Denon 5900 macroblocking favor - Page 34  

OK I must admit it, now I`m really confused! I`ve installed the two disc set from Denon and then the single disc, The build date is now 210 and ESS is 6334-6 but my menu`s are still at about five seconds. Some have said their menu`s are now faster with the same firmware numbers that I have. Can KD or someone explain why my menu is still slow and others are fast with the same firmware numbers? A poster not long ago said he had a ESS of 6334-1 I believe and that his menu`s were fast. His DVD5900 and mine were made only fifty units apart. Anybody got any ideas?
Thanks Tons!
Chris

Cain:
The brochure says it will play WMA - nothing about WMV. I'm a Mac guy so not too familiar as to what the difference is and I've never tried those types on the machine. Maybe someone else can pipe in.

Discs supported: DVD-A, DVD-V, SACD, DVD -R/RW (DVD Video), Video CD, Music CD, CD-R/RW (AUDIO, WMA, MP3, JPEG), Picture CD - Kodak and Fuji, HDCD Decoder.

Chris: you've got the same numbers as I have and my menus are fine. Like any computer I would try powering off, unplugging for a few minutes, plug back in and give it a try - like a cold start. Have no idea if that will do it for you but it certainly won't hurt it. If that doesn't work maybe a call or visit to a service center.

Is mpeg 2 supported?

Wouldn't work on my 5900 but did work on my computer.

Isn't MPEG 2 - DVD video?

Denon Jeff,

I know you frequent these pages often so I thought I would post based on my last 5900 firmware update, ESS6334-6.

I have not installed as yet but am about to.

First, in reading the cover letter that came with the update, I understand why you must have felt compelled to apologize for the limited success of the last release. Frankly, I don't think you have anything to apologize for. You tried to do what you could do to make things better for your customers. OK so it didn't work out like you wanted it to. Although I would like to get these issues behind us, I think that you have done a terrific job supporting the product and if you want to PM me someone at Denon that you would like me to send that message to, I would be happy to do that.

Second, does this one take care of the macroblocking issue in total now or does this one provide more improvement for some of the other issues that the partial macroblocking firmware was supposed to address or both?

That's what I thought too. Looking back on it, I bet the DVD I tried was mastered on Windows Media Player and not MPEG 2. I asked the person that provided the DVD to go back and check out the file type to see which it was.

Thanks anyway.

Guys, I'm thinking about purchasing a 5900. Would this be a mistake???
(Reading about all these problems... :( )

Please advise.

No problem at all. The "problems" are blown WAY out of proportion.

Dave

Thanks a lot Dave!

Anyone have some words of wisdom for me? I need a couple more "Go for it's!" before I can justify this kind of expenditure [considering all the bad press].

I don't regret my purchase one bit. The best value in home entertainment I've ever had. Had mine for a little more than a month.

I will second what dave says. There is only the macro blocking other then that the rest where personel preferances. now they have speed up the menus hopefully that compalnit will finally die. there are no perfect players and may never be but this is as close to perfect as there is.

Because the title of this thread is about "macroblocking", I can confirm that I don't have any macroblocking when using my 5900 with my JVC HX1U (3 Chip LCOS), even with the "problematic" titles...

Go for it!

Had mine since late 2003. With my RPTV (Thoshiba 65HDX82), never seen macroblocking, picture using component was good, DVI, unbelievable! Sound as has been written here excellent also. SACD, which I had wondered what all the hype was about using my DV47Ai, now I realize. I attribute that to proper distance management.

In addition to never seeing macaroblocking...
I've NEVER had a disk fail to load...
NEVER had a disk fail to play (any format)...
Have applied all firmware updates without a hitch...

The only thing I have seen, is random captioning, exactly twice! It wouldn't repeat and haven't seen it in several months.

I also noticed the slow menus but really don't spend much time watching menus so didn't really bother me. With the fix thought, it is nice to get those 5-10 seconds back so I can get onto something truely useful.

In short, IMO, the best HT decision/purchase I've made. It's expensive but I have absolutely no regrets.

Highly recommended!

(Of course, you could always get the Linn Unidisk. Appears to have all the same "issues" at the cost of 5 times the 5900)

Jeff-and everyone else,

Thanks a lot for the time you took to tell me all that.

It will help make this decision a lot easier.

I'm also considering a 5900 to replace my Panasonic RP-62. But within the past couple of days, DenonJeff said that there are new models coming out starting in July. So, since I've waited this long, I guess I'll wait a couple more months to see what the new models offer.

