CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[mwiener]

I posted this a little over 2 weeks ago, but the thread was somehow deleted off of this forum. No private messge, no nothing, wierd. Luckily, Goolge has a cache of it that I found by searching for the name of the thread. I retitled this thread to match the original.

The HD Fury II appears to have some problems with the Panasonic DB80 player. I was asked by Curt Palme to update the firmware of the BD80 with the same results. Today I got some time to do some additional testing. The HDFury II performs fine for 480i, 480p, and 1080i with output from the player itself ( setup screens for example ). The player works fine for content like "The Blue Planet" and most other movies I have tried at 480i, 480p, and 1080i. But some movies like the Hangover or Avator won't play at 1080i while they will play at 480i and 480p. Also I just purchased a 1080p Panasonic 42" LCD panel and 1080i or 1080p out of the BD80 works fine on that panel using the same movies that won't play with the HDFury. I am convinced based on all my testing that the Fury is not converting the signal properly on some specific content at 1080i.

Does anyone have any additional ideas to try? I can not think of any more productive testing I can do. Maybe an HDFuryIII would fix the problem - but I am not likely to shell out more money given my experience thus far.

Mike.

Here is the rest of the thread as it originally appeared on this forum 2 weeks ago:

I am using a HD Fury II with power adapter and a Panasonic DMPBD80 Blue Ray player. My RPTV only supports 1080i. This solution works very except some titles like "The Hangover" or "Avatar" don't play at all - by that I mean you get sound but no recognizable video. I have successfully played a few other BlueRay titles "Hell Boy II" for example - so what I suspect has happened is a DRM issue where the blue ray player is not allowing the HDMI handshake with newer copy protected video. Like I said, it worked well for a while with all content, then it quit playing new Blue Ray DVDs.

I have a couple of old titles like "The Blue Planet" and those still play well. Also upconverting standard DVDs works well. It just seems to be newer blue rays. I quit trying new titles for fear of getting stuck with more DVDs I can't use. Any suggestions as to try and trouble shoot why this is happening and how to fix?

Here is Curt's response:
I had this happen at a customer's house who bought a brand new BR player. The firmware had to be updated, and then the BR player played all DVDs. Try updating the firmware of the BR player. I don't think this is a Fury issue.

Here is a response from RonW:
As Curt stated, if a player is having problem playing a particular movie, especially a more current one, then it is more than a likely a firmware issue with the player. Nothing to do with the Fury. I am surprised though, that you are getting audio with no video. Generally when there is a firmware issue, the discs just won't load. It can be unpredictable though and not consistent from model to model or player to player. I have an older Panasonic(BD55) as well and I can playback Avatar and it has never had an update, however, along with that I have an Oppo BDP83 BR player that I use the vast majority of the time. One of the important reasons why the Oppo players are so popular is because the company continues to provide support and firmware updates to deal with just the issues you are facing with the playability of some discs as they come on the scene. This is at the same time mainstream companies like Panasonic and others are moving on to the next generation player and support for "legacy" products with issues like this just eventually fades away.

Since your Panasonic player is a newer model than mine, check with Panasonic for any firmware updates. I heard of problems with playability on some models specifically with "Avatar" when it was first released and it required a firmware update to correct the problem.