Technical Issues and Questions

[David M.]

Provided you're not running in one of the eye-scorching "Dynamic" modes you should be OK. I'd imagine running the scrolling bar ("video pattern" I think the menus call it) for a few nights should even it out?

[Zot!]

I'm watching 1080i/50 (Broen "The Bridge" blu-ray) content on a momitsu through a 1080p display. The momitsu has an option to display NTSC or PAL, which I think is actually just a reference to framerate not the actual format, as it produces a 1080 image. Regardless, when I have the player convert to "NTSC" I get a slight up and down shake in the image as I assume it attempts to convert the framerate. Luckily my display can show 50fps so when I switch over to "PAL", the shake is gone (albeit with a tiny strip of video noise on the left and right sides which I intend to mask while I watch this)

I used to have this issue with my old all region DVD machine, but the Momitsu displays PAL DVDs perfectly. However with a Blu-ray, the old shaking issue seems to crop up. Does anyone know if a fancier (i.e. Oppo) handles this conversion better? Or should I just always try to output things in a native framerate? I don't even know what such a conversion entails, seems like it would compromise the content. Additionally not all displays allow for 25/50fps framerate. Perhaps this should be an required feature?

[manicsounds]

That's strange. I had a Momitsu clone and a cheap Insignia, and never noticed the up-and-down shake on PAL converted signals. They were smooth.

Now, on my old Pioneer DVD player, the up-and-down jitter was pretty bad on a lot of titles. I was glad to see it gone with the BD player. I wonder why yours is doing this.

[David M.]

Or should I just always try to output things in a native framerate?

Yes, absolutely. Don't ever do these conversions unless you have to.

[Sam T.]

OK, so I hate my Sony BDP-s380. It crashes at least once a week (I only use the thing like 1-2 hours a day) and has to be unplugged from the wall for a hard reset, it is painfully slow and unresponsive, both with loading discs (which I don't mind that much) and menus (which I do), and when handling 24p material it occasionally seems to get flickery/jerky, as if it is downshifting to 12fps or something (I have replaced/upgraded the hdmi cable twice with no improvement). I never had any of those problems with my old s350, though it, sadly, could not stream anything, so I gave it to a friend when I got the s380.

Who has a blu ray player they're thrilled with? My requirements are:
*Under $150
*Hulu+ capable
*Does not have the problems I mention above

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[fdm]

I've had pretty great luck with my Panasonic (but it's an older model, before any of the online things like Hulu+). Suggest looking into the new ones, this one might meet your needs, there seem to be several options. (It will be region-locked though, but that wasn't one of your reqts.)

[mfunk9786]

I highly recommend the LG BD630. You'd have to get the lowest cost Roku (here) to get Hulu Plus, but should be able to pull off both items at a total of around $150 or maybe even a little less. Here's the Google Products listing for the BD630 (it's now OOP, but the newer LG models are of a far lower build quality/reliability). I have two at home - one region free and one not - and have never had a single problem with any disc, and find its build quality and load times stupendous compared to other Blu-ray players I've suffered through.

If you're interested in splurging and getting a region free one (hardware hacked - works wonderfully and you can still update the firmware while retaining the region switching capability), you can get one here (where I got mine) for $190 shipped using the coupon code BARGAINOFFERS. They throw in a free HDMI cable, too.

If you require wireless, the LG BD640 is the same player, just with wireless capabilities. Very low cost refurbished ones at this Amazon link here. Google Product listing for new ones here. There's a region hacked BD 640 too.

[swo17]

I've actually been pretty happy with my Sony player that may not be a 380 but is in the same family. Mainly because it will play just about any scratched up disc that all my other players reject. Mine also has an option where you can set it to turn on and load discs more quickly, and that part of it works great. (Granted, I don't watch many Blu-rays on it.)

My suggestion though (if you insist on spending that little) would be to buy whatever sounds best to you at Best Buy. They have a 30-day return window where if you have any problems during that time, you can exchange it for something else. I've had enough problems with cheap players that I wouldn't want to be without that option.

[mfunk9786]

If you don't want to go with a player that's not made anymore, folks at Amazon are quite fond of the Sony BDP-S590, which is $119.00 and streams Hulu Plus. It's the number one selling Blu-ray player on there right now.

