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Oppo, pimps of the upscaling DVD realm and makers of one of the best (and last) SACD/DVD-Audio capable machines out there, are moving into the Blu-ray business with the BDP-S83 player. There are no announced deets, but an AVS Forum member spotted this unit at CEDIA. And from what we can see in this image and the back shot below, the feature set is laid out clearly, and something's unusual about it. Update: Oppo got back to us with extra info, including confirmation of Anchor Bay upscaling, soon-ish shipping date and a possible price ($500-$700).

First, we can tell it's going to be a step up from the bottom rung due to the presence of Ethernet port—signifying BD-Live (Blu-ray Profile 2.0) capability—and analog 7.1 outputs. But what takes it beyond other players are the SACD and DVD-Audio logos on there. No current Blu-ray player can handle both of those formats as well as BD, DVD and CD.

OK, yes, we're thinking what you're thinking: The number of people who have collections of SACD and DVD-Audio is surely smaller than the number of people with HD DVD libraries—perhaps Oppo should have gone the full distance and put in HD DVD reading capability too. (We'll be sure to ask them when they start talking about this product.)

Given the visible feature set and Oppo's reputation in the upscaling world, we assume this will be one damn fine BD player. But I'll just say right now that it won't be cheap. [AVS Forum via Electronista]

UPDATE: Here's what Oppo confirms—no HD DVD of course, just as we suspected:

The BDP-83 will be a Profile 2.0 that features the ABT 2010 de-interlacing and scaling solution for both DVD and Blu-Ray media. The product as currently implemented supports SACD. We are investigating the possibility of DVD-Audio support.

The player will support the transportation and decoding of the Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital TrueHD, DTS High Resolution, and DTS HD-Master. In the current implementation only the core DD and DTS are supported, but the hardware will support the transportation and decoding of these formats in the future.

No price has been established, but we are throwing around $499~699 as the possible price points. Anticipated release is Winter (November through February)

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