Blu-ray a joke?

[tmurnin]

So I plunked down $300 for the Panasonic DMP-BD35K and another $75 for the Godfather trilogy, brought it home, hooked it all up and saw a beautiful rendition of two truly excellent films. I was more than excited about my purchase so trucked down to my neighborhood Blockbuser, picked up a copy of "The Incredible Hulk" and "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull" (admittedly not great films but wanted to hear the action sound really come through) and now I am sitting on the floor as my player spits out the disks over and over again with the message "This disc cannot be played" and "Copyright Violation" or "Disc format not recognized."

Yes, I have the latest firmware updates. From searching around on the 'net, this is not an uncommon occurance. I'm sorry, but this format has enough doubters out there right now to not have to deal with crap like this. If Blu-Ray is a standard, then there is absolutely no reason why it shoot be a crap shoot as to whether individual disks will play on a given player.

What is the reason behind this? When will it stop and we have some predictability as to what disks will play? The format looks awesome, but my DVDs never looked bad and they ALWAYS played in the player. Hi-Def video through AppleTV doesn't look as good as Blu-Ray, but it looks pretty damn good and it also ALWAYS plays.

Is there a solution for this problem or is it just yet another "firmware" update (i.e. excuse)? Why do people put up with it?

 

[jamie2112]

I am sorry to hear you are having issues. I myself do not have a Blu Ray but I do have an Apple TV and it works very well. I have heard this before but as I do not own a BR player yet I am not one to give advice on your issue. I will say that you are absolutely correct that its unacceptable to rent a disc and have it not play. It looks really bad for a format that is supposed to be the next big thing. I hope you can resolve your issues in a timely manner...I am sure others will comment on this as there are many on this site that know alot of the format.

 

[mike c]

i have yet to encounter "disc cannot be played" with my PS3.

so i would guess that your problems are caused by the player itself. sorry to hear about your troubles.

 

[FirstReflection]

It does seem as though the only "safe" Blu-ray player is the PlayStation3. I have one myself and every disc has played without problem. Also, the loading time for BD-Java discs is fast and menu navigation and BD-Live features is quick and painless.

The same cannot be said for...well...basically any stand-alone player. All of the Samsung players have had many reported playback problems. Panasonic hasn't had as many reports of problems - at least from what I've been able to read around the 'net. But there certainly are some reports and obviously the OP here has some first hand!

Even Sony's own stand-alone players have had occassional issues reported.

I do not know the exact cause for sure, but it simply seems as though the "moving target" method of developing the format has led to all sorts of compatibility issues with the various players. Stick a certain decoder chip with a certain scaling chip and bam...certain discs won't play.

Out of it all, the software-based players - that would be the PS3 and most computers - they have been the most reliable when it comes to compatibility.

The OP is certainly right - no one should have to put up with the nonsense of compatibility issues between hardware and discs. I can say that the PS3 has been a solid performer, but that sort of caveat is ridiculous and I don't consider that a "reasonable" solution. It is a form of a solution, so if you really love Blu-ray (I certainly do) and you're willing to pay the extra for the PS3, it isn't a horrible deal because the PS3 does provide a lot of value and features for the money, IMO. But you certainly shouldn't have to buy a PS3 just to get what ought to be basic performance.

Right now, Blu-ray is, without question, the highest quality we can bring into our homes. Broadcast HDTV looks great over the air, but cable and satellite feeds show compression artifacts and in all HDTV transmission, there is no HD lossless audio - only 5.1 lossy Dolby Digital at best. On Demand via cable or satellite is the same situation. AppleTV looks pretty decent, but not equal, and again, no HD lossless Audio. Vudu's HDX is darned impressive looking - certainly the closest in visual quality IMO - but still no lossless audio and the library of HDX titles is still very small.

I'm all about the quality - pristine HD video AND lossless HD audio - so I'm willing to grudgingly accept the "growing pains" of the Blu-ray format. But I am reasonably sure at this point that Blu-ray will not ever truly succeed in the sense that it will never be something that the mass market really adopts.

I look at it this way: I'm happy to buy movies that I really enjoy having in my collection. I honestly believe that Blu-ray is the highest quality medium we will ever have available to us for the next couple of decades. I'm quite convinced though that it will never become the defacto standard and will, in fact, rather quickly die away in the scheme of things. The problem for me is that what will become the defacto standard will not be of equal quality to Blu-ray, so I am making a point of purchasing Blu-ray movies while they are still available.

