Official Panasonic DMP-BD35/55 Owners Thread - Page 443

The digital output settings have no effect on decoding for analog output. So, you can set DD and DTS to PCM or bitstream. The player will decode whatever track you are playing regardless of those settings.

But, there's no way to get lossless with secondary audio. The player will always decode the DD 5.1 or DTS track instead of the lossless one when secondary audio is set to On. The notion of lossless audio mixed with a commentary track doesn't make much sense, of course. But, the Panasonic design means you have to change the player setup in order to listen to secondary audio and then change it back for lossless decoding.

That's what I thought. I had a suspicion that with the analog outs it might be able to do lossless and have the secondary, but obviously not. Whenever I want to watch something with pip I will just switch the secondary to on and leave it off the rest of the time.

Ok finally got the hdmi on my Pioneer VSC-81TXV receiver to work. Have hdmi running from Panasonic BD35 to hdmi in and hdmi out running to Samsung LNT-4671. What setting does my Panasonic BD35 need to be set at to let the BD player decode Dolby trueHD and DTS-HD and send to my receiver.This is what I have set right now.

Dolby D/ Dolby D+/Dolby TrueHD - Biststream
DTS/DTS-HD - Bitstream

BDVideo Secondary Audio - Off

Are these setting right or should I have them set to PCM with Secondary Off

Thanks for any help.

That one.

Does the Pioneer NOT decode the lossless codecs? Are you sure it supports multichannel PCM?

If you want the BD35 to decode DD and DTS you need to set them to "PCM". "Bitstream" will send the native DD/DTS bitstreams to the AVR for decoding. Secondary audio should be off in either case.

The Pioneer does not decode lossless codecs. The receiver does show PCM on the screen.

Then you are in business.

Updated mine to 2.1 last night - took about 5 minutes via ethernet (wired connection - Powerline adaptor).

In the past, haven't these updates occasionally proceeded or directly followed a BD release of something that will have some BD-Live functionality? I seem to recall an update last XMAS season addressed some issues w/ The Dark Knight.

I only wonder since Panny seems to be somewhat in bed w/ Disney (Disney BD promo from last year on these players, Disney flicks prominently featured in past Panny BD ads), Disney owns ABC, ABC/BuenaVIsta has Season 5 of LOST coming today, which has A LOT of BD-Live interactivity w/ it's Lost Univeristy (1st BD-Live feature I'm actually looking forward to).

Just wondering.

If you want your bd 35 to decode the lossless audio formats, just set it to PCM output and it will send the decoded signals to your receiver as a multi-channel audio input (that is your receiver won't show DTS-Master HD or Dolby Digital trueHD, it will just show it as a multi-channel input, but it will have been already decoded by the Panny and you are good to go.

I'm looking for help. I have a quick question. I have the BD-55 and it is hooked up to a Pioneer VSX-80 using the analog 5.1 connections because the HDMI is pass through only. I assume that I will be hearing True HD and DST Master audio with this set up. Are there any other settings that need to be set to properly hear True HD and DST Master?

Thanks in advanced

I have a 35, not a 55, so I'm just going from what's here in the thread and the manual.

Page 34 of the manual (available electronically here) describes how to configure the Analog Audio format (2.0, 5.1, 7.1) and the speaker distance configuration. There is a discussion starting here in this thread that this may be unnecessary if your receiver does bass management on analog 5.1/7.1 inputs.

The manual also suggests you may need to disable HDMI Audio Out to avoid inconsistent results. Not everyone finds this necessary.

I found a lot of discussion of the various choices by searching this thread for "BD55 analog 5.1 audio". And you can search the manual for "analog" after downloading it.

... And don't forget to turn secondary audio off.

Also make sure that on the BD Movie you're playing you double check that the soundtrack selected is the HD soundtrack...they don't all default to it. I used a Sony AVR with analog connections from the 55 to my AVR and it worked fine for me, as the Sony does bass management. Also, as previously stated, make sure secondary audio is set to OFF in the 55's menu. I also did turn off HDMI audio.

Thanks for all the replies. I do have the HDMI audio set off and the secondary audio off as well. I didn't realize that you still had to select the True HD or DTS Master audio on the movie. For some reason I thought that because I was using the analog out/ins that it would send the highest level. Thanks again.

