My Oppo 981HD player bit the dust. Sound stopped, and the display was going berserk. Found a puffy electrolytic capacitor in the SMPS, replaced 7 total, and all voltages are there now per the pin markings on the board but it's still in a fault mode with the pink-magenta power light on. I think it probably needs a reset but cannot find any info on these. Seem to be pretty tightly kept secrets on Oppo. And I don't want to ship it off to Oppo for repair, forget that. I'll just get another one that works and recap it before it fails. I use it primarily for its HDCD playback capability. HELP!

That company has a very good reputation in the home-theater video crowd. With luck, that would apply to service/parts support as well. Have you been in contact with them for service information?

Looked at the title and thought there was some well known guy called Oppo that died recently....

Their offer is to ship it to them to be repaired at a flat rate. I tried to pry some info from their phone support. If I could have gotten a technician on the phone, maybe, but I was not successful. Not sure I want to spend $75 or so on a 8 year old player I bought used, that's seen many hundreds of hours mostly as an audio player. The spindle motor worries me. It makes noise sometimes upon start-up. This Oppo is built like a flimsy toy inside. Amazing they have such a following.

Looked at the title and thought there was some well known guy called Oppo that died recently.... No that's why I put it in the "recorded video" section closest thing to DVD player issues, rather than the obituary which doesn't exist. I'll clarify the title. Not getting too many bites anyway.

I wouldn't spend $75 on it, the HD format is obsolete now and you can buy a new Bluray for the same money, and it will also upconvert standard DVD's.

If you want Composite output you will have to look for a slightly older Bluray player, nothing made now has anything but HDMI.

I wouldn't spend $75 on it, the HD format is obsolete now and you can buy a new Bluray for the same money, and it will also upconvert standard DVD's.

If you want Composite output you will have to look for a slightly older Bluray player, nothing made now has anything but HDMI.

It's not a HD-DVD player, the obsolete format you refer to.

The "HD" is it's ability to up-convert standard DVDs with its built in Faroudja processor to "HD Quality". One of the best in its day. But soon fell out of demand when blu-ray discs came out.

I don't need a blu-ray player for playing audio CDs, HDCDs, and DVD-Audio discs, and it normally wouldn't be connected to a TV, just the stereo. The Oppo does all those audio formats. And is has a volume control on the remote that I use all the time, another rarity.

I see, I thought you meant it was the short lived HD Format.

If it's going to be difficult or impossible to find a replacement that does everything you want then maybe it would be worth repairing.

I just realized I have an Oppo OPDV971H that apparently is similar.

I wouldn't spend $75 on it, the HD format is obsolete now and you can buy a new Bluray for the same money, and it will also upconvert standard DVD's.

If you want Composite output you will have to look for a slightly older Bluray player, nothing made now has anything but HDMI.

You won't find a new Oppo for $75.

I see, I thought you meant it was the short lived HD Format.

If it's going to be difficult or impossible to find a replacement that does everything you want then maybe it would be worth repairing.

I just realized I have an Oppo OPDV971H that apparently is similar.

Yep the Oppo 970, 971, 981, 983 will all do what I want and not be wasting the Blu-ray that I don't need for audio purposes. I missed a 981 a couple of weeks ago $50 Buy It Now, Free ship. I didn't know mine was about to bite the dust at the time or I would have grabbed it.

I guess I should have put 2 and 2 together when I noticed a few weeks ago the Oppo was emitting so much RFI sitting there in stand-by mode, I was hearing its noise on an AM radio in another room! Unplugged the Oppo and the noise went away. Week or two later the Oppo died.



You won't find a new Oppo for $75.

Buy used only. All Oppo has new these days are Blu-ray and start at $500.

75$ is really quite a reasonable repair fee. It's your decision of course, but given that you really like the product, it's discontinued, and it's made by a high-quality/well-regarded manufacturer, I say go for it. It is harder and harder to find high quality consumer electronics these days.

As a side note, I think it is noteworthy that Oppo will service such an old product. Many manufacturers won't even talk to you after the meager warranty period, it seems.

75$ is really quite a reasonable repair fee. It's your decision of course, but given that you really like the product, it's discontinued, and it's made by a high-quality/well-regarded manufacturer, I say go for it. It is harder and harder to find high quality consumer electronics these days.

