Frustrating "Casino Royale" DVD audio issue

[Foster]

Firstly, to avoid any implimentations that I am some annoying cold-hearted robot, I should say a big "Hello!" to you guys, as this is my first post on these boards. I have a frustrating problem that I have searched high and low to try and fix, all with no solutions. The audio "experts" at my local stores don't seem to know, as well as various forums. I am hoping you guys may be the saviors of this issue

Here it is:

While watching my newly bought Casino Royale DVD, the sound will fade and drop suddenley, abdruptly gettnig quieter and sometimes a "sucking-in-the-sound" effect. The simple solutions might occur to some as an easy "TVS Light" issue or a Dynamic Range thing, where it is trying to make the sounds quieter. But heres the thing...this problem ONLY occurs on my
Sony DVP-NS55P dvd player, and ONLY with the Casino Royale DVD. Every other DVD seems to have perfectley consistent sonud, and every other DVD player in my house (the 360 and PS2, as well as my computer DVD player and my Toshiba HDDVD player) seems to play the DVD without any sound issues...it is only with the specific combination of the SOny DVD player and Casino royale.

I went into the audio settings and everythnig seems fine though...or so I think. Here is what all thr adjustments are set at:

Audio ATT: off
Audio DRC (Dynamic Range): Standard
Downmix: Dolby Surround
Digital Out: On
Dolby Digital: Dolby Digital
DTS: ON
48kHz/96kHz PCM: 48kHz/16bit
so perhaps with that new information someone knows something about how the Casino Royale DVD specifically would have mishaps when playing in that SPecific DVD player?
Here is a link to a discusison I had on another forum where I detailed quite a bit of things as well.. I am "MZM" in the discussion:
http://www.forumplanet.com/gamespy/topic.asp?fid=1897&tid=2032737

Thank you all very much for your time in advance. I hope to get the issue fixed quite soon

Oh, and in addition, I am using a Sony Home Theatre surround set-up (HT-DDW870) 6.1. The DVD player that has the issues is hooked up to it via a digitial something-or-other...i'll have to double check. But I tried the PS2 hooked up to the system as well (except using Coaxle and the RedYellow and White chords on the front of the reciever, because that's the only way the console can hook up to it) and the audio issue wasn't there.

Thanks again!

 

[MDS]

Downmix: Dolby Surround

If you are using a digital audio connection, you don't want anything downmixed. That setting should only affect things when using analog audio connections (which is why it worked with the PS/2 and analog connection) but the first thing I would try is to turn the downmix option off.

 

[Foster]

Hmm, the only options on Downmix are "Dolby Surround" and "Normal"...

The Playstation 2 is hooked up via composite Red White and Yellows's and a Coaxle, and when Casino Royale is played on that there is no audio problem. The DVD player however is hooked up via a digital audio cable ( I am unsure of the exact specifics, just that it is supposed to be a digitical audio cable or something, capable of good sound ) There is (from what I can see) 2 cables that go from the back of the DVD player to the reciever of the surround sound setup.

 

[MDS]

If you have two cables (for audio) from the dvd player to the receiver, you have an analog connection. A digital connection is either 1 coaxial cable or 1 optical cable.

 

[Seth=L]

It is the way the disc is encoded. I am not sure what they are trying to accomplish now, but they are screwing people over with their anti-piracy crap.

The Casino Royal would not play properly on my computer. I tried Nero Player, Winamp, Windows Media player, Intervideo WinDVD 9, and Real Player. The only one that played the movie without error was Real Player. Intervideo and Winamp did not work for audio or video, Nero worked for video but the audio was just buzzing(and my computer crashed within seconds of that garbage). The Windows Media player did the same thing you described about the Sony DVD player.

Unfortunately I think it is going to do the same thing every time on that DVD player. You can get component video cables for the Playstation and use an Optical connection for watching pain in the rear movies such as Casino Royal. They sell these cables at Best Buy for around $25, get the Sony brand, not Monster (snake oil and Monster, yada yada.)

 

[Foster]

If you have two cables (for audio) from the dvd player to the receiver, you have an analog connection. A digital connection is either 1 coaxial cable or 1 optical cable.

Ah ok, that must be what I have then. Does that help you in knowing what may fix it?

Oh, and how much worst is a Playstation 2 video quality wise using component cables and a coaxle?

 

[jonnythan]

It is the way the disc is encoded. I am not sure what they are trying to accomplish now, but they are screwing people over with their anti-piracy crap.

The Casino Royal would not play properly on my computer. I tried Nero Player, Winamp, Windows Media player, Intervideo WinDVD 9, and Real Player. The only one that played the movie without error was Real Player. Intervideo and Winamp did not work for audio or video, Nero worked for video but the audio was just buzzing(and my computer crashed within seconds of that garbage). The Windows Media player did the same thing you described about the Sony DVD player.

Unfortunately I think it is going to do the same thing every time on that DVD player. You can get component video cables for the Playstation and use an Optical connection for watching pain in the rear movies such as Casino Royal. They sell these cables at Best Buy for around $25, get the Sony brand, not Monster (snake oil and Monster, yada yada.)

