Oppo has begun its week by launching the lowest-cost Blu-ray player in what’s normally a high-end line. The BDP-80 is similar to the BDP-83 but drops the secondary video processor, moving all work to the main decoder; it sheds 24p DVD upscaling in the process. Slightly older DACs as well as the absences of IR and RS-232 (serial) ports also help separate the BDP-80 from its earlier but more expensive predecessor.
The player is still fully capable of all modern Blu-ray features and carries both an Ethernet jack and 1GB of internal memory to support BD-Live. It can still play Blu-ray movies at 24p without pull-down conversion and carries an HDMI 1.3 output with support for 36-bit color on matching TV sets and receivers. Non-disc formats are still an option and range from simple audio and photos to video formats like AVCHD (H.264), whether it’s stored on a disc or on an attached USB drive.
Oppo is already taking orders for the BDP-80 and puts it at a comparatively low $289 versus a much higher $499 for the older BDP-83.