As a side note, I think it is noteworthy that Oppo will service such an old product. Many manufacturers won't even talk to you after the meager warranty period, it seems.

It speaks volumes about the company that not only will they talk to you, but that they will repair equipment, instead of just offering a new replacement. Oppo also has a two year warranty on their players in an industry where 1 year or less is the norm.

I may just send it in. Get it fixed, with a warranty too. Probably cost $20-25 to ship it. Oppo has a $49 flat rate which includes shipping back. Hard to beat that total cost less than $75, especially an 8 year old DVD player.

That sounds like a good plan, especially if you mention the spindle noise; with luck, they will replace the motor as well.

Well, meanwhile I picked up an Oppo BDP-83 blu-ray player locally got a really good deal on it. But it has not had its firmware updated in 5 years. Contacted Oppo they said best is hook to the internet and update from there. This is where I get clowdy. I have ATT U-verse and the gateway modem has 4 ethernet ports, one only is used going to this computer. Do I just need to plug the Oppo player into an unused ethernet port, power it on and it will automatically find a connection and do its thing as prompted in the update menu? This updating apparently is pretty common with most if not all brands of blu-ray players.

As long as the player is still set up to obtain an IP address via dhcp you'll be fine just plugging it in to Ethernet and navigating the on-screen menu to the update. If the previous owner set the player up for a static IP address, which is unlikely, you'll have to tell it to obtain its ip address via dhcp instead.

Well, meanwhile I picked up an Oppo BDP-83 blu-ray player locally got a really good deal on it. But it has not had its firmware updated in 5 years. Contacted Oppo they said best is hook to the internet and update from there. This is where I get clowdy. I have ATT U-verse and the gateway modem has 4 ethernet ports, one only is used going to this computer. Do I just need to plug the Oppo player into an unused ethernet port, power it on and it will automatically find a connection and do its thing as prompted in the update menu? This updating apparently is pretty common with most if not all brands of blu-ray players.
Try here: OPPO BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player Firmware Update (https://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83/bdp-83-firmware-60-1110.aspx)

You can stick the firmware on a USB thumb drive or burn a firmware CD-R to update the player, both real easy and require no Internet connection.

Thanks for the info.

Turned out I was making a big deal out of it for naught. I plugged in an ethernet cable between the Oppo and the U-verse modem, turned on the Oppo, it automatically connected, and first screen that came up said updates were available selected Yes to update and let 'er rip! A few min later all was done, Oppo powered itself off at the end of the update. Checked it after and has all the latest and greatest revisions. Pretty darned cool!

This update fixed an audio dropout problem it had playing regular CDs. But HDCDs and regular DVDs would play 100% all day long which dismissed a weak laser pickup as the culprit. A quick Google search found a few others as far back as 2009 noting this problem. Anyway all done and fixed now!

Still debating whether to send off the dead 981HD player, the original subject of this thread, and have them fix it for the flat rate.

Oppo is not a good company in my opinion. Their support is horrendous. 4 employees in the USA. Everything else is overseas. So do the math. Those 4 do everything repair/warranty/support wise.

Speaking from experience. My Oppo 103d has been a pain and support very disturbing. They have gotten abusive and suggested I simply sell the unit to someone else. Not kidding. After running thru several issues they admitted the unit doesn't seem to be working correctly and suggested I sell to someone else.

I dont know if they were better in the past but tmy experience is a dog slow unit with horrid networking issues and support that is less than professional/ethical.

Of course google Oppo problems and the numbers speak for themselves. Plenty of problems and unsatisfied customers. Just my 2 cents as I wouldn't buy anything from them again.

Seems like most folks I read about are pretty happy with their Oppos and the support. I thought their support answering emails usually within a couple of hours even on Saturday was pretty good. when I asked about a known loading tray problem with the BDP-83 models they offered to fix it maybe even free. I asked instead they send me a loading belt and they did, free! I decided the BDP-83 is such a nice player I bought a second one, a SPECIAL EDITION version, for the stereo system.

And they would fix my dead 981 for $49 if I wanted to go to the trouble to send it to them. Few is any consumer electronics companies support old product like that.

Oppo has always offered "more". More features, more discs supported, better picture. I would say any "Oppo" product is worth fixing.