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The Official Sony BDP-S550 Owner's Thread - Page 5

post #121 of 3962
10/10/08 at 6:44am
I ordered from SonyStyle web site 10/8, says shipping scheduled 10/26! Anyone else get same for recent order?

It also appears no retailers like BB, Abt have it yet...
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post #122 of 3962
10/10/08 at 6:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Tomaskovic View Post

I ordered from SonyStyle web site 10/8, says shipping scheduled 10/26! Anyone else get same for recent order?

It also appears no retailers like BB, Abt have it yet...



I just checked with ABT on my order.... nothing until at least next week. The customer service rep said she was working off info a week old.
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post #123 of 3962
10/10/08 at 7:01am
Folks in another thread have reported some confusion with Sony's shipping dates. See this post, for example: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post14817893
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post #124 of 3962
10/10/08 at 7:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Tomaskovic View Post

I ordered from SonyStyle web site 10/8, says shipping scheduled 10/26! Anyone else get same for recent order?

It also appears no retailers like BB, Abt have it yet...

Ordered mine from Sonystyle on 10/8, received the shipping confirmation on 10/9 along with Fedex tracking number and it's on it's way to me as we speak. The site did say estimated ship date was the 9th for me as well.
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post #125 of 3962
10/10/08 at 7:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by johnnyd1 View Post

Why? He didn't credit me !

Sorry, I saw you post after I posted my remark.
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post #126 of 3962
10/10/08 at 7:47am
Compared to to the pioneer 51 which I recently returned, the S550 has better load times and does not have the lip sync problems that the 51 had. Also the 51 had a lot of problems with movies locking up and freezes which is the reason I returned it. I have not had any lockups with the 550 and the PQ is just as good. Also the 550 does a much better job at upconverting regular DVDs.
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post #127 of 3962
10/10/08 at 7:59am
I first posted by review of the S550 in the 51 owners thread on Sunday because I had been folowing the thread for some time before receiving the 51, and thought the S550 review would be of help to them. I received my 550 last Saturday.
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post #128 of 3962
10/10/08 at 9:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by johnrlane View Post

Sorry, I saw you post after I posted my remark.

No problem !
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post #129 of 3962
10/10/08 at 11:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rudy81 View Post

I'm keeping an eye on both of these. I need 7.1 analog out, so whichever has the most complete codec ability and the best analog section will get my money.

Same here. I'm leaning towards the 55 now thet the 550 doesn't have the basic slow motion controls that players have had forever.
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post #130 of 3962
10/10/08 at 12:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerryT View Post

Same here. I'm leaning towards the 55 now thet the 550 doesn't have the basic slow motion controls that players have had forever.

Has this been confirmed that the 550 lacks frame advance and slow motion controls?
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post #131 of 3962
10/10/08 at 1:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by halsan40 View Post

Has this been confirmed that the 550 lacks frame advance and slow motion controls?


Yeah I read a post from someone who has it. They have an advance and repeat button that moves it forward or back about 15 seconds.
I'll see if I can find that post again.
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post #132 of 3962
10/10/08 at 1:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerryT View Post

Yeah I read a post from someone who has it. They have an advance and repeat button that moves it forward or back about 15 seconds.
I'll see if I can find that post again.

Can current owners try various remote buttons to make sure that this is definitely not a feature? I find it hard to believe that Sony would not have this capability since as another poster mention, it's been available for years on other DVD players. Maybe one of the owners can call Sony to verify, not that CSRs are very helpful most of the time?
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post #133 of 3962
10/10/08 at 1:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lujan View Post

Can current owners try various remote buttons to make sure that this is definitely not a feature? I find it hard to believe that Sony would not have this capability since as another poster mention, it's been available for years on other DVD players. Maybe one of the owners can call Sony to verify, not that CSRs are very helpful most of the time?

I think I reported it in a different forum. There is no slow/frame advance anymore on the remote. The remote has been completely re-designed from the remote that came with my BDP-S300. The slow/frame buttons have been replaced with a "replay" and "advance" button, which skips back or forward something like 15 secs...
No logical combination of keys seems to do anything remotely like frame advancing or slow playback. There is no mention of these features in the manual either. There is no settings I can see in the menu.
Seems like a pretty ridiculous thing to remove.
We did get a dandy new "scene search" button that does some kind of cryptic skipping through a title.
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post #134 of 3962
10/10/08 at 2:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by epontius View Post

I think I reported it in a different forum. There is no slow/frame advance anymore on the remote. The remote has been completely re-designed from the remote that came with my BDP-S300.

Have you tried the S300 remote with the 550 player. I have done that before with other Sony products. Usually, it the remote from the more expensive device that has a button that the lesser device responds too.
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post #135 of 3962
10/10/08 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dengland View Post

Have you tried the S300 remote with the 550 player..

I'll give it a shot.
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post #136 of 3962
10/10/08 at 2:53pm
Hi All,

I am somewhat surprised at all the confusion about mix and DTS HD MA..

