LG BH200: Mini-FAQ + Firmware Info (TrueHD 7.1, DTS-HD, 24p) + SD DVD Multiregion! - Page 18

True. I was just saying, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason I gave is another reason why Sony decided to do it this way.


Don't say that. I love that film. Be thankful you bought the HD-DVD because the BD sounds worse. The HD-DVD has Full-rate DD+ (1.5Mbps) but the BD only has DD5.1 @ 640Kbps.

I own the HD-DVD too. Isn't it funny that only a few years ago we all thought Full-rate DTS on DVDs was amazing (which should sound the same as Full-rate DD+) but today it's considered poor. Times move on.


It should sound identical, presuming the master they used was the same. In other words the audio master tends to be the same if it's a disc with both PCM/TrueHD/DTS-HD MA, so it should sound identical.

If however, another studio used a better master for their release of the same film (maybe they've remastered it) then one could sound better than the other. That's obviously because of the Master used not the resultant Format. An example of this is the Hong Kong BD Flash Point which has PCM and DTS-HD MA, but it's thought they used different Masters as the PCM sounds much bassier (actually too bassy). You can read the review here:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/1286/flashpoint_hk.html

Apparently in this case the DTS Legacy Core actually sounds better to the PCM.

PCM is a RAW Uncompressed Lossless Format, both DTS-HD MA and TrueHD are the same PCM audio just encoded first (which results in a lot less space being used), but when all three are uncompressed they're all bit for bit identical.

If you want an in-depth answer, read this excellent article:

Uncompressed (PCM) vs. Lossless Audio (Dolby TrueHD/DTS-HD MA)

Yes. I don't think LG have actually sent Firmware over Ethernet yet, just the Driver (i.e - 0702). As they've not done that, your BH200 won't be able to find the new April firmware to download it. It's odd they haven't, when the Service Site has a PDF for upgrading over Ethernet.

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With the April Firmware: What's the verdict on the USA Sunshine BD? Does it generally work for most or generally not work?

I see the Samsung BD-UP5000 has an issue with it, what about the LG BH200?

If you have a decent Broadband speed, it shouldn't take long to download the firmware to the Player. I'd rather go the USB Stick/CD/DVD route too though.

Officially the April firmware is the only one that can be updated online. There isn't much point putting the April firmware online when users of the November/January firmware won't be able to see it, and the March firmware isn't supposed to exist (outside of the labs). I bet that's why the March firmware Players don't find it.

I bet LG are getting themselves ready for the next firmware.

Thanks. I'm glad we/I can help.

I do find it interesting how you usually find fans provide better and more useful information on forums than the source company can ever seem to manage.

Thanks again guys.

Orangekid has kindly uploaded the April firmware to his website (like he did for the March firmware). If you're having trouble downloading it from the somewhat complicatedly laid out LG Service sites, it can be downloaded there.

I've put the link in the first post.

It's Official and looking like it's virtually the same. I say virtually as the size of the ROM files is slightly different so it cannot be the same update exactly and there must be a valid reason why it was delayed for a month.

As it's Official and offers the same functionality the March one does I'd definitely upgrade. Official in my opinion means a lot. We do know it fix the March firmware has an issue with HD-DVDs released by Studio Canal, other than that I'm not sure how it exactly differs.

I don't think it was ever official. The March firmware was listed with a January firmware version number and it's Change Log was for the January firmware.

My guess is LG intended to release the January firmware and as they always used to use the same ZIP file name I bet someone picked the wrong folder when choosing which firmware to upload (March instead of January). In a few days they realised this and quickly replaced it.

I bet that's why the new firmware has the date in the ZIP file name. Someone definitely stuffed up at LG but of course once the firmware is out there they cannot take it back.

I wasn't being all serious with my post too .

Can you connect to Web enabled content? Is there an option in the LAN/Ethernet config screen to say if the connection is active?


Did you use the same settings when burning the March and April firmware? Is the March firmware on a CD-R or CD-RW (it shouldn't matter)? And is it the same brand of disc?

Personally I'd stick to CD-RWs. There shouldn't be any need to use a DVD. How did you burn it? I presume:

1. New or Blank CD-RW or New CD-R
2. Single Session disc, not Multi-session
3. ISO Mode 1 or Mode 2 /XA - Mode 2 is newer. I forget how they otherwise differ.
4. ISO 9660 or ISO 9660 + Joliet
5. Max of 11 Characters (8.3 Filename) - Level 1
6. ISO 9660 Standard CD Character set
7. Track at Once instead of Disc at Once
8. Finalize Disc

I would imagine numbers 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8 are the important ones but I'd check all of them.

Also make sure:

1. The file size of the file LG_BH_LV221BH.ROM is 38,952,338 bytes
2. The LG_BH_LV221BH.ROM file is on the root of the disc, so it reads:

E: \\LG_BH_LV221BH.ROM (Where E is the name of your CD/DVD drive)

Make sure nothing else is on the disc.

Finally if none of that works you could try a USB Stick (formatted as FAT or FAT32 not NTFS, check via Disk Properties).


As Oilblue says, can you clarify what you mean here? There's no need to mess around with Images or ISO files.


Isn't DTS Re-Encode designed for users with SPDIF not HDMI connections? Unless your Amp has HDMI but not HDMI 1.3, you may then need to use it.

What version of HDMI does your Amp support? Does your Amp support TrueHD? If so you don't want to be using DTS Re-Encode. You can see here what version of HDMI adds TrueHD and DTS-HD over Bitstream:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi#Versions

I see TrueHD Bitstream wasn't added until HDMI 1.2 and DTS-HD until 1.3. If your Amp is older than HDMI 1.2 you'll want to let it on-board decode, so it can then be sent out as PCM. DTS Re-Encode will be converting the Lossless TrueHD to Lossy DTS when you should be able to pick up the Lossless TrueHD.