Now, almost all firmware releases are covered with a caveot, "If your system is working correctly and this update does not address an issue you are having, do not install this firmware."
Pa-shaw...who do they think they are dealing with here? Sure, I live nowhere near Azerbaijan, but maybe someday I will schedule a last minute trip there, and take my printer along. Then where would I be if the time codes where not updated?! No, no, I must be ready for anything. I will flash - no matter what you say!
As reported earlier, a new beta has been release for the Oppo BDP-83. Surprisingly, I did not install it the day of its release. This is because I was burned once before. Oppo's current official firmware release breaks the streaming of LPCM audio from a DLNA server. Since I upgraded to the SE
version of the Oppo, this feature is an absolute requirement. Shocked that a firmware release actually broke something, I rolled back to an older beta, then upgraded, via the network, to the previous beta release.So, while Oppo releases excellent firmware updates, often fixing more problems than listed on their release notes, I was still hesitant to update. I mean, everything was working perfectly. All the issues in the release notes did not effect me. But, the compulsion... pulling me... maybe, just maybe, there is some amazing fix for something I did not even know was broken. Maybe scaling and deinterlacing will work even better. Maybe streaming 24-bit LPCM will actually work!
So, I did it.
Feeling all warm inside, the first thing I checked was to see if LPCM streaming still worked.
Check!
Next I fired up an movie from my DLNA server.
Uh-oh.
It was as though all my perfectly encoded mkvs had now become non-anamorphically enhance DVDs. Which means on a 16:9 TV I have the black bars on the right and left (to preseve the 4:3 aspect ratio) then the video is letterboxed within that frame. So, black bars on the top and bottom.
Super.
My feeling is this is related to the fix for Patton. I have sent an e-mail to Oppo discribing the problem. Let's hope there is some new setting now, or something that I can just re-enable, and I will be back up and running.
I have reverted to the older beta firmware I have (two betas ago) so at least I can watch my films again using all the real estate of the screen.
I will update as I hear more from Oppo.
UPDATE
As always, Oppo replied to my e-mail quickly:
This is a known bug with the new Beta Firmware. The only solution is set the Primary Output to COMPONENT. This will force the decoder to do all aspect ratio control (which will be correct) rather than the ABT (which will be incorrect).
You will want to change the Primary Output to HDMI whenever playing DVDs, however, as the decoder will not do as good of a job de-interlacing and scaling as the ABT solution.
Best Regards,
Customer Service
No word yet if they will send me the previous beta. Let's hope they fix it in the future release. There is no way I am bypassing the ABT scaler! That thing rocks.
