The Official Sony BDP-S550 Owner's Thread - Page 132

G'day ausdavep, just sent the following emial to sony au .

.Hi Thought i'd like to make you aware that we are having problems playing Prometheus Bluray movie on our bluray players . My friend also has the same BDPS550 with the same latest firmware upgrade 07.2.024 and has exactly the same problem with micro blocking. I looked it up on the net and it has been a problem around the world. My question is why is region A having new Firmware upgrade to 026 which seems to solve the problem and where not in Australia. Check out Sony BDPS550 AV owners forum where its talked about .http://www.avsforum.com/t/1073637/the-official-sony-bdp-s550-owners-thread/3900#post_22721254 . Hope we get the upgrade soon

Hopefully they are more receptive to you. I basically got the "oh well, different regions have different disks, so gtfo" typical lazy corporate Australia excuse where no one is actually interested in doing their job any more

I have never updated the firmware on my Sony S550. Has there been any updates with any benefits worth while? I am in Canada.

G'day ,
That's a good question ! I always assumed the upgrades allowed us to play the movies with new security protections as they came out.. If you've had no issues like the one I'm having at the moment with the Prometheus BD movie I wouldn't bother changing anything.

Hi all, I have a response from Sony Australia .They are posting a copy of firmware 026 to me. They say its an Australasian version for my B region BDP player..I'll let you know when it comes and if it resolves the problem.

I'd love a copy if/when you receive it. Not sure why they haven't posted it onto their support website. Probably incompetence.

I have been having problems with the star wars blurays lately...I am updated to 07.4.026 firmware but its very strange sometimes the 550 will play the star wars blurays and sometimes it comes up as cant read disc. I turned off BD live and the auto update but it works about 50% of the time on any of the star wars BD...I have not had any trouble on any other BD. Any suggestions and does anyone know if Sony plans on doing another firmware update soon? thanks...

So I've been informed by 2 Sony imbeciles that the firmware being sent to you doesn't exist. Maybe they're just sending you a disk of porn :|

It is a bit strange that Sony would release BDP-S550 firmware version #026 only for region A players. Anyone have a clue why? Maybe problem reports for certain releases only came from region A? Or Fox put out garbage drm routines on their releases only in region A?

I confirmed that the disc with 026 firmware is coming. I re-emailed the level two Sony technician that finally emailed me back on new years eve . It is coming from New Zealand so he said be patient it might take a few days ...

I have to say guys that Sony Australia probably arn't that fussed about this whole situation , reality is my other friend and neighbor who also has a BDP S 550 ( I have two other friends with the S550 too) went out and bought a new Sony Blu-ray player on the weekend because he was sick of new releases not working in his 550 and it only cost him $110 bucks . I helped him connect it in yesterday and the thing does everything except on board decoding.e.g DTS MA ext---.

It has wireless which allows him to play all his movie and music files of his media server ,oh and even decodes SACD which also passes via HDMI . ..I was impressed for a $110 bucks..

Personally I really don't need the on board decoding either, after upgrading a couple of months back to Integra DHC80.3 processor .

Anyway I''l let you all know what happens after the Disc arrives.

Yep, certainly wasn't doubting you, whilst Sony make good products, their "support" here would be laughable if it wasn't for the fact that in sure I dropped over $500 back in the day.

Anyway, still keen to hear what happens when the disk turns up (and for a copy at some point )

Hi all,
It arrived I installed the firmware 026 yesterday on my 550 player.. I'm going to borrow the Prometheus Blu-ray of my mate this weekend and see how it goes . Watched the new release Bourne legacy BD Movie last night without any problems. So Far so good.

Great stuff - what sort of file size & type are we looking at? Something copyable to send down to Melbourne (or emailable)?

I'll get back to to you soon Ausdavep and let you know . Just flat out with work at present sorry.

Sony S550 , how to I set LFE to route to main speakers?

I have just purchased a used sony s550 Blu ray player to connect to by legacy Yamaha recever via analog 5.1 outputs.

I do have a powered M&K sub woofer, but it is "in line" with my main speakers. An external crossover sends all frequencies below 75hz to the sub and the rest to the main. This works well when i am playing audio cd's etc as well.

In the S550 I set the following;

1) I set all speakers size to Large

2) i set sub to None

3) i set CD audio to direct

i assume by this selection, all LFE signals are sent to the main speakers... is that correct? its sounds a little light on the low frequencies so i wanted to make sure that it was in fact sending the bass to the mains.

Did i do this correctly?

Yeah your definitely good to go. Speakers set to large always have the bass frequencies directed to them. The 550 has a great digital to analog converter. My 550 is currently connected to a Pioneer HDMI receiver that can decode all the latest lossless formats, but I originally used it on older Sony receiver that had no HDMI capabilities in addition to the latest codecs. So I connected through the Sony's 7.1 inputs, and I thought it sounded great. Although my analog setup included a subwoofer.

Have you run the BR players test tones and level matched the speakers/sub?

Why are you running the sub in-line, instead of the sub-out of the Yamaha?

I am not sure what happens to the LFE track if there is no sub selected - it may in fact be discarded.


EDIT:
This person pretty much describes your issue

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/280065/bdp-s550-multi-channel-no-sub-lfe-to-fronts

tbh, if your yamaha has a pre-out for the sub, i'd be running it from that.

EDIT2:

another excellent article on LFE and bass management

http://www.soundstage.com/video/columns/200003_db_hometheaterbass.htm
Edited by ausdavep - 1/15/13 at 6:39pm

thanks for the reply. to answer some of your questions

1) when i run the level test tones on the s550, since i select "no sub" there are no tones generated for the sub in that screen. now that i think about it, that probably answers the questions, what happens to the LFE signal, its just discarded I assume.

