M+E Connections

Oppo Digital has seen strong initial demand for its first Ultra High-Def (UHD) Blu-ray Disc player, the UDP-203, since the Menlo Park, Calif.-based consumer electronics firm began selling it direct to consumers this month, according to Jason Liao, Oppo’s CTO and VP of product development.

Since the company (a division of China’s Oppo Electronics) began selling the player Dec. 12, demand has “far exceeded our supply and expectation,” Liao told the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance (MESA). The first batch of pre-orders went to consumers who were invited to register at the company’s web site and were “sold out in one day,” he said. The second batch of pre-orders was open to the public and also sold out, he said.

Liao added: “Right now we are air shipping more products from the factory and pushed [the] estimated shipping date for new orders” to Jan. 6. That means consumer who want to order one now and get it in time for Christmas will be out of luck.

Although no retailers are selling the UDP-203, Liao pointed out that some— including Amazon and Best Buy stores with a Magnolia Home Theater department — have carried the company’s products in the past. “We expect them to carry [Oppo] UHD players in the near future,” he said.

Just how much of the strong demand can be chalked up to the hunger for more UHD Blu-ray hardware choices isn’t clear. After all, for much of this year, Samsung was the only major CE manufacturer fielding a UHD Blu-ray player in the U.S., with the UBD-K8500. Panasonic and Philips later shipped players in the U.S., while Microsoft added UHD Blu-ray support to the latest version of its Xbox One video game console, the Xbox One S, over the summer.

Although the Xbox One S was introduced at $299.999 — a lower price than the Samsung standalone UHD Blu-ray player — the Philips player was introduced at $299.99 as well. Samsung then offered promotions that reduced the price of its $399.99 player to about the same price as the Xbox One S and pricing on the Samsung player has become even more aggressive of late. Best Buy was selling the UBD-K8500 online at only $199.99 Dec. 20.

The lower hardware price should give a lift to the UHD Blu-ray format, but it still suffers from a relatively small amount of content. Disney, meanwhile, remains the one major Hollywood studio that has yet to announce specific release plans for the format.

Oppo sees UHD as a “natural and important evolution” of the Blu-ray Disc format, Liao said. “Customers always welcome better resolution — this trend holds true for TV,” as well as smartphone and computer screens, he said, adding High Dynamic Range (HDR) is “probably more important than the increased resolution in terms of bringing up the performance level of home theaters.”

He went on to say: “For us this is a no brainer since the player is a universal player and can support older formats from CD, DVD to full HD Blu-ray in addition to UHD Blu-ray. It will take some time for studios to get the discs released in UHD with HDR, and we already see some acceleration in the quantity of titles released. I do not have any inside information on how Disney looks at the UHD format, but can [say] that there have been some inquiries from many major studios including Disney when we announced the UDP-203 player.”

Oppo’s UDP-203 offers resolution of up to 3840×2160 pixels, supports HDR and wide color gamut, and features two HDMI outputs: an HDMI 2.0 port for connecting to the latest UHD TVs, projectors and A/V receivers, and an HDMI 1.4 audio port for connecting to older A/V receivers.
“Customers can expect a firmware update in early 2017 that brings Dolby Vision support to the player,” Oppo said in a news release.

At $549, only the Panasonic model — at about $700 usually — costs more among the current UHD Blu-ray players in the U.S. Oppo also has a UDP-205 model in development that it said “should be available in early 2017.”