Technical Issues and Questions

Discuss North American DVDs and Blu-rays or other DVD and Blu-ray-related topics.
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Adam X
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:04 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1801 Post by Adam X » Mon Nov 30, 2020 8:41 pm

Your welcome. Based on that, I’d say yes, it’s the disc. Hope the digital copy works for you.

flyonthewall2983
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:31 pm
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Re: Technical Issues and Question

#1802 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Dec 01, 2020 5:59 pm

Mr Sheldrake wrote:
Thu Nov 26, 2020 2:06 pm
I bought this stand last month for $100 on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089 ... UTF8&psc=1
I needed something on wheels, it’s very sturdy. I bought a 65” TCL Roku tv that has an option for less wide feet length, some 65” tvs with wider feet might not fit it.
I ended up buying this, which should hopefully fit either my old stand or the unused dining table I have that's 47 inches wide. Now to just find someone to help me do the grunt work and I can breathe easy.

I wound up buying a 65" TCL too.

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TheKieslowskiHaze
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2020 10:37 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1803 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Mon Dec 28, 2020 1:22 pm

I'm looking for a new, quieter blu-ray player. I currently have a Sony BDP, and the fan noise can get distracting.

I have heard good things about the Sony UBP-X800 re noise level. I'm wondering if anyone here has any insight about this issue.

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EddieLarkin
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:25 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1804 Post by EddieLarkin » Mon Dec 28, 2020 6:12 pm

I've had the Sony X700 and it was the loudest player I've ever had.

The Panasonic 820 is basically silent in comparison. It also happens to be the best UHD player on the market.

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joshua
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2009 5:11 pm

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1805 Post by joshua » Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:18 am

J Wilson wrote:
Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:05 am
I have an Oppo BDP-83 that I've had for probably 10-11 years, which has always worked without issue. Recently, I've had two different releases that the Oppo wouldn't play video for (sound worked fine on both otherwise), the Arrow Gamera set (the US version) and Eureka's Murders in the Rue Morgue disc from the Lugosi set. Everything else I've played has worked without issue. Does this seem like a disc-based thing, since the player is getting rather old and maybe can't handle something about recent discs, or could there be a mechanical fault? The firmware is up to date, but they haven't updated it in six years.
I want to piggyback off of this previous post and see if anyone might have some info here. I also have the Oppo BDP-83 and am having this same issue with some Arrow, BFI, and Eureka discs. On the discs that have an issue, the company logos play and the main menu comes up but when you choose to play the main feature, it will play the sound and subtitles sans the video. I checked some of the recent Eureka and Arrow discs I have and here are the ones that have this issue and the ones that do not:

Discs with issue

Eureka
207- Rio Grande
230- Throw Down
233-235 Bela Lugosi 3-fer
236- The Man Who Laughs
240- Mothra
241-242 The H Man/Battle In Outer Space
Mr. Vampire
The Bride With White Hair

Arrow
Flash Gordon (US)
Black Test Car (US)
Imamura Boxset (US)
Blind Chance and Camera Buff from Kieslowski Boxset (UK)

Other
Krabi 2562 (Anti-Worlds)
Dementia (BFI)

Discs that play fine

Eureka
205- Cloak and Dagger
213- Der Golem
214- The Fate of Lee Khan
215- Raining in the Mountain
228- Kwaidan
239- Waxworks
Zu Warriors From the Magic Mountain

Arrow
The Mad Fox (US)
Ringu Boxset (US)
Tsukamoto Boxset (US)
The Scar and No End from Kieslowski Boxset (UK)

Other
Tales from the Hood 1&2 (BFI)
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Second Run)

Does anyone know if Arrow, BFI, Eureka are using some kind of new copywrite protections or some other new coding recently introduced in the authoring of their discs that would cause this issue? Do any of you folks with newer Oppo players (bdp-93,103,105) have issues with the problematic discs in the list above? Finally, how hard would it be, if this issue could be fixed by firmware, to amend the current firmware? Since Oppo Digital is no more, I might have to come up with a work around if I want to continue using this player. It really is great at upscaling and the BD playback looks great so I'd hate to not be able to continue its use.

