Official Panasonic DMP-BD35/55 Owners Thread - Page 121

First i want to say thank you to everyone who has given me suggestions to access bd-live however i still cannot access bd-live. Here is the scenario i have a panasonic BD55 with a 8GB SDHC card in the sd card slot i have a D-link DID-655 Router and when i have it connected through the router it blocks my bd-live connection. When i go direct through my modem it works like a charm. I know that the router definitly blocking the connection somehow i just need to find how and what i need to do to change that. I have tried mac address filtering and DMZ and bothe those options did not seem to work i would like to try fowarding ports however i have no idea what ports BD-Live uses.

Thanks

Jayridescarbon, I can't remember if I tried that yet or not. I'm at work now but will try it when I get home. Thanks for the input.

You could get one of these optical to coax converters.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/pr...seq=1&format=2

That's a litte cheaper than upgrading to the BD55.

Really? That is not my understanding or the understanding of the others who have been posting in this thread since the BD55 was released. I believe the BD55 decodes whatever audio track is being played and converts the resulting PCM to analog for output. As far as I know, it does not use a lossy track in place of the lossless one based on the setting of the digital outputs. Perhaps you can provide a source for your information on this topic.

Also, I am not sure what you mean by a "DTSHD and DTHD capable prepro". When using analog, any receiver/prepro is "capable". It's just analog audio at that point.

Not true. We are talking about the North American version of the players, right? If using the multi-channel analog outputs, then the "Digital Audio Output" settings of PCM/Bitstream have no effect. Secondary Audio=On/Off does matter, but only if you are using the full 7.1 channels over analog (rear channels will be lost if there is secondary audio or menu clicks in the stream, if Secondary Audio is ON, but only on PCM7.1 and Dolby TrueHD 7.1 titles).

And your description of using analog concurrent with fiberoptic is also incorrect for the BD35 and BD55. Unlike the earlier generation BD30, the BD35 and BD55 have only one setting each for DTS and Dolby. DTS=bitstream will bitstream DTS over HDMI and fiberoptic. DTS=PCM will do multi-channel PCM over HDMI and 2-channel PCM over fiberoptic.

So if you really want to use both the multi-channel analog outputs *and* the fiberoptic or coax digital outputs concurrently, then the only setting that will work properly for that is to set Digital Audio Outputs for DTS=bitstream and Dolby=bitstream. This allows the analog outputs to pass fully decoded audio over analog and allows the fiberoptic and coax outputs of the BD5 to pass the regular DTS and Dolby Digital bitstreams.

-CB

[quote=Stew4msu;15139400]Why did you have to stretch the picture? Not sure I underestand. What movie was it? What's the aspect ratio of the movie? Where were the black bars? The DVD player will not fill the screen (16:9), unless the movie is also 16:9. If the movie is any other aspect ration (i.e. 2.35:1), then you'll have black bars on the top and bottom. That's the way it's supposed to be. You can't make it fit the screen without altering the image (stretching or cropping). It'd be like putting a square peg in a round hole. Not only do they not need to be stretched, they shouldn't be stretched. You want those black bars.


I'm talking about black bars on the left and right of the screen. It was a standard dvd, the chronicles of narnia, not a widescreen version. I later tried a widescreen dvd, disturbia, and this dvd displayed perfectly with no black bars on the left and right and no need to stretch. So i tried a regular dvd and a widescreen dvd and from what i understand the widescreen dvds fill the screen from left to right with no stretch needed but regular dvds still need to be stretched. Correct? i was under the impression that all standard dvds, even ones that arent widescreen would fit the sreen from left to right making a stretched picture a thing of the past.

The tv is 720p

You don't need to tell it what to decode. You play a track and that's what gets decoded. When you get an HDMI 1.3 receiver with lossless decoders, you will be able to do the comparisons by switching the player setup for the digital outputs between PCM and bitstream.


Two things here.

First, I oversimplified my previous response to you re: the effect of secondary audio. According to the manual, if you have secondary audio set to On and you play a disc with a 7.1 PCM soundtrack that includes secondary audio (PIP or menu clicks), then the output is downmixed to 5.1. So, if you set secondary to Off and play 3:10 to Yuma, do you get 7.1?

Second, your experience with 3:10 to yuma is interesting because a downmix is not supposed to happen if secondary audio is off. At least, I don't think so. Is the Digital Out = Bitstream the only change you made? Also, what is your PCM Downconversion setting? If it is On, try changing it to Off and see if you get 7.1.

btw, there are only a handful of discs with 7.1 PCM tracks. So, whatever is happening isn't likely to affect many movies.

I should also let you know that I have a 5.1 system. So, I am not able to test any the peculiarities of 7.1 setups myself.

