I take it that it is a consumer beta program. I am not sure though if I would really call it beta though. This is most likely what they feel is a ready to go unit, or least pretty damn close. They are giving their customers the chance to get the unit early and help iron out the all the final details. I would think it is a fully functional unit, but there are always bound to be bugs and who better to find them then their fans. Just look on any forum about electronics, people are always talking about their equipment and problems they are having, AVS Forum is a good example.
This way, Oppo can release the best product to the consumer while letting getting the product out to the consumer to have a much bigger testing group. I personally would have no problem paying for this product to be a tester, I planned on purchasing it anyways since Oppo has not let me down yet and I am thinking this will be the Blu-ray player to get.
I think this is a great idea as it greatly expands their testing capabilities while giving their fans a chance to get their hands on the unit first and help out. It is much better than what a lot of companies do these days, releasing what I would consider a beta product with the mentality that they will patch and fix (or not) it when bugs are found. At least these people know what they are getting into before they buy what is suppose to be a fully and properly functioning product.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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I take it that it is a consumer beta program. I am not sure though if I would really call it beta though. This is most likely what they feel is a ready to go unit, or least pretty damn close. They are giving their customers the chance to get the unit early and help iron out the all the final details. I would think it is a fully functional unit, but there are always bound to be bugs and who better to find them then their fans. Just look on any forum about electronics, people are always talking about their equipment and problems they are having, AVS Forum is a good example.
This way, Oppo can release the best product to the consumer while letting getting the product out to the consumer to have a much bigger testing group. I personally would have no problem paying for this product to be a tester, I planned on purchasing it anyways since Oppo has not let me down yet and I am thinking this will be the Blu-ray player to get.
I think this is a great idea as it greatly expands their testing capabilities while giving their fans a chance to get their hands on the unit first and help out. It is much better than what a lot of companies do these days, releasing what I would consider a beta product with the mentality that they will patch and fix (or not) it when bugs are found. At least these people know what they are getting into before they buy what is suppose to be a fully and properly functioning product.