[peerpee]

From the official product description of the new Sony BDPS790 on amazon.co.uk:

"Thanks to a number of high-end technologies, the Sony BDPS790 really does take Blu-ray to the next level. Perhaps the most impressive of these technologies is Digital Cinema 4K. This upscales conventional Blu-ray to the new 4K standard. When matched to a suitable 4K display, this gives an incredible 4 x the detail of the already impressive 1080p of Blu-ray."

"4 x the detail of the already impressive 1080p Blu-ray" ? By upscaling a 1080p image? Four times the detail?

[MichaelB]

I know the English language is in a constant state of flux, but I wasn't aware that "detail" had become a synonym for "pixels".

Let alone one for "pixels at the projection end, though not the necessarily the player end".

[Zot!]

From the official product description of the new Sony BDPS790 on amazon.co.uk:

"Thanks to a number of high-end technologies, the Sony BDPS790 really does take Blu-ray to the next level. Perhaps the most impressive of these technologies is Digital Cinema 4K. This upscales conventional Blu-ray to the new 4K standard. When matched to a suitable 4K display, this gives an incredible 4 x the detail of the already impressive 1080p of Blu-ray."

"4 x the detail of the already impressive 1080p Blu-ray" ? By upscaling a 1080p image? Four times the detail?

That's what we call new math.

Also Michaelb, I think peerpee is pointing out that it is actually ~2x not 4x, though the detail vs pixels is still obviously valid.

2nd edit. Maybe I'm wrong about this....

[peerpee]

No, I was pointing out that there's zero extra detail in a 1080p source uprezzed to 4K. There will be no extra source detail than what's in the 1080p encode. I don't count super bitmapped algorithms interpolating new data as true extra detail and neither should anyone else.

I realise this is done in the audio world with upconverted digital files, that claim to make MP3s sound amazing, but it's utter horseshit in both audio and video worlds.

[peerpee]

Funny thing is, I just bought the Sony BDPS790 Blu-ray player, with multiregion Blu-ray capability, from Multiregion Magic. Nice fast player, and I've got the picture looking like my old Panasonic BD-35 (which in turn looked like the PS3) by turning all the stupid gubbins off in the menus. Straight out the box, it gave a "not nice" picture quality, but thankfully, it's now behaving after tweakage.

My Dad's having my Panasonic (which is bastard slow with Criterions, and has a crap UI).

[David M.]

That's a shame that Sony have moved into turning processing crap on my default. The average user doesn't have the tech know-how to shut that stuff off.

That's small fry compared to what the TVs do though. They'll listen some day ](*,)

[peerpee]

I'd love to know your opinion on a few settings on the Sony 790, David. Namely:

YCbCR/RGB (HDMI) "Set the colour space conversion for the video signal from HDMI"
Options are:
AUTO
YCbCr (4:2:2)
YCbCR (4:4:4)
RGB

-----
HDMI Deep Colour Output
Options are:
AUTO
16-bit
12-bit
10-bit
OFF

---

SBM "A functional process of smooth gradation video signal output from HDMI"
ON or OFF

----

[David M.]

YCbCR/RGB (HDMI) "Set the colour space conversion for the video signal from HDMI"
Options are:
AUTO
YCbCr (4:2:2)
YCbCR (4:4:4)
RGB

All of the video codecs on BD operate at YCbCr (Digital Component video) with 4:2:0 sampling.

HDMI supports YCbCr, but not at 4:2:0. So the closest output option is 4:2:2.

All incoming signals in the TV are almost certainly converted to YCbCr so that the TV can do its stupid video processing on the image (all of which should be shut off or neutralized as best as possible) - even if the source video originates in RGB (eg, games consoles, PCs).

So, select YCbCr 4:2:2. If you know for a fact the player has fancy chroma upsampling (Panasonic) and you know your TV preserves full chroma bandwidth (it probably doesn't, but I checke for this at http://www.hdvtest.co.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; during reviews) and you have a screen big enough to actually see it (projection), select 4:4:4. It is a really subtle difference.

HDMI Deep Colour Output
Options are:
AUTO
16-bit
12-bit
10-bit
OFF

You may as well select 16-bit. The video on DVD and BD is 8-bit. But, some of the higher end players have 10-point gamma correction controls built in (used for offsetting gamma tracking errors in the display using calibration software and a measuring device). For that reason it's good to have "wiggle room" to avoid introducing contouring.

SBM "A functional process of smooth gradation video signal output from HDMI"
ON or OFF

It's basically a dithering function. The difference will be really, really subtle.

