Need help playing my "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray

[Kusanagi356]

I'll keep my story short.

I recently bought this "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray of Spider-Man, but it can't be played properly on my set-up. I am using a 3D Blu-ray player and a FULL HD TV. I have recorded a short portion of the movie that clearly shows the problem:

View My Video

As you can see, the screen blacks out at certain intervals (seemingly the shots with a lot of action), but the sound continues playing. The movie goes on as per normal, it does not stop or skip. This only happens with "Mastered in 4K" Blu-rays and never with my regular Blu-rays.

Has anyone encountered and found a solution for this? Maybe a setting on my player or TV I can change?

Thanks in advance!

[halloween5309]

i have never heard of this problem , but try turning off 24fps on your blu ray player

[ZoetMB]

Mastered in 4K has nothing to do with it. The Blu-ray disc in your hands is still a 1080p disc. From the perspective of the player and TV, there's no difference between that disc and a disc mastered at 2K.

Your problem lies elsewhere - while the disc might be defective, it sounds to me like you're having a handshaking problem. Try changing the HDMI cable and make sure you're using a cable that's "high speed" certified.

Are you sure this doesn't happen with any other disc?

[ZIROK]

Originally Posted by Kusanagi356

I'll keep my story short.

I recently bought this "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray of Spider-Man, but it can't be played properly on my set-up. I am using a 3D Blu-ray player and a FULL HD TV. I have recorded a short portion of the movie that clearly shows the problem:

View My Video

As you can see, the screen blacks out at certain intervals (seemingly the shots with a lot of action), but the sound continues playing. The movie goes on as per normal, it does not stop or skip. This only happens with "Mastered in 4K" Blu-rays and never with my regular Blu-rays.

Has anyone encountered and found a solution for this? Maybe a setting on my player or TV I can change?

Thanks in advance!

This definitely a handshake problem with the HDMI. HDMI is very finicky and if everything is not perfect Black screens will occur as it tries to reestablish handshakes.
HDMIi exchanges encryption keys with the devices every few milliseconds and if the signal is not perfect it will Black out. Try a different cable or maybe an inline amp might cure it. A good book read is "HDMI Uncensored". explains it in layman's terms. also over at Bluejeanscables.

[slaizer2000]

besides swapping hdmi cables you may want to run cable directly to Tv (if you have receiver in between) as well as ensuring you have a newer HDMI cable that handles all the newer specs asthey tend to handle more bandwith. Older cables not rated for the newer specs may or may not be able to handle the extra data be pushed through and could cause something like that.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Kusanagi356

I'll keep my story short.

I recently bought this "Mastered in 4K" Blu-ray of Spider-Man, but it can't be played properly on my set-up. I am using a 3D Blu-ray player and a FULL HD TV. I have recorded a short portion of the movie that clearly shows the problem:

View My Video

As you can see, the screen blacks out at certain intervals (seemingly the shots with a lot of action), but the sound continues playing. The movie goes on as per normal, it does not stop or skip. This only happens with "Mastered in 4K" Blu-rays and never with my regular Blu-rays.

Has anyone encountered and found a solution for this? Maybe a setting on my player or TV I can change?

Thanks in advance!

Change the video output from YCbCr to RGB. It's a known problem with the Mi4K discs on certain Sony and LG decks, something to do with bitrate spikes.

See this thread onwards: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.p...postcount=1975

[Tornado Red]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

Mastered in 4K has nothing to do with it. The Blu-ray disc in your hands is still a 1080p disc. From the perspective of the player and TV, there's no difference between that disc and a disc mastered at 2K.

Your problem lies elsewhere - while the disc might be defective, it sounds to me like you're having a handshaking problem. Try changing the HDMI cable and make sure you're using a cable that's "high speed" certified.

Are you sure this doesn't happen with any other disc?

I agree here, but then I was thinking the 4K rescan would give a higher bitrate, do you think that would be enough to push a border line HDMI cable over the edge?

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Tornado Red

I agree here, but then I was thinking the 4K rescan would give a higher bitrate, do you think that would be enough to push a border line HDMI cable over the edge?

Actually the post above might have the correct answer although I'm having trouble fathoming why there would be a higher bit rate on a 1080p disc mastered at 4K as opposed to a 1080p disc mastered at 2K. In the end, it's the same 1080p on the disc. Somehow, there would have to be more frame to frame differences in the MI4K version, increasing the bit rate, although it seems to me that those differences would have disappeared when it was down-rezed. Maybe if there's a pro on here who has done mastering, they can chime in.

It could also simply be a coincidence. Maybe for the MI4K titles, they also tried to have the highest bit rate possible and this high bit rate on action scenes exceeded the capabilities of some players. I can tell you that other MI4K discs play fine on my OPPO, although I don't have this particular one.