Yes, you would need to set your Panny BD-55 to LPCM output so it decodes the HD audio formats and sends them over the analog outputs to the AVR as a multi-channel analog input, rather than sending a Bitstream signal from the BD-55 to the AVR.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I'm sure I read somewhere that these settings have nothing to do with the Analog outputs?

Let me know if you disagree, but I'm finding more and more that the latest titles are defaulting to the HD soundtrack so that you don't have to select it as often as we did in the past. It's just become a habit of mine to go into setup first thing after I start a blu-ray movie.

Or just hit the Audio button on the remote.

Yes, definitely more are defaulting to HD.

My Panasonic DMP-BD55 has been rock solid. As long as the Blu-Ray disks weren't cracked, I have successfully played all the BDs I've rented from Netflix.

Unfortunately I just discovered my first problem BD. It is a PBS production titled Art 21: Art in the Twenty-First Century: Season Five. I tried to play two different (I hope they were different) copies, but the disks froze up my machine while loading. I couldn't even eject the disks or power off the player. Instead I cold booted by pulling the power cord. I tried to play the disk with both Firmware 2.0 and the just released Firmware 2.1, with the same disappointing result.

Has anyone else tried this title in the BD35 or BD55? I will add a similar post on the Blu-Ray Software Forum.

You may be correct about that; I have never used the analog outputs myself. I don't understand why you don't use HDMI and just set it to LPCM so the player will decode the HD audio formats and send them over to your avr all ready to play. Is there some reason this wouldn't work with your AVR?

With my OLD AVR, no choice, as there were no HDMI inputs.

With the NEW one, I'm running all HDMI.

But, the OP's question was based on a similar setup to my old setup.

I thought he had mentioned something about having HDMI, but not using them. The impression I got was that perhaps his AVR just wouldn't decode the HD audio formats, so he thougt he needed to use analog multi-channel outputs to accomplish this. Of course, some people do prefer analog outputs, but I am not one of them if digital are available.

Yes, that is necessary. If you want lossless, you must turn secondary audio off. It's true with HDMI and analog output. And it's true with the digital outputs set either way (PCM or bitstream).



You read that right. The PCM/bitstream setting has no bearing on the track that gets decoded for analog output. If you select the dts-MA track on the disc, then that's what gets decoded. (Unless secondary audio is on, of course)

The digital output settings only affect the format used for digital transmission. If you want to decode in the player for PCM output over HDMI, then you must set the digital outputs to PCM. Otherwise it will bitstream and, if the receiver lacks the needed decoders, the bitstream will be lossy instead of lossless. But, again, this has nothing to do with what gets decoded for analog output.

BIslander, thank you for your responce. I have made sure that all of the setting were correct and I can now hear the difference in the over all sound qaulity. Because my AVR has HDMI pass through, I am unable to use HDMI for True HD and Master audio. That is the reason I picked up the BD-55. Thanks to all who responded for your input. JT

I always forget about the Audio button. Talk about "creatures of habit". Were we talking about "creatures of habit"?

I have a BD55 hooked up to a Sanyo plv-Z2000 1080p projector via HDMI projecting on to a 73" diagonal 16:9 screen viewing at 8.5 foot distance.

When playing A Bugs Life Standard Def DVD there is a choice via the initial main menu of playing the movie in 4:3 ( I guess Pan & Scan) OR Widescreen 2.35 aspect ratios.

When I set the BD55 to output at 480p the letterbox bars on Widescreen are larger than when I set the player to output at 1080p. Also, it seems to me that when outputting at 480p 2.35 Widescreen or 480p 4:3 though the actual picture is smaller than at 1080p Widescreen but there possibly appears to be a little more detail in the picture in some scenes although I like the somewhat larger picture / smaller bars at the 1080p output.

So, why is there a difference in letterbox bar size at Widescreen 2.35 480p vs 1080p output? Also, even though I like the bigger size picture at 1080p should I really be using the 480p output for this movie?

I thought that I should leave the BDF55 to output at 1080p at all times so that I get the upconversion on Standard Def DVD's?


Hope this makes sense!


...Glenn

I have rented two discs of Iron Man from Netflix and both fail to play in my Panasonic BD-55. A message "Copyright Violation" appears. This is the first disc I have been unable to play with this player. I am up to date with firmware (v. 2.1). Anyone else have the same experience?

I own Iron Man in Blu-ray and haven't had a problem. I'm on v2.1 firmware.

same here, i own the Iron Man disc and played several times with no problems on original firmware.