Sony Introduces Exciting new 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

HDMI handshake issues have always been and continues to be a royal PITA!

 

[gadgtfreek]

Redeem code works if I use IE, not with Chrome though.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

HDMI handshake issues have always been and continues to be a royal PITA!

I'll drink to that!

Plugging HDMI 2 directly into the display gives me audio via the display's digital optical connection back to the receiver, so that does rule out the HDMI 2 port on the Sony being defective. No video was sent to the display, of course.

So, it is either the HDMI cable (I needed to use the 18Gb certified cable for the HDMI 2 -> display test due to cable length), a configuration issue, or a handshake issue which may or may not be resolvable. At least ruling out a defective HDMI port means I can keep the Sony while trying to work through these issues and not worry about my return window for the player.

If it's not the cable (need to wait until I can get another 18Gb one to try for the audio to rule this out) and I cannot work out the handshake issue, a new receiver may be in my future sooner than I was planning. I was hoping to wait until receivers with HDMI 2.1 ports were on the market so I would be set for a long time on the technology side. I guess I can use the digital output from the UHD player for awhile, but I'll only get Dolby Digital / DTS audio -- not the Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master audio I am accustomed to with Blu-ray.

 

[DavidJ]

HDMI handshake issues have always been and continues to be a royal PITA!

Hear, hear.

Scott, I feel your pain. I'm trying to track down some wonky issues (not as bad as yours, thankfully) that appear to be handshake related.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I will not be doing anymore troubleshooting until my cable order from Monoprice arrives -- probably early next week. I am growing weary of moving my one working 18Gb cable between my Roku Ultra and the Sony player. I use the Roku quite a bit -- especially during hockey season, as I subscribe to NHL.tv to watch my beloved Canadiens. I did connect a cable between the digital coax ports on the player and my receiver so I can use the player if the new cables do not fix the audio handshake issues.

The list of free discs to select from for this player are: The 5th Wave, Angels and Demons, Chappie, Concussion, The Davinci Code, Inferno, Ghostbusters (2016), The Magnificent Seven, Pride+Prejudice+Zombies, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Risen, Salt, Sausage Party, Amazing Spiderman 2, Angry Birds Movie, The Shallows and Underworld.

That's a pretty underwhelming list. I will probably choose Underworld as one of the titles. I have it on BD, but at least it's a film I like. For my 2nd choice, the only two titles that even remotely interest me are The Shallows and The Magnificent Seven.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I will not be doing anymore troubleshooting until my cable order from Monoprice arrives -- probably early next week. I am growing weary of moving my one working 18Gb cable between my Roku Ultra and the Sony player. I use the Roku quite a bit -- especially during hockey season, as I subscribe to NHL.tv to watch my beloved Canadiens. I did connect a cable between the digital coax ports on the player and my receiver so I can use the player if the new cables do not fix the audio handshake issues.

The list of free discs to select from for this player are: The 5th Wave, Angels and Demons, Chappie, Concussion, The Davinci Code, Inferno, Ghostbusters (2016), The Magnificent Seven, Pride+Prejudice+Zombies, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Risen, Salt, Sausage Party, Amazing Spiderman 2, Angry Birds Movie, The Shallows and Underworld.

That's a pretty underwhelming list. I will probably choose Underworld as one of the titles. I have it on BD, but at least it's a film I like. For my 2nd choice, the only two titles that even remotely interest me are The Shallows and The Magnificent Seven.

Both excellent choices.

 

[gadgtfreek]

I chose Underworld because I love that movie and did not grab it in UHD. I also when with the Shallows for eye candy, and since I have not seen it.

If anything, grab two with high resale values on ebay and sell them


Update of FW today seems to have activated Amazon UHD, but not HDR yet. I watched Dr Strange 2D last night and it worked without a hitch.

 

[dpippel]

Underworld is pretty close to reference video. I'm sure you'll be impressed.

 

[PMF]

Are the new Sony Sound Bars strictly for use on their new 4K players; or can they be hooked up to a regular BD player, for the time being?

 

[PMF]

Someone pinch me.
Did I actually read upon this thread that "Lawrence of Arabia" will be available on a 4K UHD disc?
That would be fantastic news.
Please clarify.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Checked out Amazon UHD with the new FW, it works well and is 2160p/24hz output. Still wonder why Sony is one of the few that gives you 24hz on Netflix and Amazon. At this point it is basically on par app wise for me with the Panny 900, just offers 24hz instead. If the Blu-ray playback keeps up looking good Ill prob sell the Panny 900.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

The apps on the player are not a big deal for me, as I have a Roku Ultra for 4K HDR on Amazon, as well as Vudu and NHL.tv. I have not used the Chromecasting apps on my Vizio display, either, other than to test to see if they worked. I find the Roku easier and more convenient to use. I had the Roku connected to the 4K 60Hz HDMI port on my display originally, but moved it to a 24Hz port when I hooked up the Sony UHD player. I couldn't tell any difference with the Amazon app. NHL.tv isn't 4K anyway, and I have yet to play any 4K material on Vudu since getting the new display (everything in my library is HDX).

Maybe the firmware update will help with my HDMI audio handshake issue. Hopefully my Monoprice cable order will be here soon so I can test it out. Monoprice did ship out a replacement for my defective cable, too, and told me to not bother shipping back the bad cable. I am very happy with how they handled the process -- it was the first time I've dealt with their customer service.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Watched several hours of Amazon 1080p and UHD today, PQ is great. Watching an episode of Luke Cage in HDR right now, also looks good and I def like that the apps put out 24hz.

