Technical Issues and Questions

[Napier]

I have recently become more sensitive to this as the new owner of a plasma TV. I'm not sure how susceptible these still are to burn-in/uneven phosphor aging, and perhaps I am just being paranoid, but I've got the wife on a strict regime of zooming out all black bars on programs she watches, and whenever I've "treated" myself to watching something in its proper, non-16:9 ratio, I've always felt a little dirty afterward. My owner's manual actually says, "Avoid showing signals that fill only part of the screen. Images that fail to fill the screen may cause temporary or permanent image retention depending on the frequency and duration." So this matter of stretching signals to completely fill the screen may not be entirely due to consumer ignorance.

On a side note, and perhaps this belongs more in the Technical Issues and Questions thread, but are there any other plasma owners out there who can ease my mind about watching more programs in their original aspect ratios with black bars?

I gave my plasma about 1,000 hrs. of (breaking in) time before I started watching things in their proper ratio. This should be enough time to dim the phosphor's so they don't leave a permanent mark. Then you can enjoy sports, and even video games. I still sometimes fall asleep with it on and no problems. Now on topic. I am anxiously awaiting Magnificent Obsession to show at my door.

[domino harvey]

Coby is an off-brand that gets sold in second-tier department stores, so I don't think they're gunning for legitimacy

[RodneyOz]

I've had my widesceeen plasma for at least a year and it's on A LOT. We get TV shows in all sorts of ratios thanks to the variety of cable formats, and thus sometimes the screen is completely full, sometimes there are bars. It's made no difference whatsoever so far to the plasma screen.

I've been under the impression that it's only a problem if the parts of the screen are static (thus issues with watermarks for various channels getting 'burned in' to the screen if the one station is left on) for prolonged periods, so changing them around frequently (alternating channels, alternating between full screen and correct ratios) will prevent them from burnout?

If I'm wrong on this, please tell me before I kill my television.

[Dylan]

Hey guys,

I'm currently using Windvd 4 on my laptop, and so far I'm unable to get region free software (Remote Selector and others listed here) to function. So, it's either a problem with my laptop or (more likely) Windvd 4 requires a very specific program for region free discs. I was curious if anybody had any suggestions on this matter (software that may work for Windvd 4, etc.)?

[Michael Kerpan]

Have you checked out DVD For Free (DVD43)? If that doesn't work, there is the VLC player (to be used in place of WinDVD).

[nsps]

Yeah, I got one of the newer Pioneers. I'm probably just being paranoid. But it's precisely that I want to protect my investment (and the absolutely gorgeous pictures this thing produces) that I'm a bit cautious.

Mods, feel free to move this.

Ah, but what's a gorgeous picture in the wrong AR?

Have you burned any of those "screen-workout" discs that are supposed to help break in your plasma? AVSForum should have some links.

I must say I'm glad I went with an LCD screen to avoid this stress. My parents have a Panny plasma, and whenever I go over to their place, there's much stress whenever the TV is paused or a 4:3 movie is on. It's good to know I can pause my movie to answer the phone or whatever and not worry.

[swo17]

Yeah, I have one of those discs, which I run at night and when I'm not watching TV for long periods. So I figure I've already logged about 400 hours on my TV in just three weeks or so. To be honest, I think a lot of this is just my own paranoia, or maybe the break-in disc is doing its job. Because if it's a movie I care about watching at all, I watch it in the right OAR, and yeah, sometimes I leave it paused for 5-10 minutes, and I've never seen even the slightest hint of burn-in or uneven pixel strength. If money were not an issue, I would love to have an LCD for TV programs and other general use (so my wife wouldn't have to follow all these damned rules) and a plasma in a dedicated home theater, only to be used by me.

I have to say though, I felt some sense of vindication when my brother-in-law finally admitted to me the other day that his TV (an LCD) didn't look quite as good as mine.

[Lemmy Caution]

Maybe common knowledge, but these numbers were something of a surprise to me:

Studios generally earn a $12 (8.4 pounds) profit on a $16 DVD, or a profit margin of 75 percent; they typically get 60 percent, or $2.40, on a $4 pay-per-view or video-on-demand transaction, said Michael Pachter, analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities.

From an article entitled: Hollywood has a lot riding on Steve Jobs

[Antoine Doinel]

That figure seems wrong, and I'd like to see some of the math behind it. I'm sure studios get $12 per DVD from sales, but I'm sure the actual profit they are left with after that money pays off marketing, packaging, distribution, and points for actors (particularly for big name films) is a lot smaller.

[Elephant]

Can anyone help me? I got the Samsung BD-P2500 Blu-Ray but it won't output 1080p to my 1080p TV (a Sharp Aquos 32D62U)--when I go in the setup menu on the player it's defaulted to 1080i, and when I select 1080p I get a message basically telling me my TV doesn't support 1080p . . . but it does. When I try to make it select 1080p anyway, the player shuts down and I have to reset.

Does anyone have any idea what's going on here, or know how to fix it? I'm using HDMI cables from Monoprice, and running everything through a Panasonic receiver.

(And for the record, I'm aware of my fervent anti-Blu-Ray sourness on the previous page of this thread, after having been burned by the demise of HD-DVD, but yeah, I caved.)

Thanks!

[Antoine Doinel]

The first thing I would try is updating the firmware on the BluRay player (if you haven't done so already). Also, try connecting the BluRay to the TV directly and see what happens, and to rule out if it could be a problem with the receiver.

[nsps]

Yeah, sounds like a talkback issue between the TV and the player.

