Blu-Ray Player when moving to Immersive Sound - Atmos / DTS-X / Auro-3D?

[-Jim-]

Hi Gents,

Background => As some know, I finally stuck a fork in it and I'm soon to get delivery on a Denon AVR-X4400H immersive sound capable receiver. I installed 4 in ceiling speakers, and moved from a 6.1 set-up to a 7.2 setup => all laid out to Dolby Atmos specs (or as I understood them at the time). I know I can't do 7.2.4 out of the box with the 4400 receiver, but as I've never really heard immersive sound (other than a 30 second "demo" in a terrible setup at my local Best Buy - which I immediately discounted as trash); I was extremely reluctant to spend twice as much on the Denon AVR-X6400H just to get 2 more channels of amplification. I plan to use the extra $$ to put towards replacement speakers across the front (L/C/R) as my existing are quite aged. HSU CCB-8s are in play and I may pull the trigger on them as early as July 4th. If I get really enthused to go to 7.2.4 I'll purchase a separate amp to get there.

Now I'm trying to confirm details like what's needed to actually play immersive sound. I have this setup connected to a 55" LED LCD Samsung 3D TV. (Yes, I was one of those folks who went down this road as well.) The existing Blu-Ray Player is a Samsung BDJ6300. What I've recently realized is most Atmos movies seem to be 4K only , and of course the 6300 won't play those, nor will the TV. (Let's not even talk about replacing the TV. The WAF will kill that in a heartbeat. We have an agreement that one of our 3 55" LED LCDs needs to die before I can move to 4K.) Initially, I'll go purchase a couple of "standard" Blu-Ray movies with immersive sound if I can't find anything in our present inventory. (A lot of our stuff is still in boxes from the recent renovation). I "think" if I set the 6300 player to Bitstream, the 4400H will decode the immersive soundtrack.

Can anyone here confirm this or am I all wet?

Thanks for the assist.

 

[yepimonfire]

I have the Samsung m8500 and like it a lot. It has all the streaming apps and it will downconvert both 4k and HDR to 1080p SDR. I have a 4k TV without HDR and it does a really good job with the HDR conversion. If you're a streamer, and since 4k bluray rentals aren't accessible at the moment, the player also does 4k Vudu with Atmos. I will have to check but I believe it will still do 4k (which is the only video on Vudu with Atmos) out to 1080p, which something like a roku will NOT.

Sent from my LM-X210(G) using Tapatalk

 

[-Jim-]

yepimonfire,

Thanks for the post. Can you advise if you set your m8500 to bitstream and let your receiver decode Atmos? Do you even view a standard Blu-Ray with Atmos, or are they always 4K type?

 

[snakeeyes]

The Sony x800 is another option. It also plays all types of discs such as dvd-a and SACD via hdmi 2.0a. It does not support Dolby Vision, but it does support HDR10. The newer Sony x700 lacks the dvd-a support but will be able to support Dolby Vision in an upcoming firmware update. I don’t have atmos yet but plan to do 5.1.4 in a few months. I believe on the Blu-ray forums there is a list of atmos and dts-x titles on both Blu-ray and UHD.

 

[-Jim-]

Thanks for the posts Gents.

I've convinced myself that a new Blu-Ray Player is in my future, and it should be a 4K one as some day we'll have a 4K TV.

I should have mentioned the new Blu-Ray Player needs to be 3D capable, as we've stockpiled a few 3D Movies for my son & I to watch, and won't want to keep the Samsung BDJ6300 connected just for that format.

I'm narrowing in on a Blu-Ray Player for Atmos and the ones I'm considering at this moment are the Samsung UBD-M7500 as I've got an ethernet cable feed right behind the stand, and don't need wireless like the UBD-M8500. (I doubt I'll stream much, but you never know.) My understanding is the only difference between the two Samsung models is wireless versus wired. Is that correct?

The other unit is a Sony UBP-X800. It's about $66 more but has great reviews and seems very well built.

I doubt that 3D players will be around much longer as that format seems to all but dead, so buying one now to play our library seems prudent.

What are your thoughts?

 

[yepimonfire]

A lot of manufacturers have dropped 3D, I'd hang on to the Samsung. The Samsung 4k players tend to have better upscaling then the sonys, which is obviously important if you've got lots of blu rays. In my experience, with the Samsung 8500, even though you obviously don't get greater detail, even 480p upscaled to 4k looks clear and sharp. I don't believe it supports Dolby vision however, if that's important to you.

Thanks for the posts Gents.

I've convinced myself that a new Blu-Ray Player is in my future, and it should be a 4K one as some day we'll have a 4K TV.

