Signature Elite 141 Owners Thread - Page 115

I remember reading in the manual, about a menu for some adjustments, like turning the fans on all the time... take a peek in the manual, you should be able to find that.

Hey does anyone have any thoughts on using a 50" kuro 111fd for a pc monitor- if lcd would be better, then what do you all recommend for 40-50"?

Well..Finally took the plunge and scored a hell of a deal on a new 141 from BB Mag...Got her hooked up and mounted.runnnig the break in.. so far no problems that a newbie like me can see.

Thanks alot for the advice- I'm going with a Sony 55xbr8!

The fans are thermostatically controlled. Do you want to force them to run for some reason?

Picked up my 141 yesterday and had a quick viewing of the "Caves" chapter of "Planet Earth" Hd Dvd.

Wow, Early impression, prior to breakin or calibration. The upgrade from my 150fd, is not subtle.

My 141 just shut off while I was playing the PS3 and won't come back on again. The power light is blinking red twice, is this the signal for overheating? Its about 82 degrees in the house right now (no air con). I waited 30 minutes and unplugged it and tried again but it won't come on. I can't find any reference to this in the manual, anyone else have this problem?

I looked farther back in this thread and it sounds like emailtim had the same problem which turned out to be a bad power supply. Right at the start of a holiday weekend too, crap! Guess I'll be calling tech support on Monday.

After more digging I have found I am the eighth person in this thread to report this type of problem (emailtim, 141Kuro9g4me, montivfx, styxrogan, Gator5000e, bobcatfootball, and flatout18). At least it seems to be happening early in the life of the set in most cases (I've had mine running about a month.)

My 141 gets delivered on Monday. My next purchase will be a BluRay player and I have narrowed it down to two models.

The Samsung BD-3600 or the Sony PS3. They are about the same price. Not sure if I will play games or not because I have never had anything to play them on but from what I have seen, I think it would be fun.

My question, is there any risk of static images caused by games on my new 141? From what I have read, the answer is probably no but thought I would get feedback from the group on these two units before move forward.

Also, I am not opposed to a different BluRay players. I am basing my opinion strickly on reviews I have read.

Got my 141 delivered a couple of weeks ago, did the burn in disc and all that jazz and right out of the box the picture quality blew me away. I have a 5020 in the other room within site of the 141 so I could compare them simultaneously: just no comparison, the 141 just looked more accurate, 3 dimensional, and "right". So I was happy to say the least.

But then I had Robert Busch come over the other day to calibrate both sets. I live in the Bay Area and he generally travels anywhere in the area. Really cool guy, professional, called an hour beforehand to say he was on his way, showed up right on time. Had all the gear and everything, politely took his shoes off and sat down to work. First he checked out my new Oppo blu-ray player, actually took the time to look through the manual and then compared it to his reference PS3 to make sure everything was on the up and up with the new player. Tweaked some settings (source direct seemed best) and then started the calibration of the 141. As luck would have it I seem to have one of the later production units that for some reason calibrates really nicely according to Robert (he's done several of the 141s). He spent a good bit of time tweaking, explaining, tweaking, sweating (500W in your face gets hot), tweaking some more. And when he was done, we compared his ISF-day/night settings to the Pure setting I was using before and WOW; really unbelievable! It's like a layer of grime was removed from the glass. Blacks seemed blacker, and whites were whiter, and overall improvement in contrast was simply over the top. Images (both Dish Network and blu-ray) had a palpable 3D quality that was stunning. Colors looked much more accurate. I had no idea that such a level of improvement could be obtained with proper calibration.

Even more surprising was the improvement in the 5020 after he calibrated it. I was reluctant to "waste" money on that set, as I wasn't sure given its decreased tweakability that a calibration would help much. Wrong. After Robert was done, the "Movie" mode on the 5020 actually looked a bit better than the baseline uncalibrated Pure mode on the 141! Fantastic.

After he was done he helped me with advice about acoustic treatments for my room, speaker placement, etc. and was overall just an invaluable resource. Plus, we had a blast; the guy has great taste in local Mexican food, I have to say! Overall a highly recommended calibrator if you live in the California Bay Area.

