, the unit is a tremendous value, and it seems the designers/company have gone the extra mile to address user/bug issues.   Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

+1

[dogorman]

Wouldn't that make it "+2"? 

Seriously, if it played the personal backups I could live with the rest. It doesn't.

[dogorman]

Just edited my original review-post.