If you’re looking for the very best picture quality the home cinema world has to offer, you need an Oppo UDP-203 Ultra HD Blu-ray player. As I reported in my recent review, no other player out there does such a commanding job of getting the maximum impact from the latest 4K-resolution video disc format.
Oppo, though, is not a brand that just launches a product and moves on to something else. It’s renowned for listening to user feedback and regularly issuing its products with significant firmware updates. So it’s no surprise to discover that the brand has just launched the public beta of new firmware for the UDP-203 that introduces considerable improvements to what’s already a dazzlingly accomplished 4K Blu-ray player.
Glorying under the name UDP20X-38-0215B, the new firmware can be downloaded here for the US, or here for the UK/EU. (Yes, LG, it really is possible to roll out firmware updates globally at the same time...)
The update brings with it the following features/improvements over and above January’s previous UDP20X-33-1229 firmware update:
1. Adds a "Target Luminance" setting under HDR Settings to allow tweaking of the HDR to SDR conversion.
2. Adds an RS-232 command "QHS" for querying the HDR playback status.
3. Adds support for the HEVC 6.0 and 6.1 profile levels.
4. Improves the experimental "Strip Metadata" feature.
5. Improves stability when playing music from DLNA servers.
6. Improves compatibility with exFAT formatted hard drives over 2TB in capacity.
7. Resolves a stuttering playback issue with 3D titles.
8. Resolves an audio dropout issue with UHD title Deepwater Horizon.
9. Resolves a playback issue with UHD title Star Trek Into Darkness.
10. Revises the VFD text during a firmware upgrade that allows customers to upgrade the firmware without connecting a display.
11. General disc compatibility improvements based on recent and upcoming UHD Blu-ray releases as well as user-submitted disc samples.
Having already applied the update, I can report that two of these improvements are particularly useful.
First, adding the "target luminance" option to tell the 203 how bright your display device is greatly improves the effectiveness of the deck’s high-dynamic-range- to standard-dynamic-range conversion. This is an important feature for people who have TVs capable of handling 4K but not high dynamic range (HDR) technology.
Now the deck can "remap" the HDR source images to SDR much more effectively for your particular screen than it could when it only had a vague aggregate display brightness value to work to.
I still think HDR-to-SDR conversion is one area where Panasonic’s UB900 Ultra HD Blu-ray player outperforms the UDP-203, but the gap has certainly narrowed substantially.
The other substantial upgrade applies to the Strip Metadata feature. Designed to completely remove all HDR data from an Ultra HD Blu-ray for people with supposedly HDR-capable displays that actually aren’t bright enough to do HDR properly at all, Strip Metadata’s images now look both less dark and less infused with redness than they did previously, making it much easier for you to calibrate your projector or screen to accommodate them.
On a much more micro level, I was also personally pleased to see the fix for the occasional audio drop out problem with Deepwater Horizon - an issued I’d noted and mentioned during my Forbes review of Oppo’s player.
I haven’t found any major problems with the update so far, so I think you might as well install it now rather than waiting for the Beta to end. Especially as you can always return to the previous firmware if you do stumble across any issues.
Take note, too, that this may well be the last firmware update we get before Oppo rolls out its much-anticipated Dolby Vision upgrade, currently expected around the end of March.
--
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like these:
The PS4 Pro's Missing 4K Blu-ray Drive: The Mistake Sony Had To Make
HDR Made Easy: A Jargon Free Guide To The Next Big Thing In TV Technology
Oppo UDP-203 Ultra HD Blu-ray Player Review: The Return Of The King
Arrival Ultra HD Blu-ray Review
Samsung UBD-K8500 Ultra HD Blu-ray Player Review
Deepwater Horizon Ultra HD Blu-ray Review: Keeping it Real
