The Official Sony BDP-S550 Owner's Thread - Page 11

The S550 has a speaker settings option when you have chosen "multi channel
analog" as an audio output preference. In the speaker settings you can turn off the surround back speakers...which I think will tell the player to decode and downmix to 5.1.

I believe it will play photo CD's and DVD's.

There are 3 things I wish Sony would have included:

1- Card reader
2- Source direct
3- Frame advance after pause

But none were deal breakers for me. It give excellent quality picture and sound and that is what really matters!

Thanks. What would the "mix" contain? That is, does it apply only to audio from outside sources like downloaded from the Internet, or can it apply to tracks on the disc itself?

Thanks, I just bought one. Got a good deal see here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1#post14859937

The "mix" setting will mix the program audio with secondary audio. For instance, Resident Evil: Extinction has a "bonusview" or "picture-in-picture" video commentary with the director, storyboards and such that runs in a little window on the screen. The audio of the director in the video is mixed in with the program audio. However, the S550 will only decode the lossy core DTS 5.1 audio and mix with this secondary audio and then output through multi-channel.
However, it does this with all DTS-HD discs regardless of whether a secondary audio track is enabled or even exists on the disc.
So setting the "BD audio" setting to direct, outputs just the program audio but it decodes the lossless DTS-HD tracks to LPCM. Obviously if you enable the visual commentary on the disc you don't hear the secondary audio at all. That is essentially the only downside to changing from the default "mix" to "direct." Small price to pay for DTS-HD decoded to LPCM.

I should point out that this only seems to happen with DTS-HD and not Dolby TrueHD.

Just to be clear here for my understanding...Lossless can be done via HDMI or by using the 7.1 analog outs, not by HDMI only right?

OK, got it. I had most of the audio situation figured out, except for that final piece. Thanks for the complete explanation.

Now to wait patiently for the S550 to arrive...

To add to the confusion I got this reply from Sony when asking about lossless over the analog outputs:

Hello,

Although the BD550 does decode the new audio codes, you would need an HDMI input in order to do so.

Regards,

Devon
Sony Style Concierge

Yes. There are three ways.

A lossless track can be sent as bitstream over HDMI 1.3 for decoding in a receiver. The receiver must have HDMI 1.3 and the proper decoders. The AVR will do the digital-analog conversion.

Or, it can be decoded in the player and sent as multichannel PCM to a receiver with HDMI 1.1. (Some receivers with HDMI 1.1 only accept 5.1, not 7.1. And some only do video switching.) The AVR does the digital-analog conversion.

Or, it can decoded in the player and converted to analog in the player. The player sends analog audio for each channel over a separate cable to the receiver.

Gotcha, thanks. I just bought Gold Compass (DTS HD-MA 7.1) and Iron Man (Dolby TruHD 5.1) for my panny thats coming in tomorrow. I still need to find or buy some rca's for the outputs. All I see for sale is Component video/stereo packages.......would this be ok even though 3 of them would be used for audio instead of video? I have a set of audioquest rca's for the two back surrounds.

Component video cables will work fine. Video cables are the same as audio cables, but rated at 75 ohms to provide the necessary bandwidth for video. Many people order from forum sponsor monoprice.com. Their "premium" audio cables cost $3/ pair.

Hi All,
Looking to upgrade my BDP-S300 to the 550. I was wondering if some kind person could confirm if you set the output to 1080i it will output to HDMI and component simultaneously? My reading of the manual seems to indicate that it would, but confirmation would be good. The BDP-S300 does do this.

Also, any thoughts on the component output of this player?

Regards,
Stephen

This is a new player. I've contacted Sony Support several times and I can assure you that they are not familiar with this player. Most likely they have not been trained and their support resources not completely updated.
Having worked in tech support for a computer company for a number of years in my younger days, we rarely got enough training on new products before release. But then eventually caught up as more information became available and enough calls were logged to get a sort of knowledge base of common questions, workarounds, and fixes. Early adopters are often just a later stage of beta testing....

Well... let me get this straight.

First of all, I have a home theater with a receiver with HDMI1.3 and decoding of all the lossless formats (Denon 3808). I am surrently using a BDP-S1 in here, so no access to DTS HD Master. Want to upgrade to BD-Live and lossless DTS.

I also have a BDP-S350 in my office for background noise and the ability to watch extras and things while I work. It's connected to a 19" Sharp LCD HDTV via HDMI. Obviously, I don't care much about lossless here. For this purpose, I am incredibly impressed with the S350... it is cheap, fast, incredible picture, pretty good upscaling, full BDLive functionality, great comfy remote (which works with the volume control for my TV), small, and damn nice looking.

