Technical Issues and Questions

[eyemgh]

I have the same issue as pistolwink.

I just set up a 65" Panasonic VT60 with a Sony BDP-S5100 and a Roku3 (prefer the interface). The TV is set to the CNET calibration used in their review.

I watched OTA HD broadcasts and they look good. I streamed Hulu and it looked good. I streamed The Fall in HD and it was amazing. I popped in Man of Steel in Blu Ray, preparing to be blown away and I (and my family) were shocked at the oddness of the video quality. It was fatiguing and looked like video, not film. I subsequently learned about Soap Opera Effect, which I have in spades.

I'm fairly sure it's the player, but I don't know how to fix it.

Thoughts?

[pistolwink]

Eyemgh - I've located a built-in error/glitch in my setup menus; look and see if you have the same mistake.

So, as you know if you have one of these TVs, there are separate Setup menus for each input (Antenna, HDMI 1, HDMI 2, etc.). Each setup menu includes settings for picture, audio, etc. Well, when viewing the Picture Setup Menu for the Antenna input (i.e. for watching broadcast TV), the description for the Motion Smoother reads "Improves motion picture quality by reducing motion blur." (See first image.) This is, according to the owner's manual, the correct description of motion smoothing.

But when viewing the Picture Setup Menu for the HDMI1 input, which is the input for the Blu-ray player, the description for Motion Smoother is different (and wrong). In fact, it's the exact description that actually/correctly goes with the "24p Direct In" submenu (See Pictures 2 and 3).

These factors - (lack of) motion smoothing, and engaging 24p display - are important ones in determining quality of motion onscreen, so I'm wondering if this error is indicative of some bug that's causing my inability to completely get rid of SOE.

Image links:
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1450484/light ... /id/330013" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1450484/light ... /id/330014" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1450484/light ... /id/330015" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[pistolwink]

Also, I'm going to try swapping out my player for a friend's tomorrow to try and isolate variables (i.e, is the problem the ST60 or the Sony S5100). The error on the tv setup menu worries me, though.

[fdm]

You might want to try turning 1080p pixel direct On.

[eyemgh]

Pistolwink, did switching to 24p direct in help? I'll look at mine tomorrow.

I went to the red box and rented a couple more flicks. Man of Steel was terrible. White House Down had a few SOE moments, but far fewer. RIPD is tomorrow. We'll see.

I also bought my own calibration disc, so I'll see how it looks.

I too have a second BRP. I'll swap.

Keep me posted. Thanks!

[pistolwink]

After spending way too long digging through the AVS forum, I finally found other people who have noticed the same issue, so I know I'm not crazy.

e.g.:
"I've found a 24fps signal won't playback properly at any of the ST60's hz settings. The only time the 24fps cadence seemed correct to me is when I turned 24fps off on the blu-ray player and let it output 60hz to the TV. Even when setting the TV to 24fps-60hz, the 24 frame signal will have a slight motion smoothed feel (to me eye). 96hz and 24hz being more on the strobing and artifacting side. I work in film though and am super sensitive to 24frame playback. That being said, as long as I set "24fps out" OFF on the blu-ray player I love the TV."

"Make sure Motion Smoother is off. And for Blu-rays, set your player to output 30fps/60fps, instead of 24fps. Sometimes the ST60 can have a little SOE when doing native 24Hz material, whether it's 24~48~60~96Hz playback. A recent firmware update may have improved this, but outputting 30/60 from your device should work fine."

I turned off 24p output on the Blu-ray, and the movement looks so much better. So relieved I won't have to deal with returning/exchanging either the TV or player.

[Jonathan S]

Has anyone had (or heard about) problems playing the (UK) blu-ray of the recent film Hitchcock? After the usual "Loading" messages and a brief flash of the Fox logo, all I get is a completely blank screen. I assume it's a BD-Java but even the worst of these usually load after 10 minutes (I've given it an hour!) Pressing "menu" and other remote buttons achieves nothing.

Firmware is up-to-date on my Sony, the disc plays on someone else's Panasonic.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Is there a setup solution - I'm still tweaking the settings on my Sony tube TV and my LG blu player - or is the blu for Dark Knight Rises supposed to drop from 2.39:1 to 1.78:1 for the IMAX sections?

[Roger Ryan]

Is there a setup solution - I'm still tweaking the settings on my Sony tube TV and my LG blu player - or is the blu for Dark Knight Rises supposed to drop from 2.39:1 to 1.78:1 for the IMAX sections?

Yes, that is intended and is noted in the aspect ratio info on the back cover. THE DARK KNIGHT Blu-ray was the same way. I know some folks opted for the DVD of TDK which maintained a consistent 2.39:1 aspect ratio throughout, but the image quality was so poor, I can't imagine that being an acceptable trade-off.

When screened in non-IMAX theaters, the 1.78:1 scenes were cropped to 2:39:1 which looked fine most of the time but would still result in the occasional head being lopped off.

[jindianajonz]

The discussion in the Warner's thread keeps drifting back to how to find pressed DVDs instead of burned DVDs for certain sets. What exactly are the downsides of the burned ones? Are they just more susceptible to damage, or are there other problems as well?

[knives]

They age quicker meaning that they could more easily come unglued or have the movie encode be less stable.

[TMDaines]

VLC 2.1.2 now has some support for Blu-ray menus! Works lovely with Arrow's Black Sunday.

In other news, whenever I try to play Cohen's Tristana on my PC with either VLC or MPC, I get no audio. On VLC I get some high pitched screeching, but nada with MPC. Anyone else have this problem?