Eventually, one day, internet and On Demand distribution will reach and then surpass Blu-ray quality. But I honestly do not think that day will come for a good 15-20 years. In the mean time, I believe the choice will either be to pay a premium for what amounts to a niche market product in Blu-ray or settle for the lower quality offered by internet or On Demand distribution as it exists and will exist for the next couple of decades.

 

[Davemcc]

I'm glad I read this post. I have been considering buying a BD player and the Panny BD35 is near the top of my list. I've been using my PS3 so far and haven't had any compatibility issues, but I find the fan pretty noisy on the PS3. That's the primary reason I'm looking for a standalone player.

Now after hearing what First Reflection has to say, I'm not sure if buying any player is worth the trouble. I certainly don't want to pay good money for a device with compatibility issues right out of the box, yet it seems virtually all machines suffer.

 

[CaliHwyPatrol]

My Samsung has recently started doing this after never doing it once for a year. It will do it even with discs that haven't had trouble in the past, so I think it is something to do with the player, I just don't know what.

I haven't bothered to look into it because in a few months I'll be gone for 6 years anyway, so it will be outdated by the time I'm ready to use it again.

 

[Alex2507]

in a few months I'll be gone for 6 years

That sounds like jail. Maybe you can do some probation here on AH.
Whatever it is, best of luck.

Alex

 

[allargon]

Since he said 6 years, I'm guessing one of our military branches. AFAIK prison terms (never been...) are 1, 2, 3-5, 10 years.

 

[Halon451]

Thanks to the OP for posting his thoughts, very sorry to hear of your troubles. Looking at getting a BD player soon myself, so these are very appreciated comments by all.

 

[TLS Guy]

I'm glad I read this post. I have been considering buying a BD player and the Panny BD35 is near the top of my list. I've been using my PS3 so far and haven't had any compatibility issues, but I find the fan pretty noisy on the PS3. That's the primary reason I'm looking for a standalone player.

Now after hearing what First Reflection has to say, I'm not sure if buying any player is worth the trouble. I certainly don't want to pay good money for a device with compatibility issues right out of the box, yet it seems virtually all machines suffer.

I have stated many times before, that this is ludicrous. This means a good format is going to be killed by DRM.

The solution: - Ban DRM, best. Next best forbid further changes in a copy protection code after the release of a format. What has caused the grief in BD, is the endless changing of codes in a futile effort to try and beat criminals.

The whole reason for our economic mess is greed. The greed of the studios, is limiting their profit. If they would just realize, that if the gave up on this DRM nonsense, and sell product at a price where the was no margin for the criminals, they would sell vast amounts of product and make more money. The consumer would be happy. BD would catch on, and DVD could be phased out and we could have one video and audio standard.

However Hollywood, like most business these days, is controlled by very stupid people indeed. The bankers of the world are so stupid that we are quite likely to find out that they have check mated the whole world into financial ruin.

BD is being killed by stupidity and greed, which have obviously been going hand in hand for a long time.

 

[billy p]

Bug free or not I'm close to jumping in.

 

[Exit]

I would check to see if your original Blu-ray disks still work in the BD player. If they don't anymore, you should return the player.

If original BDs still work, then maybe the player can't read rentals so well because they usually accumuluate small scratches from high usage. Regular DVD players are pretty tolerant of small scratches but maybe your BD player is not tolerant. Maybe you just happened to get two bum rentals? The real test may be to buy a new copy of one of the bad BDs and see if that works. Then you would know if it was a general problem, or certain disk makers' disk read problem versus bad rental BDs. We haven't tried rentals on our PS3, but it has had no issues playing new DBs. Just a couple of ideas to try.

 

[bandphan]

slow load times unplayable discs poor intergration options firmware issues

ive been sticking to sddvd for the most part and i dont think im missing much

 

[FirstReflection]

heh - yeah...when ever someone asks, I always say to just go ahead and buy a PS3 if you want a Blu-ray player. It really is the only "safe" choice and it's also the best player in terms of the user experience, so I just consider it to be the "go to" Blu-ray player that I recommend. When you consider that the price isn't all that much higher (and in several cases, is actually considerably lower!) and you also consider that it can act as a media server of sorts and also quite a nice HD gaming system - it does present itself as a very good value for a Blu-ray player.

The DRM could definitely be the culprit in many cases. Again, the PS3 is by far the most widely tested player that studios use to make sure that their discs are working. And if a DRM code change does ever take place, the PS3 is very quick to get firmware updates and updates also come on a regular and frequent basis. It's a shame that no stand alone player can really claim to equal that kind of compatibility and support. But in a weird way, at least it makes the choice easy

Should you jump onboard the Blu-ray format?

