Samsung BDP1200 Master/Owner's Thread - Page 157

I don't disagree, I probably wasn't as clear as I should have been. My bad. You can send an uncompressed lossless PCM signal to the 3808 from the 1200 if the disc has it, digitally through an HDMI connection. The receiver then sends the unaltered signals to the speakers. As an alternative, you can send 5.1 analog signals through the coax 5.1 analog connections or 5.1 digital through the fiber optic or coax connections. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there is any real difference between an uncompressed lossless PCM signal and one of the newer codecs unless you have a disc that has a 7.1 track instead of 5.1.

BTW, what happened to the Heels in the tournament? I was so disappointed.

Just checked again, "Blu-ray on DVD" disks that I made with either MPEG-2 (from HDV camcorder) or with AVC (from two different AVCHD camcorders) play with rev. 2.2, do not play with rev. 2.3 -- "This disk cannot be played". Samsung, you suck. On a positive note, rev. 2.2 plays 1440x1080@13Mbps and 1920x1080x17Mbps AVC clips without hiccups.

It is my understanding that if you send any signal, analog or digital, to the receiver via a digital source (HDMI, coaxial or optical) then you can apply the receiver's DSP to it if you so desire. So the signal is unaltered only if DSP is turned off for those inputs when receiving the LPCM. Most receivers do not apply any processing to signals received via direct analog inputs,whether that is the LPCM or a digital track, such as DD or DTS. My receiver does not have HDMI inputs but does have analog 5.1, which I use for all BRD audio, LPCM or digital tracks.

And you are correct. there is no difference between LPCM and TrueHd/DTS HD MA.

As for the Tarheels, what can I say? They took the first half off and it showed. The only good news is that as a result we may be Tyler back for another year. At Carolina getting to the final four is not a goal, nor does it fulfill our expectations. We plan on winning it all every year and pretty much anything less is a disappointment for us, but this year it was more so.

Regarding Rapid Scrolling Menus from Hell on Across the Universe (and, I take it, other titles as well)...

I discovered one can actually access the special feature items with some quick work with the select button. During the rapid scroll, if you anticipate the feature you want just right, you can select it. You have to hit the button BEFORE the menu item shows up on screen, otherwise it's too late. I got to select the special features this way, and they played. It's a real PITA though.

Trying to watch SD of Abyss SE--weird behavior because of branching in special edition--stuttering (fixed by pause-and-play) and now a freeze at about 1:01:30 in. So many workarounds with this player.... Great picture, though.

I am going to throw something in here. I know a good number of us were sold on the Reon HQV chip as an incentive to purchase this particular Bluray machine. I know I was impressed by the ability to upconvert standard discs to a new level. But, and I am speaking on a personal basis, I have basically given up on using the 1200 for SD use. I have encountered so many problems with playback from the frame skip glitch at chapter points to picture freeze to audio dropouts. I have found I have a problem with 1 of every 2 SD discs I play. Each time I have to move the disc to my Toshiba A-2 for an inferior upconvert but play without problems. So I have finally just decided to use my A-2 and given up on my 1200. I know not all of us have the ability to do what I do. But, for me, enough was enough. As far as BD's are concerned. My 1200 works fine and looks great.

I watched the SD version of American Gangster from Netflix last night. Still lots of lockups, even though I chose the theatrical version of the film from the disc menu, which is supposed to be less troublesome than the extended version. So, even with firmware 2.3, Samsung hasn't really done anything to resolve the problems with branching on many SD discs.

I've been following these comments on problems with St. def. discs and the 1200 with interest. Either I've been blessed or I'm using a workaround. I purchased two "like new" 1200's from Ebay approximately 3 mos. ago..primarily for Blu-Ray playback of course, but I was also very interested to see how the Reon chip did cf. to my Lumagen processor.

Having played probably in excess of 4 dozen Std. def discs I can report not one hiccup ! Similar success with Blu-Ray. With both players, I upgraded their firmware to 2.2...and left it there! A caviat though...I rarely play back the original Std def disc...they're all ripped "backups" (100 % video resolution) using (always) Verbatim DVD-R single layer and DVD+R dual layers....thus..not a lot of 'branching', menu selections, etc. just pure movie playback. But..that said...not one audio or video problem....and I REALLY enjoy that Reon chip's prowess!

It's the branching that seems to routinely trip this player up. Doesn't seem like rocket science for Samsung to fix, but who knows whether that will ever happen.

Hmmm, interesting idea. I'd be happy to skip all the menu folderol anyway, so it'd be worth it to process my troubled SDs this way.

Would love to know what you use for your 100% res. ripped backups--PM if you'd rather.

