Best Blu Ray video and for 2 channel transport?

Thanks for the input, Undertow. Yes, I'd concur and give the Panny very high marks for picture in both blu-ray and SD. I only ran sound via the digital output so good to hear it does well via analog too. I believe all the Oppo's, including the 983, downsample the analog output to PCM, even via the HDMI. Correct me if I'm wrong. Not sure how the Panny works re audio outs and HDMI as I was only interested in the digital, but it doesn't play high rez audio anyway (SACD and DVD-a). The memory issue was a big bugaboo for me. I'm spoiled by that in a DVD player - I frequently don't watch films all the way through and go back later to finish them so I value that memory feature. I also hate it when you get a Netflix or rental that skips so you have to pull it out and wash it (I don't know about you, but this is about 1/8 discs for me I'd guess) and then have the player make you find the spot you left off at rather than go right back to it. I don't think Panny has it on either DVD or BD playback. Does the Oppo? Maybe it will be a firmware update for the Pannasonic someday! I also was bothered by how slow it was to do virtually anything with a BD disc (and not so much so with an SD), but to be fair it was my first BD experience and I understand it is relatively fast for a BD player. Compared to any DVD player I've owned it is slow as molasses (so I was surprised at your comment that you found it otherwise). Glad it worked out for you and that you like it - I think it's a great bargain and seems to be one of the first BD machines to do so many things so well at a very affordable price. If you go back and read real-world comments on even the high priced machines, some mentioned in this thread (Sony ES, Pioneer, Denon 3800), you find quite a few critical remarks around their performance in one way shape or form. These are machines that are all substantially more expensive. I found that real-world comments on almost all the BD machines in the Pansonic price range to be spotty at best. I frankly could not imagine improving on the picture I saw in BD from the Panny....personally I could not ask for more. The upsampled DVD picture was not that far behind. Now it's just a matter of wait and see if BD really takes over. Again, for me, right now, virtually none of the titles available in Blu-Ray are anything I'd want to own, and most I wouldn't even bother renting. All my favorite movies, and the few I actually own, are on DVD. I ended up ordering a 983H which Oppo has now discontinued entirely (probably in anticipation that their BD player will do everything the 983H does along with BD). I'll let you know my own impressions when it arrives.

Don't get me wrong the 983 is really good.. Not sure when you had the panasonic however, maybe it has had some speed updates.

The oppo takes about 30 seconds from startup on a dvd and goes thru all the B.S. FBI warnings etc... Its fast, but still pretty sluggish..

As the panasonic it will take about a minuet to load a BD, which is maybe anywhere from 15 to 25 seconds slower, not an issue in my mind. The regular DVD seems to load as fast, however no doubt the blu ray player does have to boot up from off and will add some seconds..

Beyond that I was a little shocked that the Panasonic so far easily outshines the audio on the Oppos... Could be a taste issue, I don't know what DACS are in the panasonic, the best is pretty much one from Cirrus, and Oppos do use a Cirrus, but a lower end one, not Cirrus best chip anyway.

Good luck, the oppo is a good unit no doubt, and also will be able to play all you want in titles minus blu ray with as perfect as it gets... I just had to go up for the heck of it, and really looking to take advantage as really I don't own a ton of DVD's about 200 which I dumped about 1/3rd of them in trade for some new blu ray discs, I rarely keep many as I always trade them back at some point, so figured I don't want to get stuck with 1000 dollars worth of DVD's over the next year when already they are starting to be worth about a buck each at best on trade now.

I don't think DVD is going away, however I argued a point about SACD years ago, this is in reverse, but I truly believe that DVD will start to become as limited as SACDS in the next couple years, very fast turnaround I have a feeling, because the blu ray tech is pretty damn good now, and I see just about everybody recently bringing in a lot more rentals, a lot more stock of it, and a lot more people I know already own the machines and they love to get the best out of their 2000 dollar investments in panel tvs, so I do not believe Blu ray will be even close to a SACD issue at all.

It has way to many capabilities for all mediums.. Video games, Movies, DATA storage, and of course quality HD transfer, so its not really much of a niche product at all the way I see it, thats kinda like saying the new and improved smaller, faster, better cell phones will not sell and become a novelty, this is not SACD for sure. Plus SACD on a few fronts can prove superiority, but blu ray everybody can see the quality and quantity advantage so it will sell mainstream as it already is.

Only thing I see being corrected and I think it will happen quickly is the Blu ray disc pricing scheme... They need to more quickly come down to the 18 - 19 dollar range... People will not want to pay 25 to 30 a disc for sure, not for long anyway.. But I also feel many will just buy "Nothing" opposed to buying more standard DVD's they will just rent them until the blu discs become more affordable, and they are starting too.

