Panasonic BD30 and Denon BT-2500 confirmed to have weak LFE output w/ HDMI PCM.

[Ruined]

Just for a little heads up for those looking at new BD players, over at AVS Roger Dressler of Dolby Labs has just confirmed that the Panasonic BD10 and BD30 BD players plus the Denon BT-2500 BD Transport are running 5db quieter than they should be on the LFE channel over HDMI when reproducing PCM. This includes both straight PCM soundtracks and other codecs transcoded to PCM internally; bitstreamed codecs are unaffected. Right now he says that he is "not optimistic" that it can be fixed with firmware, but that it may be possible to raise the HDMI PCM LFE at the expense of the analog LFE - perhaps an advanced menu setting. From my own speculation, its very likely the $2k Denon also has this issue and a real possibility that the BD50 will have it, too.

Let's hope it gets figured out. If you are a Panasonic owner and call tech support to open a case with this issue, it will probably get resolved sooner rather than later (if it can be resolved).

[Taxi]

Is this really that big of a deal (until it gets fixed)? If you calibrate your system with upcoming BRD version of Digital Video Essentials, everything should sound fine. The only downside would be that you're having to power your sub a little bit more.

What am I missing?

[Derb]

Originally Posted by Taxi

Is this really that big of a deal (until it gets fixed)? If you calibrate your system with upcoming BRD version of Digital Video Essentials, everything should sound fine. The only downside would be that you're having to power your sub a little bit more.

What am I missing?

A receiver that bypasses the players output & decodes it internally itself. If you do not have that great a receiver, adjusting the LFE to max will still give ya very weak LFE.

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by Taxi

What am I missing?

The big deal is that even as we near gen 4 of Blu-ray, these still-expensive standalones are displaying issues that should have been caught before release. I can understand issues that arise from the varying BD profiles, but there’s no excuse for wonky audio.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Taxi

Is this really that big of a deal (until it gets fixed)? If you calibrate your system with upcoming BRD version of Digital Video Essentials, everything should sound fine. The only downside would be that you're having to power your sub a little bit more.

What am I missing?

There is no clean way to compensate for this problem. Your solution is not going to fix the problem, it creates new problems instead. Even with a brand new HDMI 1.3 TrueHD/DTS-HDMA receiver/processor you will be hit bigtime with this bug.

This is why:
On Blu-ray you primarily have discs with one of the following types of lossless audio:
1) PCM soundtracks
2) TrueHD soundtracks
3) DTS-HDMA soundtracks

Assuming you are using bitstream decoding for TrueHD/DTS-HDMA (BD30 has no internal decoders for these), with this glitch, only #1 is affected with -5db LFE. Meaning, *only* when you playback a PCM soundtrack will the LFE be weak over HDMI; TrueHD and DTS-HDMA will sound fine. The problem is that about 75% of the Blu-ray discs out there have PCM soundtracks with no TrueHD/DTS-HDMA alternative; however, about 25% have TrueHD/DTS-HDMA but no PCM.

Therefore this means in order to get the correct volume level you will have to be screwing around with your processor's LFE channel volume in the Speaker Setup screens every other movie depending on whether it has PCM or not. If you simply turn up the LFE by 5db in general, then on TrueHD/DTS-HDMA movies your subwoofer will be 5db too loud, overpowering the other channels.

And, you have to actually adjust the LFE channel in the processor setup menu, simply adjusting your subwoofer volume actually creates a brand new problem. Reason being that due to bass management if you simply increase your subwoofer by 5db then LFE channel will be fixed however the redirected bass from the processor's bass management will be running 5db too loud - again, overpowering the soundtrack.

In other words, there is no clean or satisfactory workaround for this player problem - even with an advanced processor like the Integra DTC-9.8 - and as a result you have to be continually messing around with processor settings depending on each specific movie you watch. Aside from going into your processors setup screens before every other movie, there is no way to fix the issue. I find that unacceptable for a $500 player. I'm sure Denon BT-2500 users are finding it even less acceptable for a $1000 player.

[Ruined]

I really hope Panny can fix the problem before my return window is up. Then again, maybe it would be better to return it anyway... A little patience and in a few months I can get the BD-Live BD50 for the same price.

[brian]

Originally Posted by Ruined

There is no clean way to compensate for this problem. Your solution is not going to fix the problem, it creates new problems instead. Even with a brand new HDMI 1.3 TrueHD/DTS-HDMA receiver/processor you will be hit bigtime with this bug.

This is why:
On Blu-ray you primarily have discs with one of the following types of lossless audio:
1) PCM soundtracks
2) TrueHD soundtracks
3) DTS-HDMA soundtracks

Assuming you are using bitstream decoding for TrueHD/DTS-HDMA (BD30 has no internal decoders for these), with this glitch, only #1 is affected with -5db LFE. Meaning, *only* when you playback a PCM soundtrack will the LFE be weak over HDMI; TrueHD and DTS-HDMA will sound fine. The problem is that about 75% of the Blu-ray discs out there have PCM soundtracks with no TrueHD/DTS-HDMA alternative; however, about 25% have TrueHD/DTS-HDMA but no PCM.

Therefore this means in order to get the correct volume level you will have to be screwing around with your processor's LFE channel volume in the Speaker Setup screens every other movie depending on whether it has PCM or not. If you simply turn up the LFE by 5db in general, then on TrueHD/DTS-HDMA movies your subwoofer will be 5db too loud, overpowering the other channels.

And, you have to actually adjust the LFE channel in the processor setup menu, simply adjusting your subwoofer volume actually creates a brand new problem. Reason being that due to bass management if you simply increase your subwoofer by 5db then LFE channel will be fixed however the redirected bass from the processor's bass management will be running 5db too loud - again, overpowering the soundtrack.

In other words, there is no clean or satisfactory workaround for this player problem - even with an advanced processor like the Integra DTC-9.8 - and as a result you have to be continually messing around with processor settings depending on each specific movie you watch. Aside from going into your processors setup screens before every other movie, there is no way to fix the issue. I find that unacceptable for a $500 player. I'm sure Denon BT-2500 users are finding it even less acceptable for a $1000 player.

The Onkyo 805 lets you configure the bass levels for DD, DTS, DSD, Dolby TrueHD, DTS HDMA, and PCM Lossless tracks separately in its menus. I can boost the format (not the input) by 1-10 dB. Is this feature absent from the Integra? And wouldn't this feature basically make this bug meaningless?

Edit - Nevermind. I just checked and it only lets me decrease each format 10 or 20 decibels.

[Iguana Man]

Originally Posted by brian

Edit - Nevermind. I just checked and it only lets me decrease each format 10 or 20 decibels.

Not increase? Interesting.

[brian]

Originally Posted by Iguana Man

Not increase? Interesting.

It really doesn't matter. To increase the signal of one of them, you just decrease all of the others. It's all relative.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by brian

It really doesn't matter. To increase the signal of one of them, you just decrease all of the others. It's all relative.

Yep, no clean workaround. It would need to be increments of 5 for it to work. Even then, it would screw up PCM from other sources.

[brian]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Yep, no clean workaround. It would need to be increments of 5 for it to work. Even then, it would screw up PCM from other sources.

Agreed on the increments of 5, but the setting only changes PCM surround. I should have specified.