Edward,
I've had mine since early November and still feel it to be the best value for a universal player out there.
Build quality is second to none, sound quality is awesome, tweakability is almost overwhelming and the video side is killer.

Omen,
I wouldn't hold my breath on new models being available for purchase this summer. Denon seems to release models in the fall.
Not telling you not to wait, but it will definitely be longer than 2 months.

Darn. I may have to purchase before the fall; I'm really fed up with my RP-62's inability to consistently play DVD-/+R (among other things).

Thanks for the heads-up.

Well, I have had my 5900 for a little over a week. I must confess, it sounds fantastic! I must also confess that I noticed the macroblocking issues even before I knew it was being addressed in this forum. I noticed it as I attempted to set up my system with the original Video Essentials DVD. When using the black bars to correctly set the contrast and brightness the macroblocking issue was very noticeable in the lighter parts of the screen. So as I pushed the contrast and brightness rightward (increase) I could see the random blocking patterns in the background. A little disappointing from a 2K machine. Now that I know what I'm looking for I notice it in many of the movies I watch.

Isn't this from the video noise reduction in the chip. I see the same problem with the Holo3Dgraph2 card which uses the same chip. The solution is to turn off the noise reduction.

Except that Denon have said the noise reduction system was not engaged and therefore isnt on to turn off.

This is for the 5900 Choir.

I have never been robbed, raped or shot at (except the dog owners on my block do break the curbing law, but that is minor). I wonder what is this fuss about crime?

YOUR NOT RIGHT

I'm currently experimenting with a Denon DVD-5900. Of course I wanted to look for "macroblocking" to see if it is something that bothers me.

Based on what I've read here so far, I expected to see the problem in Progressive mode and not in Interlaced mode, and indeed that's what I see. What surprised me is that there's another way to make the problem go away -- DVI 1080i.

Since the conversion to 1080i is supposed to include the de-interlacing that's presumed to be the source of the bug, I'm not at all sure what's going on here!

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My DVD-5900 was a recent purchase, with a serial # beginning with "4" and with the "-7" level ESS firmware. Denon tech support confirms to me that this means the hardware is completely up to date (including whatever hardware change they made for IEEE 1394) and that there are only two firmware upgrades not applied -- an additional fix to IEEE 1394 and a fix for certain Beethoven DVD-A disks.

The DVD-5900 is connected to a Toshiba 57HDX82 RPTV via both DVI and Component. I have separately calibrated, using Avia, the DVI 1080i signal, the Component 480P signal, and the Component 480i signal. The Progressive processing (film mode setting) was set to "Auto 1", black level to "0" IRE, and DVI Black Level to "Normal".

I found two instance of what I believe is being referred to as "macroblocking" that stand out like a sore thumb and are just about as much fun to have to put up with. Using the Component 480p signal:

1) In Monsters Inc., in the opening sequence with the robot boy in his bed and the room lights off, there is a cut to a view of the edge of his dresser on the right half of the screen and the frame of the closet door on the left half. Look at the frame of the closet door in the left half of the image. Gray, blocky, moving blotchiness is obvious. Simply horrible.

2) In Dark City, in the opening sequence, the doctor opens his pocket watch to check the approach of midnight. First you see the open pocket watch in his hand then there is a close-up of the just the face of the watch itself. During the closeup, check the left hand half of the watch face. You will see violent, brighter, moving blotchiness -- almost sparklies. Also horrible.

Seeing these makes it obvious to me why some folks have reacted so strongly to this bug. This is not minor stuff.

OK so now look at the same sequences using the Component 480i signal (i.e., turn off Progressive in the DVD-5900 setup menu). As expected, this cleans up both of these sequences.

Knowing what to look for you can just barely see the remnants of the problem in the Monsters Inc. closet door. As has been reported, the root cause of the problem is data on the DVD itself. It's just that the bug magnifies the artifact enough to make it impossible to ignore. But in 480i, the Monsters Inc. image is clean enough that I'd never have noticed it if I wasn't staring at that particular portion of the image having just seen the problem in 480p so I knew just what to look for. As for the Dark City sequence, when played at 480i it is so cleaned up that I can't even see the remnants of the problem.

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Now for the fun part.

View the same sequences in DVI 1080i. To my eye the 1080i signal looks JUST AS CLEAN as the 480i version. Of course the overall display quality is much improved but for all intents and purposes the problem is gone. That is, if you like the way the 480i signal looked, the DVI 1080i signal looks just as good as regards the blotchiness and better as regards overall picture quality.

