[Oppo Blu Ray Change Region Code
Luther Lazaro
Eventually, intrepid hackers managed to develop unofficial cracks to these region restrictions. (Let me be clear that these are not endorsed or supported by OPPO Digital itself.) The easiest to install were firmware files that defeat the region coding. However, firmware modifications like these inevitably get overwritten whenever the company issues new official firmware updates for bug fixes or additional features.
A more stable and permanent approach is to add a hardware modification that will remain effective even through firmware updates. I purchased a DIY region-free mod kit for the BDP-83 player from JVB Digital. Although the installation required taking the hood off the player and swapping out some cables inside, no soldering was needed. The whole procedure took about ten minutes and was fairly painless. After that, I was successfully able to enter a provided combination of buttons on the remote to switch between Blu-ray regions A, B or C.
Warner, Disney and Universal are almost always region-free, but Fox is adamant about enforcing region codes and Sony can go either way. There are also a great many region-locked discs available from smaller distributors of movies that are unlikely to be released in this country anytime soon.
Network has a few newer blu ray releases that are locked to region B. The Prisoner and Space:1999. Both of those titles have been issued by A&E Home Video here in the US. Not sure if the extras are the same for both.
this is actually great news because region locking 3d titles has stopped me from buying some titles, while others i bought in preparation of modding an oppo sometime later this year and adding yet another player to my stand (UGH!).
Figured out how to enable multiregion on Bluray, that detects region automatically and enables firmware. Catch is that its a very deep hardware modification and probably violates the DMCA but what the hell.
A friend sent me an OPPO BDP 203 Blu Ray DVD player recently from London. Unfortunately it is for EUROPE REGION only
and since I live in Hong Kong I need all regions. I bought an adapter from Gradedexchange in New York but it came with no
Instructions on how to instal it, and I feel it is not the right adapter for an OPPO 203. Any comments or suggestions would
be gratefully accepted.
BACKGROUND FIRST IMPRESSIONS SETUP FIRMWARE UPDATES VIDEO AUDIO CLOSING THOUGHTS
UPDATES:
August 4, 2007 - I've added a few odds and ends throughout the review, mostly under SETUP. These additions are identified with "(Added 8/4/2007)" and are in maroon instead of black.
November 13, 2007 - There is an update here that discusses my experiences using the 980H's USB interface with an external hard drive.
BACKGROUND:My experience with OPPO Digital and their DVD players began in May 2005 with their first player, the OPDV971H. The little 971H (long known simply as the "Oppo" online, before the 970HD arrived and forced people to start clarifying which OPPO player they were speaking of) earned the company an impressive reputation through excellent customer support (including firmware updates that fixed bugs, refined video performance, and expanded the player's feature set), very good performance, and some remarkable results in the Secrets of Home Theater DVD benchmarks. In late 2006, I took part in beta testing the 971H's successor, the DV-981HD. The 981HD was known to be in development for quite some time before it was announced, as OPPO didn't want people who were interested in both the 971H's Faroudja-based performance and the 970HD's SACD support and HDMI to settle for one or the other when a product that did both was rapidly approaching. In contrast, OPPO Digital's latest product announcement was kept under wraps until mere days before the first players were shipped to consumers.That brings us to the matter at hand: the new DV-980H. Just as the 981HD replaced the 971H, the 980H replaces the 970HD. The 980H retains all that the 970H offered except for a memory card slot, and it adds a few new things to the mix: USB v2.0 (instead of v1.1), HDMI v1.2 (instead of v1.1, thus allowing for DSD bitstream output of SACD's), 1080p video output, and a 7.1 analog output (instead of 5.1). Like the 970HD before it, the 980H lacks the Faroudja chip used by the 971H and 981HD to handle video scaling and deinterlacing. OPPO Digital contacted me earlier this year and asked if I would be interested in helping to test a new player with these features. Needless to say, I said, "yes." At that point, the 981HD surrendered the multichannel analog input of my surround processor and the 980H became my principle player for the duration of the testing. As a fitting conclusion to the beta testing and the official launch of the DV-980H, I've prepared a user review of the player. As in my previous equipment reviews, you can find an equipment list at the end of this review.return to top
FIRST IMPRESSIONS:One benefit of OPPO's focus on DVD players and their use of a single basic set of chassis dimensions is that packaging for new products is relatively straightforward. The 980H's carton and packing materials will look mighty familiar to previous OPPO owners. They are not double-boxed, but the relatively light weight and small size seems to provide its own sort of protection ("minimizing potential energy" as my wife might say, in one of those moments that reminds me she was raised by a math professor with an engineering degree). Over the course of several hardware samples sent to me during two beta tests, I've not had a single shipping-related mishap.
