What do you do after your first Blu-ray player receives awards from nearly every publication and web site that pays attention to some things? Where do you go from ther if you are a small company that doesn’t roll out new models every nine months? That’s the question that OPPO Digital was faced with after their BDP-83 proved tremendously successful throughout 2009 and 2010, becoming one of the benchmark hardware platforms for equipment reviewers and the favored player among enthusiasts. By January 2010, the BDP-83 platform had spawned two other products: the BDP-83SE, which upgraded the analog audio section and power supply but otherwise retained all of the BDP-83′s internals and chassis, and the BDP-80, which cost over 40% less by dropping the aluminum faceplate, Anchor Bay video processing chip, dedicated stereo analog output, top-of-the-line Cirrus audio DAC, and backlit remote control. That doesn’t even consider the other companies that had licensed the platform for much more expensive Blu-ray players. The platform had also seen performance refinements and even new features such as DLNA support, pushing the hardware’s capabilities as far as OPPO’s programmers and engineers could…