OK, your Narnia DVD is in 4:3 ratio (also known as pan and scan). How would it be possible to make it fit a 16:9 screen without stretching it? It either has to be stretched or it has to be zoomed and the top and bottom chopped off. Neither of those would be acceptable to me. That being said, there's a reason most people don't buy pan and scan DVD's. They're already chopped. Widescreen DVD's have been available for many, many years and that's what you should have purchased. It's unfortunate that you didn't, as now you have to live with seeing not only a chopped up version of the film, but you'll have bars on the sides too.

In summary, there's no way to get a square picture to fit a rectangular screen unless you stretch it. My advise would be to replace all of your pan and scan movies with the widescreen (or blu ray) versions. And even if your TV or player can stretch the picture - don't. Just live with the bars.

I have the BD35, with a D-Link DGS-2208 and have no problems with BD-Live although I don't use it often as BD-Live is so slow.

Forward ALL ports. Set port forwarding from port 0 to 9999 to the IP address of the Blu Ray player. If it doesn't work then you know Port forwarding is not the issue. If it does work you can do some more research if you want to know which port to forward.

[quote=jkl25;15140711]
Think of your Narnia movie as a square. It is displayed as a square because that is how the DVD is made.

Now remember your TV is a rectangle. Ask yourself this, how can I make a Square turn into a Rectangle? The answer is to either stretch the Square or Zoom in on the Square.

So we have a DVD which is displayed in a "square" picture but needs to fit in a rectangular tv... what do we do? We either stretch it, zoom in, or leave it alone. Stretch distorts the image, zoom causes the top and bottom of the picture to come up missing and leaving it alone leaves black bars on the side.

Hi Sean,

I have a DMP-BD55. I didn't spend much time with this feature, but like you I did notice that the speaker test quit after the left surround. A friend of mine also mentioned he had problems with the speaker tests on this disc using his PS3.

I think the disc is problematic and I'll be sticking with Video Digital Essentials HD.

Larry

Damn. I think avsforum ate my post! (At least the Dingo didn't get my baby). As others have answered, including me if the post ever re-appears, you can't make a "square peg fit in a rectangular hole." In other words, you can't get a "full screen" (4:3) DVD to fill a widescreen (16:9) TV screen without either zooming and cropping out the edges or stretching the picture to fit. You're not the first person to make the assumption that an upconverting DVD player will convert a full screen DVD to widescreen, but it's just not physically possible to do.

An upconverting DVD player simply de-interlaces the 480i content on the DVD to 480p then upscales it to 720p, 1080i or 1080p resolution. It doesn't magically turn standard def into high def but a good upconverting DVD player can make standard definition content look sharper than it normally does. The BD35/BD55 do a very good job with upconversion, but there are some high-end TVs, receivers, dedicated upconverting DVD players and outboard converters that do an even better job.

For your old full screen 4:3 DVDs, you'll have to zoom/crop or stretch them, or just get used to watching them with the black bars on the sides. Ideally, dump them and get Blu-rays or at least widescreen DVDs to replace them. It will be better for your sanity if not for your wallet.


Yes, for your TV, 1080p is the right HDMI output setting on the BD55. Your TV will then take the 1080p signal and scale it to fit the native resolution of the TV which is either 1366x768 pixels (50-inch version) or 1024x768 (42-inch version).

Hope that helps.

-Chris

Yes,

I had the same problem on my Wall-E copy. the surround test would stop on the left suround speaker on my Panny 35. Its the disc, not the player.

Chris, by fully decoded audio , I assume you mean the lossless tracks. Is that right?

This is how I have my player set up. I use the analog for BD and the coax for DVD. Boy do I wish there were a BD that had lossless tracks that said "this is the left speaker on lossless track" etc, so that we could all verify which tracks we were gettting.

Thats a big bummer and deal breaker for me! I wanted something to play by HF100 files from my computer. They are just m2ts files in numeric order and I cannot skip easily, then this stinks! I also have an HF100 and was the primary reason for this as I get 1 dvd rentals from shop-rite...and 5$ blu rays are not cost effective rentals

Can anyone comments if thumbnails showup if single M2ts files are loaded onto SD?

Hi everyone!
First, thanks to everyone in this forum, I have taken my first step into a larger world and now have a Panny 58 inch 800u plasma, a Panny bd35 blu-ray player and a Denon 789 reciever! Now I just have to connect them all! It is my first time making sure all of these guys get along and I can use some help!
Can anyone offer somes tips, an FAQ or a link to a set up guide for newbies? I have the Audyssey setup guide already. All of these components will be hooked up for the first time using HDMI cables. Should I do that in a certain order? Anything that you guys can suggest would be very helpful! And don't be afraid to cover the basics, I can use the help!
Thanks alot, Tom

I have the HF100 as well with this player. Can't skip easily. I use a 16GB SDHC card with over 50 separate recordings (50 mts files), with 8gb remaining. To view my latest recording, I would have to hit Next 49 times. If there was a way to enter chapter number, it would fix this problem.