On more than one occasion I've purchased a music CD only to find that I can't rip it to my computer because of some crazy copy protection.

I ended up downloading those CDs off limewire/bittorrent/whatever.

Pretty effective copy protection, right?

I can see myself doing the same thing for DVDs.

1) Purchase DVD
2) Have problems watching it due to copy protection idiocy
3) Download direct copy of DVD from newsgroup
4) Burn this copy that actually works in my DVD player/computer
5) Throw away original disc and put burned DVD copy in the case

 

[evilkat]

Wanted to say that I tried a rental copy of the Casino DVD and it didn't work on my comp. I currently do NOT own a DVD player and run my DVDs through my comp. Had the same problems Seth did, except I got it to work with VideoLan.

 

[Seth=L]

Wanted to say that I tried a rental copy of the Casino DVD and it didn't work on my comp. I currently do NOT own a DVD player and run my DVDs through my comp. Had the same problems Seth did, except I got it to work with VideoLan.

Do you have your computer connected to your Panasonic?

 

[j_garcia]

Video is not referred to as "coaxial" it is composite (RCA), S-video or component. There is also no "component" audio, it is simply analog, and the difference between composite and component is noticable since you can run the PS2 in progressive scan via component (only, not via composite or s-vid).

Actually the Monster cables for the PS2 are surprisingly good, but the PS2 one works just fine too.

I picked CR up on BluRay. No problems

 

[jcPanny]

DVD playback.

FYI,
My new Casino Royale DVD played fine on my Oppo DVD player and Yamaha Receiver. I currently have a 2.1 setup but I let the receiver do the downmix so I can get the LFE track for the sub.

If you are having a consistent audio problem in a particular section of the movie (i.e. you can rewind and reproduce the problem) then I would trade in the disc for a new one.

 

[Seth=L]

FYI,
My new Casino Royale DVD played fine on my Oppo DVD player and Yamaha Receiver. I currently have a 2.1 setup but I let the receiver do the downmix so I can get the LFE track for the sub.

If you are having a consistent audio problem in a particular section of the movie (i.e. you can rewind and reproduce the problem) then I would trade in the disc for a new one.

As mentioned before, it is the new anti-piracy software. It will only be different if you change the player. All the discs will render the same result.

 

[Foster]

Yeah i've tried other discs. It is not the disc, it is the specific combination of my Sony DVD player and the Casino Royale DVD. No other combination has the error. I guess it's just "one of those things"

 

[Seth=L]

Yeah i've tried other discs. It is not the disc, it is the specific combination of my Sony DVD player and the Casino Royale DVD. No other combination has the error. I guess it's just "one of those things"

How did you infer that it wasn't the disc from that sequence of events? Any Casino Royal disc will have this error, it is the encoding they did for that movie. I wasn't suggesting that all discs (other dvds that aren't Casino Royal) would do the same thing, because most don't. The more we go along in DVD and the fight against piracy the worse it will be. They will spend all kinds of money just so someone will crack the code and copy the movies anyway. They aren't saving money, and I tire of production companies complaining about lost profits to piracy, BECAUSE THEY KEEP SPENDING MONEY ON ANTIPIRACY, IT IS POINTLESS!!!!

End rant.

 

[MDS]

It may very well be the disc itself as others have apparently had the same issues.

However, the fact that it appears to sound fine with one combination of dvd player and receiver and not another, leads me back to my original thought on the issue.

When you use an analog connection and have the dvd player's 'downmix' option set on, the player performs the downmix from 5.1 to 2 channels. The Dolby Digital bitstream has meta-data that instructs the processor on how best to peform the downmix. Now maybe that meta-data is garbled by copy protection or maybe the particular dvd player cannot make sense of it or is just plain wrong.

If you switch to a digital connection so that the receiver can do straight DD decoding with no downmixing and the problem goes away, that lends more credence to the idea that the downmixing is the source of the problem. If it does not fix things, then the disc itself is messed up.

 

[Foster]

Ok, I wonder if I have a digital cable kickin' around. I will go explore

Thank you very much for the help by the way! From the sounds of it getting a digital cable may work.

Oh, one question, my Downmix is currently set to "Dolby Surround", with the only other option being "Standard". Is that fine for an analog connection, or should I try switching it to Standard?

 

[GlocksRock]

Ok, I wonder if I have a digital cable kickin' around. I will go explore

Thank you very much for the help by the way! From the sounds of it getting a digital cable may work.

Oh, one question, my Downmix is currently set to "Dolby Surround", with the only other option being "Standard". Is that fine for an analog connection, or should I try switching it to Standard?

If you are using an analong connection, is there an option for stereo or dolby digital 2.0 on the dvd? Maybe that would work better instead of downmixing.

 

[jcPanny]

Downmix options

Oh, one question, my Downmix is currently set to "Dolby Surround", with the only other option being "Standard". Is that fine for an analog connection, or should I try switching it to Standard?

The Dolby surround downmix option might be for Dolby Pro-logic. If your receiver does not recoginize this format it could be a problem. My guess is that standard means 2-channel stereo.