New Dune HD Max and HD Smart anticipation thread Q3 2010 - Page 316

Yes, no menus. In BD Lite only.

Sorry I am new, but what does BD lite mean? Does it look and sound the same as a regular 3d BD iso?

I just noticed a problem with My Dune Smart H1. Looking at a Grayscale gradient ramp test pattern, the Dune exhibits banding issues. The same disc on a Bluray player shows a nice even gradient from Black through grays to white. Researching this, this can happen with problems with color space conversion. Anyone have any ideas how to fix this, if it's even possible? I tried playing with different color spaces under Settings to no avail.

Thanks!

No need to apologize. From what i understand, its basically a dumbed down version of the Bluray. It just plays the movie title. No menus, trailers, etc.

Yes, just the main movie though (no menus)

The Dune players force 4:4:4 colorspace. I have always preferred to use 4:2:2 in my setup as it works best for my display and processor. Ideally I would have the source (Dune, Bluray player, etc.) send 4:2:2 colorspace to my processor (DVDO DUO) which would convert that to 4:4:4 at the display. By the Dune forcing the issue it introduces problems that could be avoided if it simply passed through the video or had a "source direct" setting. I have just learned to live with it as there are so many tradeoffs with all media players. I have the Dune for convenience of playback but if you want reference video it's not going to be possible through a media player. Stick to an Oppo Bluray player for that.

I'm sure this has been answered before, but I couldn't find it in the thread.

What is the difference between "Play" and "Play (lite)"? I have no problems playing a file using Play (lite) but when using play, it will often stutter.

Play lite uses BD Lite and will play the main movie. I personally would only use the Play mode (full BD support). BD Lite has issues with forced subtitles, seamless branch, etc...

I have movie only rips. Forced subtitle issues aside, would there be a difference for me between the two?

As dbone indicated, seamless branching is also a problem (or even in the event you rip just one version the fact that it consists of multiple files that's also a problem). Also, I wouldn't think of forced subtitles as an aside - it's a rather important issue and a large percentage of movies have them. I see absolutely no reason to use bd-lite if you have access to full bd playback. Don't think of the fact you have ripped just the movie only, even where you have done that it still contains an overall disc structure that indicates to the player what to do with multiple-file movies and when to display forced subtitles - this is absent in BD-lite.

The presence of just BD-lite in the next generation of Dune/PCH players makes me wonder why anyone is interested.

Agreed, if you have the option (which Dune Smart users are lucky to have the choice) just stick with Full BD.

My Dune TV303D arrived yesterday, so it will be interesting to see how they implement BD Lite. As of now though it appears that all players that use BD Lite suffer from the same problems

Thanks guys, guess it's time to start looking at why my files are stuttering during playback under full BD then.

And completely agree about forced subs being important, I was just weighing the different options.

Interesting, just set up the TV303D. Tested briefly with The Avengers 3D ISO over smb, first few minutes played flawless with full DTSMA pass thru. The Avengers 3D ISO over smb on the PCH A-400 craps out pretty quick. This is just preliminary testing as I still need to dig a bit more into it, but so far off to a promising start

Can you check subtitles playback on it too, please?

Specifically what, forced subs in mkvs and BR Folder structures?

Blurays specifically. I have all my rips at full bd iso, 3d as well.

Lite mode is worrying me regarding subtitles.

The Avengers 3D BD ISO was one of the titles that played well over SMB in my setups to my A400s.

OK, I have District 9 as a full disc rip, that is my go to one to test for forced sub support, will let you know


Funny enough, The Avengers is one of the ones that doesn't work for me over smb on the A400

OK, tested full disc for forced subtitle support (District 9) and seamless branch (Toy Story 3). As expected with BD lite neither is supported (although I will say that the Dune had the closest gap b/w m2ts files with seamless branch out of all the players I have tested so far)

Thanks for testing and sharing. I assume the base 3d would be the same with forced subs. Quite disappointing. Perhaps the intel based max will have full support for menu and subs.

Yes, this affects all players that rely on bd lite. As of now the intel based max is supposed to have full bd support so hopefully that means proper forced sub and seamless branch support

That explains the banding issue. Thanks! Way too bad really. Is this a chip limitation, or a stupid design decision?

Is there a "just play the movie mode" anymore? I have PCH A200 and I don't use bd lite (I'm not sure it's even supported on this box). The A200 plays forced subs just fine from my movie only BDMV folder rips. Are we saying that all these new machines don't support forced subs in BDMV folder or ISO rips? Or only BD lite doesn't support it and you can still just "play the move" in movie only mode?

Sorry for the confusing questions, but I'm not sure I understand the limitations in these newer machines.

I think it may be a design decision because Dune has never confirmed to me that it was a limitation of the Sigma chip. I submitted a ticket on their site over a year ago and while they have told me they are "working on it", I doubt it will ever be fixed because not enough people care or notice. I'm not sure what makes it so difficult to just pass video untouched to a processor or display. As with many manufacturers, they think they are helping by processing video with inferior components.

BD Lite is the play the movie only mode. The A200 supports full BD menus, as does the Dune Smart series, which is why they don't need to use BD Lite. So yes, any new player (which will only support playback of BR Rips in folder or ISO via BD Lite) will suffer these problems. The workarounds will be:

a) Use Clown_BD to create a main movie rip. This will address the seamless branch issue but not the forced sub issue
b) Create an mkv. This should address both issues (as long as the player supports the forced subtitle flag in mkvs)

Can you explain how outputting at 4:4:4 causes banding? I don't recall seeing any banding on my JVC RS35 with the Dune. Do you see banding like the other poster?

Kirnak - What is your display? Can you set your BD player to output 4:4:4 to see if it is a problem with the Dune or with your display?

edit: Also check to see what bit depth you are sending out from the Dune and experiment with changing it to see if the banding goes away.
Edited by mrlittlejeans - 1/25/13 at 1:07pm

It's definately a Dune issue. My Bluray player plays the same test pattern just fine. I can't expalin the math, but when you screw too much with the color space banding is one issue you get. I'll see if setting my BR player to 4:4:4 causes the same problem.

Thanks for the reply.

So I'm good with "a" because all my rips are main movie only rips done with Clown. The forced subtitle issue is disappointing. Is there any chance that will ever work? What do we do with BD Lite and forced subs? Turn them on manually to see them?

Yep, sure enough it's the 4:4:4 colorspace causing the problem. Put the BR player in 4:4:4, same issue. Put the BR player in either 4:2:2 or RGB and it plays perfectly.

My understanding is that the conversion that has to take place with 4:4:4 ends up in some numbers being rounded off. So, rather than a nice even gradient, you get jumps from one gray to the next. What you see with a gray gradient test pattern is banding. The jump from one gray to the next is clearly defined rather than a smooth change. So, will you see it watchinga movie? Depending on the material I think it might be hard to spot per se, but I think it's a definate degradation. If it's not a chip limitation then it's a pretty stupid design choice by Dune. Too bad there's nothing better as of yet. Maybe it's time to give up on media players and just burn main movie backups to BD-R and get an Oppo. I hate playing my original discs. I hate the hassle of getting to the main movie and I want to avoid exposing the original to possible damage.

FWIW the new Intel based Max is rumored to have a video pass through feature.