Official Panasonic DMP-BD35/55 Owners Thread - Page 149

There's no such thing as "HD Audio" per se. In your case, the issue is the number of channels. A 7.1 recording should have metadata to handle a 6.1 downmix. But, if you don't have HDMI, it doesn't matter. Unfortunately, these players don't do 6.1 downmixes themselves.

That leaves you with using lossless over analog or the optical connection. With 5.1 analog lossless, your rear speaker will always be silent. With optical, you can use the receiver to produce sound for the rear.

If you go the 7.1 route and only hook up one channel or try the Y connnector, you'll get sound in the rear, but you probably won't like it much.

What's wrong with the Y connector approach?

I am now considering getting the 35...can someone point me to where the best deals are? B&M or Online...either way is fine as long as they are reputable.

Thanks.

Ask Chris.

My head is spinning after reading tons of posts.

I have a receiver no hdmi input so I will be using the optical for sound on the Panny 35. I believe my settings on the 35 should be for bitstream? Is there any other settings that I should be using to get the optimal sound from this connection.

In your case, nothing at all.
The 2 discrete surround back channels would be combined into 1 surround back channel (albeit not discrete).
As Chris pointed out, your setup problem is solved.

Does your receiver accept RCA analog external inputs?
If so, you will want to use these to receive the lossless audio codecs for optimal sound.

I got a replacement Doomsday disc from BB online and it played fine... no issues. Are there any Netflix or BB renters that have had issues playing scratched discs? I'm just wondering if my player is less forgiving or if this is a common issue? I was never much of a renter when I have my BD10A so I can't really compare.

Is that really OK? I know that it is OK to gang together inputs but I am not sure it is OK to gang outputs together. This will result in one output driving into the other output.

I am sure this is beyond most people's capabilities but I would add a resistor somewhere in value between the output impedance of the player and the input impedence of the receiver in-line with the outputs of the player and before they are joined by the Y cable. Maybe I am just paranoid?

I also turned HDMI Audio off on mine.

Bet his head is spinning a lot faster after your post oink.

The "Panny 35" doesn't have analog outputs for the lossless audio codecs.

Paul

He has the 35. No 7.1 analog outputs. If he had the 55 he would definitely want to use the analog outputs though.

Thanks. Appreciate it and good find.

Yes, you will get the sum of left plus right in the one output. If the two channels are discrete, then this will probably sound OK, but if the rear channels are processed pseudo surround (with phase tricks) then this is not going to sound great because the signals will partially cancel each other out.

You'd probably be better off getting a receiver that supports HDMI input which can be configured for 6.1-channel output (most do support 6.1-channel configurations from what I've seen). This would allow you to perform the upmix or downmix electronically and would probably get you better results.

And I think you'd still get to keep the wife if that is your preference.

-CB

Woot!

Just ordered on of these from Amazon for $229. Can't wait!

First BD player (time to sell the ol' HD-A35 and some HD DVDs)

I am trying to get an answer to that question, too. If/when I do, I will be sure to share...

-CB

Thanks for the info earlier Boylan, I think I am going to go with this over the Sammy.


Amazon has a promo where you get $100 if you buy 4 movies. The selection is pretyt weak, however you can get a few cheap movies and still knock off around $20 of the price and stillg et 4 movies for free. With this promo it comes up to around $202 shipped for me.

or HDMI if your receiver has inputs for HDMI. I use optical an it works fine

Try turning off the HDMI audio in the BD35"s setup menu. Sometimes when the HDMI hand shake between the DVD player TV tells the player that the receiving unit, the TV, has only stereo capability, it turns of decoding of the multichannel sound and send only stereo information. I have this problem on my DVR/cable box. If I connect to the TV with HDMI it won't send 5:1 sound to my receiver via the optical cable.

Thanks for the reply. Even if I re-calibrate the display? To clarify, I can't get BTB bars to appear (no matter what settings I use....something in my setup clips them) unless I go into the BD-35's User pic controls and crank brigthness. That throws calibration out of whack, so I go back to my projector and re-calibrate so the BTB bars are no longer visible. Is that still messing things up?

I have the BD-55 and am using it with my Lexicon MC-8 pre/pro via analog outputs. I have no subwoofer in my theater since my L&R Def Tech floorstanders each have built-in powered subwoofers. Before the Panny, the LFE/sub signal (via S/PDIF) was routed to the L&R speakers by the Lexicon.