A 980H emerges from the boxWhile we're on the subject of familiar sights for OPPO owners, there's also the 980H's remote. The remote is basically the same as the final 971H remote, which has been the company's standard for both 970HD and 981H. There are a couple new buttons in the mix, though, and the remote's plastic is a black instead of white. Some of the notable new buttons are discrete on and off, a "capture" button (for capturing screen shots to use as the background image in place of OPPO's logo), and a separate pause button rather than a shared play/pause. The 980H also offers the "Audio Only" button that the 970HD had.
The 980H's remote controlUp to this point, one of OPPO's trademarks has been the extra-thin disc tray. It's a design that takes some getting used to, largely because the depression for the disc doesn't entirely clear the front panel of the player. Despite common fears of breakage from new OPPO owners, the design has proved surprisingly reliable. Needless to say, I was surprised to see the face of a more traditional tray on the 980H's front panel. I was also a bit surprised to find that the 980H was slightly taller than the 981HD (2" rather than the 1-5/8" that has been standard for previous OPPO players). This extra height not only allows for a more traditional disc tray, but also for a somewhat larger display and some more extensive front panel controls. The transport controls are arranged around a circular pad that doubles as a navigational pad under the right circumstances. The overall package has a clean, sharp, and understated look that I find to be by far the most aesthetically pleasing of OPPO's designs to date. The fact that the front panel controls are very responsive (something that I haven't always felt that I could say about the 971H and 981HD) just reinforces appeal of the pretty face.return to top
SETUP:The first step in setting the player up is of course getting it connected. The DV-980H's rear panel is a bit unusual in that the multichannel analog output is 7.1 rather than 5.1 (the separate stereo output offered on previous OPPO players has been discarded). In addition to that unusual feature, there are digital audio outputs (one optical and one coaxial), composite and s-video outputs, a component video output, an HDMI v1.2a output, and a two-prong IEC power connection.
Rear panelWhich connections you will want to use depend on your system. The 980H is not as tightly focused on being used with HDTV's that offer HDMI or DVI inputs as the 971H and 981HD were, as its component output will deinterlace to 480p for any source and will scale up to HD resolutions when the source is not copy protected. Nonetheless, from a video standpoint it is still meant primarily for HDTV's. For folks with a receiver that offers HDMI v1.1 or higher, the HDMI connection can be the only output used. In the absence of an HDMI v1.1+ input, you will most likely want to use the coaxial or optical output for DVD and CD audio output. If you intend to play DVD-Audio or SACD discs without HDMI v1.1+ on your receiver, you will also want to connect the 7.1 analog output. In my system, I primarily used the 7.1 analog, coaxial digital audio, and HDMI outputs, which were all connected to my Outlaw Audio Model 990 surround processor. I also had s-video, composite, and component cables connected, but I didn't use them heavily. Because the Model 990 does not support HDMI audio input, I was not able to test that aspect of the 980H.Before we move on to turning the player on and setting it up, I thought I'd toss in a couple pictures of the 980H's internals since it was a rather popular inclusion in my 981HD review last year. You'll notice that the Mediatek chip used in the 980H has OPPO's name on it. OPPO apparently worked with Mediatek to make some custom changes to the chip used in the previous OPPO players as a means of optimizing the 980H's performance. (Added 8/4/2007) The DAC chip (a Cirrus Logic CS4361) and opamps are visible in the first picture, but not well enough to be apparent. The four opamps line up fairly well with the 7.1 analog output, and the CS4361 is roughly in line with the optical output.
