I don't think one can underestimate the unprecedented after market service that Oppo provides. I was an early adopter of the BDP83 and contrary to the "mainstream" manufacturers who no sooner do they introduce a product, are they thinking of the next generation product to sell, only a few months later. Oppo took their time in bringing the product to market doing a significant number of Beta tests and once introduced have done a number of firmware updates to handle any oddball things that are thrown at it. It will continue to do that during the life of the product thus increasing its longevity.
Regardless of personal opinions, I can't recall in recent history, along with the unprecedented amount of press, the consistent positive reviews of a product that this player has received.
As far as quality of video processing, it is interesting to note that Denon, in some of its newer AVR lines, has introduced the ABT VRS processing, similar to what is in the BDP83.
