Arcam DV88 software upgrades

[bishman]

As far as I know, latest software is 1.74 firmware is, I think LO14.

[ReTrO]

bishman: Sounds right to me, and we keep stock and stuff for the Arcam rep round us, so we get everything first.

[ 01-10-2001: Message edited by: ReTrO ]</p>

[garysteel]

Well sorry to hear about your drop outs, did you complain to Arcam when you noticed them, as I've had them with Every up to date Arcam player, 3x DV88, so I upgraded to FMJ 27 still having the drop outs and Arcam said there may be an incompatibilty with my AX1.

Hmmm.....So I changed my amp to the Denon AV1SE ( nice amp btw <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> and still had drop outs, I never thought it was my amp as I was getting very slight picture freezes too. Spoke to colin at arcam and he said more ppl were starting to mention drop outs ???? and they were investigating it..

Well for such a nice player I never had any problems with any dvd player sub £800 ( 2* Pioneer and 1* Sony)...I gave up waiting...although they were happy to keep swapping the player, I wasn't and was getting fed up watching dvd's for sound drop outs. So I took it back Paid even more and got the Onkyo 939..Boyo boy is that a player and a half...NO SOUND DRop outs whatsoever...FAMTASTIC.

Dunno what I'm saying here really...Slight dig at arcam for not solving the problem and thumbs up for Onkyo. This has cost me An addition £3500 cos the DV88 proved to be beyond arcam to sort !!!!

Hope the latest firmaware if and when it arrives solves everyones problems but it was way to too long a wait with a piece of .hmmm..expensive kit with prob's....

GAry

[garysteel]

I should check my speeling and grammar....hmm...Forgive the bad english <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> <br />G.

Hi,

Havent been on here for a while so forgive me if this question has been asked before.

I had the two software upgrades that came out in may/june (Rev14??). my player still occasionally drops out on various discs. I have contacted my dealer who said there has been a few software revisions released recently....

What is the latest software and firmware revisions to be released????

Cheers

I thought thats what revision we were upto.

I know that one of the s/w rev numbers is displayed when you turn the player on (mine says 1.74), but can you remind me how to check the 'LO14' s/w revision?

thanks

The 2 discs I've had problems with are R1 - Traffik and R2 - Instinct, neither are DTS.

[icequake2000]

I had three arcam dvd players each one having problems. For a thousand pounds there should not be any problems at all, in my opinion the player is a waist of money. what is the sense of having a player with good sound and picture if half the time it dosent play the films properly.

[garysteel]

Yup, I had the dropouts with DTS Discs too, with Frimware 1.74 with both LO14 and LT13 drives ( Since I had several Arcam Models players)

Seems there's more of this drop out business not being mentioned, or ppl holding out for new firmware.

As to drop outs happening on specific discs...it appeared absolutly random with me, I could watch it and get some drop outs watch it again and no dropouts 5.1 and DTS.

As i said maybe its worth holding on to what is essentially a good player, but if you start watching movies looking for dropouts instead of the movie - get shot of it, as for friends with £200 players laughing at me spending £1600 and having these problems...Pah..all in the past noo.

Wee G.

[John Dawson]

Hi everyone - I am sorry to hear there are still Arcam owners experiencing occasional problems with our DVD players and certain discs. Our helpdesk says it now receives very few queries with regard to problems with the current drive and player firmware; nevertheless we are always anxious to improve our products and, as always, we welcome constructive feedback from members of this forum.

In order to get to grips with any remaining issues I would appreciate it if anyone who is experiencing either dropouts or disc crashes would contact me directly with the details. Use my work e-mail - johnd@arcam.co.uk - I will then be in a position to compile a definitive list and if necessary purchase the relevant DVDs, which can be then examined by our engineering team.

We need the disc title, publisher and region, plus information on exactly what the problem is and whether it is reproducible. If you discover a workaround for a freeze, please let us know what that is too, as it gives us a big clue as to where the problem may lie. If you have dropouts we would like to know how many (the exact timings help a lot if they are not random) and whether they are audio, video or both. We also need to know if you experienced this on PCM, DD or DTS sound and the model number of the amp or receiver you are using. Don't forget to include the player serial number plus drive firmware and player firmware issue numbers too and anything else you consider relevant. I know this sounds like a lot of trouble but solving some of these issues is akin to finding a needle in a haystack and we need the best information you have :-)

For the record the current player firmware for both DV88 and DV27 is v1.74 and the drive firmware is LO14 for LO type drives and LT18 for the LT type drives we are now starting to use. There are a very small number of players out there with earlier versions of the LT drive firmware and IMO it is worth upgrading these to LT18 (preferably via your dealer), but only if you have any dropout problems. We have <br />CD-ROMs available in Customer Support for this purpose. E-mail them direct at support@arcam.co.uk or tel 01223 203 203.

If anyone has sensible suggestions for operating or other improvements to either our DV88 or DV27 DVD players then I'd like to hear about these too. Of course I can't promise we'll carry them out but we will look at all of them. As you might expect we already are compiling a "to do" list but there will certainly be things which we haven't thought of and which might be both useful and not difficult to implement. So speak out or forever hold your peace!

John Dawson (Arcam)

[Silversurfer]

I am on my seventh DV88 like Gary I changed my amp to a Denon AVC 1SE but problem still remained picture freeze and sound drop out,I am hopeing that this player number 7 which I got the weekend will not have the faults like the previous six.<br />only thing that has shown up so far is layer change on gladiator.

I have a DV27 and am having drop outs only on DTS tracks. DD has been perfect. I'll get probably 5-6 dropouts on every DTS track I play. They are random and do not happen in the same place. The sound completely drops out and will not come back until I hit mute, forward/reverse etc.. I will e-mail this to Arcam. I am using the coax output with an EAD TM8 processor.

I did have some dropouts before upgrading the software, now I rarely do, and only on few rented DVDs...

My DV88 is at the latest levels of software and I'm still getting drop-outs. Traffik region 1 froze and Instinct region 2 crashed the player. I sent both discs to Arcam who confirmed the problem was with the software but couldn't give me an ETA for fixes. I've been impressed with the player when it works and I'm also very impressed with the Arcam customer service. However, in the back of my mind I do now watch new DVD's kindof waiting for them to drop out. So I guess I've lost a little confidence in the player

[bishman]

What are the dropouts everyone is exeriencing now? Are they with DTS still, or DD also?

I have only ever noticed a problem once, the sound seemed to stop but only for a brief fraction of a second, I replayed the offending moment several times and it never went wrong, I assumed a speck of dust on the disk or something.

I might have said before, but the only problem I have had is with the Criterion edition of The Rock, it won't play from the start movie option on the menu, I have to go to chapter selection and choose chapter 1. I guess I should drop Arcam an e-mail regarding this.