I burned my mts files using Toast to DVD-R and got the same native HD quality. However, a single layer dvd can only fit about 30min of AVCHD. You can create thumbnails in Toast and this helps. Chapter search function works with AVCHD dvd's, but it's sorta pointless now since it's sorted by title rather than by chapter. Entering a chapter does nothing in this case (since there are 20 titles for example and each only has 1 chapter now)

35 --- HDMI ---- 789 ---- HDMI ---- 800u

I am sorry if this has been answered.
I looked through the last several pages of this thread and am not seeing it addressed.
several people on another forum are reporting "copyright violation" messages that are preventing playback of various bd titles.
What is the scoop with this phenomenon?
Has Panny been made aware of this?
what are the solutions so far?
thanks in advance.

Yes, the lossless tracks are what I'm talking about. FWIU, iIn order to convert DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD to analog, you first have to extract the embedded PCM track within it, then convert this to analog. This happens whether you set the Digital Audio Output to Bitstream or to PCM as long as you are using the analog outputs. I'm double-checking with a guy from Dolby about this, but that's my understanding of the D/A process for the lossless codecs.

And yes, it would be cool if Dolby put out a test disc that had test tones that *only* appeared in the TrueHD track with something DIFFERENT in the Dolby Digital companion track. Since the TrueHD and Dolby Digital companion track are effectively discrete, I think that would be doable but I've never seen something like that. Sure would make life easier for a gear reviewer.

For DTS-HD it would be a lot trickier because the lossy "core" DTS track is used for legacy purposes and includes pretty much the same sonic information as the DTS-HD track, but there is additional data in the DTS-HD stream that supplements the core track to make it lossless. Complicated, and probably not so simple to embed audible data in there that would be audible in DTS-HD MA but not audible in the core DTS track which is a part of the DTS-HD track.

-CB

What forum and what titles are causing this? I only recall seeing that message come up in this thread once or twice and I think these were typically on dirty rental discs. Are you getting the error yourself? If so, have you examined the disc to see if it's clean?

So far the only known disc playback compatibility issue with the BD35/BD55 is "Starship Troopers" which will only play if you insert an SD card.

-CB

My BD35 will be arriving tomorrow. I'm connecting to a bedroom set up which includes an older Panasonic AVR (no HDMI) that has optical and 6 channel analog inputs, but has only 3 speakers (2 fronts + center) hooked up to it.

Am I better off just using optical to get the standard DD and core DTS sent to my receiver to have it downmix the audio to the three channels or is there any way to get the BD35 to downmix the lossless/HD audio codecs and output them through the two channel analogs for my AVR to pass through? I'd be willing to sacrafice the center channel to get lossless audio through the mains, as the speakers are relatively close to each other and the TV anyway. I also plan to use the BD35 for CD music listening and wonder if the 2-channel analog connection would give me optimal sound as well.

Unfortunately I've been unable to locate a North American user manual for the BD35 to plan my set up. Thanks.

Is there a reason no one has responded to my query regarding coming? Is this a firmware fix, or is it that my new $400 BluRay player cannot present images in SD as well as my $100 Oppo?

From Craig over at Dolby:

"For a player that decodes Dolby TrueHD and is equipped with Multichannel analogue outputs:

The decoder inside the player decodes to PCM---the PCM signal goes through D/A conversion for output via multichannel analogue outputs. (or is sent as a PCM signal via HDMI directly to connected AVR as
applicable)"

So, yeah, what I said. Dolby TrueHD (and DTS-HD for that matter) must be extracted to PCM in order to be converted to analog. So the digital audio output setting (bitstream/PCM) on the BD55 makes no difference to the analog outputs.

-CB

I just picked up a BD35 today through the "Sears" deal. I actually got it at Best Buy. I know this is a personal preference thing, but do you think it is worth it to spend $30 to get 2 years worth of protection? Are these units pretty reliable?

Yes, the Oppos are far better at de-interlacing SD-DVD than any current BD player. Especially on those discs with problematic mastering.

While the disc is playing, if you select the "display" button, then select "signal type" it will indicate the audio track presently selected (and allow you to switch to another if the programming of the disc allows)

Wow. Where'd you get a $100 OPPO? The cheapest one I've seen is $169.

Does it play Blu-ray Discs?

-CB

Yes, it shows you what is coming off the disc, but it does not tell you what is coming out of the player (or to be more precise what is happening to that track within the player).

-CB