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willoneill
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:10 am
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1806 Post by willoneill » Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:49 am

I've had a similar issue (sound but no video on the main feature) with discs in Eureka's second and third Keaton sets. I wrote to Eureka, and they told me that it's because the problem films in question have higher than normal bitrates, which some players can't handle without a firmware update. Considering I'm still on a ten-year-old Seiki for Region B discs, a firmware update ain't happening ... sooner rather than later this player will die, I figure, so I'll be able to watch the discs then.

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joshua
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2009 5:11 pm

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1807 Post by joshua » Wed Dec 30, 2020 2:19 am

willoneill wrote:
Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:49 am
I've had a similar issue (sound but no video on the main feature) with discs in Eureka's second and third Keaton sets. I wrote to Eureka, and they told me that it's because the problem films in question have higher than normal bitrates, which some players can't handle without a firmware update. Considering I'm still on a ten-year-old Seiki for Region B discs, a firmware update ain't happening ... sooner rather than later this player will die, I figure, so I'll be able to watch the discs then.
Thank you for the information! I'm going to follow up with Oppo and see if they can do anything. I do wonder how hard it would be for someone with know-how to go into the firmware files of our two players and adjust the parameters in the code? Thanks again.

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Drucker
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Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1808 Post by Drucker » Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:57 pm

Is your Oppo 83 region-free? I have a 93 that I modded via the USB port. When Indicator series launched, none of the discs I bought from the label would play. They would play the company logo but nothing else. Anyway, I removed the mod kit, sent it to oppo for repair, and the 93 plays fine now region A only.

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Adam X
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:04 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1809 Post by Adam X » Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:59 am

joshua, I’ve got a modded BDP-103 on the second-most recent FW, and had no issues playing a few of the Arrow titles you listed.

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hearthesilence
Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:22 am
Location: NYC

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1810 Post by hearthesilence » Fri Jan 01, 2021 3:01 pm

I don't know if this is the same issue, but I had an Oppo region-free 83 that would flicker (like play picture for almost half a second, then black for almost half a second, then picture again, etc.) on certain titles regardless of region. The only way to fix this was to switch picture playback to the "direct" setting rather than "1080p," which was fine but meant that I had to switch it back again whenever I needed something SD extrapolated to 1080p.

After a long e-mail back-and-forth with Oppo, they claimed it was an issue with HDMI handshake, and that the reason why the "direct" setting worked as a quick fix was because the picture I was playing was encoded at 24 frames per second rather than a higher frame rate, which gave the TV an easier data stream to handle. I tried changing HDMI cables, but nothing changed.

So with that in mind, I would try doing that and see if it works - maybe it'll "reduce" the data stream as these films don't actually have the much high frame-rates used in modern digital video.

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joshua
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2009 5:11 pm

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1811 Post by joshua » Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:38 pm

Thank you everyone for the help.
Drucker wrote:
Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:57 pm
Is your Oppo 83 region-free? I have a 93 that I modded via the USB port. When Indicator series launched, none of the discs I bought from the label would play. They would play the company logo but nothing else. Anyway, I removed the mod kit, sent it to oppo for repair, and the 93 plays fine now region A only.
It is region free. I have a plug-and-play internal hardware mod. I should check to see if the region A discs have the same issue if the mod is removed. Thanks.
Adam X wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:59 am
joshua, I’ve got a modded BDP-103 on the second-most recent FW, and had no issues playing a few of the Arrow titles you listed.
Thanks for letting me know. I'm starting to think that this problem is only happening to the bdp-83 in the Oppo line. At least it is the only model I've seen discussed with the issue across multiple forums. Thanks again for trying out the discs.
hearthesilence wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 3:01 pm
I don't know if this is the same issue, but I had an Oppo region-free 83 that would flicker (like play picture for almost half a second, then black for almost half a second, then picture again, etc.) on certain titles regardless of region. The only way to fix this was to switch picture playback to the "direct" setting rather than "1080p," which was fine but meant that I had to switch it back again whenever I needed something SD extrapolated to 1080p.