That all depends on what sort of audio and video quality you consider acceptable. I love love love lossless audio and I hate hate hate seeing any compression artifacts, so for me personally, it's an easy decision to go Blu-ray and wait until downloads and On Demand are able to match that level of quality.

Like I said before, I don't expect downloads or On Demand to actually reach that level of quality for a rather long time to come yet. Cable providers are more interested in cramming more channels through their pipe than keeping the quality of those channels high. And in the case of internet downloads, the pipe is just to small. We'd require a massive increase in bandwidth to really make Blu-ray quality viable and while I'm sure bandwidth will eventually increase dramatically, I honestly do think it will take quite a while before that happens. In North America, our entire internet infrastructure is still based upon copper phone lines for a great portion and that just isn't going to cut it! But it takes a long time to replace our entire telecommunications infrustructure. It's happening - it's in the works. But it's going to take quite a while.

But let's say it's only 5-10 years. Let's say that within 5-10 years, we manage a massive increase in bandwidth and internet speeds. I'd say that's optimistic, but even so, that's still 5 years from now until then. Certainly, if you're a movie lover, having and enjoying Blu-ray for the next 5 years makes it a worth while investment. Sure, it'll never come close to having the library of DVD and most of the mass market will never buy a Blu-ray player. But if audio/video quality is your top concern, I'd say that 5 years of enjoyment is still worth it

 

[Gov]

I just pulled the trigger on a Panny BD30 refurb off e-bay. With the MS 25% cash back, I'm getting it for a song and dance basically. This will be used strictly for BD only. I am looking forward to seeing what all of this is about. I do have my doubts as to how much better it can be than watching SD DVD thru my Denon 2200 on my outdated beloved Sony CRT RPTV. But now that I have an updated receiver that decodes the latest codecs, I could not resist jumping on the BD train and going for the ride. I figure that I have not invested much money on it, so what the hell. I think the first disc I buy will be "Iron Man"

 

[CaliHwyPatrol]

Since he said 6 years, I'm guessing one of our military branches. AFAIK prison terms (never been...) are 1, 2, 3-5, 10 years.

Cookie for you.

The weird thing about my player is that it will eventually play any disc I put in there. Sometimes it works the first time, sometimes I have to eject it and put it in up to 25 times for it to start playing. Sometimes putting the disc in then shutting the player off and starting it with the disc in makes it play right away. Since my player is over a year old now, there isn't much I can do about it.

 

[TLS Guy]

Cookie for you.

The weird thing about my player is that it will eventually play any disc I put in there. Sometimes it works the first time, sometimes I have to eject it and put it in up to 25 times for it to start playing. Sometimes putting the disc in then shutting the player off and starting it with the disc in makes it play right away. Since my player is over a year old now, there isn't much I can do about it.

There is. You could clean the laser lens and that will very likely solve your problem.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Just think what the average consumer is doing At least we have some idea what to check, download firmware, etc. the average consumer? Pulling their hair out

 

[jostenmeat]

I've never seen the new Incredible Hulk, nor the Crystal Skull.

I have yet to put in a disc that did not play in my BD-30. In fact, I was using the very original 1.1 FW in the player for several months. I did not even bother or care to update, because everything worked so smoothly, except that I wanted to fix the -5db cut in the LFE. This was the only reason I updated.

I read about all of this FW hoopla, and so I figured maybe I should update once more. I just did a week or two ago to 2.5. Only for the hell of it.

I never updated 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.8, 2.2, 2.3, or 2.4. I had no need. Everything plays perfectly. I love my player.



Gov

please note that many TrueHD tracks are triggering auto DRC. PCM doesn't do that, and I haven't noticed any MA tracks that have either.

Iron Man is one of those T-HD tracks, and it sounds downright awful until you disengage DRC wherever the audio is being decoded. For example, in my Onkyo 805, DRC is actually "late night", and it will "auto" until I turn it off.

I just watched a different T-HD movie recently, can't remember which, but at least I knew to look for the DRC, and turn it off.

 

[Gov]

Gov

please note that many TrueHD tracks are triggering auto DRC. PCM doesn't do that, and I haven't noticed any MA tracks that have either.

Iron Man is one of those T-HD tracks, and it sounds downright awful until you disengage DRC wherever the audio is being decoded. For example, in my Onkyo 805, DRC is actually "late night", and it will "auto" until I turn it off.

I just watched a different T-HD movie recently, can't remember which, but at least I knew to look for the DRC, and turn it off.

Thanks for the heads up on this. You are talking about the DRC in the A/V Receiver? In my Pioneer it defaults to "off"