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by Tornado Red

I agree here, but then I was thinking the 4K rescan would give a higher bitrate, do you think that would be enough to push a border line HDMI cable over the edge?

The bitrate of any BD disc has to conform to BD specifications (i.e. maximum bitrate), so what you are describing cannot occur.

[Geoff D]

Maybe it's not just about the bitrate but the other aspects of the discs that certain players don't like? The Mi4K discs carry xvYCC or xv colour which IIRC is not a part of the retail Blu-ray spec (players support it but for AVCHD only) so technically these discs are out of spec.

And seeing as RGB does not carry the extended colour information, that may be why changing the player's output to RGB cures the dropout problem, because it's potentially a combo of the extremely high bitrate and the extended colour information (and perhaps even this mythical Mi4K metadata for Sony 4K TVs) which is confusing the player.

[vargo]

Originally Posted by Tornado Red

I agree here, but then I was thinking the 4K rescan would give a higher bitrate, do you think that would be enough to push a border line HDMI cable over the edge?

The content is decoded before it reaches HDMI so the encoded bitrate has no relevance to the HDMI cable. It does have relevance elsewhere though.

[Tornado Red]

Originally Posted by vargo

The content is decoded before it reaches HDMI so the encoded bitrate has no relevance to the HDMI cable. It does have relevance elsewhere though.

Interesting subject... so what is accounting for the better picture we are seeing on a 4K scan of, say, Spiderman, compared to the original blu-ray. Is there more "content" being sent through?

[singhcr]

Originally Posted by Tornado Red

Interesting subject... so what is accounting for the better picture we are seeing on a 4K scan of, say, Spiderman, compared to the original blu-ray. Is there more "content" being sent through?

The new disc benefits from a brand new 4K transfer, whereas the original disc was probably a 2K scan. That is why you get the better picture.

[Kusanagi356]

Thanks for all the advice guys...

So I have consolidated these suggestions:
1) try turning off 24fps on your blu ray player
2) Try changing the HDMI cable and make sure you're using a cable that's "high speed" certified.
3) Try a different cable or maybe an inline amp might cure it
4) run cable directly to Tv
5) Change the video output from YCbCr to RGB

I'll try all of these out tonight and hopefully I will be able to watch Mi4K discs!

[Tornado Red]

Originally Posted by singhcr

The new disc benefits from a brand new 4K transfer, whereas the original disc was probably a 2K scan. That is why you get the better picture.

Well, we know the picture is better because of the 4K scan. I'm just saying what's getting to your display is not what you're seeing with the 2K scan, so is there more "information" going through the HDMI cable? I was just reading this from Martin Liedman's reveiw of the 4K scan "The discs take advantage of a significantly higher bitrate than regular old Blu-ray discs, meaning more muscle to produce the finest picture quality, revealing superior details and showcasing that perfect cinematic, pleasing grain texturing for pictures photographed on film and more accuracy for those photographed in the wholly digital realm."

So I was just wondering if this could result in a borderline HDMI cable not doing all that is required in this case. Obviously I don't know, that's why I'm asking

Interested to see what, if anything, helps the OP...hope you post for us, thanks.

[vargo]

Originally Posted by Tornado Red

So I was just wondering if this could result in a borderline HDMI cable not doing all that is required in this case. Obviously I don't know, that's why I'm asking

Interested to see what, if anything, helps the OP...hope you post for us, thanks.

No. The encoded bitrate is relevant only at the read stage and the decode stage. Once you decode it, you've got something uncompressed video - that's what gets sent over HDMI.

The bitrate of the encoded video has no bearing on the bitrate of the uncompressed video that gets sent over HDMI. It is other factors that determine that.

[Tornado Red]

Originally Posted by vargo

No. The encoded bitrate is relevant only at the read stage and the decode stage. Once you decode it, you've got something uncompressed video - that's what gets sent over HDMI.

The bitrate of the encoded video has no bearing on the bitrate of the uncompressed video that gets sent over HDMI. It is other factors that determine that.

Gotcha. So the bitrate should have no effect past my BD player.

[ZIROK]

Keep in mind that unlike a RF coax , HDMI is bidirectional sending signals both directions , so if you go the AMP route you might have to try it on both ends of the cable, its possible to have a degraded signal from the TV back to the Blu-ray player or receiver. Hope that helps

[Tornado Red]

Yup. For me, my Oppo output is split so I'm going straight to the display for video. Hope the OP gets his issue resolved....

[Kusanagi356]

So I unplugged my Blu-ray Player from my amp and plugged it directly into my TV... and it works! The movie plays beautifully! The good news is, I can connect my amp directly to the TV too, so I can still use my sound set-up. Fingers crossed there will be no such problems with future Mi4K Blus, because Sony is putting out more and more of these (Captain Phillips, Amazing Spider-Man 2 etc)