Overall interior shot of the 980H
Close-up of the 980H's updated Mediatek chipOnce the player is in the equipment rack (with the cover on, of course) and hooked up, it's time to fire things up. Setup of the DV-980H still closely follows the pattern set in place by previous OPPO players. There is a setup menu, which is divided into five main categories: General Page, Speaker Setup Page, Audio Setup Page, Video Setup Page, and Preference Page. The manual covers these controls pretty easily, but there are a few settings worth mentioning. The very first option is "TV Display," which defaults to "16:9 Wide" (the standard shape for the HDTV's thare are the typical companions to upscaling DVD players like the 980H). This setting offers an option for "16:9 Wide/Auto" which will pillarbox 4:3 content (such as TV shows and older movies), which is what I use. There's also a setting on this page called "Alt RC Code" that, when turned on, allows the 980H to respond to both the commands from its remote and to commands from universal remotes programmed to use generic remote control codes similar to those used by Toshiba, Philips, Magnavox, Marantz or Zenith DVD players. This is a very effective work-around for the fact that small companies like OPPO Digital have a difficult time getting their remote codes included in the code databases used on many universal remotes. I did some experimenting with the non-learning universal remotes floating around my house. Both my Outlaw Audio Model 990 remote and the remote that came with my Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD cable box worked with DVD code 0503 (a Toshiba code, I think). An older cable box remote (the one that came with the Explorer 2200 that we have in the bedroom, which we've had for probably six years at least) worked with codes 081, 082, and 088 with one quirk: the channel +/- commands worked for chapter skip but were reversed ("channel+" skipped back while "channel-" skipped forward). There will still be some remote functions that you'd need the original remote for (changing resolution with the "HDMI" button, for instance), but you could handle all of the normal playback functions just fine. If you have a non-learning universal remote that you want to use to control the 980H, I'd recommend turning this feature on and starting with Toshiba codes for that universal remote. It won't cover everything (the 980H's remote will likely still be needed for buttons like "HDMI" and "DVD/USB"), but for normal day-to-day use it'll work fine.There are several settings under Speaker Setup that are worth noting if you plan to use either the multichannel analog output or the HDMI output with multichannel PCM. When using the coaxial or optical digital output or the HDMI audio output with an undecoded bitstream, these settings are not applicable. First is the Down-mix setting, which defaults to stereo but offers several other choices. For most cases, you will want to change this to "5.1 CH" or "7.1 CH" depending on your system. This leads directly into the bass management settings. If you are using the multichannel analog outputs and your receiver or processor does not offer bass management for the multichannel analog input (which is true of most receivers), you would want to set all speakers to "small" and the sub to "on" so that the 980H provides bass management. If you are using a receiver or processor that does allow bass management of the multichannel analog input, then you would want to select "large" for all speakers as well as "on" for the sub so that the 980H does not do any bass management (leaving that up to the receiver). For HDMI output, most newer HDMI v1.1+ receivers will provide bass management of multichannel PCM, in which case you would again want to use "large" for all speakers and "on" for the sub.The Audio Setup menu includes three options that are worth mentioning at least briefly. First of those is the "Digital Output" setting, which determines what form the signal coming from the optical and coaxial outputs will take. I would recommend leaving this set to "Raw" for almost every situation. Next are two settings that relate solely to the HDMI output. HDMI Audio defaults to "Auto," meaning that Dolby Digital and DTS signals are passed as raw, undecoded bitstreams while DVD-Audio (and possibly SACD, depending on the next setting) is converted to multichannel PCM. There is also an option for "LPCM" which will force the 980H to decode all sources to multichannel PCM, including Dolby Digital and DTS. Lastly, you can select "Off" to disable HDMI audio output. Lastly, the 980H offers an unusual feature: because it is among the first DVD players to offer HDMI v1.2, it can output SACD as a DSD bitstream over HDMI. Because HDMI v1.2 receivers are still rare, however, OPPO has retained the 970HD's and 981HD's capability of converting the DSD signal from SACD's to a multichannel PCM signal that the more readily-available HDMI v1.1 receivers can accept. "PCM" is the default option for this setting.The Video Setup page offers an assortment of adjustments that I may try to touch on in more detail later (particularly some interesting ones like the Video Scale and HDMI Color Space). One question that often arises is whether to adjust the player's brightness, contrast, and hue settings when calibrating the system or whether to adjust the display's settings. As has been wisely suggested by others in the past, I recommend making adjustments only at the display if at all possible and only adjusting at the player if it is necessary. I will also point out that calibrating your video using a disc like Digital Video Essentials, AVIA, or GetGray is well worth your while.The Preference page mainly offers controls for default audio, subtitle, and disc menu languages, parential controls, and the like. It does also include an option to specify your TV type as NTSC, PAL, or Auto. The default is NTSC, and for most people that will be fine. Note also that you can only make changes in this menu if all disc playback is stopped in fact, it is often recommended that you hit "Eject" and leave the disc tray open while making changes in this menu, as the player will not allow you any control over this screen if a disc is active in the player. (Added 8/4/2007) There are a few other settings in the setup menu that also cannot be adjusted while a disc is playing: SACD Priority, DVD-Audio Mode, and DivX(R) VOD On the General Page, and HDMI Audio on the Audio Setup Page.