After a long e-mail back-and-forth with Oppo, they claimed it was an issue with HDMI handshake, and that the reason why the "direct" setting worked as a quick fix was because the picture I was playing was encoded at 24 frames per second rather than a higher frame rate, which gave the TV an easier data stream to handle. I tried changing HDMI cables, but nothing changed.

So with that in mind, I would try doing that and see if it works - maybe it'll "reduce" the data stream as these films don't actually have the much high frame-rates used in modern digital video.
Hmm, I've read about this "HDMI handshake" thing too. I currently do play BDs in source direct and I think it might be because of this issue. I think I need to look into that too. If I remember right, the situation of BDs flickering in 1080p setting started a couple of years after I put in the region-free mod. One day I took the mod out to test playback in 1080p and saw that it was normal again. Then I put the mod back in and the flicker came back. I just figured something went wrong with the hardware mod or firmware updates didn't play nice with it. Either way, since the work-around was easy enough, I have just been going back-and-forth between source direct and 1080p ever since.


I wrote to Oppo to see what they would say about what FM willoneill said above and here is the question and response:
After contacting Eureka, a fellow forum poster was informed that the issue is that the discs in question have higher than normal bitrates. Would you have any info on how to work around this issue so that I can keep using my Oppo? Is there any chance someone at the company can write a firmware patch to account for discs using higher bitrates?
Oppo response-
Unfortunately, there isn't a setting in the player to have the player read lower bitrates from the disc. It is very unlikely there will be an update available for the player since development for the player has been finalized many years ago.
The "read lower bitrates" thing confused me a bit but I get since they are not a company anymore, that there isn't much that they can do. Oh Well, might have to look into a new player.

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Adam X
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:04 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1812 Post by Adam X » Fri Jan 01, 2021 9:56 pm

It could just be a roundabout way of saying that yes, it can’t deal with the higher encoded bitrate, and a setting would be needed to optionally downsample content for playback.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1813 Post by Michael Kerpan » Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:17 pm

Joshua --

Oh, Oppo still exists -- however, it only does things like smartphones and smartwatches now (its a major company in this industry within China).

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joshua
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2009 5:11 pm

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1814 Post by joshua » Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:37 pm

Michael Kerpan wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 10:17 pm
Joshua --

Oh, Oppo still exists -- however, it only does things like smartphones and smartwatches now (its a major company in this industry within China).
Yeah, I should have clarified that Oppo Digital stateside is no longer a thing.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1815 Post by Michael Kerpan » Sat Jan 02, 2021 12:07 am

It seems like Oppo isn't interested in selling (or isn't allowed to sell) its current products in the USA. In any event, I wonder how much of a support staff still exists (if any) for its now-dead product lines.

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Adam X
Joined: Thu Apr 16, 2009 5:04 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1816 Post by Adam X » Sat Jan 02, 2021 7:55 am

Likely not much. At the time they announced discontinuing production of UHD/BD players (in early 2018), they said they’d keep supporting existing hardware. But I just had a look and even their final UHD players haven’t received a FW update in almost 2 years (not even a year past their press release, which is a shame as they were one of the best for after-sale support).

