Samsung BD-P1400 questions (HELP lol)

[neos_peace]

Ok everyone, I'm still new to bluray only because of the level of education I have seen on these threads there-for I consider my self new. I have a samsung BD-P1400 player, and an old Phillips home theater system.

It does not even have a DTS-decoder in the thing its that old. (basically got the thing when hometheater's were stil new to homes.) It does not have HDMI in or out. However it does have optical in.

Now when I went to play a movie I found that it only playes in the front 3 speakers. My system also has 5.1 analog inputs but still doesn't play completely right. whats wrong do I need something or do I need to adjust something on my settings on the player. thats my first questions.

Now my second. I've noticed some of my bluray titles mainly just Ghost rider (yes on BD) does not compeltely play al the way through, and yes I have the latest firmwarew as of June 20th 2008 and as far as I know they have not done more yet. Does anyone have any idea's on what might be causing this. Just to help you out I curently have 15 or some BD titles. which by the looks is nothing to most of you others out there but in my area is a lot.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[HOME THEATRE ADDICT!]

Originally Posted by neos_peace

Ok everyone, I'm still new to bluray only because of the level of education I have seen on these threads there-for I consider my self new. I have a samsung BD-P1400 player, and an old Phillips home theater system.

It does not even have a DTS-decoder in the thing its that old. (basically got the thing when hometheater's were stil new to homes.) It does not have HDMI in or out. However it does have optical in.

Now when I went to play a movie I found that it only playes in the front 3 speakers. My system also has 5.1 analog inputs but still doesn't play completely right. whats wrong do I need something or do I need to adjust something on my settings on the player. thats my first questions.

Now my second. I've noticed some of my bluray titles mainly just Ghost rider (yes on BD) does not compeltely play al the way through, and yes I have the latest firmwarew as of June 20th 2008 and as far as I know they have not done more yet. Does anyone have any idea's on what might be causing this. Just to help you out I curently have 15 or some BD titles. which by the looks is nothing to most of you others out there but in my area is a lot.

Thanks in advance for any help.

First of all, my 1400 needs a doctor, but as I remember it did play ghostrider ok. also sounds like you need to upgrade your receiver to get the full benefit of blu-ray!

[neos_peace]

Originally Posted by HOME THEATRE ADDICT!

First of all, my 1400 needs a doctor, but as I remember it did play ghostrider ok. also sounds like you need to upgrade your receiver to get the full benefit of blu-ray!

OK now what do you mean I need to upgrade didn't know you could do upgrades other then firmware and as I stated I have the latest firmware to date. What do I need to do to get the full benefits.

[sptrout]

First, Ghost Rider should play fine; it even played OK with my P1400 at the time it still had prelease firmware (last September). Either you may have a bad disk or the player is bad.

I believe that "Home Theatre Addick" was referring to replacing your receiver as the "upgrade."

If your AVR has 5.1 analog inputs you should be able to take advantage of all Blu-ray audio tracks except DTS-HD MA. If this format is selected the player will decode the MA's "core" which runs at 1.5Mbps; sounds very good!

To be able to use the analog capabilities of the P1400 you will need to consider several things:
1. The P1400 must be set to PCM.
2. Speaker sizes must be set. If you have a subwoofer, you should, in almost all cases, set all speakers to "small" and the subwoofer "on."
3. Make sure that when you are in the P1400's speaker setting screen that all speakers all "on." It is possible that since you are missing some channels that the surrounds are set to "off."
4. Note that the crossover frequency in the P1400 is fixed at 100Hz, and that there is no speaker distance setting capability.
5. More than likely your 5.1 analog inputs in your AVR completely bypass its bass management system (BMS). Therefore, you must try to manually duplicate the BMS's functions.
6. One function of BMS is to set the distance between the speakers and the main listening area. As mentioned, the P1400 does not have this capability, and there is no way to duplicate that function so you have to live with that.
7. Another, less known, function of BMS is to boost the LFE track by 10 or 15dB depending on the speaker "size" setting (15dB when using "small" speakers). Therefore, if you want any bass from your subwoofer you will have to increase the audio on the LFE (or ".1" channel) by 15 dB. Many AVRs will not allow a user to set the audio levels differently based on which input is used. I am lucky that my Denon 3300 does permit level trimming on each input so I was able to increase the LFE channel by 15dB without messing-up all my other digital inputs. If your AVR does not have this capability you will have to manually reset the level control on the subwoofer each time you change inputs. (BTW - -The P1400 does not have any level trimming capability.)

Using analog 5.1 can be a real problem to setup correctly. It took me a long time, and lot of reading, to learn how to do it properly. If you do not follow all the above recommendations, you will have problems, especially nearly a complete loss of bass.

Good luck, and welcome to the world of Blu-ray and analog 5.1!

[neos_peace]

7. Another, less known, function of BMS is to boost the LFE track by 10 or 15dB depending on the speaker "size" setting (15dB when using "small" speakers). Therefore, if you want any bass from your subwoofer you will have to increase the audio on the LFE (or ".1" channel) by 15 dB. Many AVRs will not allow a user to set the audio levels differently based on which input is used. I am lucky that my Denon 3300 does permit level trimming on each input so I was able to increase the LFE channel by 15dB without messing-up all my other digital inputs. If your AVR does not have this capability you will have to manually reset the level control on the subwoofer each time you change inputs. (BTW - -The P1400 does not have any level trimming capability.)

MY God I feel like such a newbie. I didn't understand a word you said there it was all greek, where do you guyz learn this stuff, (college)(JK) I have 14 other BD titles and they all play fine. So Id hate to agree that I need to upgrade my player. My god there is so much I don't know I feel like a kid in a mans world now when it come to bluray. (I suck )

[sptrout]

Originally Posted by neos_peace

MY God I feel like such a newbie. I didn't understand a word you said there it was all greek, where do you guyz learn this stuff, (college)(JK) I have 14 other BD titles and they all play fine. So Id hate to agree that I need to upgrade my player. My god there is so much I don't know I feel like a kid in a mans world now when it come to bluray. (I suck )

Don't be so hard on yourself, believe me, very few people know the ins & outs of 5.1 analog. It is probably the most complicated part of a HT system. (You HDMI people have it so easy! ) If you really want to read some good background information, check out these two links:

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/featu...und-sound.html

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=748147

These two articles really get deep, so I recommend that you take two aspirins to head-off the headache you will have after reading these.

The problem is not really Blu-ray as you suggest, but the fast changing technology that quickly obsoletes electronic devices (computers, cell phones, TVs, etc.). Most people do like you are doing; add new components to older devices that may, or may not, be directly compatible. The easiest thing to do for an upgrade would be to replace the entire system all at once. However, very few people can afford to do this so they must figure out how to marry together components of very different capabilities. This can be a big challenge, especially with 5.1 analog audio.

I am sorry that I went so technical on you, but hopefully you will be able to get enough usable information to get your system setup to work to your satisfaction.