BluRay for Dummies...or, what must I know before buying? - Page 3

goodjob DaveF! =D

I have a PS3, and have been very happy with it. I use it more as a media "hub" or server, having loaded the hard drive (which I upgraded to 320 gb) with many of my favorite photos, a good portion of my CD collection, and I have a few games, too. My only gripe is the internet browser, which is fine for checking e-mail, but it does not behave well with this site (hometheaterforum.com), nor does it allow me to respond to e-mails using Yahoo Mail. The good news is that the browser is much better today than it was 3 years ago when I first purchased my PS3.

It depends. If the BD is not encoded using Java, you should be able to resume the film where you left off, provided you do not remove the disc. However, if it's a Java-encoded disc, you will need to set a bookmark, provided the disc has that feature enabled. If there is no bookmark feature, then you are SOL.

I really hate Java in this format -- it's my biggest complaint with the Blu-ray format. It adds almost no value, yet increases disc load times, creates player compatibility issues and disables useful functions like resume play. I know Java is required for BD-Live, but I have yet to see a disc with an interesting BD-Live extra feature. I'd gladly give up BD Live for a simpler, more user friendly interface.

Yeah, I also agree that the cons have far outweighed the pros so far w/ BD-J.  Hopefully, things will improve.

One thing though.  I've noticed that some relatively recent BD-J titles (mainly from Disney) are starting to include some way to remember where you leave off in the movie.  I first noticed that w/ High School Musical 3 -- yeah, I actually saw some bits of that w/ my kids.   I'm not sure now, but I also seem to recall seeing that w/ a recent Universal title although I haven't tested it out w/ other Universal titles since then.  Seems like maybe they've figured out how to save your BD-J state or something so the player can just pick up from where you left off the next time.  I should note though that all this was w/ a PS3.  Not sure if typical standalones will do that for you -- and I'm guessing you'd probably need an SD card or some other additional storage (if not already built-in) for that to work.

_Man_

I think Cars is plain old Dolby Digital just like the dvd. Try an HD soundtrack and see if you hear a difference.

Apparently Java has caused qiute a few playback issues with BR. Good thing the picture quality is so good. I haven't tried any of the special features BR has, not my thing, but hopefully they work well enough to put up with Java caused problems.

Hi DaveF what receiver did u get and Bluray player? Is the TV 24 fps? Is your player decoding or the receiver?


Just wondering 

That is the bookmark feature I was referring to in my earlier post. I've seen it enabled on numerous, but not all, BD-J encoded discs.



Cars has a lossless PCM 5.1 audio track.

Your right! How did I miss that?

Does your  707 handle all HD audio tracks like DD True HD, DTS HD MA correct. Then your player can be set to pass through (with hdmi cable) and then let the receiver do the work.

Van Helsing is a DTS HD MA BD.or Quantum of Solace is also a DTS MA HD.  The last scenes in QoS are really good AQ

Dave,

Yes, your receiver should handle all the current audio formats. If you set your BD player to bitstream its audio output via the HDMI connection, you should be all set. I am not familiar with Panasonic BD player menus, but I'm sure someone here can point you to the correct menu option if you cannot find it.

Yes, in the setup menu, the audio menu uses the term "bitstream" specifically, so there shouldn't be a problem. However, if you want to watch a PiP audio/video commentary (as are common on some Universal films and DIsney/Pixar releases), you'll have to go back into the audio menu, switch the audio outputs to PCM and turn on the secondary audio in order to enjoy PiP features.

You'll see all these features in the audio setup menu.

Things aren't going to get any easier to use until voice recognition comes along. BluRay has many more features and settings than dvd and along with that come decisions and adjustments. Much of the new technology is leaving me behind because I simply don't have the time or willingness to learn (I got a "Flip" as an X-Mas present at work Fri. What the h*ll is a Flip! ) I also set these things up the way they need to be for basic movie watching and leave it at that. But the picture and sound quality make the hassels worth it to me.


That's actually the best thing to do. Read the manual again after a few weeks of living with it. Things will seem much clearer the second time around.

I think BR was designed by several different commities....who really didn't like each other.

The usual audio commentaries aren't any different than on DVD. You can hear them without fiddling with audio settings, just like with DVD.

I was speaking SPECIFICALLY of those video/audio commentaries in which storyboards, behind-the-scenes shots, etc. are displayed in pop-up windows while the movie is playing. The windows will still pop up if you choose that feature from the bonus feature menu, but unless you've engaged secondary audio and your player is decoding the audio, you won't hear what's being said.

Actually, what I was describing is more than just the usual bookmark feature found on many BD-J titles.  IIRC, High School Musical 3 seems to be authored to have the player automatically remember where the movie stopped and then start up the next time right at that spot.  I could be wrong, but I doubt my kids knew to use any bookmark features for this -- I've certainly never seen them use it.  Of course, it's possible that the title is simply using the bookmark feature to do this, but in this case, it seemed to be done automatically, not manually.  This was w/ a PS3 (although I cannot retest this out now -- not until I get my PS3 fixed anyway).  Not sure if it would behave the same way on other players -- I guess I'll give it a try on the BD60 later.

Anyway, I'd think they should be able to author a BD-J title to save the spot automatically (unless you interrupt the programming w/ a hard power-off or similar).  Some titles (typically TV series) automatically save playback info to remember what's already been played (eg. episodes), and that's probably a similar kind of thing.


I'd suggest just setting it to decode both lossless compressed hirez formats to multi-channel PCM and enable the 2ndary channel.  You shouldn't need to worry about anything else w/ that.

In the case of Cars, since the audio is already PCM 5.1, you didn't need to tell the player to decode it.  My (new) BD60 came w/ the 2ndary channel already enabled, so maybe yours was too.  That (combined w/ Cars being already PCM 5.1) might explain why you didn't have any problem w/ Cars' PiP commentary feature.

_Man_