Panasonic BD35 audio problem (1 Viewer)

[lxmarch]

I am interested to see if anyone here has experienced a similar problem to the one I find with my Panasonic BD35 and my Onkyo 606 receiver.

My player is set to bitstream and secondary audio is set to off. I choose Dolby TrueHD from the disc menu but my receiver indicates only a Dolby Digital signal, not Dolby TrueHD. All my settings are correct as far as I know. I have tried speaking with tech reps from Onkyo and Panasonic but it is useless.

The audio doesn't sound bad by any means but I am concerned about not getting what I expected, which is the ability to hear the Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master soundtracks.

Can anyone lend a hand here? Thank you, Laurie.

 

[Brent_S]

A few people in the AVS BD35/55 owner's thread have run into this. A full factory default reset of the BD35 was the solution, IIRC.

-Brent

 

[lxmarch]

Do you mean go into the menu settings on the player and select yes for "Restore Default Settings"? I tried this once but it didn't make a difference. Can you suggest doing it another way? Laurie

 

[gene c]

I I'm sure he means a factory reset. I would have thought Panny would have asked you to try this . That's why I didn't mention it last night. Try A and C.

(A) To restore the unit if it
freezes due to one of the
safety devices being
activated.
"Press and hold [POWER Í/I] on the main unit for 3 seconds. (The settings
remain unchanged.)"


—
(B) To return all settings to the
factory preset
" Select “Yes” in “Restore Default Settings” in the Setup menu.
This returns all values in the Setup menu and the on-screen menu, except for
“Remote Control Code”, “On-screen Language”, “IP Address/DNS Settings”,
“Proxy Server Settings”, “DVD-Video Ratings” and “BD-Video Ratings” to the
default settings."



(C) To return to the factory
preset
(No setting)
Reset the unit as follows:
"1 Press [POWER Í/I] on the unit to turn off the unit.
2 Press and hold [;], [POWER Í/I] and [< OPEN/CLOSE] on the unit at the
same time for more than 5 seconds until “HELLO” is displayed on the unit.
3 The power will turn on and then turn off."

 

[lxmarch]

Well, thanks to all who contributed ideas to help with this problem. All ideas were good but the solution was a bit different. Bottom line- receiver now lights up for Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD! Here's the solution I found:

For some reason (which I still need to investigate), my BD 35 intermittently changes its resolution from 1080i back to 480p or 480i. Therefore, when I power up the player, I get those wavy lines and could not see or read the settings in the setup menu to change the resolution back. The way I had been fixing that issue was to press the stop and play buttons simultaneously on the unit for over 5 seconds. This is listed on page 39 of the manual for fixing a distorted picture or screen. It shifts the unit to a "more compatible mode with HDMI equipment" so you get a stable picture and can go normally back into the menu settings and reset the resolution. Fine. BUT---the next sentence in the manual states, "However, DD plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD are not output in bitstream." What? Why is this? So, even though my subsequent menu settings looked correct and indicated bitstream was on and secondary audio was off, it was not passing the Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD.

Therefore, I can not use the "press stop and play method" to get to a better resolution so that I could see the setup screens. I have to find a way around that but what I did for now was intuit the menu screens even though I couldn't actually see them. I remembered what they were and also used the manual to count down on the screens. I was able to reset the resolution to 1080i directly and when I popped in a disc, on popped the Dolby TrueHD indicator on the Onkyo!!!

Thanks to all who gave their time to help and I hope some of you out there who might have the same or similar issues will be helped by this. It would be nice if Onkyo and Panasonic took an interest in this issue. I'll try my best to get this info to them but I'm not exactly sure of how to best do that.

BTW, if anyone knows a reason for or a fix for the intermittent change in my resolution setting, please let me know.

Thanks to all, Laurie

 

[Brent_S]

What make/model display do you have? What connections are you using from BD35 -> 606 -> display? Does the 606 have any video processing options enabled? What resolution are you setting the BD35...auto would probably be best?

A WAG is you're not always turning on the display first. Assuming you're connected via HDMI, there's a handshake involved between each HDMI device where they discuss each other's capabilities. If you're BD35 or 606 try to handshake before the display is ready to communicate, they'll get confused. I know, highly technical, but it gets the point across. I have my Harmony set to power on my projector first, followed by an Onkyo 805, HDMI switch, and finally the BD35 last. Never had any problems with resolution that way. Having to find the right start sequence is a common problem with HDMI devices.

As for your audio problem. There's something in the HDMI spec about what audio resolution can be carried with a given video resolution so when you fell back to 480i, you lost your lossless audio. I have an Oppo 970 universal player that makes sure to mention that you can't use it for DVD-A/SACD unless you have the output resolution set to at least 720p.

-Brent