Any one with experience of connecting their Oppo BDP 103au to internet?  
I'm about to embark on doing this.  My housemate has just returned from visiting a friend who has AppleTV, and raved about being able to watch UTube, especially old Tv shows we love, on the telly, and offered to go halves in buying me an AppleTV for my birthday.  I explained my Oppo bluray player also has that ability and would be much cheaper.

I have read and re-read the instruction manual and while connecting the cabling seems straight forward enough, the setting up process may as well be in a foreign language!  The words are English, but when put together in a sentence they do not connect in my non tech brain!  I even had to ask for advice from supplier when I originally set the player up two years ago and frustratingly could not get it to produce sound!


So, my questions


1.  Is the set up menu easy to follow?  Are there any fish-hooks to be wary of?
2.  While the manual recommends a LAN cable, I will use the supplied wifi dongle.  Unless you can persuade me that a LAN is much superior?
3.  If so, I will need about 7m of cable.  I understand I will need Cat5e or 6 cabling.  The closest  TM listings are 10m lengths.  Is there a problem with using a cable of that length?

lastly, would using the Oppo in this way be just as good as the AppleTV, or is that vastly superior?

Cheers
John

welcome john,

iirc you were a member on audioenz ?
image petite performas ?

i have a 103 hooked up as media player and streamer from my win7 pc to my ht.

it replaced a dedicated asus media player i was using with digital files

hookup is easy as.

your computer should show up when you select network.
enter your password etc and away you go.

lan cable will be more stable but the wifi dongle works well if you have a very good router.
using the stock pos isp router was hopeless, i could barely stream 720p video.
i upgraded to a netgear r7000 and the system performed on a new level - now i can 1080p video with lossless audio all day long !

the oppo will have better video and audio performance than an apple tv but won't have as many apps to access online content.

Thanks Michael,
Yes, long time on AEnz, even have a folder of the original hard copy mags! Early joiner here too, but haven't been an active poster, - look every day though.

If my 15 yr old grandson was close by, no doubt he would have it up and running in no time, however, he is 8 hrs away.

I have a cheap Netcomm modem/router as supplied by my provisder, kept dropping out on my Apple iMac and iPad, so piggy backed an Apple airport express on it two or three years ago and works fine since.

There is about 5m between router and Oppo in direct line of sight, so will go wifi to start, and will,hook up a LAN if not..

PS, will start another thread to ask about your old CD player with the Phillips cdm9 pro setup. Having troubles with mine too. Will try connecting the Oppo to internet first.

Great, all connected via wifi, didn't hurt a bit!

Just doing a firmware up date as I type.

But another related issue, it seems I have to create a Google account to access YouTube. I have an inactive Gmail account, is that sufficient, or do I need to open another?

I'd just use the old gmail account to avoid fluffing. And that's all you'll need need. You should also have a 'guest' option?

Apr 8, 2017 17:50:18 GMT 12 sub said:

Great, all connected via wifi, didn't hurt a bit!

Just doing a firmware up date as I type.

But another related issue, it seems I have to create a Google account to access YouTube. I have an inactive Gmail account, is that sufficient, or do I need to open another?

shouldn't need an account to access youtoob.

i just hit the youtoob button and i'm there with no request to login.

Things continue to work fine. Watched an amazing you tube clip last night - a recording of the 88th birthday "roast" for Don Rickles, an amazing stand up comic. Feels good to have a decent laugh!

Can't afford Sky, so it's great to have an option to the dross on Freeview!

Seems the only draw back to using the Oppo instead of an AppleTV , is that the Apple device is compatible with my iPad, and I understand you can search for the content you want to watch on the iPad and then "tell" the AppleTV what to do.

Seems I don't need to register or log in to watch utube, even though when I first opened YouTube on the Oppo I was instructed to do so, but on return visits just went straight in!

I tried to open the link to Pandora on my Oppo, but was clearly directed to register before I could access. Will leave that for the time being. Is it worth having?

Now the temptation is at some time soon subscribe to Netflix or something similar, like Neon. Which one is best?

did you know there's an ios control app for the 103 ?

itunes.apple.com/us/app/oppo-mediacontrol-for-bdp-10x/id699429398

i use the android version and it does a fine job, much much better than the feeble 3rd party approach taken by cambridge audio.

not a big fan of any online video streaming service, there is no one best solution, you tend to end up subscribing to at least two...

netflix is ok for older material and their own releases but otherwise i find their content mediocre.

they do have a 30 day free trial, as do most online services.

the other big players are spark's free lightbox and amazon prime video.

It's worth joining up to Pandora for background listening to be fair... not critical listening though!
I use an Apple TV over everything else (consoles to smart TV's to Blu-rays) due to its speed of loading / reliability.