Also…

Maybe common knowledge, but these numbers were something of a surprise to me:

Studios generally earn a $12 (8.4 pounds) profit on a $16 DVD, or a profit margin of 75 percent; they typically get 60 percent, or $2.40, on a $4 pay-per-view or video-on-demand transaction, said Michael Pachter, analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities.

From an article entitled: Hollywood has a lot riding on Steve Jobs

Yes, these prices aren't taking into account stuff like replication and printing, not too mention the production costs and royalties. There's a difference between wholesale cost and profit, and the author of this article doesn't recognize it.

Also, a pay-per-view viewing is the equivalent of a rental, not a sale. If the purchasers to watch it again, they have to pay again.

[Elephant]

The first thing I would try is updating the firmware on the BluRay player (if you haven't done so already). Also, try connecting the BluRay to the TV directly and see what happens, and to rule out if it could be a problem with the receiver.

Thanks guys--problem solved. I'd updated the firmware before I even tried a disc, so I knew that wasn't the problem. Running it straight to the TV works, however. Now I just have to figure out how to get three players hooked up to my TV with far too few HDMI outs to go around . . .

And El Norte looks amazing on Blu-Ray . . .

[fdm]

I'd updated the firmware before I even tried a disc, so I knew that wasn't the problem. Running it straight to the TV works, however. Now I just have to figure out how to get three players hooked up to my TV with far too few HDMI outs to go around

Had similar problem. Fortunately I was able to keep my new-ish at the time receiver and had it upgraded (from an older variation of HDMI 1.1 that also was limited to 1080i to a newer variation of HDMI 1.1 that handles 1080p (and /24 as well). The upgrade was expensive, so beforehand went through a lot of trials and tribulations to avoid doing it, but never came up with anything that actually worked.

Perhaps things have changed in 1.25 years, but you may need to consider a new(er) receiver. For me I probably had enough inputs to the TV (though that one cable sticking out of the front was rather awkward looking), but couldn't get the hi-def sound through my receiver without running into your similar problem. (My hi-def sound is courtesy of decoding it in the player and PCM-ing it over to the receiver.)

[Elephant]

Perhaps things have changed in 1.25 years, but you may need to consider a new(er) receiver. For me I probably had enough inputs to the TV (though that one cable sticking out of the front was rather awkward looking), but couldn't get the hi-def sound through my receiver without running into your similar problem. (My hi-def sound is courtesy of decoding it in the player and PCM-ing it over to the receiver.)

I think I'm just going to run my region-free player to the receiver/TV via component (rather than HDMI), leaving the two HDMI outs free for the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players. Then just run all the sound through the receiver. The receiver's pretty new, but I guess since my HD-DVD player was 1080i I never noticed that I was limited in that respect. I think it should be all sorted out now with the purchase of a few cables. I appreciate everyone's help!

[denti alligator]

Anyone running Zoom Player on an HTPC with ffdshow and Avisynth?

I recently updated all the software and settings and it went berzerko on me. The new settings leave me with patches of pixels, but little else. The resize function in ffdshow never worked for me to begin with. Either it oversaturated the colors (how would merely resizing the image affect color?) or left me with a bad case of the jaggies. Even though my monitor is 1920x1080 I would set it to horizontal 1280 resize only, which looked good enough.

Anyway, I'm running Vista, have a nice new GPU (details of which I forget now), only 2gigs memory, but still.... wondering what others have used for their ffdshow and avisynth settings.

[fiddlesticks]

Please bear with me as this will surely be a cluelessly phrased question...
I have an HP Pavilion Entertainment PC running Windows Vista 64, and I use Firefox (3.0.6) to browse the web. This PC has an HDMI port, and I sometimes use it to connect to my television when watching embedded video content from the web. And it works fine for video. My problem is, I don't know how to direct the audio to bypass the PC's speakers and instead route out the HDMI cable to the TV. I don't even know enough to know where to look: is this a PC (i.e. audio card) setting, or a Firefox setting, or a setting for the embedded player (e.g. Flash), or some sort of setting having to do with the HDMI interface. It must be possible, because I can also use the HDMI to watch DVDs and Blu-Rays (using the HP QuickPlay player), and I am able to send the audio out (it's a setting in QuickPlay). Any help, or even clues, on how to do this for web content would be appreciated.

[Ahti]

Do you have any relevant options for default audio device in the Sound section of Control panel?
I'm not sure if you must have the cable plugged in and TV turned on for the port to be registered and selectable.
You can also download the video to play it in your player of choice.

[fiddlesticks]

Do you have any relevant options for default audio device in the Sound section of Control panel?

I do, and that did the trick. (See, I told you I was clueless!) Now I can watch today's Tour of California stage on the big screen and not strain to listen to Frankie Andreu through my tinny computer speakers. Woo Hoo! Thanks, Ahti!

[milk114]

what software would be best to "download" my bought-and-paid-for dvds to an external hard drive?

[exte]

Dvdshrink. It's free.

[dx23]

And best software to make backup copies of DVDs?

[Matt]

And best software to make backup copies of DVDs?

I think that's what milk144 meant by "downloading" his DVDs to a hard drive.

[dx23]

And best software to make backup copies of DVDs?

I think that's what milk144 meant by "downloading" his DVDs to a hard drive.

Yeah, but I need a software to backup to another disc. DVD Shrink only compresses the files to the hard drive. Sorry for not being more specific before.

[Gregory]

My Oppo, which I've had for two years, is now scrambling up the subtitles. I've never had this happen, is it just a sign that the player is getting old and starting to malfunction?