RIP Oppo Digital: Company behind Blu-ray players ceases development
After releasing a number of stunning high-end products, including two Ultra HD Blu-ray players, the UDP-203 and UDP-205, Oppo Digital has announced that it’s ceasing development of all new products.
The news will come as a blow to the enthusiast AV community, who have grown to love the feature-packed nature of Oppo Digital’s high-end disc players (Oppo Digital is a distinct company from phone manufacturer Oppo, which is unaffected by this announcement).
The company’s machines came complete with not one but two HDMI ports (because why use one cable to send audio and video when you can use two?), and support for a number of esoteric formats including the late, great, SACD.
Although the headline announcement here is that the company is ceasing development of new products, Oppo Digital also said that it will only continue to sell its current players “while stocks last”, indicating that pretty soon you’ll have to go second-hand if you want to get your hands on one of the premium players.
But would you want to? Although the players are currently amongst the best on the market, we’re now living in an era of near-constant firmware updates where a lack of support can prevent a machine from being relevant or usable into the future.
Forbes notes that Oppo Digital owners are currently awaiting a firmware update to delivery Dolby Vision compatibility with Sony’s TVs, and future support for HDR10+ is another unknown at this point.
For its part, Oppo Digital has said that firmware updates will be released “from time to time”, but with no new products to sell the company won’t have much incentive to keep their existing customers happy.
No reason has yet been given as to why Oppo Digital has taken this decision, but with its exclusive focus on the premium end of the market, and with no budget-priced products in its lineup, perhaps the amount of people willing to pay for high-end quality isn’t as great as the company needed to stay afloat.
Do you own any Oppo Digital products? Let us know @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.