Sony players also have a "Smoothing" feature which works in conjunction with that. It can be used to filter out contouring artefacts (which can result if 10-bit video is fed to the video encoder and is truncated to 8-bit without adding dither noise).

Film grain and video noise both act as a dither to hide contouring (another reason why film grain removal blows chunks), so that's only really an issue with some all-digital animated content. I think "The Secret of Kells" is a good example, but most big-budget animated movies have the dithering built in to the video encode so you shouldn't have to resort to using it. There are also a lot of CG studio logos at the start of digital intermediate transfers which show contouring for this reason. Because it's a spatial filter, it can blur out fine details if they're of similar shades.

So, the "Smoothing" feature tries to remove the damage done by truncating to 8-bit by detecting a sudden ridge and averaging out the missing intermediate shades that have been lost by the botched conversion to 8-bit. But, what if your display only accepts an 8-bit input? It would effectively re-botch what the player just corrected. That's what SBM is for, it allows you to still see the benefit of the player internally upsampling to higher-than-8-bit by noise shaping the signal being sent to the display in a way which preserves the improvement - basically inserting fine noise to make sure the degradation is as graceful as possible once it gets to the TV.

I would just leave Smoothing and SBM off.

[peerpee]

Christ, thanks!!!!

[repeat]

Has anyone come up with a reliable solution to play DVD's with fansubs on a Mac? VLC handles them very poorly to say the least - the most annoying thing being that a layer change seems to reset the subtitles, so that in most cases the .srt file has to be cut in two and the second file re-timecoded to start from zero. I've consulted their forums and sent detailed bug reports and everything, to no avail. I'm wondering if some other media player might work better?

[TMDaines]

I guess MPC doesn't work with a Mac? That handles fansubs with a DVD with no problems. There's a strange bug with Vista 32bit though, where subs are constantly delayed by about 1.6secs and I have to hasten them.

Try MPlayer, perhaps? I don't use it but that can probably do it.

And, yes, why VLC can't play fansubs with a DVD, I don't know. It's hopeless.

[John Edmond]

I ended up finding it easier to convert the DVD to lossless MKV and then add the fansubs to that. Irritating.

[repeat]

Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately MPlayer handles dual-layer discs even worse: the layer break resets not only the subtitles, but also the time counter bar (so it seems to jump back to 0:00 - and if you cue forward while on the second half, you might end up on either side of the break). I know absolutely nothing about programming, but I'd imagine that fixing this sort of thing would hardly be an impossible task for the coders.

Not to insinuate anything, but I really fear that a major reason these problems haven't been fixed already is that buying DVD's might not exactly be the most popular way of acquiring films among the target audience of these programs. I buy a LOT of unsubbed DVD's and short of a) buying a 2TB external HD and rip dozens of discs to lossless, or b) buying Windows only to run MPC, I'm out of ideas. Currently if I want to watch a foreign disc with subs, I first have to skip through it to figure out where the layer break is, then chop the .srt in half and run the latter half through subtitling software to correct the timecodes. Plus the irritation of having to get up during the movie to load the other file when the break occurs.

(For anyone interested, my report on the VLC forums, along with the enthusiastic response, can be viewed here; and the bug ticket is still unaddressed after three months...)

[TMDaines]

Can't you run something that will let you run MPC? That works sweetly for me.

XBMC could be an alternative?

What happens with VLC if you play the .ifo file (for the main feature) on the disc, as opposed to going through the DVD menu?

I agree with your suspicions. The number of guys like us, who won't be dissuaded by disks without subtitles, seems to be miniscule.

[repeat]

On VLC, it makes no difference to this issue if you load with or without menus; you can load the .srt file by dragging and dropping it on the window at any point while the film is playing, and it will work, but it will always reset when the layer is changed no matter what you do.

I couldn't get XBMC to even play DVD's properly (it keeps "buffering"), and it doesn't seem to be able to load external subs (at least I couldn't find a way to). I suppose I will eventually have to install Windows on my Mac just in order to run MPC - seems a bit overkill, but I guess it's less trouble than having to rip everything to disk for viewing. It's just frustrating that the VLC developers can't fix this issue

[TMDaines]

I tried XBMC earlier today also and couldn't get it to work with external subs either. MPC isn't perfect for me either, because of the aforementioned Vista bug, where the subtitles always need adjusting, but it does work fine.