Panasonic DMP BD80 Audio settings

[MrBoylan]

Chris,

No I had no idea. I got the link to Peter’s article from one of your posts here. I posted at AVS 1st. When I saw they had a thread just for DMP-BD80 owners I thought that virtually everyone reading it would own my player & use analog inputs & someone would easily run down the list of settings I asked about. Turns out that the thread had multiple different issues about that player. Bislander was nice enough to reply but didn’t answer all my questions (probably he assumed I knew more than I did).

When you post in a forum without knowing who the responders are & what their level of expertise is, posting the same question in more than one forum sometimes pays off. It did for me as my post here got much more thorough responses from you & I leaned a lot.

--Steve

Oh I wasn't upset or anything that you asked the same question in multiple places. It just gave me a major case of Deja Vu. Luckily Peter and I both answered your question the same way. The avsforum is a great place to look for answers and to hash out ideas, but, as you say, the expertise level of posters there varies considerably and the volume of posts is so high that's it's sometimes easy to miss the good information among all the noise.

Come back and see us again, now, ya hear?

-CB

[jphutch]

I have the bd80 connected to a yamaha rxv1300 receiver via the 7.1 analog out (using only 5.1). As I understand it, if your receiver is not capable of decoding HD audio on blu-ray then the panasonic's analog outs will let you hear the HD audio. However, when I use the player's setup menu to test the speaker setup it does not attempt to output to the sub. In other words, when playing static through each individual speaker so you can set up volume and delay options, it just skips the sub. I have tried setting the mains, center and surrounds to large and small in pretty much every combination with no luck. Although I don't have rear surrounds (only a 5.1 system) I have even tried with those on and off and still no change in the sub. How do I get the player to recognize the sub? It's not just in the setup menu either. When playing a blu-ray using the analog outs and the 6 channel input on the receiver I get only 5.0 output. I have also tried setting the analog to 2 ch + 5.1 and 7.1. As far as I can tell, I've tried every option but clearly I'm missing something. Hope all that makes sense. Thanks.

PS I also have the player connected via digital coax and the sub fires normally when using the digital audio. I would like to compare the digital audio (which as I understand it will be a downmixed HD audio to regular DD or DTS) to the HD audio available from the analog outs. If I'm misunderstanding something here please let me know. In any case, the fact that the sub doesn't fire on 5.1 analog connections is bugging me. And, yes, it's connected. Thanks.

[MrBoylan]

I have the bd80 connected to a yamaha rxv1300 receiver via the 7.1 analog out (using only 5.1). As I understand it, if your receiver is not capable of decoding HD audio on blu-ray then the panasonic's analog outs will let you hear the HD audio. However, when I use the player's setup menu to test the speaker setup it does not attempt to output to the sub. In other words, when playing static through each individual speaker so you can set up volume and delay options, it just skips the sub. I have tried setting the mains, center and surrounds to large and small in pretty much every combination with no luck. Although I don't have rear surrounds (only a 5.1 system) I have even tried with those on and off and still no change in the sub. How do I get the player to recognize the sub? It's not just in the setup menu either. When playing a blu-ray using the analog outs and the 6 channel input on the receiver I get only 5.0 output. I have also tried setting the analog to 2 ch + 5.1 and 7.1. As far as I can tell, I've tried every option but clearly I'm missing something. Hope all that makes sense. Thanks.

PS I also have the player connected via digital coax and the sub fires normally when using the digital audio. I would like to compare the digital audio (which as I understand it will be a downmixed HD audio to regular DD or DTS) to the HD audio available from the analog outs. If I'm misunderstanding something here please let me know. In any case, the fact that the sub doesn't fire on 5.1 analog connections is bugging me. And, yes, it's connected. Thanks.

The BD80 does not produce a test tone to the subwoofer channel. Strange but true and it's that way by design (and documented in the manual I think). It's also true that the only ways you can get the full lossless quality of Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD MA and multi-channel PCM soundtracks from a Blu-ray player are either from an HDMI connection to an HDMI-decoding receiver, or from a multi-channel analog output (which is what you're doing). But getting the subwoofer channel set properly is really tricky because it is actually stored on the disc about 10 dB below where it "should" be, relative to the other channels. This is done in order to prevent the possibility of overload during transmission.

