Panasonic DVD-S97S FAQ / Brain dump - Page 38

Paul:
Please note the edit added two posts back.

Penton-man:
You speak of reviewing the entire thread. If you review the first page of this thread, you will see my great praise for what Paul is addressing through his reviews. Anyone who read my first post in this thread should realize I was not being critical. Moreover, anyone who really thought about what I was asking most recently should conclude the same.

-- and --

Most importantly, it was a complete misunderstanding if it sounded like I was accusing Paul of bias. I was only trying to connect the dots and complete my understanding of his Sony vs Pany comparison.

There WAS another poster a few pages back who did accuse Paul of timing issues, and bias. I chose to ignore him -- because he obviously didn't take time to read what I had to say. I thought about addressing the lack of sense in his remarks -- but his post was not addressed to me. I felt the same invasion at your response to my post TO PAUL.

It is ironic that THINKING (or not thinking) about what a person is really trying to say/ask is the reason for these conflicts! And, I also agree to an end to this conflict.

gp

Sango:

What was the e-mail address you sent this letter to Panasonic? I'd like to do the same aswell...

I've sent Panasonic a message using this site from Panasonic.

EDIT: I've also sent a similar message to Panasonic Canada using this link.

Sango

My order from J&R got shipped this morning, over a week before I expected. Looking to setting it up with my Sony XBR. has there been any consensus on settings for RPTVs? Should I calibrate this Player or the TV?

Sango, I sent the email to Panasonic as you requested.

However, I do not see MB at all. I do not know if it's my setup (HDMI-> DVI) or my projector (NEC HT1000 with older Faroudja chip) but I have not seen it. I even have gamma to the max on my projector, and have pushed the S97 gamma to +5 without artifacts....

I may try very hard NOT to see it

Rich:

Hmm it may depend on your viewing material.

I found a good example by watching Last Exile DVD. It wasn't the the episodes that had them, it was when Geneon company logo animation appared is when the macroblocking appeared. Maybe you can purchase the series too since it's great! =)

Sango

Sango, I think I know what you're talking about. It's the Geneon logo right after the FBI warnings, right? With the smoke and the light? It looked really bad on the Zenith DVB-318. I was so shocked. I'd never seen macro blocking that bad on TV before, I had no idea what the problem was. Then I tried the same disc on my XP-50 and it played smoothly, no MB.

I've noticed lots of macro blocking watching anime on the 318. But the 318 has much sharper picture quality than the XP-50 on my HLP. So I now I watch anime on my XP50 and non-anime on the 318.

I'm hoping that the S97 is better then the 318, at least. I should be getting mine early next week. The first thing I'm going to try is a Geneon disc.

Also, does anyone know if the S97 can be made region-free? (am I allowed to ask this?)

Yeah, it's the smoke and light from Geneon - hmm, they should rename themselves back to Pionner and to put their Pioneer logo back in lol!!!. It was like, whooh first the first time because I never seen the macroblocking in person.

Just using the 4 animes as I mentioned earlier such as Gundam Seed, Last Exile, Sugar and Inu Yasha, I have not seen the presence of macroblocking so far.

S97 made region free is unknown at this point in time.

Hi Hugh,

I manged to get my camera to get to take the picture at the fixed shutter rate to eliminate the issue of inconsistancy.

I have the pics here. I have test pattern differences and one IY comparison indicated by the CRT, PROJ naming conventions.

I have other Inu Yasha pictures there to make sure the shutter speed is shutting at the same speed - the picture taking has improved than the ones intially I've done.

My camera still has has some issue dealing with the bright light from my TV so you'll see some strange band of discoloration in the pic. The band is there when the light is too bright for the camera to handle, but don't worry about it since everywhere else in the picture is fine.

Sango

Just a thought, since so much people is asking what Macroblocking is and it's really hard to show it via just a pic. Is it possible that was can get someone to take a video clip of a scene with and without MB so people can see for themselves??

Its all about achieving a balanced point of view. I would far prefer hearing from the many other intelligent users (who used to post their findings). And especially from those in the industry. This reminds me of DenonJeff literally being run off the AVS forum. So now look what we are left with...

