mart360

Hmm,

Just reserved a new Panny Blu ray player, only to find it has no optical or coaxial output for audio

Everything's via the HDMI cable, which means i either have to go from the BRplayer to my Amp, and then back to the TV, or from the BRplayer to the tv, and then from the tv to the amp...

Is it me, or does this just scream interference? I thought the whole idea was to minimise the processing , interruption of the signal..

Not only that, but how do i know My amp isn't going to affect the picture & signal quality

And I don't fancy the youngsters loose on the amp, everytime he wants to watch a film etc

Looks like is the other option is to go for a different make, and loose the 4:4:4 option that the new player offers, (and one remote operation)

Mart

Dingdongler

Mart, most people are using sound over hdmi without any problems and no issues with interference.

However I'm a little confused by your question. Do you mean you wanted the option to connect the player to your TV without using the amp?

Jamz3k

Are you sure it doesn't have an opticial output? What model is it?

Please remember that Picture Quality is actually only part of the improvement Blu-ray has over DVD, Sound Quality is vastly improved too and your homecinema amplifier can only fully reap the rewards of lossless audio via HDMI.

Infact I think the audio on HD sources is the major benefit rather than picture quality.

Jamz3k

Oh and just to fully answer, yes an AV receiver can negitively effect the picture quality which I've noticed on quite a few lesser AVR's such as the one I am temporarily using.

mart360

Its the Panny BD75EB-K

It has 2 channel audio out, & HDMI,

No coaxial audio out, or optical, so unless i run it to my Onkyo AV reciever, then im foofed

MArt

Ant

I run mine through my onkyo and it's flawless

Jamz3k

What onkyo do u run, some of their models allow for HDMI passthrough. You are hardly foofed as you will benefit from DTS master audio etc etc and I can safely assure you I have yet to see an Onkyo give adverse effect to picture quality which is why after much debate I am hoping to have a TX-NR609 nestled under my TV next month!

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Can you use the optical output of the TV instead, or does it not work when working off a HDMi input?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Alternatively - send it back

The Panny DMP-BD45 has an optical output and is only £59.95 (I bought one a few weeks back: http://www.richersounds.com/product/...5/pana-dmpbd45 ), although I only use the HDMi via an Onkyo SR608 and a pair of £5 HDMI leads bought from Aldi

mart360

Its not purchased yet, so.....

The 45 dosent have an ethernet port, which the 75 does..


decisions decisions

Oh pox, now found out my amp's hdmi input is pass through only.... so this one is off the menu




Mart

Ant

Get a sony with a Ethernet I have the s350 and it's still brilliant and has a Ethernet.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

Err..... via an Onkyo?

and you're expecting LESS quality?????

Seriously - stop worrying. There is absolutely going to be NO problem.

Oh, and when I insert a BD / DVD into my Sony s570 - everything switches on (TV included) to the right channel and just plays.

Turn the BD player off and everything turns off.

mart360

See above, there is

Looks like im having to go for an LG, to get the options i want ...

shame, it would have been nice to have the panny


Mart

Dingdongler

Mart, why do you want the ability to leave the avr out of the loop?

1) Is it because you feel the avr will degrade the pic/sound quality of the disc? Firstly that will not be the case unless you have a very poor avr. This concern does not really make any sense to me.

2) Is it because you want your kids to be able to watch a film without using your avr? If so you could have another solution. Wouldn't it be possible to use a hdmi splitter from the output of the bd player, one signal goes to the amp (and then on the TV via hdmi input1) and one directly to the TV (via hdmi input2)

And no these splitters do NOT degrade the system. I am using two in a fairly high end system with NO problems. I use one for my Skybox, with this I have have split the hdmi signal coming from it such that one goes into the TV and one goes to my AVR.
In this way I can watch Sky normally without firing up the avr for general viewing, but if there is something special I want to watch I can use the AVR to watch it.

I used to also use one to split the signal from my AVR ie one to my TV and one to my projector. I now have an AVR (AVP actually) with two hdmi outputs but had NO problems when I used it. There was NO signal degradation as as mentioned I use it in what many would term a fairly high end system.

I use ones made by Neet cables and would recommend them to anybody, they work flawlessly. When I bought them they were less than £15 and haven't missed a beat for over 2 years.

In this way you will get picture to your TV via a hdmi signal whether using the amp or not, and this 'should' be better quality

mart360

Couple of reasons,

Why do i want to go round the houses so to speak?