When connected digitally, receivers automatically compensate for this by boosting the bass level, but this is not done over the analog outputs. Also, if you set any of the speakers to "small" in the BD80's configuration panel, then the player will drop the bass level an additional 5 dB which means it's down 15 dB from where it should be. You should check your receiver's manual to see if it has a bass level setting that is specific to the multi-channel input. If it does, then make sure it is at maximum gain. If it doesn't then the only way you'll be able to get decent bass levels is by adjusting the actual gain on the subwoofer itself and possibly by also lowering the other speaker levels in the player to compensate.

You should read out tutorial on the subject as it goes over this is some additional detail.

BTW, some people use both the multi-channel analog outputs *and* the coax or fiber optic outputs so that they get simpler set-up and bass management for DVDs (using the analog inputs for Blu-ray only). This is also a way that you can pass a bitstreamed DTS-ES 6.1 stream from compatible DVDs (the BD80 does not support the DTS legacy extensions like DTS 96/24 or DS-ES so these are decoded as standard DTS).

Also, some people end up using the fiber or coax connections simply because the analog hook-up is too complicated or offers minimal quality improvement over the S/PDIF digital connections. The Dolby Digital companion track of a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack is 640 KBPS which is higher than what DVD supports. And the DTS core component of a DTS-HD soundtrack is a full 1.5 MBPS which is the max capable from DVD. Both of these can sound excellent. The only format that really can't be passed properly from Blu-ray to receive rwwithout either HDMI or multi-channel analog is multi-channel L-PCM soundtracks which only account for about 15% of all Blu-ray Discs.

Bottom line: HDMI is best for sound, multi-channel analog can be damn close with a good player, but regular S/PDIF fiberoptic or coax is certainly no worse than DVD and can still sound pretty spiffy.

Hope that helps.

-Chris

[jphutch]

Bottom line: HDMI is best for sound, multi-channel analog can be damn close with a good player, but regular S/PDIF fiberoptic or coax is certainly no worse than DVD and can still sound pretty spiffy.

Hope that helps.

-Chris

Thanks for the help. I did some more playing and got it to work. You're right, however, about the bass levels. Switching between digital and analog produces a major drop out on bass on analog and even some loss on the other channels. The result is the digital sounds "better" by virtue of being louder. Hard to compensate for that doing an A/B test on the same receiver. My receiver doesn't have a bass boost for just the 6 channel in but for some odd reason it has a bass cut option . All things considered, I'm having a hard time hearing much improvement on the analog side. It almost sounds a bit thin. Could be my average receiver but the digital audio packs a punch. Sales people keep telling me that the HD audio on blu-ray is a lot better than the standard DD or DTS. If my analog connections give a fair representation of that then I'm not sure I agree. Thanks for the info.

[BIslander]

Thanks for the help. I did some more playing and got it to work. You're right, however, about the bass levels. Switching between digital and analog produces a major drop out on bass on analog and even some loss on the other channels. The result is the digital sounds "better" by virtue of being louder. Hard to compensate for that doing an A/B test on the same receiver. My receiver doesn't have a bass boost for just the 6 channel in but for some odd reason it has a bass cut option . All things considered, I'm having a hard time hearing much improvement on the analog side. It almost sounds a bit thin. Could be my average receiver but the digital audio packs a punch. Sales people keep telling me that the HD audio on blu-ray is a lot better than the standard DD or DTS. If my analog connections give a fair representation of that then I'm not sure I agree. Thanks for the info.

In reverse order - the legacy codecs are encoded at higher bitrates on Blu-ray than on DVD and they sound great, often as good as lossless in my opinion. So, you'll get substantial improvement over DVD either way.