As for Mr. Bigelow, he is even going so far as to give FUTURE Secrets ratings. Why? To steal their limelight?

Besides being force feed, I DO resent the greedy $383 price charged at my local UE store for this MACRO BLOCKING unit. This marketing hysteria raised here is totally uncalled for, considering the fatal technical flaw of the unit. In the long term too, this situation can only serve to damage the reputations of everyone involved.
Lastly I agree with "wasting" to much time here. That IS just stupid. I think the trend is to "raise the bar" and re-subscribe to professional written reviews. It certainly is the more efficient method.

He was just making a prediction.



Why do you even post in this thread? If you are not satisfied with this review and/or topic then please refrain from reading/posting.

As for the majority of people posting here, Paul's review has helped and opened up discussion.

Again, I have tried numerous upscaling players and after reading his review, I purchased the panny and love it.

Face it, you are in the minority (or you are the minority).

Lodey, "Got new Toshiba 52HMX84 last night.."

I have the same TV as you and I am a newbie here too.

After your set up, can you post you settings ??

I didn't noticed any difference between 720p and 1080i on the TV.

Yes I think I am seeing the MB stuff....but the rainbows for me are killers....my wife doesn't see so I need to live with that !

Anyway, I'll try Paul's suggestions and I'll post my settings too !!

Have a good one everybody !!

Mario

Has anyone confirmed they can get blacker than black to pass with the S97 to a DVI-based display???

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...s-11-2004.html

"If you have a digital display that is HDCP compliant, use HDMI or DVI (with a converter cable if necessary). There are a few DVI players out there, such as the Pioneer DV59-AVi, Samsung DVD-HD931, and Bravo D1/D2. I highly suggest that if you are getting ready to buy, make sure the product you are purchasing has DVI connections that are HDCP compliant (all HDMI connections are HDCP compliant). Keep in mind that, although DVI and HDMI are compatible, there is some loss in going from an HDMI source to a DVI display (see below). So, if you are starting from scratch, get all HDMI devices.

From JJ's article on HDTV Repeaters:

DVI is an 8 bit RGB signal, while HDMI can be 8 bit RGB, or 8 bit, 10 bit, or 12 bit YCbCr. If you have a DVI source and DVI display, there will be no problem. If you have a DVI source and an HDMI display, again, no problem. If however, you have an HDMI source and a DVI display, the below-black video information may be lost in the translation. There is a bug in the Silicon Image HDMI transmitter that pops up when converting YCbCr to RGB. The HD TiVo and Pioneer 59AVi do not have this problem.

Even though source information (DVDs, HD) is all 8 bit color, if DSP is applied in 8 bit, such as in a video processor, rounding errors will toss out some of the data. On the other hand, if the data are 10 bit, such as with YCbCr, then the rounding errors don't occur. In fact, 14 - 16 bit is optimum for processing. Also, DVD data are YCbCr, and are converted to RGB in the player for the DVI output. RGB cannot represent all the data in YCbCr, and this is why the below-black information gets truncated."

This is a pretty important test, especially since this player only upconverts via the HDMI output.

This isn't difinitive by any means but I spent the last half hour attempting to reproduce cropping similar to that shown in your photo. I tried different combos of the 4:3 stretch,shrink, zoom modes, aspect ratios and the different zoom modes.

The only way I could mimic the cropping you presented was by using the zoom modes cinemascope1, cinemascope 2, or by manually increasing the zoom feature. I can deduce from this that if you zoom mode is set appropriately on the DVD player the problem probably lies in the display.

One more note, I'm running my player throughan Iscan HD which allows for phase adjustments of the H and V sync portion of the RGB signal. I experiemented with this as well and found that using the H+V- setting cropped and shifted the image. Though the cropping was not as severe as what you posted, if your are outputting an HDMI signal into your display possibly there is a sync phase issue occuring between source and display.

Check your clock settings and horizontal postion setting as well if your display has them

Does the display have any kind of "horizontal clock" adjustment?

I ask because, the Denon 2910 DVI 1080i seemed to crop one side edge of the image by extra number of pixels and in a way other resolutions did not. But I went into my HT1000 menu and simply altered the horizontal clock, centerend the image, and all was well with the universe.

