The Official Panasonic DMP-BD50 Owner's Thread - Page 3

OK, it sounds like you are sure that you are getting lossless thru analogues. I know we are beating a dead horse here but the gosh darn manual doesn't help much in this department.

I am in the same situation as you. When I check for firmware updates nothing at all happens. It seems that some players have some issues.
I am a users in a danish forum regarding the BD50, and some here in DK have problems while others are working.
When it is working the player should confirm that the firmware is up-to-date (if that's the case), that a new firmware is available, or return an error message if it is not connected to the internet.

My major concern is that when this is not working then maybe BD-Live is not working either. I haven't got a BD-Live disc to test with yet.
I have tried to open a case with Panasonic Customer Support here in Denmark, but they don't know anything about the BD50, and they don't seem to understand the problem even though I have talked with them 3 times in the last couple of days.
So I urge anyone reading this to contact their local Panasonic Customer Support, as I have urged the danish users with this problem to contact the danish Panasonic Support.
Hopefully that way the problem will get the attention it deserves.

I have had the unit about a week now, I have played 4 BD and 3 SDVD

I must say that I am impressed as I have a PS3, I have had a Samsung 1400, 1500 and BD30 all which have been returned. My AVR is a Marantz SR8002 and my projector is a Panasonic PT-AE2000U. The BD30 performed the best with the exception of the DTS/TrueHD pop which was resolved by getting the firmware upgrade from my local Marantz service center who "turn it around" in a day. (for those who are interested-
Approved Audio Service, Inc.
49 Commons Drive
Litchfield, CT 06759 USA
(860) 567-5801 Ask for Larry


The BD50 beats them all in stability, details, color and, I have a Toshiba ax2 and the upcoversion is really, really close. It is actually is more stable on the star wars titles,

I need help with the confirmation of two items as I cannot determine this for myself.

1.The BD50 does not stay in 1080p24 mode for standard DVD and has to be set at the start of each DVD.

2. When decoding internally, the BD50 has the same issue that the PS3 had prior to 2.41 of not decoding Hairspray correctly.

If any on can help confirm this it may speed up the release of a firmware update.

can one of the 50k unit owners confirm if this unit will bitstream dts hd ma or dolby true hd thru hdmi to a amp that can handle dts hd or true hd...
thanks
idle

Yes

Thnks...
is 699. a good price for this unit....

Idle Jet: Re price - Read previous posts in this thread.

Others re firmware update. I had no problem with mine - I did a manual check for firmware and the BD50 said up-to-date.

Re 24p: Did you go into the setup menu and select 24p as default? Mine locked into 24p on "Batman Begins" as soon as I loaded the disc.

Yup, it bitstreams both to my Onkyo 805 receiver and the display says DTS-HD Master audio and Dolby True HD.

Thanks for trying. When I go to the network diagnostics screen, it does PASS the test and I can see it has an appropriate IP address and DNS server.

I do have a BD Live disc. WAR. There is an online game on it. It works fine. I was able to register an online account in the game menus and then play a game.

So the networking feature is working...just a strange reaction to firmware updating! I doubt it can be a hardware fault. It is probably some sort of weird network/timing thing that is not about the machine, but about the network it is connected to.

Did the BD10 also use the Burr Brown PCM1680 DAC? It is an 8 channel DAC, so the fact the BD50 doesn't have 8 analogue outputs, is simply one of cost with the extra phono sockets and not the DACs!

Thanks for responding Doc

Yes, I have the setup to default to 24 (on)

Try this on your unit
While playing a standard DVD
Select display on the remote, go to video, confirm that 24 is on.
If it is off, turn on. Exit play the dvd. If you press status on the remote in the upper right had corner the box will display 24. Then stop and eject the dvd. Reinsert, play, select display on the remote, go to video again and the 24 is off.

Try it, let me know

The units are shipped with 1.1. There is no update for the US/North American units. There is a 1.2 for Europe that you can download from the global site and burn to a disk but it will not install. The unit will tell you that you have the latest firmware.

hope this helps

....and provide any feedback requested in post #60?
Thanks!

I have POTC 1.

1. 48 seconds total, 37 seconds until the twirling coin.
2. 15 seconds from the last preview until the pirate head offers your choice.
3. 18 seconds from power up to tray ejection.

I don't think it's as bad as some reviewers make it out to be.

I'd say it's as good as the A2, but not nearly as good as an Anchor Bay/Reon upscalar player.

No planet jump on Star Wars Episode 4 that was reported by some people with the BD30.

I saw the planets jump on Episode 4 when I had the BD50 in for review.

I'm using a 1080i display, could this be a deinterlacer problem?

It could be the 1080p output. If I still had the unit I could test it out. I'm sure one of the new owners can pop in the disc and test it out.

What Star Wars movie are we talking about. I want to try this but need to know the chapter with the planets.

I tried it again and I did get the planet jump.

I also got an Onkyo 805 HDDVD player this week that I've been putting through the paces and I must have confused them.

DVD playback on the BD50 is also quite a step down from the Reon upconversion in the Onkyo.

Thread about this issue here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...highlight=bd30

Thanks for confirming that BD-Live does work even though updating doesn't.
If BD-Live works, then I don't think it is hardware either, but more related to software. But it has nothing to do with the network it is connected to.
When the BD50 tests the network connection it only tests if it has an ip-address, and if it can connect to the gateway of the network. It doesn't test if it can connect to the internet.
In the danish forum we have done some different tests incl. traffic monitoring on the BD50's that doesn't work, and when you confirm that you want to check for updates the BD50 does not send any ip packages anywhere. It is completely silent.
Also if it were a network problem, the BD50 should return an error message telling you that it could not check for updates due to network problems. This has been confirmed by some where the update function works by removing the network connection.

So this firmware update is a VERY strange problem indeed then!

I do know there are 2 firmware versions for European models 1.1 and 1.2. I had 1.1 on my machine. I presume it couldn't be something as simple as those having problems have 1.1, and those not, have 1.2?

I haven't updated mine (by cd) because I wanted to get the auto update working...so I have held back for now.

No. It doesn't seem to be 1.1 vs 1.2 problems.
Many of the users here in DK with 1.1 have used the players network capabilities to update to 1.2. Some of them even received an automatic notification that a new firmware was available the first time they powered it on.
I was also holding back on the manual update, but Panasonic DK suggested that I should try to update my player to 1.2 by using a CD.
I have done this, but it has not made any difference.
If the player is up-to-date it should confirm this on the screen, but again nothing happens.

I spoke to Panasonic UK and they already knew about it. In their case, they have never seen the firmware update work. They have one in the support centre and it doesn't do anything, just like yours and mine. And they have had several calls about it. It is being looked into but their theory is that the download server is not available yet (which we know isn't true).

Anyway, as they are onto it already, I will leave it for now and see what happens.

where is a good place in either canada or us that has one of these in stock....
( hope i am aloud to ask this...)

You are allowed to ask but in another thread. This is the owners thread. There is another BD50 thread where you speculatively talk about places to buy etc.

That is good news, even though their theory is way off
Let us hope that something happens soon. If you happen to hear/read anything, please post it in here. I would really appreciate it.

I'm sure most of you are aware of it already but just in case, to get BD-Live to work you have to have an SD card inserted. The player doesn't have any onboard memory.