Oppo BDP-93

While it can be difficult to find enthusiast home theater gear including Blu-ray players in Best Buy and Wal-Mart, they're out there. At $499.99 (direct), the Oppo BDP-93 costs more than twice as much as almost all of the other Blu-ray players we've reviewed this year. For that money, though, you get the most features, some of the best performance and video processing, and a nearly bulletproof build quality. It's a Blu-ray player that, if you can afford it and you value a high-end home theater experience, is worth the big bucks, and that's why it's our Editors' Choice for hig-end Blu-ray players. Also, Oppo was chosen as the best Blu-ray player manufacturer by PCMag.com readers in our annual Readers' Choice Awards.

Design
The BDP-93 is built like a tank. It looks less like a Blu-ray player and more like a small A/V receiver with a disc tray in the middle. The player measures 3.1 by 16.8 by 12.3 inches and weighs a whopping 10.8 pounds, easily doubling the size and weight of more mainstream Blu-ray players like the Sony BDP-S580 ($199.99, 3.5 stars). The front panel is a thick, attractive brushed gunmetal with a circular Power button on the left side of the glossy rectangular display and disc tray, and circular playback and control buttons on the right side. The glossy rectangle holds the eject button, and all are flush against the surface of the player.

The side panels are a textured metal and feel very sturdy. The back panel sports almost twice as many ports as smaller Blu-ray players, with two HDMI outputs, a USB port, an eSATA port, an IR blaster port, a composite video output, coaxial and optical audio outputs, 7.1-channel analog audio outputs, and an RS-232C remote controller port. The latter two showcase the player's pedigree: 7.1-channel analog outputs and RS-232C ports are rare, but highly functional ways to connect your Blu-ray player to a home theater with a custom remote control and home automation setup and a multiple-channel surround sound system.

The 8.5-inch remote is similarly large, heavy, and solidly built. It stands over an inch thick and weighs more than 6.7 ounces, making it heavier than the Roku 2 XS ($99.99, 3 stars) set-top box and its remote combined. Its buttons are large and backlit, with the navigation pad sitting comfortably under your thumb, flanked by the number pad. The Home button is up top, with playback controls below.

With no shortage of features, including many targeted specifically at hardcore home theater users, the 3D-enabled BDP-93 can play both SACD and DVD-Audio discs, making it useful as an audio system component. It can decode every major high-end audio format, including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. It can output to optical, coaxial, or up to 7.1-channel analog. It even has 2GB of internal memory for showing BD-Live content. It comes with a wireless adapter and can connect via Ethernet to access Netflix, Vudu, Blockbuster, Pandora, and YouTube. It can load audio and video files from USB, eSATA, CD, DVD, or Blu-ray, and can handle DivX, MKV, FLAC, and other formats. It's basically a Swiss Army knife for media playback, able to play anything you throw at it.

Performance
We test Blu-ray playback quality using the HQV benchmark Blu-ray disc, and the BDP-93 passed all tests with flying colors. It handled both video (30 fps) and film (24 fps) footage with little to no tearing or judder. It even handled horizontal panning and text crawling without the jerkiness I almost always see in less expensive Blu-ray players. Noise was reduced slightly without losing detail, and all test patterns looked crisp and smooth. For video processing, the BDP-93 excelled in all fields.

Movies look similarly good. The Big Lebowski on Blu-ray looked crisp and smooth, and the floating bowling pin in the Gutterball sequence moved with only slight jerkiness, compared to the notable choppiness usually seen on other Blu-ray players, like the Editors' Choice Samsung BD-D5700 ($199.99, 4 stars), Sony BDP-S780 ($249.99, 3.5 stars), and nearly every other player we've tested. The player handles DVD upconverting well, with Scarface looking as smooth as it could, considering the source material. It can play 3D movies, but you need a 3D HDTV to take advantage of that.

The BDP-93 aced our speed tests as well. It loaded our non-BD-Live test disc, Robocop, in an average of 14.7 seconds, making it one of the fastest we've tested for non-BD-Live discs. It loaded our BD-Live test disc, The Big Lebowski, in an average of 37 seconds from the tray closing to the video playing. It started loading BD-Live content in an average of just 25.4 seconds from tray closing to the Universal logo appearing. This blows most Blu-ray players out of the water, and collectively beats the Editors' Choice Samsung BD-D5700 and the Sony BDP-S780. The former edges out the BDP-93 in non-BD-Live discs by 1.3 seconds and the latter wins on BD-Live discs by 2.5 seconds, but each player takes nearly twice as long as the Oppo in its weaker category, making the BDP-93 the overall fastest Blu-ray player we've tested.

The Oppo BDP-93 is one of the most expensive Blu-ray players we've ever reviewed, and it's easily the largest, but it's also the best. With a wide array of features both casual users and high-end enthusiasts can enjoy, and the best speed and video processing performance we've seen yet, the Oppo BDP-93 easily earns our Editors' Choice. If you can afford to pay twice as much as most full-featured players, this is a component that will help your home theater shine. If you can't afford it, consider the Samsung BD-D5700 or the Sony BDP-S780. Both have plenty of features and good performance, but they aren't as generally fast as the Oppo, and the video processing isn't as great as the more expensive player. You also give up RS-232C remote compatibility, analog 7.1-channel audio output, and the sturdy build quality of the Oppo BDP-93.

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