Official LG BD690/670/650/6xx Series Thread - Page 22

I've owned the BD670 for over a month now and I first experienced the hiccup audio on blu-rays. When I was demoing Avatar 3D with a friend and the 20th century logo came on it stuttered for a minute. But as the disc progressed the stutters went away. Still the first time it happened when playing a blu-ray. Previously I was watching Dark Knight for 2 hours. Not sure if long periods of playing will effect stutter issues. I'm leaning into getting a Oppo player once I can afford to get one. These issues of unplugging and restarting/rebooting is annoying.

This sounds like a different issue than the known firmware issue with DVD playback that we were discussing. The DVD "hiccup" firmware related issue happens consistently after each chapter change on DVD discs. When the issue occurs, the audio drops out very briefly (less than a second). To my eyes, the video is unaffected. It is consistently reproducible in that it happens each time a chapter change occurs. One easy way to reproduce is to jump to the next or previous chapter, then rewind several seconds before the chapter change. If you let the movie play, the audio then drops out briefly following the chapter change.

It would be interesting to hear if others with 3D systems have problems with the 3D version of Avatar. Unfortunately, the way the producers have chosen to distribute this title (only bundled with Panasonic 3D starter kit) makes the title difficult to obtain (odd, given that it is such a popular, blockbuster title).

I posted in here a few weeks back. My 3d avatar did it way worse than described, it even restarted the movie at the beginning once. Other bd have skipped but not as bad after I did the firmware update.

I spoke with an LG tech today about the DVD stutter problem.

Positive point:
I got through to someone very quickly and she was very nice, an American I'm pretty sure, at least she spoke English like one.

Negative points:

-She insisted that the LG I have is defective (Duh!) but by that I mean that I should be able to return it and get one that does not have this problem. I explained that many people on the web are reporting this problem and so it is not just "a defective unit" but a defective batch of units, maybe more than just a batch.

-She suggested I power down and then power back on but I told her I was pretty sure that has been tried before and does not solve the problem but I would try it BEFORE I RETURN IT AND BUY ANOTHER BRAND OF PLAYER.

-I told her that I was very disappointed in LG for releasing and selling a unit that does not play dvd's right. She said she understood my frustration and I said "Well clearly you guys have no solution for this..." and politely said goodbye.

Since I don't want a unit that has some kind of weird pause or freeze or audio drop out or something during chapter breaks on dvd's, I will take this back to BB and get a refund or another unit.

Can anyone recommend another unit that will:
a) open up most of the same files via a USB that this one does
b) play Netflix and/or Blockbuster streaming movies well
c) play dvd's and blu-rays without glitches or blips (Gee, what a concept!)

Someone in another forum mentioned the idea of getting a ROKU for streaming and then a blu-ray player for playing bd's and dvd's. Is that the way to go? I can't afford the Oppo at this time and do need a player that works, asap. Is ROKU really better than most blu-rays for streaming Netflix? If so then I'll be happy to get one of those. I can wait for the USB feature I guess, and just buy a cheap Blu-Ray player that works like it's supposed to...

This was my very first LG product and I don't imagine I'll be likely to buy another any time soon. Un-installing and re-boxing and taking things back to the store and hooking up new ones is a huge hassle.

It's just amazing that this problem has been going on for nearly two months. It's such a stupid problem, too. There is no reason why the audio should mute for a second when a DVD's chapter changes. If something happened when going from one VOB file to the next, I might understand, but not from one chapter to the next as several chapters fit in the same VOB file. It's just a stupid bug. And, what's worse, is that the product was fine for the first few firmware updates. I don't know why it's so hard to compare the code relating to DVD playback from one firmware to the next. This has to be something seriously stupid since the 6xx, 5xx, and 3xx players are all affected. What the heck did LG do to all of these players with their latest update? It's very suspicious.

I agree. This seems like an incredibly STOOPID problem for LG to have. If it had problems streaming or playing USB files... okay.. I would probably live with that and wait for a fix... BUT pausing during DVD chapter changes??! That's just STOOPID!

I think LG has a really winning product here but they're blowing it. This is a "make or break" situation for them, as it pertains to new LG customers like me.

Just got a software update on my LG LHB536 (the HT version of the 6xx series). Software version .299.

