Panny BD35k - audio drop-out? (1 Viewer)

[Shane Kelley]

Greetings and Happy Holidays, HTF!

Quick question for the gang. I purchased the BD35k Thanxgiving weekend, and have it hooked up as follows:
- HDMI video to Samsung 50" DLP, 1080p (audio disabled)
- Optical cable (6') to converter/converter to coaxial (6') receiver input (no optical input on the receiver)

So, I've only had a chance to watch Dark Knight BR all the way through, and a few minutes in there was the briefest (1 second max) of drops in audio. Never happened again, and when I went back to the same spot, didn't hear the drop out again.

I've watched the in-movie features, and I had a similar drop out once. Again, went back to the same spot, and it wasn't there, so it's not disc issues.

We watched a standard dvd yesterday, and same thing - one drop out, not reproducible.

Now, I have an XBox360 that I also connect to the converter with optical - I just switch the cable depending on which device I want to use. To my knowledge, I haven't had a similar drop out, but to be honest, I can't say for sure. To be clear, each device has its own optical cable connected - I switch between the two at the converter connection, not between the devices.

So, before I start tearing everything apart or exchange the player, I'm curious if anyone has heard of this before? Is it as simple as a bad cable? I bought the Best Buy brand (Dynex, I think) because I refuse to indulge in Monster's cable scams. There's always the chance I have a bad cable, regardless of brand, but can an optical cable even realistically experience random and infrequent drop outs? Wouldn't there be a consistent problem because of how the cable works?

Anyway, any advice on what to try first would be helpful. I don't have many options with configuration because of the mismatch between optical/coaxial connections (hence the need for the converter).

Thanx in advance!

 

[Leo Kerr]

It is almost certainly NOT the cable.

If it's not affecting the other optical signal source, it's something in the player (or the disc, but unlikely, that.)

Applying PC-like diagnostics, updating the firmware of the player might help, otherwise, there may possibly be a bad solder-joint or a tin-whisker or something like that causing the intermittent problem...

which are the worst kind, 'cause they're not reliably reproducable, of course.

Leo

 

[Shane Kelley]

Thanx Leo - not necessarily what I wanted to hear, but I kind of guessed I might be looking at a problem with the player.

I haven't had a chance to really watch anything since I posted, so I was expecting to do a bit more detailed experimentation this week. I'll play around with the XBox, switch the cables ... anything I can do to rule out (or single out, as the case may be) the player as the problem.