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OPPO BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player with SACD & DVD-Audio

OPPO Digital, Inc. has finally released their BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player with SACD and DVD-Audio. Place your OPPO BDP-83 order here! We have been using this player for a month or so and on every level it’s well worth the entry fee. We posted our take in this post.

The short take is the price is the same $499 charged during the Early Adoption Programs. It’s built extremely well for its price point and offers everything one could wish for and then some being a true universal player.

Order Your OPPO BDP-83 From Amazon

Read Our Take on the OPPO BDP-83

If you don’t require world-class DVD upscaling OPPO’s new BDP-80 might just be a better choice and being over $200 less can’t hurt!

Order Your OPPO BDP-80 From Amazon

The X-Files Movie 2-Pack (I Want to Believe / Fight the Future) [Blu-ray]

Neilsen estimates DVR penetration at 20% and I estimate well over 80% for our readers. Which just happens to be the topic of our latest poll. Feel free to vote! Approaching my 10th anniversary with DVRs I have never been a fan of using suggestions (a TiVo feature) for finding new shows. However once I find a show that was been airing for a while I really find the DVR great for allowing me to catch up with what I have been missing.

My favorite is the cable networks’ marathons. Often they will run a complete season marathon before the new season begins. If you get real lucky they may even run every episode aired back to back just like USA Network recently did with Burn Notice. Within a couple of days the DVR gobbled up over 30-hours of episodes that I could catch-up with at my convenience.

Viewing them is much more enjoyable when you can skip over the commercials and instantly fly from one episode to another. Sure you could rent or purchase the DVDs but this way once you have viewed them you don’t have to sell them on eBay.

I certainly won’t admit to all of the shows I have mass recorded but the following are above approach.

• Burn Notice
• The Closer
• Saving Grace
• Two and a Half Men
• Torchwood
• X-Files
• Joan of Arcadia
• Dead Like Me

You get the idea. Often you’ll have to configure the DVR to record all episodes over time but Marathons are great. I still remember my first The X-Files. If I remember correctly I had something like six seasons to get through before the new season started and if you remember those were the great seasons of The X-Files.

Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K 7-Channel A/V Receiver (Black)

If you remember the chain of electronic stores called Incredible Universe you either have a great memory, you are a diehard geek or perhaps both. Since I still remember my first visit I think you can safely say I’m a geek. Especially since I’m far too old to have a great memory.

When they first opened there were lines of people waiting to get in much like the opening weekend of a Star Wars movie. Since I have never cared for Star Wars it was even more entertaining with shows performing continually on several stages. Yes it was much more than several football fields of electronics and to some degree a hint of future retailing which still hasn’t landed. The stores averaged 185,000 square feet and stocked over 85,000 items!

This was at a time when businesses were growing bigger and bigger and if you weren’t growing like weeds you were sure to die a sudden death. Their parent company was Tandy (Radio Shack) and much like the parent company they didn’t focus on pricing rather their philosophy was to sell everything ever produced. Unfortunately the entertainment value they threw in only increased their overhead and decreased your ability run in and run out with the latest gadget. Based on the sheer volume of their buildings and unworldly inventory they didn’t stand a chance.

Before long Tandy was so concerned with their cost the stores were closed and because of their massive size they were forced to sell them for pennies on the dollar. Which brings us to the topic of this post Fry’s.

If you haven’t been to Fry’s it’s hard to comprehend what you’ll find. They combine Incredible Universe, Best Buy, Heathkit and Starbucks into one gigantic location with a larger variety of merchandise than the others could ever hope to carry. Looking for a computer case? My guess is I saw four dozen the last time I looked. Need a power supply for it? I think they have more of them than cases.

Selection wise their home audio and video departments aren’t as inclusive as their computer related departments although I think it’s more from the fact those markets simple don’t have the same depth of products. They tend to carry almost every brand with a few exceptions such as Pioneer receivers or Blu-ray players.

As an example you can actually find a fairly priced HDMI cable for around $10 and if you’d like to spent more there will be at least a dozen other brands. Pricing is something they do very well. You’ll never find them higher than Best Buy and often you’ll find them considerably lower. Just yesterday I saw the new LG Blu-ray players regularly priced $50 less than at Best Buy. With the BD390 still being brand new. The new Sony BDP-S360 was $239 which comes in at $60 less than Best Buy and it’s not even on sale!

I tend to think of them as Walmart. Sure they have weekly sales and great ones at that however if you are looking for something and they have it you know you’ll be paying a reasonable price. Also the odds are pretty good they will have it on sale within 30-days so you’ll end up paying even less.

One area you certainly don’t want to miss is their Blu-ray disc department. Again their everyday pricing is lower than other retail locations and they compete with Amazon rather nicely but come Friday’s ad their prices get even better. In the last few weeks I have picked up Dark City, Tears of the Sun and From Hell for $9.99 each.

They also tend to offer great prices on close-out models especially TVs long before the other retailers. Of course there are a few things I wouldn’t mind seeing changed but overall all I can hope for is they continue to be successful. With so few retailers left we geeks need a place to shop and even if we have a Premier Reward Zone card from Best Buy it’s far too mainstream to really get lost in.