And... The audio glitch has been... reduced even more. So, it's still there... but now it's much shorter. Jesus, why is this so hard to fix? I didn't think programming DVD playback to not pause the audio after one chapter goes to the next would be so hard. I thought that was, you know, the way DVDs were supposed to work. It's sad that they can shorten the amount of time that the audio glitch lasts, but they can't eliminate it, completely.

Making the stutter SHORTER is not very encouraging. Like you, Mike, I can't understand how this could be such a difficult thing to fix. I've never heard of any other brand's bluray player having this problem... Too bad it happened to one that OTHERWISE is a great machine (BD670)... The whole thing strikes me as just weird and hard to figure...

I too have been having the DVD "chapter change" skip problem ever since I got this player in early May and installed the latest firmware. I tried exchanging the player at BB to see if this fixed the problem, but no go. In writing a review on Amazon and seeing other reviews and comments to them and mine, it seems that there are some people who ARE NOT experiencing this. What makes their player different than the two I've had (have)? Does anyone have the BD670 with the latest firmware and NOT experience the skip problem? I've contacted LG about this and got the same junk response most others have. It's been what, about a month and a half since the last firmware update with god knows how many complaints and they still don't have this fixed?! I'm contacting them again about this.

Also, this player plays any blu-ray I've tried thus far just fine except for one: "Daybreakers". I put the disc in, it started to load up showing that "Bromley/Marks" movie logo/progress bar, it will get about 3/4 of the way through, then stop loading. However, it will continue on and play the sound for the trailers and show a small patch of the trailers video to the left of the other half of the logo/progress bar that won't go away. I "next track" all of the trailers (pressing the "Disc menu" button won't work) but then the screen just stays at the half a logo, then nothing. The main menu just refuses to load up so I can't watch the movie. I called LG and the woman I told this to said she would pass this info along to the firmware people who will look into fixing the problem. (who knows how long that will take!?) Has anyone else experienced this or something similar with this or another title?

I have had the 670 for about a month. I updated the firmware right away & experienced no problems. Now I have the same problems with DVD`S.Lst night I watched "Just Go With It" on Blu-Ray & had audio dropouts.It is the first Blu-Ray I had trouble with.

Just set up the machine yesterday, so I need more time for a thorough evaluation. I hooked up the player, updated the newest driver using the USB method and then was asked to update the firmare via the network which I did since the file was not available on the LG website. So far relative painless. I signed onto my wireless network and immediately everything was available on screen, videos, photos, mp3's etc. Impressive. I see no need to use the Nero disk. Setting up my Netflix, Pandora, and Amazon accounts was straight forward. Tried streaming 15 minutes on each, everthing ran smooth, no rebuffering. The video seemed as good as my Roku box. Then I tried signing onto my UTube account and found I couldn't. Maybe I am missing something but I see no way to sign in, just a primitive search feature, no way to access my account. Not a deal breaker, but I have a 2 year old Samsung Bd p1600 that allows me to log on to my Utube account with my favorites, etc. What's up?
So far I have only played 2 Blu-Ray disks. I looked for the audio drop-outs at chapter change but so far I have not noticed any. I stuck in a couple of DVD's just to see if they play. Upconversion looks very good.
This unit does allow you to watch PAL DVD's as long as they are region 0. I tried a couple of German DVD's and they look great!

I have the same dvd problem everyone else has, though yesterday my machine said it did a software update when I turned it on even though I already had the latest software as per their site... Hmm. I haven't tried a dvd since then but I am skeptical they'll ever fix it. I'm planning to return it and get a different player but am giving them a couple more weeks to fix it.

Anyway, I hooked up the wireless connection yesterday for the first time and it works "pretty well", though not perfect.

POSITIVES:

*Once I figured out it was the Encryption Key they were looking for in terms of a password, my connection automatically began to work.

*I tried Netflix first and I was able to surf the menus and I tried a couple movies just to see if they worked. It took maybe a minute to load the movie and after that there was no pausing/loading. I did not watch a movie straight through but I skipped around and at one point I let it run for at least 15 min. and there was no pausing.
The fast forwarding worked fine but of course was slower response than a disc.