[Jonathan S]

Has anyone had (or heard about) problems playing the (UK) blu-ray of the recent film Hitchcock? After the usual "Loading" messages and a brief flash of the Fox logo, all I get is a completely blank screen. I assume it's a BD-Java but even the worst of these usually load after 10 minutes (I've given it an hour!) Pressing "menu" and other remote buttons achieves nothing.

Firmware is up-to-date on my Sony, the disc plays on someone else's Panasonic.

I now find that my Sony won't load several other Fox blu-rays. One of them actually throws up a screen telling me I need to update my firmware. Trouble is, I've already installed the latest firmware available for my model (and confirmed it was successful). Other BD-Java discs from Universal, Paramount, etc. do load - slowly but surely.

[David M.]

Sorry I can't help, but, this sort of post reminds me why I went out of my way to author everything in HDMV.

Note to self: "keep it simple, stupid!"

[Paupau]

Is the sony player an older one that needs some kind of memory stick or USB thingy?
I have a S-350 and i remember that one time i took that thing out for wathever reason, and some titles just wouldn't work. Plug it back, All normal.

[Jonathan S]

Thanks for the suggestion. It is an early model but I've never had one of those sticks for it and, having checked the back, I can't see any socket for one.

One of the oddest things is that region-free US Fox blu-rays load okay, but eight UK Fox discs have failed... on a UK machine.

[manicsounds]

Recent Fox discs are notorious for this. None of the Fox discs from any region play on my Insignia player, but they play on my other region free player and on my PC.

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm having a tricky time figuring out if I've set up my 5.1 system correctly. I had apparently not been doing it properly before- I had to change the datastream option on my blu-ray player- and now it's definitely noticeably different, but I'm not actually sure it's right. The dialog is all mixed into the center channel and harder to hear if you're any distance from it, and I haven't been able to pick up on any noticeable sort of sound transferring from one speaker to another as an object on screen moves kinds of things, so I'm wondering if I've got the right decode or if my receiver is just kind of making things up. There's a 'direct' button on my receiver, which makes dialog clearer but the overall sound a bit flatter- though it's still audibly different from speaker to speaker.

I know it's hard to describe soundscape, but is there any way I can know for sure if I've got the experience I'm supposed to be getting?

[Roger Ryan]

One thing you want to check is that you have the speaker wires attached properly to each speaker - the "plus" wire attached to the "plus" terminals on both the receiver and each speaker; the "minus" wire attached to the "minus" terminals. On most speaker wire, one side of the plastic casing will have writing printed on it or a thin line - I always treat this side as the "minus" side to keep things straight. If you end up connecting the same wire from a "plus" terminal to a "minus" terminal then the speaker will be out-of-phase which will result in poor sound and/or inaccurate placement of the surround signal.

You should also be able to control the volume settings for each speaker using the receiver setup menu. I always use a disc that has a surround demo (such as the THX calibration test you will find on discs for George Lucas films or for Pixar movies) in order to hear an isolated signal going through each of the six speakers. My favorite is the calibration test included on the old DVD of PINK FLOYD - THE WALL which has a pleasant female voice that announces "Left", "Center", "Right", "Right Surround", "Left Surround" only audible through the respective speakers.

[jindianajonz]

One of the best surround sound checks I've seen was on an old Rogue Squadron game for GameCube- the sound setup screen had a TIE fighter that flew off the screen and audibly traveled in a circle around you before popping back onto the screen from the other side. Since the TIE fighter engine noise was both distinctive and consistent, it was pretty easy to hear variations in sound quality from different speakers, as well as track whether or not the direction of the TIE was correct.

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, that does sound useful, but I think I'll give it a shot on a Pixar disc, since those are readier to hand. Thanks.

[matrixschmatrix]

Phew, thanks a lot. Turns out my subwoofer wasn't on, I had the center speaker in the wrong place, and the surround decoder I was using was mixing the surround left and right speakers with the regular ones. It's frustrating, because stereo still sounds more or less fine to me- it's much harder to know what's wrong when you're going from good to excellent.

[Arrow]

Does anyone own one of the Samsung MODed Region Free blu ray players? I purchased the BDF5700 and it has instructions to press the number of the region you want then the power button. All of my MOC blus work perfectly doing this, but my Kind Hearts and Coronets blu still brings up the region locked screen. Any advise?

[CR2]

(I apologize if this is the wrong forum)

So I just got the Oshima Eclipse set as part of an incentive program for free from work. I checked the discs a couple days ago, and they are scratch free, but looking at the disc for "Sing a Song of Sex", the disc looks it has a weird wavy ring warped into it that is not any kind of smudge, but just part of the disc. Am I looking at disc rot in its early stages or is this fine? I would rather not have to send the boxset back to the company for a refund as getting the thing in the first place proved a bit of a hassle, but I will if I have to (ie if this disc is going to be unplayable soon).

I apologize for the size and quality of the image, but this is the best I could to get a shot that would demonstrate the issue. Hopefully you can see the wavy lines I'm talking about at the top right and bottom left corners, the ring goes all the way around like that.

http://i.imgur.com/9Mwv2aU.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[jindianajonz]

This may be better suited for the technical questions thread, but I've seen what I assume is the same thing on a number of discs (some picked up on the day of release) and it's never posed a playback problem for me. Since it has occurred on "fresh" discs, I always assumed it was just something to do with production as opposed to a age-related deterioration.