Technical Issues and Questions

[Drucker]

Thanks. Her budget was about $100, and money's kind of a factor, so if I can get a do-able $80 Sony, I'm sure that'll be fine.

[bottled spider]

Bombay Electronics and 220 Electronics have both been recommended on this thread: is there anything to choose between the two? They seem comparable in their prices.

I want to upgrade from a DVD player that whirs audibly and intermittently has problems with discs I'm sure aren't faulty, to a region-free blu-ray that operates quietly and will reliably play any disc. I'm willing to pay extra for quality, but I don't want to waste money on extra features that are irrelevant for me, such as 3D, streaming, and wifi. 220 Electronics recommends Yamaha, Pioneer, and Oppo for their quality, but these models are also equipped with the extra features. Is, say, ~$300 for a Yamaha BD-S473 worth it if I'm not making use of the 3D and streaming options? Or should I be looking at more like ~$150 on a more basic model of another brand?

[artfilmfan]

I'd say spend a little more on a quality player with better upconverting capability. You'll be happier watching (upconverted) DVDs, especially if you have a large-screen TV (55 inch or larger). If you don't want to spend all that money on the Oppo, then perhaps you might want to do research on the Pioneer Elite BDP-62FD that is listed at 220 Electronics because, according to their site, it uses the Qdeo video processor (which is also used in the Oppo BDP-103, according to this same site).

[David M.]

There's not a lot of correlation between price and quality. I've not reviewed BD players in years because they're so similar (just stay away from LG and Samsung, neither of those brands has proven they understand the concept of leaving the video alone).

Anything from Panasonic is a safe bet, though.

[bottled spider]

Thank you both for your information and advice, it's helped me reach a decision. I haven't watched blu-ray before, so this is kinda exciting.

ADDED: My apologies, I just realized that I ought to have been posting to this forum instead: International DVD and Blu-ray News and Discussions/All-Region DVD and Blu-ray Player Advice

FURTHER ADDED: put me down as another satisfied customer of Bombay electronics. Pleasantly surprised at how quickly it arrived, even with crossing the border. Very happy with the region free Panasonic BD91: quiet as the grave, very responsive to the remote, & plays the DVDs my previous player had trouble with.

[Arn777]

I have a Sony Blu-Ray player (BDP-S360) that suddenly stopped working, I can't turn it on anymore. It has a disc inside though. Anybody knows a way to get it off without trying to break the tray by any chance?

[David M.]

Take the top off and pull the tray out from inside.

[manicsounds]

Use a screwdriver and remove the top.

[Arn777]

Thank you both, I will try that

[Drucker]

This question is related to my turntable, not a video question.

Recently, my wife got me this turntable as a birthday present.

Overall, I'm thrilled. The sound quality is excellent, goes well with my Integra receiver/B&W speakers. I have a good set-up, probably modest by audiophile standards, but I don't mind. I think my records sound better than ever, and way better than they did on what was, in hindsight, a muddy-sounding mid-70s turntable.

Anyway, there's one thing bothering me: the turntable produces a really low-faint hum. Because it is a digital turntable, it plugs into my line input, not the phono jack on my receiver. Therefore, it also doesn't have a grounding wire. Supposedly, the grounding is supposed to be built into the RCA cable, but I'm not sure I buy it.

The hum, I must point out, is very low-volume and a minor thing. I blast my records pretty loudly, and still, I only hear it when the music is quiet. For example: I could hear it when I was listening to "Love In Vain" by the Stones, as the intro to that song is incredibly low volume. Otherwise, I rarely hear it, even between songs I can barely make it out.

So is there any way to get rid of this hum I hear? I have never experienced it with my other, analog turntable, nor any other piece of audio equipment running through my receiver. I've been reading up on grounding isolators, but don't know if that'll really work or make a difference. Anyone have any insight?

Thanks!

[Michael Kerpan]

I just put up with the hum....

[domino harvey]

The sound you're hearing on all of those records is actually just the producer in the booth humming along to the great tunes

[David M.]

The sound you're hearing on all of those records is actually just the producer in the booth humming along to the great tunes

Have a +1 for making me genuinely LOL!

[Adam X]

There's a couple of ways you could test to see if the hum is being caused by a grounding issue, or possibly motor noise from the turntable.
First though, if it isn't, make sure the turntable is conected to the same power outlet as the rest of your system.

One would be to get a DI (Direct Injection box), which have a ground/lift switch (Behringer make a relatively cheap one). That or an isolation transformer.

If it's not hard wired, you could try changing the cable that runs from the turntable to the amp, as a faulty cable could be at fault as well.

Otherwise, it's likely caused by something else internal, and you'll have to take Michael Kerpan's advice.

[swo17]

domino's joke was better.

[manicsounds]

It's sometimes electronics interference. I've had my turntable needle pick up random radio signals, television (CRT) high pitch noise, or random buzzing sounds. For the buzzing sounds, wiggling around the RCA cables get rid of it.

[DeprongMori]

Question on isolated "music and effects" tracks:

I'm curious whether an isolated "music and effects" track on a release adds much disk overhead. I'm guessing it's a subtractive process (i.e., suppressing the dialogue layer of the audio track) rather than additive process (i.e., adding an entire duplicate audio track sans dialogue), so would not take much if any disk space.

The reason I ask is that Hiroshima Mon Amour included such an isolated track on the previous Criterion DVD release and it is no longer listed as included on the forthcoming release. For any film with a decent score, it would seem to be an easy win for a supplemental feature in many cases. Anyone know any technical reasons it might have been dropped? Thanks.

[tenia]

Usually, it takes the space a regular track would. It depends obviously how it is encoded but in the case of Hiroshima on BD by Criterion, it would probably have been LPCM 2.0, which would have taken about 1.5 Gb.