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fdm
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:25 pm

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1817 Post by fdm » Sat Jan 02, 2021 2:12 pm

Stateside at least, they are still doing repairs, for now, and still provide online support, for now. But yeah firmware updates are pretty much done with.

boredmedia
Joined: Wed May 05, 2021 11:59 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1818 Post by boredmedia » Wed May 05, 2021 12:16 pm

hi, im new to the collection. just like to know how good is the picture quality on the dvd releases compared to the blu rays? i live in asia, i can only buy criterions on amazon, blu rays are too pricey for me

Tim
Joined: Thu Nov 04, 2004 8:27 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1819 Post by Tim » Fri May 14, 2021 7:28 am

Forgive my ignorance if the answer here is obvious, but I was watching The Good Fairy on Blu, said to be from a new 4K scan, and while the print was excellent there were moments when pixels seemed very visible on Margaret Sullavan's face. At other times the picture was perfect. I was puzzled and wondered if a filter had been used in the original cinematography that had somehow been picked up and highlighted by the 4K scan. I was reminded of the moire patterns that used to appear when one made a half-tone reproduction from a half-tone original in my days working in a print shop many years ago.

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jsteffe
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Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1820 Post by jsteffe » Fri May 14, 2021 4:28 pm

Tim wrote:
Fri May 14, 2021 7:28 am
Forgive my ignorance if the answer here is obvious, but I was watching The Good Fairy on Blu, said to be from a new 4K scan, and while the print was excellent there were moments when pixels seemed very visible on Margaret Sullavan's face. At other times the picture was perfect. I was puzzled and wondered if a filter had been used in the original cinematography that had somehow been picked up and highlighted by the 4K scan. I was reminded of the moire patterns that used to appear when one made a half-tone reproduction from a half-tone original in my days working in a print shop many years ago.
Without seeing the film, based on what you are describing it sounds as if the cinematographer put some kind of gauze in front of the lens to diffuse the image for glamour purposes, since it associated with shots of Margaret Sullavan's face. You can see a similar kind of moiré pattern in the opening shot of Hitchcock's MARNIE due to (if I recall correctly) nylon stocking placed over the lens.

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filmyfan
Joined: Fri Feb 02, 2007 9:50 am

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1821 Post by filmyfan » Sun May 16, 2021 6:59 am

Just started getting intermittent black screen on my Panasonic Multi Region Region player - dont even have to be watching anything - just leave it on the Main Menu and it will "blink" for a second or so - happens intermittently but roughly every 15 seconds or so.

Had to recently change the region on the player -wonder if I have upset some other settings somewhere on the machine?

Any Ideas ?

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fiddlesticks
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2007 8:19 pm
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Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1822 Post by fiddlesticks » Tue May 18, 2021 8:24 pm

I experience a lot of buffering when streaming live TV to my television, especially sports (I have little trouble with shows and films, and oddly enough it never buffers during commercials.) When I stream to a laptop or tablet, it never buffers. I have repeatedly tested my wifi connection, which is more than adequate, currently showing 32Mbps. However, the TV connection speed rates at ~5000 kbps, which I gather is too slow. The TV, which has a built in streaming interface (ie no external device like Roku,) is 3 or 4 years old. Do I need a new tv? Is there another solution?

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skilar
Joined: Sat Jul 20, 2019 11:45 pm

Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1823 Post by skilar » Wed May 19, 2021 12:03 am

How far is your TV from the wifi source? It sounds like your signal is weak by the time it gets to the TV. Running an ethernet cable directly to the TV would likely help, but depending on your setup, that might not be possible.

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fiddlesticks
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Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1824 Post by fiddlesticks » Wed May 19, 2021 2:05 am

I have checked the signal strength on my tablet at the TV and further away, and it is strong. The router is perhaps 12 feet from the tv. We have no issues with wifi on any other device anywhere in this very small house. In fact, the sole problem we have is streaming Yahoo TV on this television. (That is, streaming Yahoo TV on tablet and laptop work perfectly, as does streaming Amazon Prime on the tv, although I do that only rarely.) Ethernet is not an option with my setup.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Technical Issues and Questions

#1825 Post by Michael Kerpan » Wed May 19, 2021 8:41 am

fiddlesticks -- why not try (borrow, buy) a latest generation streaming device before giving up on the TV itself. It's a lot cheaper. ;-)

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