2) i never used the sub out on the yamaha because i wanted a lower crossover point, about 75-80hz, rather than the 200hz that is fixed when using the sub output. so i use the pre-amp out and in loop to connect the external M&K crossover.

3) the soundstage article is great and has lots of info.

I think what i will try is scrap my in-line low pass filter and just connect the sub to the sub-out on the s550 direct. My yamaha receiver doesn't have a sub line in, its 15 years old and it only has 5 discrete analog inputs, main (L.R), surround (L.R) and center. i guess since it was old ac/3 dolby digital is must have received the .1 bass signal through those inputs somehow.

the only down side to the direct connection of the sub to the s550, is when i play audio CDs and the connect via stereo RCA L/R outputs to the receiver, the sub will not be used at all. right now the way i have it set up the subs handle everything under 75hz that i play through the system.

anyway, thanks for all your help

steve

hmmm must be a golden oldie receiver! Any idea what model it is?

Connecting direct to the sub out of the SOny is worth a shot, although im not sure if it will have the same line voltages as an avr pre-out - best to have the volume turned down nice and low before running the test tone

Yes, according to the manual for the S550, setting "front" speakers to large, and "subwoofer" to none tells the player to include bass signals in the output for the front left and right analog output connections. I assume you have set the "surround back" channels to none also? I would not connect the subwoofer directly to the player. My experience is that getting the lfe bass signal balanced when using the multi-channel analog connections is a major problem unless you are processing a separate lfe channel from the player to the receiver with the ability in your receiver to amplify it by about 10db to bring it into balance with the other channels. I fought this battle for a while with my system - then bought a 7.1 channel receiver capable of handling hdmi and all the lossless audio codecs . . . run 1 hdmi cable from the player to the receiver, sit back and enjoy.

My receiver is a Yamaha RX-V2090, I purchased 13 years ago (2000). It has outstanding sound quality and very good overall power. This was Yamaha high end at the time.

keep in mind that originally I had a separate Yamaha DDP-1 decoder for Dolby Digital and AC/3 decoding. The setup was a coax from the dvd player to the DDP-1, then the 5 channel analog (Main L/R), surround (L/R) and Center where then sent to the analog inputs of the 2090. I now use the same 5 inputs of the 2090 with signals sent by the Sony S550.

There does not seem to be a sub woofer line input on the receiver at all. so quite frankly of I cant get the LFE signal to be sent in the mains signal from the s550, i either keep it the way it is, or try to direct connect the powered sub to the S550. There is a volume control on the M&K sub, as well as a low pass filter dial control. I am just not sure, but its probably worth a try,

I played the amazing spiderman latest blue ray last night and it sounded awsome... with the exception of super low bass. that's what is telling me that the LFE is not being routed to the mains by the player. Maybe i a wrong on that.

One other thought, is there a audio setup and testing blue ray that uses the latest DTS and Dolby signals that i can purchase that can help isolate and see if the signal is going to the mains?

thanks

I do want to eventually buy a nice HDMI receiver, but in order to get the same power and sound quality of the yamaha i have now, its not going to be a low end model. so i am saving up for it.

as far as the manual, i read it a few times... i cant find where it actually says it will route the LFE signals to the mains if you set sub to off.

There are 2 comments in the s550 manual that are related to this..

1) (page 47). Since subwoofer use is set as the player default setting, "subwoofer" cannot be set to "none" when "front" is set to "small". - This makes sense to me.

2 (page 47) When connecting the front speakers that CANNOT reproduce adequate low frequencies and a subwoofer is NOT connected, set "front" to "large" and subwoofer to "none". -- This doesnt make sense to me, this is how i have it set up now. seems to be counter intuitive statement to me.

anyway, thanks for all your help

steve

Yeah, although the two statements are somewhat contradictory, I think the second statement is just reinforcing the first, i.e. it should read something like "even if your speakers are small, set them to large if you have no sub".

That old amp sure is a beast. I think it might be worth a shot connecting the sub-out directly to the sub, and just apply gain as a combination of the in-player channel trim and volume on the sub. Rich didnt really get good results, but theres nothing stopping you from trying, especially if you have an SPL to assist.

Not necessarily.

You would want to re-run a test with a test disc with known .1 channel content to verify if the player does or does not redirect .1 content to the main L/R channels.

The player generated test tomes are there to simply verify channel connectivity without regard to any Bass Management settings. While the 550 may in fact fail to redirect the .1 when set for no sub, the player generated test tones will not allow you to confirm that.

I recently ran the same test with my Oppo 93 using the Chesky Ultimate DVD, and conformed that the Oppo does properly redirect the .1 channel to the main L/R channels (set to large). I do have a 550 in a 2nd system, but it is not connected to an AVR and I can not test it for you.

I am not sure, but a DVD with the THX Optimizer may have audio test tones that could be used.

Good Luck,

Brian

Yup. I had the same problem with Total Recall. Legacy is due for the weekend....

Thanks for contacting Sony.

There is a known issue with Total Recall. It is the disc not the player. Do a Google search for a work around or return the disc.

I have replaced Total Recall once from the store each had the same problem in the same location.

Just purchased Blu-Ray version of "The Searchers" (John Wayne classic) from Amazon. Inside was a slip of paper warning that "your Blu-Ray player may need a firmware update". I wasn't too concerned because my player is connected to the Internet and updates automatically. But I checked anyway and I have the latest version (7.4.26). So I insert the disc and it says "Unknown" and when I click on unknown it says "Can not play this disc". Any ideas?

Most likely a defective disc.