OPPO Android Concept Is All Tronned Out

So this is a pretty interesting-looking Android phone concept, what with the neon teal backlighting and spacious keyboard and all. It's supposedly due for a 2010 release, although we'll believe that when it happens, and hopefully it'll actually be running Android by then—it looks like somebody accidentally Photoshopped the WebOS dialer onto this thing. It's in Remainders because nobody really got all that excited about it; it's weird enough to be catch your eye, but not enough to make you want one. [Ubergizmo]

Top YouTube Videos of the Year Are Pretty Upsetting, Really

I'm proud to say I've seen exactly one of the top five YouTube music videos of the year and none of the top general videos. On the other hand, this is a pretty depressing-looking list—not once does the World's Best YouTube Personality of All Time appear. Plus, um, who the hell is Pitbull? [YouTube Blog]

Why Can't These People Take a Decent Video of the Nexus One?

So TheNexusOne has been posting videos of their namesake Android phone, and while that would normally deserve a bigger post, these are really just teaser videos—when we get a real, comprehensive video tour of the Nexus One, we'll be sure to let you know. But for now, we've got a video of the incoming call screen, which looks exactly like it does on Android 2.0.1, we've got the bootup sequence we've seen before, and a 15-second clip of the Tron-like (there's a Tron theme in Remainders tonight, it seems) animated wallpaper. [TheNexusOne via Android Central]

iFixit Publishes Apple Repair Manuals Under Creative Commons License

iFixit, known round these parts for their teardowns, just published five years of DIY Apple repair manuals for free under the Creative Commons license, which permits free, non-commercial use. That's over 125 manuals for Macs, iPods and iPhones, and should be a big help for anyone who's got an out-of-warranty Apple product and needs help fixing it, or for anyone who just likes to tinker. [iFixit via 9to5Mac]

While some of the photos here clearly show a real device, you can see that modesty has inclined lil' Oppo to only be shown from the rear, save for in chaste rendering form. So hopefully the d-pad and traditional SNES/PlayStation four-button config makes it to the final stages of production. News today is pricing: 1099 yuan, or $160. That only appears to buy you a paltry 4GB, but throwing together a true emulation platform along with some pedestrian MP3 playing capabilities into decent-looking swivel-screen hardware doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. [Zol (translated) via PMP Today]

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)

The Price: $399

The Verdict: Video quality is as least as good if not better than the previous Oppo 981HD we reviewed, which also does 1080p over HDMI. Even better than the 981, this DV-983H adds in a USB port in the back so you can play back DivX/XviD files off of a USB drive directly, without having to burn movies/TV Shows onto a disc first.

We watched several DVDs and were impressed with the quality, and the AV nerds on avsforum seem to prefer Anchor Bay's ABT1018 and ABT102 upconverting/de-interlacting magic chips to Faroudja's. On the audio side, we only have a 5.1 setup, but what we heard sounded great as well.

At $399, it's a player we'd recommend if you have a gigantic DVD library that you want to keep even when faced with the impending Blu-ray transition. After all, there's no sense in buying a movie again if you can get a somewhat reasonable upscaler (and Oppo's is much more than just somewhat reasonable). It's their new flagship model, so you know this is quality DVD playback. It's also the last upconverting DVD player Oppo will ever make, so you might want to get in on this latest generation before it goes out of style. [Oppo]

On top of standard MP3/WMA/MP4/AVI/Lossless audio support, the Blast will play flash video, XVID and animated gifs—yes, animated gifs—the best of Web 2.0 in your hand! The 2.4" display looks to be a true widescreen, which would put it in line with other Oppo PMP products. Storage is through MicroSD, and the whole package is vaguely reminiscent of a Zune if it were way, way cooler. [imp3 via pmptoday]

However, since they are at three price points with different amounts of functionality, we can recommend them to three different types of people.

First, the LG DN191H. It's small, thin, and only around $80. Although there are some shortcomings—lack of 5.1 for one—it's great for people who just want to watch some "HD" content on their new HD sets, but don't really care that much about audio quality or visual quality. Be prepared to miss out on features with this one.

Next, for the mid-range crowd, there's the Oppo DV-981HD. It supports 1080p, has fantastic DivX support, and wi the Faroudja upconverting technology, DVDs look pretty darn great. You'll have to have pretty great eyes to see a difference between one player's upconversion and another player's—it's definitely not as big as the gaps between DVD and HD or DVD and upconverting—but this player does give you great image quality.

At a price of $230, it's two or three times the price of the LG player, but you get 5.1 audio, 1080p support, and a better overall experience.

Lastly, there's the Helios X3000 network DVD/DivX player. This player has both Wi-Fi and 10/100 Ethernet, which means you can stream DivX movies off your PC without having to burn them to disc. Great.

Add to that 5.1 optical and coax output, HDMI, 1080p resolution, and you've got DVD and DivX performance at least as good as the Oppo. Which is a good thing, because at the grand total of $379, you're paying a $149 premium to add that networking functionality.

So to sum it up:
•Low-enders: LG DN191H [Best Buy]
•DVD/DivX Only: Oppo DV-981HD [Oppo]
•DVD/DivX With Networking: Helios X3000 [ModernJoys]

– Jason Chen

Not many other details about this MP4-playing Chinese PMP are to be had, but it does look pretty cool. – Jason Chen

iMP3 [via iMP3 via The MP3 Players]

Taking a look at the results on a 1080p set over HDMI, DVDs just never looked so good. That Faroudja up-rezzing technology under the hood pretty much performs magic, but don't get too excited: even at 1080p, up-rezzed DVDs don't look like real HDTV. Still, it's a remarkable value for $230. – Charlie White

Review: Oppo DV-981HD Universal DVD Player [Consumer Electronics Net]

This DV-981HD is an improvement over its predecessor, the highly-regarded DV-970HD which I've favorably reviewed. That player upscales DVDs to 1080i or 720p over HDMI or component, and even though its video output looks better than any DVD I've ever seen, it's still nowhere near the quality of HDTV.

Jump for more pics, including the nice ass-end of this mofo, and a bit of pointed editorializing.

Thank goodness this new model loses the useless SD card reader of its predecessor, which was pretty much a joke. We're looking forward to reviewing this DV-981HD, though, which will probably be the best way to watch plain ol' DVDs on a 1080p HDTV. – Charlie White

Product Page [Oppo Digital]

There's DVD, DivX, music CD and Kodak Picture CD support, which means you can download and burn those episodes of Entourage onto DVD to watch on this. Let's hug it out, bitches. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Oppo via Uncrate]