As for bass, since your AVR lacks a specific SW boost, I recommend that you turn up the sub for analog until bass no longer sound thin. That will likely mean you have too much bass with digital sources. So,lower the digital SW output in your receiver by the amount you turned up the sub.

Of course, in the end, the only way to calibrate properly is with a test disc and an SPL meter. With most players and AVRs, you should be able to get the sound levels the same for both analog and digital. That's the goal.

[VT Convert]

Thanks for the help. I did some more playing and got it to work. You're right, however, about the bass levels. Switching between digital and analog produces a major drop out on bass on analog and even some loss on the other channels. The result is the digital sounds "better" by virtue of being louder. Hard to compensate for that doing an A/B test on the same receiver. My receiver doesn't have a bass boost for just the 6 channel in but for some odd reason it has a bass cut option . All things considered, I'm having a hard time hearing much improvement on the analog side. It almost sounds a bit thin. Could be my average receiver but the digital audio packs a punch. Sales people keep telling me that the HD audio on blu-ray is a lot better than the standard DD or DTS. If my analog connections give a fair representation of that then I'm not sure I agree. Thanks for the info.

I've had a BD 80 for a few months now and have found the same thing. It's connected to a Marantz SR19 via analogue and digital. Speakers are Paradigm Reference. Now that I have the bass management sorted out, there doesn't appear to be any real "WOW" factor when comparing the HD audio through analgoue vs standard through digital, or comparing both through the analogue out. As BIslander points out, the standard soundtracks are at a higher bitrate than DVD so this may dilute some of the benefit of HD vs standard DVD audio.

I've read some reports that suggest the only way to get the full benefit of HD audio is to use the decoder of a receiver as these will be superior to those used in players - I'm not convinced that this would be the case. Especially as an AB comparison of HD vs Std audio within the player doesn't highlight significant difference (ie both through the analogue).

Overall still very happy with the player. The bass management thing is a bit of a pain to compensate for, but thanks to the great explanation of what's going on on this and other sites I've managed to crack it.

[MrBoylan]

A couple of journalist friends of mine (Geoff Morrison and David Birch-Jones of Home Entertainment Magazine) put lossless audio codecs to the test vs. lossy and PCM tracks and reached the conclusion that lossless audio offers only a marginal improvement over well-recorded lossy equivalents at high bitrates. Here's the link:

http://www.hemagazine.com/node/Dolby...compressed_PCM

Really the main (and most obvious) benefit of using multi-channel analog outputs over S/PDIF fiberoptic and coax outputs on a Blu-ray player is to properly (and discretely) support the multi-channel PCM soundtracks that exist on some Blu-ray Discs like "3:10 to Yuma" among others. These multi-channel tracks cannot be carried over S/PDIF and are output as 2-channel over fiberoptic or coax connections. Sure you can matrix in some rear channel info but this is not the same as discrete surround sound.

The best solution to this issue (short of upgrading your receiver to one that decodes HDMI audio or geting the analog outputs tweaked) is found on LG and Samsung players which offer a "DTS re-encode" option. This feature re-encodes multi-channel PCM soundtracks as high bandwidth (but still lossy) DTS 5.1 for compatibility with current receivers.

-CB

[Daylightdon]

Very interesting review of the two systems.
I spent a week at the San Francisco, Dolby facility in 1980, attending a seminar for Dolby install techs. Ieon Allen was the head honcho at the time. Still have my certificate somewhere??
Worked with Terry Beard, and Jim Ketchum, of DTS, while at Paramount Pictures, working on the Vistasonic System.
These types of discussions intrigue me!

[Daylightdon]

I've been able to A/B HDMI VS Optical with my system and HDMI is a CLEAR winner with these "USTA-BE" "Golden ears".

[BIslander]

I've been able to A/B HDMI VS Optical with my system and HDMI is a CLEAR winner with these "USTA-BE" "Golden ears".

I'm not sure what you mean by HDMI vs. Optical. Are you comparing the same audio sources using the two different connections? Or, are you comparing a lossless source over HDMI with a lossy source over optical?