For a variety of reasons these movies need to be enjoyed more than once. The reasons are so obvious we can even list a few.

• They aren’t chick flicks
• They contain more action then you can catch the first time around
• Their story lines are strong enough that you keep caring
• For a couple of hours they let you live life as you never will
• Each will bring hope to the world except for perhaps one which we’ll let you figure out

My guess is you have already seen at least eight of the ten so you should just about be ready to start on your second take. Odds are you’ll enjoy them even more.

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There is absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy each and every one of the following Blu-ray discs. They each have a very good reason why we do but we won’t bore you with the details. We have included lesser known titles that are often overlooked so there is also a very good chance Netflix or your local rental shop will have them in stock!

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Most certainly you won’t enjoy listening to all of these CDs but there is a pretty good chance you’ll find one or more to your liking. Hopefully you’ll find a new favorite artist for your efforts. If not all we can say is you have lousy taste in music!

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LG BD 390 Network Blu-ray Disc Player

Can you answer yes to the following…

• Your display’s resolution is 1080p?
• Your display supports 24fps?
• Your AV receiver decodes TrueHD and DTS-HD MA?
• You will be playing more Blu-ray than DVD movies?

If you answered yes to all four questions the best Blu-ray player doesn’t exist since everyone of them will perform almost identically. Sure you’ll read review after review going on about this or that and you’ll run across endless postings why one player is better than another. After doing A/B comparisons with roughly two dozen players I found the differences equivalent to the following.

• Skippy vs Jiff
• Cola-Cola vs Pepsi-Cola
• Titleist vs Nike

More than likely you have strong feelings about each of the above but there is no denying they are more similar than different. I’ll take Jiff, Cola-Cola and Nike but my choices are based on the little things. Which is exactly what you’ll need to do when deciding which Blu-ray player is best for you. A few of these include…

• Price
• Player’s DVD upscaling
• Player’s de-interlacing 
• Performance speed
• Disc or hard drive streaming
• Local network streaming
• Internet streaming services such as Amazon, Netflix and Pandora

That’s a big list of small things to consider but at least you can easily decide which of them are important to you which will reduce all of those best in the world players down to the one which is best for you. Here are our current recommendations based on a few of those little things.

• Samsung BD-P1600 – Plain Jane
• LG BD 390 Network Blu-ray Disc Player – Streaming Warrior
• OPPO BDP-83 – Jack of All Trades with configureable analog audio output

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The Best That I Could Do 1978-1988

Although I prefer John Mellencamp’s later albums if you only know his music from truck commercials The Best That I Could Do is a great introduction to his early years. Billed as Johnny Cougar when his first album of covers was released in 1976 called Chestnut Street Incident little did it look like this singer and songwriter would become a major force in the music industry.

First he won the public with hit after hit and as he matured the critics were won over by his continuing heartfelt lyrics and passion. His band has been performing for over thirty years and with almost as many albums to pick from we guarantee you can find a few to relate to and appreciate regardless of your age or taste in music.

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Having a forum addiction I have read uncountable number of posts claiming one piece of equipment is better than another. Only to see the very next post claiming the exact opposite. Then of course it’s post after post wondering about upgrading to the latest model for better performance.

When these discussions evolve around video I often chuckle and tend to be interested only on a entertainment level. Of course different features sets can make one model better suited for your installation and influence the level of performance but let’s take Blu-ray players as an example. I have used at least a dozen different models in my theater from the Sony PS3 to Pioneer’s BDP-09FD. The difference in cost is multiple times the cost of the PS3 but when using HDMI for audio and video any differences would have to be measured in pennies.

With this in mind I consider the fascination with the latest and greatest a hobby in and of itself and most inclined to partake spend more time researching, discussing and tweaking than they ever do enjoying home audio and video. A few years ago I posted a poll asking the following.

Which would provide the biggest improvement over your current image:

• Upgrading to a better projector
• Focusing your current projector
• Calibrating your current projector

I was surprised when the last option drew the largest number of votes as it showed people realize in most cases they are attempting to replace their equipment long before they have come close to taking advantage of what it has to offer. Which to me enforced their hobby was indeed upgrading equipment. Certainly no harm in that but it seems a shame when we don’t get all the performance available to use especially when you consider how much can be gained with very little effort and cost.

When it comes to the video chain the best way to ensure you are getting everything you can is by having a professional calibration performed. Often it will turn out to be the best return you have ever had on for your entertainment dollar. The images will go from looking like TV to real life and open up a whole new world of realism you never knew was available.

Now if I haven’t quite convinced you to book your local ISF calibrator I have a completely free option to get you on the path to becoming a believer. You will begin to see images how they were intended to be seen. You can download and burn a free set of test patterns that will allow you to properly adjust your display. Even if you just correct the brightness and contrast levels you will be able to see more detail in the image and gain many other benefits.

Don’t worry it’s not difficult and if you write down your current settings you can always go back home again! For help in getting started or for future reference when you are ready to dig deeper in the world of calibration bookmark the following link which can also use to download the free test patterns.

Click Here to Download Your Free Test Patterns