Again, the difference here is not subtle. The 480p version looks horrible, the 480i version looks clean, and the 1080i version looks clean and crisp and transparent.

As a double check, I've shown these sequences to a friend who agrees with me that as far as this particular blotchiness problem in these two sequences, there is no doubt that Component 480p is broken and Component 480i and DVI 1080i are correct and virtually identical.

Since it has been reported that the DVD-5900 generates its DVI 1080i signal by de-interlacing 480i to 480p, upscaling to 1080p, and then re-interlacing to 1080i, and since the working assumption is that the bug is in the de-interlacing of 480i to 480p, it is a mystery to me why the 1080i signal should not also show this problem, but there it is.

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If anyone has particular instances of this problem which show up in DVI 1080i but go away in Component 480i (so as to eliminate artifacts which arise from the DVD itself as opposed to this particular bug), I'd be interested to hear about it. If I can, I'll try such sequences in this setup and report back.
--Bob

Check out the Pioneer Elite 59AVi and you'll never go back to the 5900.

well, i have been using the machine with dvi output in 1080 i and i still have the problem tried auto 1 and auto 2 its still there. im glad i havent bought it ,cause i would be mad as hell.a 2k machine should not have these problems.i would expect that in a $400 player not for 2k... i have watchd 10 movies and had a problem with 9.what does that tell you.its junk

clnconcpts,
You display is not properly set up if you are having that many problems. What TV do you have? Also, use AVIA or VE to set up your display. I have watched over 150+ movies with the 5900 and have only seen the macroblocking in less that 5 movies.

Dave

That is roughly about as often as I have seen it also. My display(Mits RPTV) was calibrated by an ISF tech and I am sure that goes a longs ways toward mitigating the MB problem. To my eyes, the video the 5900 puts out is sometimes indistinguishable from an HD quality picture. That's a bold statement but on well made DVDs the picture is simply fantastic.

Jim

clnconcpts,
I would urge you to take Dave's advice and re-look at how your display is calibrated for this player on the 1080i input.

Remember that the problem originates in the data on the DVD itself. The artifact isn't being invented by the 5900, only magnified. If your display is not set quite right for the black levels, you will, I believe, see the artifacts from the DVD even in 480i mode or with other players.

I was amazed at how much different the correct calibration settings were with my Toshiba for the 5900 hooked in through DVI vs. Component for example. There was even a (very slight) difference in correct setting for Component 480p vs Component 480i.

Also keep in mind that there are lots of DVDs out there that have problems independent of any player -- not all visible nastiness is this "macroblocking" bug. A simple test is to see if it goes away almost entirely when viewed using Component 480i. If not, you are seeing some other problem which may very well be due to compression issues or other details on the DVD itself.

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In any event, if you would care to list the specific locations in specific movies where you saw problems (scene plus displayed time code would be best as well as where in the image you saw the problem), if I have access to those DVDs I'll try it in my setup and see if I can reproduce the problem in DVI 1080i and Component 480p and 480i.

I still don't understand why I'm not seeing the problem in 1080i. But the simple fact is that I can find apparent instances of the problem easily in 480p but have yet to see a single instance in 1080i in my current setup.

If I had to use the Denon 5900 in Component 480p this bug would be a deal breaker for me. But I just can't seem to make it happen in DVI 1080i which is my intended use, and the picture quality I'm seeing in 1080i is simply outstanding.

If you've got examples that show up the problem in 1080i in my setup then this puppy goes back, so I'd appreciate any pointers you can give me to problem scenes.
--Bob

i am using a dwin tv3plus dlp projector. i found it in pirates of the carribean movie only in the beginning first 10 mins. i found it in dare devil when the boy was in the hospital and after the girls father was killed and he sunk down against the wall and then the picture faded out to black

Bob,

"Remember that the problem originates in the data on the DVD itself. The artifact isn't being invented by the 5900, only magnified."

I'm curious as to where one may go to see the engineering data substantiating this as the source for MB? I thought the jury was still out on where this artifact is truly originating from?

I'd be real leery of having to lower black levels, call it calibration if you will, to get rid of something inherent in the DVD data when many other DVD players don't show it when they are in calibrated states or uncalibrated states. Why don't other DVD players with video stages equal to the 5900's show this then? The 5900's video engineering is not unique, just good ........ except for it's possibly sourcing of MB.