Official Sony BDP-S590 and BDP-390 Thread - Page 8

Is it possible the problem being discussed is caused by the combination of Blueray disk, BDlive content present, a setting in the setup enabling the downloading of content, and then NOT having a USB drive installed? I remember being asked in setup if I want to download content, and maybe this combination can cause problems? Shot in the dark...

If I play a disc with BD Live content without a USB drive installed it will stop and ask whether I want to go on. It did that when I first played Avatar.

I think I'll just try out the 390. I have several 3D players, but no 3D tv yet. I just want a unit for my downstairs room that can play Amazon VOD. And it doesn't look like the PS3 will be getting that feature anytime soon, which is a crock.

This is my thought but I'm not quite so sure now. The two options for the "Dolby Digital/DTS" audio setting are "Bitstream" and "Downmix PCM". Why "Downmix"? I'm pretty certain that the Panasonic 3D BD players perform a full decode of lossless into LPCM though.

I think those setting only apply to lossy DD/DTS sent to the optical/coax port. I don't think they affect the HDMI bitstream at all.

Probably, as well as my probably selling my Roku 2 XS. I should give it a few days trial to see whether it has any unacceptable quirks. Last night I heard a momentary audio drop-out in Netflix playback and if you pause, rewind or fast forward and restart Netflix playback it sometime starts playing the audio but it takes a few seconds before the video shows back up. I also tried playing an HD MKV clip from a flash drive which plays perfectly on the Panasonic but which comes out horizontally squished when played on the Sony. It's not really a function that I use; this PC is connected to the same 46" 1080p LCD panel and AVR (via optical S/PDIF) as all of the rest of my equipment so I normally play video files on it, but it'd be nice if it worked properly. Again, the Amazon player is slow and clunky but I can live with it until they hopefully update it. On the upside, I like the interface a lot more.

So it's not hands down perfect, but what is? Again, I will probably go with it and return the BDT220.

What makes you think that? There's nothing in the documentation to imply it.

I looked at the manual online and it's the same as my S570. You should look at "HDMI AUDIO" under settings: AUTO will bitstream if your receiver supports the HD audi and PCM (no PCM "downmix" here) will process the signal and send the full HD audio to your receiver. PCM downmix only exists under DD and DTS settings.
mdavej is right and there is documentation supporting that.

Hi michaeltscott, mdavej is correct ... see page 14 in OM on connection type "B" and see note about setting on page 26.

s390

Edited my original post to reflect the model number. Thanks for pointing that glaring omission out!

That is extremely unclear. I don't find the "HDMI Audio" setting's existence to be at all compelling proof that the "Dolby Digital/DTS" setting only pertains to S/PDIF--not that I can't believe that, but they really, really needed to have explicitly stated that the setting was only effective for S/PDIF output. How the hell can that be assumed?

I also noticed that it sometimes takes a couple of seconds for the audio to stop if you stop Netflix video playback. Not a problem, just strange.

According to MediaInfo, the resolution of the clip is 1280x536, 2.40:1. It was squished horizontally to about half the screen with bars on the side and stretched vertically to fill the screen top to bottom. The clip plays properly on everything else I've tried it on. On the other hand, I tried another drive containing that and some other clips and all of the other ones played properly.

I tried playing a bunch of different MKV files served from my PC via TVersity; all play properly on the PS3 (I think). For most of them the video played; the audio played for maybe a quarter of them. It seemed to be unable to deal with 1.5 Mbps audio--sometimes it recognized the encoding (i.e., Dolby or DTS) and sometimes not, but it never played it. It was happy with 640 Kpbs or lower DD and DTS. Of course, there's no fast forward or rewind function with these files or files on USB but that's true of the Panasonic as well. Disturbingly I managed to get it into a jammed up state while attempting to play these DLNA served files 3 or 4 times which I had to unplug it to get out of (could be particularly annoying since it has a fixed power cable; I can easily access the place where I have it plugged in). Again, I don't actually have a real use for these functions inasmuch as I play such files on my PC, but the flakiness in this area is a bit concerning. To its credit, it probably did better than the Panasonic for DLNA, though I don't think that I've ever jammed the Panasonic up doing anything.

Man, we are having a huge misunderstanding here. HDMI AUDIO settings is for HDMI only and nobody said anything different. What mdavej and I are trying to say is that PCM DOWNMIX only exists under DD and DTS settings, and they only apply to S/PDIF. You have THREE settings under audio settings: 1 for DD, 1 for DTS and the only one that matters in this case, HDMI AUDI , which has AUTO or PCM as options. AUTO will bitstream and PCM will decode the HD audi and pass a PCM signal to your receiver.

I have been quite pleased with the s390. Granted I came from a Toshiba BDX2000, so the bar was set quite low and really would not be a fair matchup. Needless to say, this thing loads blu-rays up to 3x faster than my older player, but your mileage would vary based upon your prior unit.