*Pandora worked beautifully. Sounds so much better through my 5.1 Sound system with Enhancement turned on than it does through my little computer speakers. It sounded like cd quality to me although I do not even have the Premium service. I listed to it for at least 2 hours with no skipping, and oddly, no commercials or anything. I thought with the free service you got commercials?

*I did not try any other services as I am not signed up to any except Youtube. I will probably try youtube today.

NEGATIVES:

*At one point when I had finished watching part of a movie on Netflix, I was looking through the selection of movies via categories, and the thing froze up on me. Just would not allow me to move through at all, could not go BACK - nothing. After maybe 4 minutes I turned the machine off via the power button and started it again and it worked again. Not good.

*Moving through the Netflix categories to look for a movie is generally slow. Sometimes it takes 15 seconds or more for pictures of movies to load. Reminded me of 1985 dial-up service.

Now back to BluRay:

It loads movies pretty slowly when it is looking for where you left off during the last playback session. I had watched the first half or so of "Avatar" yesterday and put it back in to finish it. It took like at least a minute or more to load the disc, at one point I thought it was not going to load at all.

I assume this is because it was looking for the spot it left off at, and that is why it was so slow; if I load a new bluray disc in it loads much faster.

Not sure if this is a BD670 error or an "Avatar" disc error but neither my wife nor I could see the menu choices on the Avatar disc. That is, to choose between 2 or more options on the screen we could not see ANY indication as to which one was selected on ANY of the menus. This was very annoying as we had to just guess where the cursor was and hope for the best. Anyone else have this problem? Is it the movie disc or the player?

All in all, if Netflix will work as it has so far, and not pause or skip if watching through an entire movie, I will be pretty happy with it in spite of the slow going through the Netflix menu and the one freeze. Of course if it freezes regularly then, "Houston, we have a problem..."

All in all I am very happy with this player EXCEPT for the DVD playing errors. But that's a deal breaker for me and I will have to take it back if they don't fix it within 2 weeks or so.

I will play a dvd today to see if it still skips since there was that update to the software yesterday (though maybe that was just to add amazon.com and a few other options to the wireless menu). I'll report back here as to whether it still has dvd playback problems and if they're any better than before.

Does anyone know what audio settings I should use to get the sound louder?

I turned off DRC and its still low.

I have the HDMI output going straight into my Samsung LCD (LN46B550) and even with the volume set really high the sound is low.

When I switch to my the input of my Motorola DVR with the same volume level it is considerably loud. Huge difference. This makes no sense to me, unless my DVR is amped internally which I'm not sure of.

I have the BG640 and a samsung un46d6000. I don't know which blu-ray player you are using but I don't think the sound settings on your blu-ray player is what is causing you the problem.

There is no volume control on the BG640. I have it set to PCM Stereo and 192 khz as the sampling frequency. My BG640 is connected only using the HDMI cable.

If you are using only the HDMI cable I would suggest you do some swapping.

In my opinion it is one of 3 things.

1. Your blu-ray player is bad and there is nothing you can do to fix the issue.

2. Your HDMI cable is bad / not up to spec. (Try swapping this cable with the one that is going to your cable box).

3. It is the HDMI port on your tv. (Try swapping the blu-ray hdmi cable and the cable box hdmi cable only at the HDMI ports on the tv.

Good luck.

It sounds like you may be using the built in speakers on your TV. If that is the case, do yourself a favor and get yourself a sound system. HD picture is only half of what you need to get the Blu-Ray experience, you need a good sound system as well.

TV speakers are designed to be cheap and small. They hardly will allow you to hear television content. Motion picture audio is meant to be reproduced with a large dynamic range. Essentially, the dialog is mixed at a low volume to leave extra headroom for dramatic effect so things like explosions can be really loud. As a result, you need to crank the volume up to hear the dialogue. This is normal; motion picture audio is not normally compressed as much as television content, so you often have to turn the sound up.

If you want to get more volume, you want DRC set to "ON." DRC = Dynamic Range Compression, what this setting does is effectively make the content sound louder by increasing the volume of the soft passages and/or decreasing the volume in the loud passages. Turning off DRC will likely have the opposite effect of what you are trying to achieve. I personally prefer to keep DRC off to experience uncompressed audio the way the mixers wanted it to sound, but then again, I have a surround sound system which does a pretty faithful job of reproducing the audio. For use with TV speakers, you probably want DRC on.