I got my Panny from Amazon a few days before you started this post. I just got my 983H today and have ran my test DVD's through it (music videos which I am very familiar with from watching and listening to them over and over). Nothing special, but stuff I love and know very well. Here are my initial impressions: The Oppo default picture on my Sony CRT dispay is set a bit too dark (as it was with my friend's Oppo). A minor brightness adjustment + a bit of contrast and it was fine. Once tweaked the picture was lovely. I would say the colors occur to me as overall just a bit more natural than the more punchy colors I recall on the Panny (at default). I don't think that is anything more than a matter of tweaking...maybe. The picture itself is excellent on both players. I'd give the edge in the upsampling in terms of sharpness to the Panasonic, believe it or not. It occurred to me as a bit sharper. I prefer the more natural colors to the more punch, exaggerated colors. With one of my vids I was getting a strange artifact in jump cuts in dark scenes on the Panasonic though. For a milisecond I'd see a checkerboard (pixelated) effect in the shadows, this occurred in almost every cut where there were predominantly dark areas in the frame (common in stage concert films). That does not occur with the same vid upsampled on the Oppo. The significant difference, which I cannot fully understand or explain, and which delights me, is in the digital output via my Modwright Transporter - The Oppo is clearly and without any doubt more immediate and engaging. This holds true with CD performance as well. I don't really get that as both should be feeding the same digital stream to the Modwright TP, but the Oppo output commands more attention while the Panny was fine, but didn't have the same kind of immediacy. I wish I'd held onto the Panny to do a direct comparisons now, but this is how it occurs to me, and that actually comes as a surprise. I'd expected the Oppo to be a clear winner in video and didn't expect to hear any differences via the digital out. Anyway, I'm happy as a clam with the Oppo and I'm sure the memory thing would have really been a problem with both me and my wife. I hope Panasonic updates that soon as it's a real fly in the ointment for me, in an otherwise near perfect BD player. I'm not experiencing any unusual lag times with the Oppo and it is certainly faster than the Panasonic in starting up and cuing up and almost everything else. My Panny was current and needed no firmware updates. My Oppo is also current and probably one of the last ones they made. Can't account for the differences in our experience there... Go figure. One difference in my experience of the two players is that I had to use the Panasonic lamp cord AC power cord, while I'm using a TG 688 on the Oppo, FWTW. I've not tried out the analog output of the Oppo, mostly because I'm not interested and won't likely ever use it. I also did not try the analog outs on the Panny. I'll be very curious to see where BluRay goes from here. I do hope it makes it as it's clearly a superior format. Until they start releasing an abundance of films that actually interest me to watch on that format I'll be sticking with DVD.

Got me thinking, yeah I am going to try the Sony 350 and see what it has, being it does have the coax out on the lower model, the upper has nothing to offer accept a 7.1 output and like a sony link hdmi or something which I have no use... So I realize in the future with no Disc memory at least for a couple discs, the panasonic is going to be a problem.. And a Sony transport should be pretty good, I believe the oppos actual had a sony as well as raysonics used a decent sony transport that I had in the past.

Yeah the oppo is probably a little more film like, the panasonic is a bit more well "Digital blu ray" look... The oppo is a great machine, surprised about the digital out too myself! The oppo does sound good as a stand alone machine even without dac, so it does have a good solid transport and dac in it.

As for the panasonic with the memory issue, I will have to dig in further... Maybe I will have to stave it off as well this is a bit of an annoying issue due to not holding even 2 or 3 discs... The oppos hold 10 disc memories which is plenty.

As for startup time no doubt the blu ray players going thru the boot process takes a little time, but you can just leave the player on which actually I did all the time with the oppo as well, it does not draw any real power anyway just the display which I had set to off all the time. So this speeds up retrieval time on both units really, and keeps them warmed up a little for audio playback as well.

I also just suggest leaving your DAC on all the time, again without a signal its not pulling anything but does help for sound.

Thanks for the update!! I will be evaluating the memory issue... I will also go ahead and do some head to head comparisons with the transport sound on the panasonic against a couple other DVD players including the oppo, right now I am waiting for a DAC so in a couple weeks I will have the answer, and I have 30 days to return the panasonic if it does not "Pan" out :-)

Denon, Marantz, Pioneer Elite, NAD all make excellent units with good transports and better BluRay than the entry level units. Oppo will be coming out with one soon.