Going to try out Inferno UHD tonight.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

My cables arrived from Monoprice yesterday. I still cannot get audio handshake to work between HDMI port 2 on the Sony and my receiver. I have gone through all the audio options on the receiver and X800, but cannot find a combination that provides a handshake to pass audio. My receiver will flash the message "NOT SUPPORT" briefly when the X800 attempts to connect, but it never establishes a connection.

The receiver is a Pioneer Elite 94TXH from 2008. The HDMI ports are version 1.3a, while the Sony states it requires HDMI 1.4 for its audio only HDMI 2 port. Could that be what is causing my issue? I've never experienced any issues with other devices I have connected to this AVR via HDMI -- a Panasonic BD player, and older Sony BD player (now in our master bedroom), an Oppo 980H DVD player, two different Roku units, including a Roku Premiere, and a Comcast Xfinity X1 cable box.

For now, I am using the digital coax audio port between the X800 and the AVR so I can get audio. I do not want this to be a permanent solution, though, as this connection does not support the high resolution audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD-Master, which the AVR supports and I use all the time with my BD player. If I cannot get the audio to work via HDMI port 2, a new AVR may be in my future sooner than I had planned.

 

[Robert Crawford]

My cables arrived from Monoprice yesterday. I still cannot get audio handshake to work between HDMI port 2 on the Sony and my receiver. I have gone through all the audio options on the receiver and X800, but cannot find a combination that provides a handshake to pass audio. My receiver will flash the message "NOT SUPPORT" briefly when the X800 attempts to connect, but it never establishes a connection.

The receiver is a Pioneer Elite 94TXH from 2008. The HDMI ports are version 1.3a, while the Sony states it requires HDMI 1.4 for its audio only HDMI 2 port. Could that be what is causing my issue? I've never experienced any issues with other devices I have connected to this AVR via HDMI -- a Panasonic BD player, and older Sony BD player (now in our master bedroom), an Oppo 980H DVD player, two different Roku units, including a Roku Premiere, and a Comcast Xfinity X1 cable box.

For now, I am using the digital coax audio port between the X800 and the AVR so I can get audio. I do not want this to be a permanent solution, though, as this connection does not support the high resolution audio formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD-Master, which the AVR supports and I use all the time with my BD player. If I cannot get the audio to work via HDMI port 2, a new AVR may be in my future sooner than I had planned.

Scott,

HDMI issues are frustrating and never-ending. Case in point, I have brand new premium HDMI cables connected between my Ultra Roku and LG OLED65E6P and I still get a few HDMI error messages. The same thing has happened with my DirecTV HR54 and the LG.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Robert,

This is the first time I have run into HDMI issues, but I concur that they can be frustrating. Getting a new AVR seems to be the only solution in my case, and it seems so unnecessary. I still really like the Pioneer Elite, and do not really need the Dolby Atmos and DTS-X codecs that come with current AVR's, as I do not want to install height effect speakers in our family room. But I do not want to go without Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD-Master audio, as I've grown accustomed to to those formats and do not want to regress to the old lossy formats for UHD.

Regardless, I did get 8+ years out of this AVR, which I guess is pretty good with today's ever-changing technology. Now I just need to decide if I wait until the new AVR models come out to get something with HDMI 2.1 for further future-proofing, or buy a current model with HDMI 2.0 at hopefully a lower cost. I'm considering the Denon X3300W if I go for a current model. It's the lowest Denon model with DSD support, which I currently use for SACD and DVD-Audio. It's less powerful than my Pioneer (90 watts/ch vs. 130 watts/ch), but it still should be more than enough to power my seven B+W 600 Series speakers.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Scott,

I'm going to add Dolby Atmos later this year, but I'm waiting on the 2017 A/V models to come out and see what their specs. are before making a decision to purchase my next receiver. I'm used to having a flagship receiver in my main HT so I'll wait until then in hopes of the 2017 models not having to undergo kit and firmware updates in order to fully utilize the functionality of all the different audio codecs which seems to be the case with 2016 models.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Robert,

I am usually a couple of steps below the flagship AVR models -- I think there were 1 or 2 higher Elite models available from Pioneer when I bought the 94TXH. I'm good with the current audio codes, but it's the new HDMI 2.1 spec that concerns me. That's a hardware spec, so no firmware update will provide an upgrade path from version 2.0. Of course, a new HDMI version probably means more HDMI bugs to suffer through.

I only currently own 2 UHD titles, and will be getting three more soon (2 freebies from Sony plus a pre-order for La La Land), so I may just suffer through lossy Dolby Digital and DTS audio with this player for awhile until I see what the new 2017 models offer compared with the current ones.

 

[morasp]

How does it do upsampling DVDs and BDs?

 

[Robert Crawford]

Robert,

I am usually a couple of steps below the flagship AVR models -- I think there were 1 or 2 higher Elite models available from Pioneer when I bought the 94TXH. I'm good with the current audio codes, but it's the new HDMI 2.1 spec that concerns me. That's a hardware spec, so no firmware update will provide an upgrade path from version 2.0. Of course, a new HDMI version probably means more HDMI bugs to suffer through.

I only currently own 2 UHD titles, and will be getting three more soon (2 freebies from Sony plus a pre-order for La La Land), so I may just suffer through lossy Dolby Digital and DTS audio with this player for awhile until I see what the new 2017 models offer compared with the current ones.

Scott,

I just remembered that my Onkyo 3010 wasn't the flagship in 2012, it was the Onkyo 5010. With that said, the 3010 served me well.

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/onkyo-tx-nr3010-av-receiver