Thanks for your Report

I suggest the Oppo BDP-83. It has to be the best player on the market! It's a few bucks more than the two you listed, but worth every penny.

I retired my PS-3 when the -83 arrived.

This looks good. It is supposed to be releases in two days. I would expect that there will be reviews available very quickly.

Thanks for the suggestion. It looks like a great option.

Thanks for your calibration report. I've included it in the flat panel (Post#2) list for both your displays. Use the link at the bottom of my post.

It's available now. Use the link for OPPO at the top of this page. There are several published reviews, and hundreds of AVS reviews in the "Early Release" thread for the OPPO BDP-83.

I have been thinking about what I need in a BluRay player and I think the quality of the video and audio output is absolutely the most important function think I would expect from a player.

Do you think the out put from this Oppo would be considerably better than a Sony PS3? The PS3 has a hard drive where I can store photos and movies and I can also surf the Internet with the PS3. I am not sure I will play games. Primarily I like movies and nature videos like the Planet Earth series from the Discovery Channel.

How about upscaling? I have a lot of DVDs and making them look better would be useful. I don't have enough expereince or knowledge yet to know the difference in the alpha bet soup of specs on a Blu Ray player has. In other words. I don't know how to pick a good player other than reading reviews.

The Oppo has the best upscaling I have seen yet though it won't cure a bad transfer.

I trust your opinion on this. I will wait a couple of days and see if there are any better prices to be found than $499.00. That is a little more than I was expecting to pay, but then again not out of the question since I have already spent a small fortune on the 141.

I am going with the Oppo. Everything I read about it has been positive. But what really sold me on the product was that on Oppo's website there is a section for beta testers. On this beta tester page, Oppo said that they weren't going to release the product until there was a satisfactory level of beta testers recommending that the product be released. I think it had to be more than 90% and the vote came in at 92%. This is in stark contrast to the Microsoft model--release the product and let the users debug the product.

I am very impressed with this level of attention to detail in product development.

I've had mine for a while now (part of the Early Access Program) and it has proven it's worth. You'll be very satisfied - more than satisfied

For BD, yes - agreed. Almost any "decent" BD player will give good results. The Oppo, however, is 2nd to none for upscaling regular DVD's. While it won't make a lousy DVD transfer better (nothing will), it will make a good transfer, much better. I have not seen any player that can better its upscaling.

Beyond that, from a universal player perspective, you can also play SACD, DVD-A, HD-CD - along with the usual 'junk" formats that can be played via USB (downloads, MP-3's, etc.). It's more than just a BD and DVD player.

Back to BD, the -83 can play in source direct mode, bypassing all processing. This will give you, bit-for-bit, what is on the disc. Our Pio's have dot-for-dot mode, which when coupled with source direct - gives (IMHO) the best BD PQ obtainable.

For $499 - it is better than anything priced at 5, 6, 7, 8X the cost. They could put the guts in a fancier "box" and sell it for much more.

This is the primary reason that I am buying this player is for the upscaling capabilities. I own a lot of factory DVDs and I will probably continue to rent standard DVDs when the content isn't available in Blu Ray.

How good can a standard DVD look? Anything close to 1080i or 720P? I was concerned that I will be ruined by Blu Rays to the point that I can't stand watching a DVD.

One big complaint I had with DVD is the sound quality. Often the background music is so loud that I can't hear the dialogue. Will the Oppo improve this too?

SD on kuro looks incredible. I watched a DVD then Blu Ray the Kuro makes your DVD disks look like a whole new experience. You should look for a dealer and check it out for yourself. The dealer had a relatively old Blu Ray player and when playing Equilibrium DVD from my collection to check black level and detail, the DVD looked absolutely like a new experience. Well worth it for any Kuro 9G. I have a huge DVD collection and will not give it up and started collecting Blu Ray and I can't wait to get my Kuro and play all my DVD's on it to see details I haven't seen before. Notice the hair detail and definition on DVD's on the kuro and you know you have the best.

If Pioneer hadn't stopped making them, I might not be buying a Kuro but I just couldn't buy another brand while Kuros were still available and for a better price than BB was selling them for.

I get my 141 on Monday. I can't wait.

Enjoy, I should be getting mine as well next week. I just want to go to that dealer right now and pop in all my DVD's.