I haven't commented on your posting so far. Thanks for your efforts.

RJ
...

Has anyone noticed any macroblocking ion 720p mode? I heard a rumor that macroblocking does not occur in 720p. Important to me (and many others) since I have a Sanyo PLV-Z2 LCD projector (1280x720 native).

This is an interesting follow up and I was also wondering, if I recall correctly, something about increasing an adjustment on the S97 to (+1) to pass blacker than black. I was thinking, the unit was really "passing blacker than black", rather the (+1) S97 adjustment was raising the BTB video level so that it could be seen. Somweone could confirm what was going on by checking the S97 video output on a waveform. Is it really passing BTB in an analog signal as a sub 7.5IRE voltage, or is the (+1) S97 adjustment raising the entire black level of the signal floor so that BTB can be seen?

I realize we are talking about a digital signal on the DVI/HDMI output and an analog signal on a composite/component output. However, what you see going on on the analog signal via the S97 (+1) adjustment, is probably was is also going on with the digital DVI/HDMI output.

Just wondering as well.

In the very first scene of Monster's Inc, in the simulation room, I see small blocks of around 40x40 pixels or so in the background, blanket, etc. The blocks are slightly lighter and turn on and off. Is that the macroblocking or is that some other defect? I also see this effect in Chap 11.

I have a Toshiba 52HM84 w/ the S97.

Gcmail:

You have PM. I would really appreciate it if you could answer some questions for me as I have the same TV you have (I love the TV by the way).

John

ajshih:

Most likely it can be a macroblock. If you switch to interlerlaced on the same scene and don't see it, that futher confirms it.

If you also have a digital camera to take a picture of it that'll be great for us to see.
=====================================

I have images to confirm macroblocking on my S97 which I can see. I took them in both progressive which shows MB and on interlaced mode of the similar scene, it's gone.

By looking at the picture, you notice on the MB pic, some things some areas are exaggerated when you compare to the NMB.

As I said, I've only notice this on the Geneon company animation logo but nothing else.

Sango

Sango, I recently looked at the images to see macroblocking, but where in the Geneon logo can it be found? Is the macroblocking found in the purple or blue areas of the logo?

My comments speak the truth. No doubt the Panasonic went into limited distribution and the price was jacked up way over list price because of the marketing efforts made right here.

I was at Ultimate just a couple of days ago (11-9-2004) and $383 dollars was the "sale" posted price. Are Ultimate managers stupid? No!

No we have a formerly best value and technology mass producer of audio and video products, releasing defective (MACRO BLOCKING) products at prices way over list, and into limited distribution channels.

Witness the transformation of a new Bose or Monster based type of company. Rather an extreme change, don't you agree?

The fact is there are many Dvd players available which have comparable performance for considerably less money. At least the general consumer population realizes this!

As for you assuming that I bought a Denon or Panasonic 97 that is just plain wrong. I did buy a Samsung 931 player and a Samsung DLP projector when they first came out years ago and noticed noisy performance, especially in dark scenes. In fact VHS tapes have a better S/N ratio than this common combination. Many here to will learn this lesson too after paying out $$$. So much for the benifets of digital transmission.

Any tips on Settings for this player with RPTVs? I have a Sony XBR LCD RPTV.

megamii:

It's ins't on the logo, it's everything else around it. Look at the light/clouds. See those strange cloud like edges and that werid red!! Different form of macroblcoking but that's it right there. You'll notice them on the MB picture. On the NBM(non-macro) you don't see that don't you. Also you can see some exaggeration too in certain areas of the picture which isn't there on the NMB.

Sango
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Paul,

I began my attack on Panasonic because they said S97 has no Faroudja!! I I said to them, ok look at this picture(the one Jason took), and told them about the part number. Then I said, that's the same part number listed on the Panasonic parts site which the S97 references too!!

Sango

Well, if you agree then Why in the heck do you continue to waste your time here when it evidently would be much better spent in that remedial writing class !!!!

I hope you realize there is a difference between acknowledgement and praise -----Ugggggh !

Thanks for confirming this Paul. You are providing a great service to us all. Do you have a display you can use to check if macroblocking exists (at all) with 720p?