I have the LG BD670, I already tried another cable and port.


Yes, I know all of this. But that doesn't account for the that particular source being considerably lower.


Well, ON or OFF doesn't seem to be making a difference.

Thanks for the replys guys.

I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with the player. I am now seeing that my TV (antenna) source gives the same volume level, its just my Cable source (Motorola DVR DCX) is just loud for some reason. I asked in the DCX thread and they say its not internally amped. I'm stumped on this one.

Your cable box usually has three levels of Dynamic Range. Low, Normal and Wide. The default may be Low, meaning that the lower sounds will be brought up to a higher overall level for TV viewing. Compared to a Wide Dynamic range where the low volumes would be really low and quiet, but explosions would be fairly loud.

vegggas

Guess that makes sense. Thanks.

My 670 will not stream Amazon at more than 2 dots. The picture quality is completely unacceptable. I Does anyone get full 4 dot HD on Amazon with the 670?
I have a 16 Mbps internet connection, and have tried wiring the unit directly into my router with no improvement over wireless. I have a Roku which always streams Amazon at full HD wired into the same router, so I know for sure that the problem is not my internet connection. Also the 670 appears to always stream Netflix at full HD so it would seem that the problem with my particular unit is with Amazon only.

I find it very strange that Netflix streams properly but not Amazon, It would seem the problem is a software glitch rather than a hardware problem.

I just want to report that this update has been pulled from the server. If someone with an LHB536 tries to update now, they will get the .285 firmware instead of the .299 one.

In addition, does anybody know how to force these players to re-download the Premium updates? The size of the boxes on mine look weird - some are larger than others, etc... It wasn't like this before updating to the .299 firmware - and now that I've gone back to the .285 firmware, the boxes haven't gone back to normal. Really weird. Anyway, I'm sure it will be fixed the next time a Premium update comes, but who knows when that will be - so I wonder if there is a way to force the player to re-download the update.

Missing the 570 yet? LOL

LOL! My Blu-rays don't skip, all my files stream, and Netflix works (and I have no audio issues), so I'm not missing the 2010 model at all.

The 570 has the DVD audio stutter too, right?

Hey guys, i just purchased the BD690 and can not update the firmware. I tried over the network and by USB. The reason i need to update is my player says i dont have a "3D compatible system" when playing Grand Canyon 3D Blu Ray. Can anyone give me a hand and help me figure out how to get the firmware updated? Maybe im missing something. Thanks!

Actually, no. But if the newest FW is applied, yes. But with the previous FW, EVERYTHING (minus MLB.TV which I couldn't care less about) is absolute PERFECTION. EVERYTHING plays flawlessly on my 570...

That's what I meant. If I go back to an older firmware on the 2011 model, the DVD audio stutter goes away. It was introduced in the firmware that came out 2 months ago. So, all the LG players (3xx, 5xx, 6xx) seem to suffer from the audio stutter, but at least the 6xx ones play Blu-ray flawlessly (and in 24hz) without any issues on all of the firmware - which was my main concern. Once they get this DVD bug fixed (and update the Premium apps, that way I can go back to having normal sized app boxes - not many seem to be affected by this since the firmware that caused it was only available on the server for a day or so), I'll be done complaining (probably).

I put a couple different DVDs in to check this on my BD630, latest firmware, no DVD audio stutter.

What firmware are you running? How did you check for the stutter? Easiest way is to skip to a new chapter, then rewind it back a couple of seconds to before the new chapter starts. Once it switches to the new chapter, the audio goes out for a second.

I own the BD640, latest firmware and no DVD audio stutter. The BD630 and the BD640 use the same firmware download. The BD670 uses a different firmware download.

BD630, BD640 and (European) BD650 (and BD370, BD550) seem to have a MTK videochip, while BD660, BD670 und BD690 (and BD390, BD560, BD570, BD590) are running with a Broadcom chip. The DVD stuttering problem has been reported only with LG Broadcom players.

Best regards, maris

Broadcom... GRRRR. Broadcom is also responsible for the 24hz skipping problem with the 5xx series.