So here's the rub: The Panny does not route the LFE/sub signal to the L & R channels exclusively, even when you deselect the subwoofer in the Panny speaker setup menu and set the L & R speakers to large. Instead, according to Panasonic support, the BD-55 sends the LFE/sub info to all of the other remaining speakers evenly. (Which seems very strange to me.) I can't have the Lexicon do any re-routing because whenever an analog signal is sent to the Lexicon, the processor goes into 5.1 analog bypass mode.

I guess my choices are: 1) Leave it as is with the unusual handling of LFE/sub channel; 2) Go back to S/PDIF; or 3) Buy a subwoofer.

Any ideas on dealing with option 1?

I don't really see option 1 being an issue as long as the smaller rear speakers can handle it

Chris,

Can you please clarify the above "fine at all times" statement for a 5.1 system configuration.

i.e. There will be no limitation? In other words - any 96KHz soundtracks will NOT be converted to 48Khz?

Thanks & Appreciation,

Paul

Can you elaborate on your comment, "the panny 35 is a better player than the sony 350"? Better at everything, standard BR, SD upconversion, general options?

Actually, surprisingly, it sometimes does work. I always thought that the fiberoptic output on HDTVs was solely for the internal ATSC tuner to pass Dolby Digital surround sound to an external receiver or processor. But some TVs do pass-through Dolby Digital sound from HDMI input devices to fiberoptic outputs.

The problem, of course, is how do you guarantee that the TV only be sent a Dolby Digital signal over HDMI? Most DVD players (including the BD35/BD55) do not have a mode which will always output DD, so if you have a DTS soundtrack or multi-channel PCM for that matter, what gets sent to the TV? And in the case of the BD35/BD55 there is some evidence (backed up by the documentation) to suggest that the player queries the TV via HDMI, determines that it is a 2-channel device, and automatically sends it two-channel PCM, regardless of the movie's soundtrack.

I agree that ultimately he's going to need to route audio to the receiver directly, instead of through the TV, but that may be a problem is he only has one or two digital inputs on his receiver. It would be a nifty feature of a TV to be able to pass the incoming digital audio signal coming in over HDMI (be that DD, DTS or PCM) and transparently pass that out either via an HDMI output, or a fiber optic output (given the limitations of the S/PDIF format, that is).

I think it would be too complicated to implement however.

-CB

There's a whole thread for blu ray player deals. Price/deal discussions are not to be posted here.

It is generally okay to use a y-cable to connect one output to two inputs. However, I would strongly suggest that you should not use a y-cable to connect two outputs to a single input. With most electronic circuitry (not just audio) it is not okay to connect multiple outputs together. Outputs are designed to drive inputs, not other outputs. There are exceptions, but unless you know that the gear is designed to be used in this fashion you are asking for trouble. It is quite possible (maybe even likely) that you could damage the line outputs amps.

If you really want to take two output lines and put them into a single input, you should use some kind of an audio mixer circuit (shouldn't be hard to find some schematics online).

Actually, I didn't word that original reply very well... I meant the *idea* of using a $5 Y adapter in with this lovely lossless audio converted to analog so brilliantly by the BD55 would sound terrible. In actual practice it would probably not sound that terrible.

But I agree with you that it would be better to do it electronics, whether you get the 6.1-ch mix in the data stream's metadata (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD), or the receiver itself does the downmix (PCM).

-CB

I've heard there are a handful of TVs that pass DD 5.1 from attached devices. But, they're rare. The fact that he is getting DD 5.1 from his DVR is unusual and doesn't match what his TV's manual says. So, you just never know.


A switch would seem to be in order.

Honestly, I think that at these miniscule voltages, it would be fine - we're not talking about combining higher voltage speaker outputs or even headphone amp'ed voltage levels.

*BUT* I don't claim to be an electrical engineer so dropping the voltage with a resistor probably isn't a bad idea. Actually I think some of these Y-adapters (even the cheap ones) that are made specifically to sum to mono have tiny resistors built into the adapter.

It probably wouldn't hurt to describe to the rocket scientist behind the counter at Radio Shack exactly what you're trying to do. That way if your amplifier explodes you'll have someone to point a finger at (other than me).

-CB