The 980H's new "OPPO" splash screenThere is one important setting on the 980H that cannot be made from the setup menu: output resolution. As with other OPPO players, you need to have playback stopped to adjust the output resolution, although there is no need to open the disc tray. You will know when playback is stopped because you will see the splash screen pictured above. Owners of previous OPPO players will be familiar with the old blue screen with white "OPPO" in the middle, but the 980H got a bit of a facelift in this regard. (It also has a button (labeled "Capture") that will allow the user to replace this splash screen with a screen shot just press the Capture button while the image you want is on screen and it will replace the default screen with that screen shot. But I digress...) Once you are at the splash screen, you need to push the HDMI button on either the remote or the front panel to cycle through the available resolutions, which include 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p. If the TV type is specified as PAL rather than NTSC, the frequency will be 50Hz rather than 60Hz at all resolutions and 480i and 480p will be replaced by 576i and 576p. There is a stack of indicator LED's next to the disc tray that identifies the current resolution and the front panel display will briefly identify the resolution as you make changes. If you hit an unsupported resolution (such as either 480i or 1080p in the case of my DVI-based CRT HDTV), just keep going until you get to one that will work. Typically, the recommendation is to select the resolution closest to your HDTV's native resolution (so 720p for those 768p plasma, LCD, and DLP displays, for example), but you can also try several resolutions and use the one that looks best to your eyes.(Added 8/4/2007) Roughly four years ago, I started using a Universal remote to control my system. Initially I used an MX-500, but about two years later I switched to an MX-700. For others with the MX-700 or similar remotes (MX-750, MX-800, MX-850), I've posted both a 980H device file and my overall system file. The device file can't be opened directly from the editing software you'll need to right-click on a device under "Home" on the left side of the screen and choose "Import Device" to bring the configuration file into your file. Note also that the "OSD" button (which scrolls through display options for track, chapter, and time details) is mapped to the MX-700's "Info" button while the "INFO" button (which pulls up a screen of information such as disc format, audio details, and bit rate) is mapped to "Guide."There are a few other basic setup and operational tips and tricks floating around that apply to all of OPPO Digital's players. If you've used other OPPO Digital players, this may be old news, but others who are new to the company likely haven't heard it before. First, there is an undocumented feature often called "Direct Play" that will allow you to skip most of the warnings, previews, ads, and other junk at the start of a disc. As soon as the DVD will allow, press "STOP" and then press "MENU." "Direct Play" may appear briefly on the screen, after which the movie should begin. Another undocumented feature that has seen a lot of use among OPPO owners is the region code control. By default, the 980H is a Region 1 player, as is required of players sold in the US and Canada. The 980H can be changed to work with any other region code, however, and it can even be set to "0" (in which case it will work with all regions). To change the region code, first stop disc playback andpress Setup on remote control to access the setup page. Once in the setup menu, enter 9210 on the remote. A menu will pop up allowing you to specify a region, and you can select any number from 0 to 6. Once done, press "SETUP" on the remote again.return to top