I should have mentioned the new Blu-Ray Player needs to be 3D capable, as we've stockpiled a few 3D Movies for my son & I to watch, and won't want to keep the Samsung BDJ6300 connected just for that format.

I'm narrowing in on a Blu-Ray Player for Atmos and the ones I'm considering at this moment are the Samsung UBD-M7500 as I've got an ethernet cable feed right behind the stand, and don't need wireless like the UBD-M8500. (I doubt I'll stream much, but you never know.) My understanding is the only difference between the two Samsung models is wireless versus wired. Is that correct?

The other unit is a Sony UBP-X800. It's about $66 more but has great reviews and seems very well built.

I doubt that 3D players will be around much longer as that format seems to all but dead, so buying one now to play our library seems prudent.

What are your thoughts?

Sent from my LGMP260 using Tapatalk

 

[everettT]

A lot of manufacturers have dropped 3D, I'd hang on to the Samsung. The Samsung 4k players tend to have better upscaling then the sonys, which is obviously important if you've got lots of blu rays. In my experience, with the Samsung 8500, even though you obviously don't get greater detail, even 480p upscaled to 4k looks clear and sharp. I don't believe it supports Dolby vision however, if that's important to you.

Sent from my LGMP260 using Tapatalk

Do you have any data to back up your claim that Samsung players are better than Sony players at upscaling? Above the budget displays, their internal processing is going to be better than budget to mid level players. Good external scalers start around $600 and go up from there. So it’s been my experience to stick with the native resolution, unless your display or player is quite capable.

 

[snakeeyes]

The Sony x800 seems to do better upscaling than relying on my 65 Samsung KS8000 TV. Regular Blu-ray looks a lot like UHD. DVD looks ok but not perfect.
I have the older Samsung 7500 player in my bedroom with a little 43 1080p Toshiba but no experience with the Samsung 8500 player. I may try the 7500 just for a comparison on the dvd but the 7500 can’t play 4K or SACD.. So probably won’t hassle with that.
When I was looking at 4K players I wanted the oppo but settled on the Sony x800 because of price... So far so good with the x800 and it’s been 18 MO. I have bought many discs of many formats but none of my 3 TVs support 3D. I’m also a few months away from 5.1.4 in my theater room... Just doing the 5.1 for now...

 

[-Jim-]

Hi Gents,

The Sony X800 went out of stock at my local Open Box stores, and according to their salesperson the Samsung UBD-M7500 isn't 3D capable, as there was no reference to it on the Box (It is according to the Spec Sheet I downloaded from Samsung) Then the clerk then went looking for any Sony X800s but came back with a Samsung UBD-K8500. (No Sony's were found.) Neither of them had ever seen one of these before and were shocked it was there. It still has the plastic film on the top surface. However, the salesperson was not certain it would decode / handle Dolby Atmos or DTS-X as it wasn't in the on-line manual.

So negotiated a great deal @ $99.99 and I can return it for a refund it I can't get it to play Atmos and DTS-X on my system within 7 days. It also has a 1 year warranty. It does have a "different" remote but the one from the Samsung BDJ6300 can control it no problem.

I got it to play standard blue rays via my new Denon AVR-X4400H both in Multichannel and Bitstream. So I'll go buy a Dolby Atmos or DTS-X Movie (maybe a 4K one - not that my TV will display it ) in the next couple of days.

I felt like I got lucky today.

 

[-Jim-]

Hi Gents,

Tonight I bought a 4K Atmos movie (Black Panther) and the Samsung UBD-K8500 just hung when loading the disk.

So after I mucked around for a while with no success, I downloaded the latest firmware to USB (Ver. 1015 - it had 1005 on it) and installed it.

Then I set it up on the home network and tried the movie again.

I loaded the disk and it played the movie with Atmos just great. I was thrilled to finally see the words Dolby Atmos on the Denon AVR-X4400H display, and hear a little immersive sound. My son wants to see the movie with me so I only watched the opening sequence.

One thing I did notice was the opening sequence was very dark. Have any of you seen the movie and noticed that?

Thanks for the assist.

 

[everettT]

Have you done any calibration on the display. The opening scene definitely is dark, but you should see plenty of detail.

 

[-Jim-]

Thanks for the advice, but I think the settings are actually default. It was probably on one of the standard screen options. This Samsung 3D TV (Model #UN55C7000WF) is now about 7 years old and is not 4K but rather a (decent for it's time) a 1080P 60Hz set.

It's fine for the normal Blu-Rays I play. There was a normal Blu-Ray version of Black Panther in the case with the 4K version. I'll try that and see if it's the same.