If I understand correctly, if I get a BDP-S350 for the HT, I would have to manually switch between Mix (for listening to pip commentaries mixed with the soundtrack, lossy) and Direct (to bitstream top the receiver for decoding lossless, but not access to secondary audio stream). I also believe I will not get menu sounds, etc if in Direct mode. I couldn't care less if the soundtrack during pip play is lossless or not.

So I was looking to get the S550 so that I could leave the player in Mix mode (outputting PCM) and get lossless for soundtracks and still be able to mix secondary audio. However, it now sounds like you still have to make the setup change (Direct/Mix) to do this?

I also have yet to hear of any improvements in video or upscaling, and there is still no frame advance/slow-mo compared to the S350. Thus, it seems to me this eliminates the only benefit I (and anyone else with HDMI1.3 receiver) would have gotten with the S550. So basically only people that need the analog connections seem to benefit from the S550. Correct? Am I missing something?

This player is just awesome. I love it!

Well ... It has apparently already shppped from Crutchfield, expected delivery is October 15, 2008.

Or in the case of Pioneer 05/51, the consumer started the beta testing (Best Buy "leak") and still is!

So far it appears that no one has had any issues playing any BRs. It appears that The Happening, released last week, would not play on many players. So I just wondered in anyone tried it on the 550 yet and what the results were? Or for that matter, has anyone experenced any playback issues with the player, using any BR?

I would also like to hear more comments concerning the upscaling ability of the player with SD, compared to your older player. thanks.

Does the S350 have the frame advance/slow-mo? If it does, I might consider the S350 instead of the S550.

No it doesn't.

Leaving the S550 in mix mode will only get you the lossy core DTS 5.1 and not the lossless DTS-HD decoded to LPCM over analog or HDMI, and will not bitstream the lossless to your receiver.

I played The Happening on the S550. Worked fine...even with the BonusView enabled.

Hi!
Anybody have any idea on what happens when you play a DTS HD Master 6.1 track(XMen Last stand) when using a 7.1 configuration via the analogue`s.
Thanks in advance
Nick.

The S550 is simply the S350 with a few more features, and I think by now we all know what those are.

However my guess is:

- It too probably doesn't have frame advance/Slow-mo (like the PS3 does)

- It too probably doesn't have Multiple Disc Resume (like the PS3 does)

- it too probably won't have a better quality DVD 1080p upscale (like the PS3 does)

Ah bummer. So there's no way to set it to output 480i for SD DVD and 1080p for BD by default without having to futz with menus? Then it's just like S350 behavior -- less than ideal.

Definitely less than ideal. But it takes less time to switch in the very quick menu system than it did for me to type out this response.

- Correct
- Correct
- The S550 looks pretty good to me. I have both S550 and PS3 connected via HDMI to a Sony AVR and output 1080P over HDMI to a 60" 1080P SXRD rear projection. They both look good to me.

You forgot that the PS3 also has the ability to decode DTS-HD MA 7.1 to LPCM and mix with secondary audio from bonusview before sending multi channel 7.1 LPCM over the HDMI.

I think the usability of the S550 is better than the PS3. I have the PS3 BD remote (which is bluetooth) which allows me to control and navigate the BD menus and playback....however I still need the game controller to navigate the PS3 crossbar menus.
The PS3 also lacks bitstreaming DTS-HD/TrueHD (but does decode of course) and obviously doesn't have analog outputs.
Other than those they are pretty close... PS3 is a good box if you game and/or don't mind the controller/remote shuffle, and don't need multi channel analog output or can accept multi-channel LPCM over HDMI

I have a Denon 2309 receiver, so I have HDMI 1.3 capability.

I'm considering the 550, the 350, and the PS3 for my BD. I have a few questions about them. Most of this thread is technical, at least for my knowledge of Home Theater (lossy, DTS-MA, etc).

I don't play games much, so I don't have a lot of use for the PS3 as a game machine.

However, from the last few posts, it seems to me that the PS3 is a very capable BD player. Other than the remote, what is it's shortcoming? Will it have just as good audio/video output as the 550? What does the 550 do that a 350 won't do?

I appreciate any help.

I don't doubt that's true, but I've never found any functionality for BD playback to be missing with the BD remote. Sorry for the OT discussion.



For the poster above with an HDMI 1.3 AVR, the choice would be b/w the s350 and the PS3. The only thing the s550 adds is analog outputs and internal decoding which you don't need.

The PS3 will be faster but also has a bluetooth remote so there's some tradeoff there. There are aftermarket IRBT converters available or you can simply use either the supplied bluetooth game controller or get the add-on bluetooth BD remote.

If you plan to install inside a relatively confined space with less than ample ventilation, you'd probably be better off with the s350.

Thank you very much.

This board is awesome. The only problem is there's so much info, it's hard to digest it all.