Interest in Oppo

Folks
I see a lot of interest in the Oppo DVD players (obviously for good reason). As some of you have pointed out, Oppo does have sales outlets in other countries even though they sell direct. Oppo does not follow a distributor model. They have only resellers. Without going too much into the differences, the margin for resellers in general is extremely low and such pricing is based on moving large volumes. If one considers shipping, duties, etc there is no way to compete with pricing if one got it direct through a friend, relative, etc. The other problem is service, units will have to be sent back to Oppo for repair. Shipping cost to send it back is prohibhitive, unless you folks tell me otherwise :-) so what does it all mean -

1. Sales as a reseller can be done but no service
2. markup over the regular US pricing will be higher and cannot be compared to US retail, especially as duties/shipping as a function of cost of the product is extremely high. i.e., paying $100 shipping per unit for a player that costs $170 is high.

You guys still want it? I would be curious to know how much over US retail, you think will be reasonable...

cheers

Hi,

I am still very keen on either 981 or 983. If I convert using todays rate 981 is about Rs. 10000 and 983 is about Rs. 17000 in the US.

If 981 were upto Rs. 15000/-, it would figure very high in my must buy list. I would definitely skip if it were over Rs 20000/-. Similarly, upto Rs. 25000/- for 983 would be attractive; no-no over Rs. 30000/-. Is this a reasonable expectation?

Meanwhile, this is the reply that I received from Oppo today for my queries.

Regards,
Prasad Redkar.

Hi Prasad
I suppose your expectations are reasonable in some sense As a consumer this is what I would have possible have said, however, those rates are not possible IMO. If US retail is 10K, add shipping, add duties and add VAT. If all this were only Rs 5K, then the Indian market would have been flooded with many more products. So as you can see from a business sense this is not doable. At this point, I am not even counting other factors like cost of capital, inventory turnover, etc etc if I look at it this way, dare I say that Rs 35K for the 983 that someone is selling it in Mumbai is starting to look reasonable?
this is also the reason why such components are generally reduced to grey market sales.

cheers

- Prasad

I agree with Sridhar,
OPPO is selling like hot cake in USA and around the world,mainly for its vedeo qualities along with decent audio.
The margins for manufacturer and dealers will not be much for such low value items. But it is like working on volumes and selling hundreds of units every day.
Once when I wanted to order my first OPPO 970 on AUDIOGON web site they asked me to wait for 2 weeks because of back log.
But despite everything it is very difficult to get those sort of volumes even for OPPO in India due to additional cost due to higher import duties, freight etc.
Also Hi end audio in India is still in infancy stage despite economy doing so well as our priorities are different. In thailand we have 4 or 5 magazines in local language every month apart from international magazines.
OPPO was already there in Thailand for many years but under a different name of "SOKEN". At that time OPPO was not so popular.Only a year back they introduced 981 model under OPPO name and a few months back in 2008they brought in 980 and 983.
I bought one 983 in end of March. Now in May they ran out of stock when i wanted to buy for a friend.
I got few mails from HIFI vision members asking me details and help for OPPO
If any member wants thailand dealers detail I can give him or u can see on OPPO web site. If someone is coming to south east asia it is better to carry one as it is much within travel allowance.
But buy it for Vedeo mainly special 983. For audio too it is verygood but u have already other options like NAD etc.
SKR

Oppo does have nice product mix
980H- Cheap, decent upscaling, Universal Player
981HD- Good upscaling(Dcdi Faroudja), HDMI transport, Universal Player
983H - Unmatched video performance(Anchorbay Chipset),Upgraded audio circuitry, Universal Player.

Even if one has to pay Rs. 35K for a 983H its not all that bad when you consider how much you would have to pay for a Denon, Marantz or Yamaha high end player. The 983H beats most of these players in the benchmark.

Lot of critics said $400 is too expensive for an Oppo player. I would beg to differ since i think its expensive only cos they are using the same chip set being used in $3000 DVDO VP50. The player scored 100 on benchmarks which no other player has done.Soon the standard will be where majority of the people will be using their player just as a transport with HDMI 1.3.

Oppo is working on a blu ray player, Let's see what this great company have in stock for us next.

satish

Before one spends 35K on OPPO 983H make sure you can take full advantage of this VRS AnchorBay chipset technology and your associated equipment and software is capable of high resolution output.
If we are watching normal DVD's or copied we maynot get good quality picture. Similarly if LCD or PLASMA panels are not capable of high resolution or say 1080p, still we may not get full advantage of VRS technology and picture from a 4K and 35K player may look more or less similar thru HDMI.
SO I don't think it OPPO is worth 35K.
Better buy Sony playstation-3 with blue ray and very good audio which is the future.
Now OPPO knows Blue Ray technology has been launched and dispute between Blue Ray and High definition vedeo supported by Hitachi and few others is over. So they are able to get this VRS chipset for cheap for larger volumes. Ultimately DVD format will die a slow death and replaced by blue ray.
So what will happen to VRS Anchor Bay chipset. Best is to sell as much as you can before it becomes obsolete.
Please don't misunderstand me. i am not saying 983H is bad. It is a very good machine,but before u buy at 35K you have look into all these things. At 16 to 20K it is definitely a good bargain.

Still if anyone wants to spend 35K from an unauthorised person with no gurantee or service, it is better to take a flight from Kolkata to Bangkok and buy a 983 and go back without paying duty because it is within your duty limits. and may be spend a night in Pattaya beach (courtesy OPPO)
SKR

I had problems connecting my OPPO 983H to my philips LCD Panel via HDMI. and audiodelic helped me out.
Which shows it was launched in hurry without removing all bugs.
Even now it is not 100% OK and when u put the OPPO in PAUSE mode for say 5 or 10 minutes and than u press PAUSE or PLAY button the player does not start and we have to switch off the player and start again. Luckily it retains the last memory and start from where u had stopped.
Such problems will not come from an established company like Sony, Philips, Panasonic Etc.
OPPO customer service asked me to first switch on TV panel and there after OPPO 983H Why such conditions.
Luckily OPPO has a very good customer support.
But it was really disturbing when I faced all these problems after all I had purchased it after reading all good things about 983H and a perfect 100 on benchmark and had very high hopes.
My thanks to audiodelic in helping me out. Surprisingly Thailand dealer also did not know about this problem and UPGRADE SOFTWARE. And after audiodelic told me I educated them also and passed on the down load link.

Unfortunately, it is the big companies like the one you mentioned above which do not seem to support it customers. See AVSForum and you will see the number of bugs PS3 has and how slow Sony is in responding to them.

Again check the following thread on AVSForum:
Official OPPO DV-983H w/ ABT VRS FAQ/Dump - AVS Forum

Oppo insiders offer regular advise on this forum. As far as the bug that you say, its really HDMI specifications that are at fault. (People say that it was the HDMI specs that were released in a hurry). If you go through this thread, you will find that Oppo was always within the specifications, albeit with small tolerances. They had to increase the tolerances to fix the problems with some receivers. And this they did with just a firmware change. I am in the semiconductor industry, so I know that their base design has to be real good to be able to make such changes through just firmware.

Now, I neither work for Oppo nor am an owner of any Oppo machine. Then why am I so much interested in them. Because I see Oppo as a smart but honest company which really cares for its customers apart from making money. The cost of their products, the engineering and the customer care are all very highly rated. I would like more of such companies to succeed be it India or anywhere else.

Regards,
Prasad Redkar.

+1 prasad , Exactly what i had in mind.... As an a/v enthusiast i feel pride when i give my money to such a company as Oppo .