I enjoy the size of the s390; it is small and fits well into any decent size space.

I am indifferent to the design of the player, but I cannot really even notice it once it was tucked away into my center. I did not like the use of plastic, and would gladly pay $20 more for a high quality metal casing, but I know most shop by price these days.

One item I have noticed is that the player takes awhile to shut down after powering it down via remote. This process takes about 5-15 seconds on average, whereas my older player turned off within a second or two. This may be related to the fast boot feature, but not sure.

My experience with Amazon VOD has been quite pleasant, but this would be my first foray into VOD. I actually feel the Amazon VOD speed is rather good, and never find myself irritated, but of course there is always room for improvement. Areas that could use improvement on speed would be the pop-up menu whilst watching content. Sometimes this lags by a few seconds. I would also like to see only 1 instance of the approximately 10 second process of checking internet speed before playing content, as opposed to it occurring for every piece you watch. That said, I might be ignorant to the reason for this feature, but it seems redundant to check your speed 30 seconds after loading a different piece of content.

I like the Amazon VOD UI for its simplicity, but searching/sorting could be improved. You can drill down by movie or show, and then by genre, but it seems like having an ability to sort via additional metrics such as an alphabetical list would surely be nice.

I have only had two errors thus far, but they were random in nature and have not reoccurred. I am hesitant to elaborate for fear of worrying others. Without much detail, I will say I had an immensely abnormal shut-down speed one time, and a disc fail to load anything after being inserted which required a pulled power cord. I will report more if they occur again.

Overall I am very pleased. I fully intend to keep this player unless I get any reoccurring issues. I would feel fully confident recommending this player, particularly to those that want the maximum VOD features. This was the reason I chose the Sony over the Panasonic, and I feel it was the correct choice.

I'm not exactly doubting that and I don't think that we have an actual misunderstanding. All I'm saying is that in my opinion nothing in the documentation implies that--nothing. If a setting only pertains to S/PDIF then the doc needs to say that explicitly.

Sony's manuals get more convoluted as the years go by. I only know about these particular settings because the manual was actually pretty clear about it with my first sony several years ago. The settings haven't really changed in that time, but the language in the manual has.

HDMI AUDIO does not pertain to S/PDIF, nobody has said that. PCM DOWNMIX does pertain to S/PDIF and its a separate setting , only under DD and DTS, NOT under HDMI AUDIO which has AUTO or PCM as options.

I am running out of ideas on how to explain this...

Page 29 on the online manual is clear that PCM DOWNMIX only exists under DD/DTS. Under HDMI AUDIO its also clear you have 2 options : AUTO and PCM (not PCM downmix).

What it does not make clear to me is that the "DD/DTS" setting only applies to S/PDIF. In no way does the existence of the "Audio (HDMI)" setting even imply that to me. The definition of that feature doesn't mention DD or DTS and the DD/DTS setting definition doesn't mention S/PDIF or HDMI. Both the wording of the documentation and of the menu itself should be more explicit. The "DD/DTS" setting should probably have been called "Audio (S/PDIF)". (BTW, page 29 of the manual that I'm using is all System and Network settings and doesn't have anything to say about audio at all).

I want to emphasize that I think that you're probably right . I just think that the documentation is ambiguous.

I agree about the manual being a mess. The page 29 I mentioned is on the online version of the S590 Operating Instructions.

Going back to the original question, after Krutsch's comment , does the S590 downmix DTS-HDMA to "core" DTS when PCM is used ? The answer is NO. I guess now it is clear there is no PCM DOWNMIX for HDMI and/or HD audio (DTSHD-MA/Dolby TrueHD). PCM DOWNMIX only works with plain vanilla DD or DTS and only when not through HDMI .

That's how everything started. I hope the other forum members didn't get confused.

I believe you, but again I don't think that the manual makes that clear. It doesn't seem reasonable to me that the player would not be able to decode the HD encodings to multichannel LPCM, which was Krutsch's comment. Again, I think that you interpretation is correct, its just not explicitly written.

It's not worth arguing about.

Sorry, I changed my post to make clear the comment came from Krutsch.

I totally agree with you that its unclear in OM. Beside assuming about page 14 connection "B" and note is that right next to "Digital Out Coaxial" jack is the letters "PCM/DTS/Dolby Digital".

Am I missing something or is there no Search function in the Amazon player?

Amazon has the 590 in stock. They are actually selling it, not via third party.

I see. You can only do it from the top screen and you have to choose between searching movies or television. There's no incremental search--it won't show you a list of things which match what you've typed so far. This Amazon UI is such utter crap, the worst I've seen in a long time.

Also, I hate the use of frickin' i9 in the Sony written portions of the UI (like the current Amazon app). It's been years and years since I've used that on a cell phone.

Since there is no queue for Amazon, the importance of the search function is huge.