I want the 5.1 / 7.1 at the amp, and not at the tv, and vice versa, i want the tv pictures at the tv, and not the amp.

How many times have you seen picture quality degraded, where it passes through a another item, (dvd vcr set top box)?

Yes it may be digital, and it may be unnafected by other influences, but its having some form of processing applied to switch the audio & video at the amp. Can you prove or disprove that it does or dosent affect the picture quality..

To do it the way they suggest, needs more spaghettiry to run another cable to the amp, and then to the tv.

I also don't want my amp running 24/7 while the little one watches endless reruns of scoobydo and other daily kids fare on dvd

However .... its a moot point really, my amp only supports pass through for HDMI, so it wont strip the audio, and my tv has no digital audio out, so the player wont work

Mart

salsa-king

I run everything via my Onkyo amp. (607) as it supports the new Bluray DD master audio etc

all the HDMi go into it (BluRau, BTvison)
Wii goes into it. using Component leads.
Then TV is connected to the Onkyo via a HDMI
and TV is also connected to the Onkyo with a digital coaxial.

No problem with any sound issues.





Have you set your DVD BluRay settings to AudioPhile-Blizstream?

Ant

But if you go through your amp with hdmi you'll get dts-hd and true hd. Which you won't get through optical or coaxial.

Also the degraded signal you speak about going through the amp you won't tell a difference going to either your tv or amp.

Dingdongler

I'm a bit confused why Mart even has an avr if he thinks it does such bad things to the picture??? And as you said without it you won't be able to benefit from hd sound codecs

Jamz3k

He has just explained in his last post that his AVR only supports HDMI pass through so really he has no choice but to use a player with optical/coaxial or multichannel output.

This conversation wouldn't have happened if we'd just stuck with Laserdisc ffs.

Ant

i had the impression all onkyo amp's with hdmi supported HD audio?

Jamz3k

On current and last generation models yes but older AVR's pointless sometimes have HDMI ports without much use really as it was a good way of flogging last years model with a slight revamp.

Ant

ahhhh right.

buy a new amp mart

Dingdongler

My bad. Ok, so he needs a player with on board decoding of hd sound codecs?

I maybe getting confused here but can 5.1 sound be carried over an optical or coaxial cable? HD sound formats surely can't? They can only be outputted by BDPs either by hdmi or 5 analogue outputs.

So to actually get the hd sound formats Mart needs either

1) An AVR with on board decoding

or

2) A BDP that can decode and the output via analogue.

It doesn't sound like Mart is going to have either of these and so won't benefit from these great sound formats. Maybe this is not important to him and so I'm making a big ding dong over nothing.
To me however the improved sound of a BD is at least as important as the picture.

Jamz3k

What you've wrote is all correct in my opinion.

Optical/coaxial will carry 5.1/7.1 but not at HD quality as it can't carry the full bitrate. An AVR will see this signal as a DTS signal from BDP via Optical/Co so its not all bad, infact it still sounds very very good.

mart360

Your all wide of the mark

I have an Onkyo SR506 amp


5.1 - 7.1 decoding

Dolby DolbyII etc

DTS

ETC

Multi input :- HDMI, Coax, Optical, of which, bar the HDMI can be set to to either analogue or digital input signal

What it cant do is take a HDMI signal and split it into its component parts - Video - Audio, only pass it through

SO the amp is more than capable of dealing with the audio side of things

The Bluray i looked at only had HDMI as the source of audio and video out, so even if i hooked it up, all i would have is stereo from the tV

I wanted to try and stay make specific to see if panasonics claims for the 4:4:4 option were as good as they said

looking at a samsung now, with digital coaxial out

Mart

Ant

So your amp can't take hd audio then?

Upgrade you know want too

Jamz3k

Although I haven't checked if I'm right here, I'm nearly sure you AVR cannot handle HDaudio as I think the 606 and above were only capable of it in that generation of AVR.

mart360

Define HD audio?


Mart

Jamz3k

Dolby Digital TrueHD and DTS Master Audio are both HD audio formats.

Dingdongler

Sorry Mart but you are wide of the mark

Your amp cannot decode hd sound codecs, and they are as Jam has specified except he has accidentally missed out the 'HD' in the second one.

Its these hd sound codecs that differentiate blu ray sound quality from dvd.

http://www.eu.onkyo.com/products/TX-SR506.html


For you to be able to appreciate them you will need a blu ray player that decodes them and then can output to your avr by 5.1 analogue output (which the LG doesn't)

The more sensible and cost effective solution would be to buy yourself a decent avr