Call me crazy, but I'm about to jump into the wonderful world of 1200 ownership. I'm purchasing a used unit from a trusted source, at a good price. He has never had any playback problems with SD, and only 1 issue with 3:10 to Yuma which was fixed with firmware upgrade. I am hoping that this is one of the elusive units that actually does what it is supposed to do.... at least I hope.

A few questions that I haven't been able to figure out:

I know it doesn't decode TrueHD and DTS-HD/MA.... but what does it do with those instead? I assume it extracts the core at 1.5MB for DTS.... what about the dolby stuff?

Will it work OK to set it to PCM for everything, assuming I connect through HDMI? My HD DVD player sends PCM for HD audio, bitstream for older formats... but PCM all the way around would be fine as well.

Are there many adjustment options for SD DVDs? I know the XA2 has a few.

Thanks, I'll report my experience when I get the unit.

1.5mb for DTS core and 640kb Dolby Digital Core. Setting it to PCM should work fine. That's what I do.

Now I'm confused! From way back in this thread I thought that it was settled that it was best to leave the 1200 on 'Bitstream' all the time. This way you get the legacy DDEx, etc., from sd dvd's, and BR's that only have that, and for BR discs that have 'Uncompressed LPCM', you have to choose this audio in the disc setup, and then it is transmitted over Bitstream and output as such (at least by the Onk 805 that I have). And this is all the hidef audio you can get from the 1200. Is this not correct?

^^^^^
Yes, bitstream was the consensus recommendation early in this thread and revisited (and confirmed) not all that long ago.....

From the 1200 manual, note on page 39:


Also from that page:

That should probably say "only when your equipment does not decode Dolby Digital", and is there any modern receiver that does not?

I take the first quote, "I you have selected a LPCM sound track on a disc, the output will automatically be set to PCM" to mean that even if you have the 1200 set to 'Bitstream', it will send it output out as PCM; so you never need to set the 1200 to anything other than 'Bitstream'.

That's how I read it and it seems to work that way in practice.

I think it's one of the few nice features of the 1200

This is correct. You set the 1200 to bitstream and it sends everything out that way, but will default to PCM if you select LPCM from the disc menu. It does the work for you. The only way to get lossless audio from the 1200 is if the disc has LPCM. It will send it out (automatically changing the output to PCM) or you can send it via the analog 5.1 outputs after doing a DAC.

The analog outputs are always active and it does a DAC on all signals. For instance if you chose TrueHD, it will extract the core, do a DAC and send it out on the analog outputs.

The player can decode DD and DTS internally, so it doesn't really make much difference.

Has anyone had trouble with Before the Devil Knows You're Dead? I thought I read where it played fine, but I couldn't get it to work. First try it was slow loading and it eventually ejected and gave me the Disc Can Not Be Played message. I put it back in and it got to the FBI warning and then it acted like it wanted to play but it stopped on a blank screen at 00:09. Every other time, it simply fails to load at all and nothing happens. I checked and cleaned the disc, but that did not help. Anyone else have issues with this BluRay?

"the water horse" and "the orphanage" both played fine for me, as far as movie goes, didn't check extras. I'm on firmware 2.3

I just received this BD as a rental from Netflix. Put in in the 1200, pressed Play at the menu, and it started fine. I only played it for a minute or so, but it seemed to be OK.

Not that I doubted you, but I did try 2.3 and had the same "disk cannot be played" message. Bumped down to 2.2 and BD5/9 play fine.

Hope I don't have any BD that require 2.3

Washed it four times (it was a NetFlix disc) and finally got it past the intro to the main menu, but it was lots of stutters, etc. I started the movie and it seemed to work but by that time we had watched a different one and it was late so I shut it down. We'll see if I can get it fired up again. Must be something to do with the disc.

update: got another "disc can not be played" guess I will have to play another movie first and try it again. frustrating

Must be a bad disc. I watched the whole thing tonight, without any problems (such as stutters or lockups) at all. I'm at firmware version 2.3.

How did you bump back to 2.2?

Reloaded 2.2 over 2.3, at least the 1200 allows downgrading, good heavens.

I submitted a complaint through Samsung website, got a standard canned reply, but I hope that someone at least read it and knows about the issue. Waiting for 2.4 with this issue resolved, along with SD 4:3 playback.

I might contact Samsung CS or like you did go to the website. I hesitate because I expect some sort of answer such as " how do you know you're burning a properly formatted disc" or something eluding to it being something I did wrong, faulty/cheap media, etc...

I've been fairly tolerant of the issues with the player... like having to wait 2 months to watch POTC 3. Removing functionality is is really hitting below the belt.

Looks like quite a few people in the 71 series thread in the LCD section are talking about a lawsuit against Samsung for the problems with their TVs not performing as advertised. Sucks to be Samsung...

AFAIK, Samsung is also being sued for faulty CCD sensors it its camcorders. I don't think Samsung wants yet another lawsuit.