First of all if your receiver in any way shape or form says it is receiving 7.1 pcm or lpcm or multichannel in then you are receiving decoded dts hd ma not just dts. DTS cannnnnot do 7.1 The best normal DTS can ever do is 6.1 with DTS-ES discrete like on the standard def lord of the rings extended editions.

I just ordered my S550 today based on the same seeing the 150 off with the sony credit card.



As to downmix. This is an issue so to speak with all blu ray players.


Part of the issue with True HD or DTS-HD MA is when you are bitstreaming or decoding them and passing them to a receiver this only works with NO secondary audio tracks.


So watch a great movie with DTS-HD MA 7.1 on the S550 or say the panasonic 55 and if your receiver can decode DTS-HD MA then you will see that your receiver is receiving that audio.

Decode it internally either through HDMI or analog and your receiver will see 7.1 coming in as multichannel, pcm etc.



NOW: If you do any kind of secondary audio you are not going to get True HD or DTS-HD MA. For example a common secondary audio is the directors commentary and/or commentary where the little video window pops up.

These tracks are as far as I know never in hi def. So when you mix in the commentary track your blu-ray player cannot take that track and add it to True HD or DTS-HD MA and keep those tracks intact. Instead you get a downmix of all the audio to a compatible format such as good old Dolby Digital and/or DTS.


Now granted i do not have my sony s550 just yet but on any other blu-ray player i have owned (one sony and 2 panasonics) as soon as other audio is mixed in you downgrade the audio put out.
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post #137 of 3962
10/10/08 at 3:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by olsonadr View Post

Hi All,

I am somewhat surprised at all the confusion about mix and DTS HD MA..

First of all if your receiver in any way shape or form says it is receiving 7.1 pcm or lpcm or multichannel in then you are receiving decoded dts hd ma not just dts. DTS cannnnnot do 7.1 The best normal DTS can ever do is 6.1 with DTS-ES discrete like on the standard def lord of the rings extended editions.

I just ordered my S550 today based on the same seeing the 150 off with the sony credit card.



As to downmix. This is an issue so to speak with all blu ray players.


Part of the issue with True HD or DTS-HD MA is when you are bitstreaming or decoding them and passing them to a receiver this only works with NO secondary audio tracks.


So watch a great movie with DTS-HD MA 7.1 on the S550 or say the panasonic 55 and if your receiver can decode DTS-HD MA then you will see that your receiver is receiving that audio.

Decode it internally either through HDMI or analog and your receiver will see 7.1 coming in as multichannel, pcm etc.



NOW: If you do any kind of secondary audio you are not going to get True HD or DTS-HD MA. For example a common secondary audio is the directors commentary and/or commentary where the little video window pops up.

These tracks are as far as I know never in hi def. So when you mix in the commentary track your blu-ray player cannot take that track and add it to True HD or DTS-HD MA and keep those tracks intact. Instead you get a downmix of all the audio to a compatible format such as good old Dolby Digital and/or DTS.


Now granted i do not have my sony s550 just yet but on any other blu-ray player i have owned (one sony and 2 panasonics) as soon as other audio is mixed in you downgrade the audio put out.

I don't believe the Denon 3800 "degrades" when mixing commentary with the lossless track. Then again, it can probably do a lot more than advertised given the horsepower in the hardware.
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post #138 of 3962
10/10/08 at 3:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by olsonadr View Post

Part of the issue with True HD or DTS-HD MA is when you are bitstreaming or decoding them and passing them to a receiver this only works with NO secondary audio tracks.


So watch a great movie with DTS-HD MA 7.1 on the S550 or say the panasonic 55 and if your receiver can decode DTS-HD MA then you will see that your receiver is receiving that audio.

Decode it internally either through HDMI or analog and your receiver will see 7.1 coming in as multichannel, pcm etc.



NOW: If you do any kind of secondary audio you are not going to get True HD or DTS-HD MA. For example a common secondary audio is the directors commentary and/or commentary where the little video window pops up.

These tracks are as far as I know never in hi def. So when you mix in the commentary track your blu-ray player cannot take that track and add it to True HD or DTS-HD MA and keep those tracks intact. Instead you get a downmix of all the audio to a compatible format such as good old Dolby Digital and/or DTS.


Now granted i do not have my sony s550 just yet but on any other blu-ray player i have owned (one sony and 2 panasonics) as soon as other audio is mixed in you downgrade the audio put out.

For me, I'm content getting downmixed audio if I'm watching pip secondary audio commentary. But what happens if I select "mix" but just watch a movie? will the player downmix it regardless? will it detect that the user is not listening to the secondary audio and therefore outputs lpcm? or does it default to bitstream?
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post #139 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by olsonadr View Post

NOW: If you do any kind of secondary audio you are not going to get True HD or DTS-HD MA. For example a common secondary audio is the directors commentary and/or commentary where the little video window pops up.

