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Did the whole incompatible player thing happen with dvds?

alfa147x

alfa147x

Lifer
Avatar smashes Blu-ray sales records, has some owners ready to smash incompatible players
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Link

I was young when DVDs became popular, so my question is: When DVD's came out did they have the problems that Blu-Ray seems to be having? (Not playing some movies to super slow)
I'm asking this because I want to get my parents a Blu-Ray box but if it's not as easy as DVDs or somewhat near, I don't want to bother. I just don't see my mother doing firmware updates every month.


~Alfa147x
 
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I bought my first DVD player specifically for The Matrix. There were a number a few players that were incompatible with that disc, including mine. I had to take it to a shop for a firmware update.
 
My first was in 1998....it was a high end Sony, played everything I threw at it until 2004 when I sold it. Maybe cheaper older players had issues with the new dual layers DVD's when they first came out. I just don't remember hearing about problems like you do now.
 
what BRD player do you have? you could prob do some googleing if you know the model number and figure it out

or just get a PS3
 
Anubis said:
what BRD player do you have? you could prob do some googleing if you know the model number and figure it out

or just get a PS3
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Oh I don't need one, my friends that I'm rooming with in the fall each have a PS3. We'll have 3x PS3's 4x xbox 360 😱 😉

But I was looking to buy my parents one.
 
Only issue with the PS3 is if you have a fat one... it can't bitstream in some of the nicer Dolby codecs, so you'll usually get PCM audio 🙁. Unfortunately, I have a fat one, so I can't bitstream.
 
Aikouka said:
Only issue with the PS3 is if you have a fat one... it can't bitstream in some of the nicer Dolby codecs, so you'll usually get PCM audio 🙁. Unfortunately, I have a fat one, so I can't bitstream.
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I think my parents would like how a box looks better than a game console; If you're talking about our apartment we have 2 slim PS3s and 1 fat one.

PCM would be a deal breaker for my parents since they invested in a nice receiver (TX-SR707)
 
PCM is just as good as non-decoded audio. If you have a "nice" receiver, it should still be able to do all the same processing to the full-on decoded PCM stream as the pre-decode bitstream. Both result in the exact same 0's and 1's being sent to the D/A's.

The ONLY difference is that your receiver displays "PCM" instead of "DTS-HD MA" or "Dolby-HD." You're still getting the same lossless audio.

If that's a deal-breaker for anyone, I'm at a loss for words (pun intended).
 
thomsbrain said:
PCM is just as good as non-decoded audio. If you have a "nice" receiver, it should still be able to do all the same processing to the full-on decoded PCM stream as the pre-decode bitstream. Both result in the exact same 0's and 1's being sent to the D/A's.

The ONLY difference is that your receiver displays "PCM" instead of "DTS-HD MA" or "Dolby-HD." You're still getting the same lossless audio.

If that's a deal-breaker for anyone, I'm at a loss for words (pun intended).
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Hmm thanks, I was under the impression that PCM is inferior to DTS-HD, Dolby-HD

Is that Onkyo tx707 a "nice" receiver?
 
Notably, the "compatibility" problems with Blu-Ray are from incorrectly mastered discs, not from spec issues.
 
alfa147x said:
Hmm thanks, I was under the impression that PCM is inferior to DTS-HD, Dolby-HD

Is that Onkyo tx707 a "nice" receiver?
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No, the only difference is that in PCM mode, the stream the receiver is getting from the player has already been decoded, and as mentioned above, some receivers can't do the same amount of processing to an already decoded stream. The actual "quality" of the sound information is exactly the same, it just depends on where the HD signal is decoded (player vs. receiver)
 
Slick5150 said:
No, the only difference is that in PCM mode, the stream the receiver is getting from the player has already been decoded, and as mentioned above, some receivers can't do the same amount of processing to an already decoded stream. The actual "quality" of the sound information is exactly the same, it just depends on where the HD signal is decoded (player vs. receiver)
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I like to think of it as a zip file. If you download an image from the web already unzipped or if you download a zipped version of the same image, makes no difference. In the end you have the unzipped version on your computer. The only difference being where the unzipping is done.
 
alfa147x said:
Then why do people make such a big deal about it? My Aiwa AV-D97 does PCM
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Only 2.0 (or 2.1?). Only HDMI carries PCM over all 5 or 7 surround channels plus the LFE.

It used to be that not all Blu-Ray players would decode everything to PCM. Now all players do, and all AVRs as well. The only important thing is HDMI audio.
 
s44 said:
Only 2.0 (or 2.1?). Only HDMI carries PCM over all 5 or 7 surround channels plus the LFE.

It used to be that not all Blu-Ray players would decode everything to PCM. Now all players do, and all AVRs as well. The only important thing is HDMI audio.
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Yes, good point of clarification. Not all receivers accept a multichannel LPCM signal, only a stereo one. Since the OPs Aiwa receiver is like 6 or 7 years old, I'd be fairly confident that it'd only take a 2 channel PCM stream (nor would it have HDMI anyway)
 
alfa147x said:
Then why do people make such a big deal about it?
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Because part of being an audiophile is having mild (to severe) OCD that makes you swear that you can hear differences that are not there...

As to your original question:

It is as safe now as its ever going to be to buy a Blu Ray player. The format will never "settle," in fact that is one of the "features" of Blu Rays to studios- they can keep using new forms of DRM!

The whole trick to getting a "safe" Blu Ray player is getting one that gets its firmware updates automatically over the internet, then you doing the good job of being a son and hooking that blu ray player up to your parents internet (you might need to buy one of those gateway things, I did for my dad).

That way as new DRM comes, the Blu Ray player updates itself.

There are many players that do this so I won't trouble you with a guess of what I would recommend (as I personally rip all my Blu Rays). But I will say that if you are paying less than about $130 for a Blu Ray player then you are probably getting one that is a dead end....


Good luck.
 
Do your parents get Netflix? Sony BRD players with wired ethernet and Netflix streaming start at $180, or $250 if you want wifi.
 
At least now with the Bluray spec requiring a network connection they can just update the firmware over the internet without having to take it anywhere.
 
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