EDIT : if it's LPCM 2.0 48/24, it would take closer to 2 Gb than 1.5 Gb. But it remains in this type of area.

[DeprongMori]

Thank you. Much obliged.

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Hey everyone. I know a lot of folks on here are more technically-savvy than I am - so I just wanted to run this past everyone, since someone may be able to provide some insight on this:

I got a new Samsung Blu player in late 2012, and everything has been going well - It's the first Blu player I've purchased, and I've overall been happy with this.

However, a problem came up recently that I had never experienced before: I played my Land of the Dead regular DVD for the first time on this player. The movie itself played fine, but after I watched the film I wanted to check out the bonus features. At one point while checking them out, I clicked the "Back" arrow to go to the previous page (there were two pages of bonus features), and the player started making this hellacious noise that I had never heard before. I then pressed "Stop" & went back to the main menu of the player (not the main menu of the Disc) - and then pressed Eject.

I then looked at the LOTD DVD itself, and there is now a perfect round scratched circle on the surface of the Disk itself, directly around the middle open circle on the DVD. I'm fairly certain this scratch wasn't there before, though to be honest am not 100% sure about this.

Note:

1) The DVD was placed in the player properly, since the movie itself played fine.

2) This type of thing has never happened before with this Blu player.

2) I subsequently played other DVDs on this same Samsung Blu player, and they worked fine.

In any case, I'm not planning on putting this LOTD DVD back in this Blu player; in fact, I'll probably try to recycle this DVD since I'm not comfortable playing it on any other player at this point.

However, I just wanted to see what others thought - does it sound like the problem was with the Blu player, or was the problem with the DVD itself?

Has anyone else ever had anything like this happen with their Blu players?

Thanks in advance for any info. on this!

[jindianajonz]

I've heard of similar problems with early X-box 360s. The problem is the laser head is getting too close to the disc and scratching it. Not sure if you can assign the blame to the disc or the player, since the problem lies at the way the two communicate with eachother. Unless it happens again, I would treat it as a one-off occurrence and not fret about either the player or the disc. If the disc has any troubles, you can try repairing it as you would with any scratch.

It's also possible for players to scratch discs by not stopping them before setting them in the tray, but since this happened while the disc was being read, I think the laser head is more likely.

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

I've heard of similar problems with early X-box 360s. The problem is the laser head is getting too close to the disc and scratching it. Not sure if you can assign the blame to the disc or the player, since the problem lies at the way the two communicate with eachother. Unless it happens again, I would treat it as a one-off occurrence and not fret about either the player or the disc. If the disc has any troubles, you can try repairing it as you would with any scratch.

It's also possible for players to scratch discs by not stopping them before setting them in the tray, but since this happened while the disc was being read, I think the laser head is more likely.

Thanks very much for taking the time to post - this is good to know, and much appreciated.

I think I'm going to write of this LOTD DVD; I've been wanting to upgrade LOTD to Blu for a while now anyway, and now is a good time to do this. I'm concerned with putting this same DVD back into the player since I'm afraid there could be further problems.

[SirhanSirhanSolo]

The DVDs biggest contribution to home video was aspect-ratio fidelity. Audiences weren't going to allow black bars to annex their screens, and the format's adherence to original exhibition demanded the electronics industry reshape a product basically unchanged since its inception.

So far, Blu-ray's biggest achievement has been its ability to include uncompressed mono soundtracks. And while the format can't (yet) include the full multi-channel mixing of contemporary features, boutique labels like Criterion have been steadily releasing movies recorded in mono (like 1983's "The Big Chill" and 1986's "Down by Law") without any compression in sound.

But contemporary electronics make listening to an uncompressed-mono-track movie a chore.

I have a Denon AVR-E400 that can play back Dolby Digitial, Dolby Pro Logic II/IIx/IIz, Dolby TrueHD, DTS Neo:6, DTS HD Master, PCM, et al. I usually watch Blu-ray discs through my PS4, which can output LPCM and bitstream (Dolby and DTS).

So what is Criterion's intended mode for watching a movie with an uncompressed mono soundtrack? Denon has a "Mono Movie" mode, a "Direct Mode," and a "Pure Direct" mode. I've listened to all three and, while there is a noticeable difference, what is the truly "lossless" format?

[fdm]

So what is Criterion's intended mode for watching a movie with an uncompressed mono soundtrack? Denon has a "Mono Movie" mode, a "Direct Mode," and a "Pure Direct" mode. I've listened to all three and, while there is a noticeable difference, what is the truly "lossless" format?

Of the three you mention, "Direct" is the lossless one on my older Denon. With Mono Movie, there is bound to be some processing involved to the lossless signal, and with "Pure Direct" your video is probably going to get turned off if it's going through the receiver (pretty sure that's what mine does). The audio for Direct and Pure Direct are probably not going to be all that different, if at all. Pure Direct disables the video circuitry of the receiver, so if you can tell the difference at all, and you still get your video somehow, it should be the best sounding of the lot.

Since my Denon does not decode streamed lossless audio, the (Oppo) player decodes and converts the lossless audio and sends it to the Denon as multi-channel LPCM (which is still lossless). Fortunately my receiver can handle that just fine.

That said, I send that lossless LPCM audio through the receiver's Audyssey processing and add the THX filter to it, so whether it's still "lossless" by the time it reaches my speakers, not sure. (But in my room it sounds a lot better.)

For mono, my receiver outputs two channels of mono (left and right), rather than sending all of it to the center speaker.

[swo17]

At the very least, I'd say rear speakers are necessary for viewing, say, the ending of Melancholia or Val del Omar's Triptico Elemental.