These tracks are as far as I know never in hi def. So when you mix in the commentary track your blu-ray player cannot take that track and add it to True HD or DTS-HD MA and keep those tracks intact. Instead you get a downmix of all the audio to a compatible format such as good old Dolby Digital and/or DTS.

As far as I know, mixing has nothing to do with whether the original source is lossless or not. The player takes the decoded PCM from the movie and the PCM from the secondary audio, mixes them together so that both can be heard, and outputs the new mix as PCM. I bolded the line about downmixing and legacy formats because it seems to suggest that the output of the mixer ends up being re-encoded into a legacy format. I don't think that's the case. I believe the output of the mixer goes out as PCM over HDMI or gets converted to analog without ever being re-encoded. What would be the point of doing that?

Obviously, it must be easier to use a legacy codec as the mixing source because that's the way most players work. But, I don't think there's anything to prevent using a lossless source for the movie soundtrack.
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post #140 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by substance12 View Post

For me, I'm content getting downmixed audio if I'm watching pip secondary audio commentary. But what happens if I select "mix" but just watch a movie? will the player downmix it regardless? will it detect that the user is not listening to the secondary audio and therefore outputs lpcm? or does it default to bitstream?

I believe when "MIX" is selected it is downmixing regardless. Why else would it say 96kHz signals automatically get downmixed to 48kHz under this mode?

Simply select "DIRECT" and you should get all the lossless you want.
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post #141 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BIslander View Post

But, I don't think there's anything to prevent using a lossless source for the movie soundtrack.

Perhaps max operations in the SOC? We are talking about a player that is not acting any differently than any of its other <$2000 brethren. Perhaps if it had 2 DSP's it could mix lossless soundtrack with commentary.
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post #142 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:26pm
Picture quality anyone? How does it look/compare to other units you may have tried/owned? Std dvd, Blu disc? Are there any professional reviews on this player like the 55?
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post #143 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by dengland View Post

Have you tried the S300 remote with the 550 player. I have done that before with other Sony products. Usually, it the remote from the more expensive device that has a button that the lesser device responds too.

So that's a no go on using the S300 remote to frame advance the S550.
For the most part the S300 remote works with the S550... Power on, system menu, menu navigation, eject, play, pop up menu. Pressing the pause button and then the slow/step button on the S300 remote doesn't do anything. It just sits there paused. Same thing when you have it playing and press the slow/step button. Nada.
So I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that they have removed the frame advance altogether from the player.
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post #144 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:31pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kbueno View Post

As promised, I'm happy to report that I can confirm (at least w/Rambo) that the S550 decodes 7.1 DTS MA over analog. Pretty neat player...what a step up from standard DVD.

Is there now consensus that the BDP-S550 does in fact decode and output both Dolby TruHD and DTS-MA 7.1 via analog connections? Or....is this yet to be confirmed?
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post #145 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by erick granato View Post

Picture quality anyone? How does it look/compare to other units you may have tried/owned? Std dvd, Blu disc? Are there any professional reviews on this player like the 55?

Ive been following this thread for a week now and finally someone asks a legitimate question.
To add to that, how is the upconversion with DVD's???
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post #146 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by epontius View Post

So that's a no go on using the S300 remote to frame advance the S550.
For the most part the S300 remote works with the S550... Power on, system menu, menu navigation, eject, play, pop up menu. Pressing the pause button and then the slow/step button on the S300 remote doesn't do anything. It just sits there paused. Same thing when you have it playing and press the slow/step button. Nada.
So I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that they have removed the frame advance altogether from the player.

That is really a show stopper for me. When I see some fantastic special effects I like to advance frame by frame to see if I can see how it was done.

Thank you for the answer, now my two choices are the panasonic 55 or the new Oppo.
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post #147 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by halsan40 View Post

That is really a show stopper for me. When I see some fantastic special effects I like to advance frame by frame to see if I can see how it was done.

Thank you for the answer, now my two choices are the panasonic 55 or the new Oppo.

If you are a Sharon Stone fan may I suggest some titles for you like Total Recall or Basic Instinct
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post #148 of 3962
10/10/08 at 4:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by halsan40 View Post

That is really a show stopper for me. When I see some fantastic special effects I like to advance frame by frame to see if I can see how it was done.

Thank you for the answer, now my two choices are the panasonic 55 or the new Oppo.

Yeah...I'm a professional video editor, as well as dabble in some VFX and the girlfriend is a professional SFX makeup artist, so we're always stepping through shots to see what and how it was done. So I was disappointed to see this change. I'll live with it.
Very odd choice of features to remove.
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post #149 of 3962
10/10/08 at 5:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BIslander View Post

Digital signal processing such as PLIIx is applied by receivers, not players. Send the 5.1 audio to your AVR and add processing there.

This only works if the AVR redigitizes the input. Many don't.
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post #150 of 3962
10/10/08 at 5:53pm
I think I'm going to wait it out for the Panny 55. Thanks for all the info guys.
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