Bd-p1400

[captainm1uk]

Hi

I was looking at getting the BD P-5000 dual player and have been waiting for months for this, but as most of you are aware it is looking like BD will be the winner. I believe MS have not put a HD DVD drive in their Elite boxes because they are waiting to see who the "winner" is. I have at present an xbox HD DVD drive and a PS3 and am now looking to get a BD - P 1400 as they are only £290.

My question is have the fixed the issues I have been reading about - juddering and crahing etc with the latest firmware ?

If they have then I am happy to keep my HD DVD drive and have a stand alone BD player

Also has anyone found a hack for multiregion SDVD hack yet on the 1400

Thanks

Edit

Just read this review and this is quite worrying

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/506

Is this the case or has it been fixed

 

[Cool-hand]

Hi

I beleive there is a dedicated thread for thisd player over at avsforum.com, iirc they weren't too enameld with it. but best you go see here.

Rgds

CH

 

[mentasm]

The first firmware upgrade fixed audio playback glitches in a number of titles and improved load times, but introduced stuttering on 24fps mode. The latest firmware resolves the stuttering and further refines compatibility. For example, the Spider-Man films all had audio glitches out of the box, but now they play back without issue.

It's only profile 1.0, but if that doesn't bother you I'd take a look at it. A PS3 was no good for me because my amp doesn't have HDMI, and I wanted HD sound. The analogue outs on the 1400 let me listen to PCM and TrueHD (I'm told it has on-board decoding of the latter) without having to upgrade my amp (unlike the PS3). No on-board decoding of DTS-HD, but it will send it via bitstream.

 

[captainm1uk]

The first firmware upgrade fixed audio playback glitches in a number of titles and improved load times, but introduced stuttering on 24fps mode. The latest firmware resolves the stuttering and further refines compatibility. For example, the Spider-Man films all had audio glitches out of the box, but now they play back without issue.

It's only profile 1.0, but if that doesn't bother you I'd take a look at it. A PS3 was no good for me because my amp doesn't have HDMI, and I wanted HD sound. The analogue outs on the 1400 let me listen to PCM and TrueHD (I'm told it has on-board decoding of the latter) without having to upgrade my amp (unlike the PS3). No on-board decoding of DTS-HD, but it will send it via bitstream.

Brilliant that - thanks - what is the difference between profile 1 and 1.1 and could the unit be updated to support it

 

[Placemat]

Profile 1.0 means that it will be unable to play certain extra features on new Blu-ray discs (that have profile 1.1 content.) Effectively, the £290 price tag is because it is now out of date blu ray technology...

 

[captainm1uk]

Profile 1.0 means that it will be unable to play certain extra features on new Blu-ray discs (that have profile 1.1 content.) Effectively, the £290 price tag is because it is now out of date blu ray technology...

So would you recoment a combo player when it eventually gets released

 

[Placemat]

Well you already own both a HD-DVD drive and a Blu-ray player of sorts. If you really want to buy a stand-alone Blu-ray player then I would suggest you wait for profile 1.1 to properly hit the market and drop in price, since all the current offerings will give you very little over what you already have.

 

[mentasm]

The 1400 was priced at £290 not long after it was launched; it's not been reduced to clear. My plan for the future is possibly to get a PS3 when they fall in price and 1.1 discs are the norm, because they can be upgraded to profile 1.1 (and probably 2.0) fairly easily. That will future-proof me as far as bonus material goes, and I won't have to buy another expensive stand-alone (the 1400 will play future BD movies, just not Picture-in-Picture and online features). To be honest if I didn't have to review stuff I probably wouldn't bother with 1.1 at all, because I rarely have time for extras. Of course if an when Star Wars arrives on BD it will be a different matter.

I reckon those Hardwaresecrets people were on something when they did that review though (not that they actually reviewed it; they gave up). I've never had a problem with the player window-boxing standard-def titles, before or after the firmware updates. Maybe the US player was more problematic, but the UK machine has been pretty good since they sorted the firmware.

 

[captainm1uk]

The 1400 was priced at £290 not long after it was launched; it's not been reduced to clear. My plan for the future is possibly to get a PS3 when they fall in price and 1.1 discs are the norm, because they can be upgraded to profile 1.1 (and probably 2.0) fairly easily. That will future-proof me as far as bonus material goes, and I won't have to buy another expensive stand-alone (the 1400 will play future BD movies, just not Picture-in-Picture and online features). To be honest if I didn't have to review stuff I probably wouldn't bother with 1.1 at all, because I rarely have time for extras. Of course if an when Star Wars arrives on BD it will be a different matter.

I reckon those Hardwaresecrets people were on something when they did that review though (not that they actually reviewed it; they gave up). I've never had a problem with the player window-boxing standard-def titles, before or after the firmware updates. Maybe the US player was more problematic, but the UK machine has been pretty good since they sorted the firmware.

That is really good to hear may thanks - the reson i was looking at combo was because of just one player rather than 2 but i guess that is just throwing money away isn't it and if carry on waiting for something better then you will never buy one

 

[captainm1uk]

Will this model play divx ?

 

[mentasm]

No. I don't know of any HD players that do.

 

[colindale]

I reckon those Hardwaresecrets people were on something when they did that review though (not that they actually reviewed it; they gave up). I've never had a problem with the player window-boxing standard-def titles, before or after the firmware updates. Maybe the US player was more problematic, but the UK machine has been pretty good since they sorted the firmware.[/QUOTE]

They should have updated their REVIEW, because the firmware updates have apparently fixed the problems, Hardwaresecrets has lost my respect!.

 

[Howard0000]

I reckon those Hardwaresecrets people were on something when they did that review though (not that they actually reviewed it; they gave up). I've never had a problem with the player window-boxing standard-def titles, before or after the firmware updates. Maybe the US player was more problematic, but the UK machine has been pretty good since they sorted the firmware.

Can't say I've tried standard DVDs on mine, I'm not bothered if it does put it in a window anyway, my EP35 does an astounding upscaling job

I also get the feeling reading the US forums that the US player must be more buggy than the UK release Oh well

 

[mentasm]

I think we got the benefit of it being released in the States first. They are on firmware 1.2 (I think) and we are on 1.1, which makes me think that our original firmware was the same as their 1.1.

Our firmware 1.0 fixed a lot of playback bugs, but buggered up the 24Hz mode completely. 1.1 fixed that and more. I'm actually quite happy with it now, apart from the lack of Master Audio decoding and the damn profile limitations. That said, it internally decodes a lot more audio formats than most BD players.

 

[Ian_S]

Can I just check that the 1400 CAN decode DTS-HD High Resolution internally and output that over analogue 5.1 and PCM over HDMI?

 

[mentasm]

Never tried it, but how would I tell? Presumably if it can't decode a format it falls back on the Core mix, so I'd still get audio? There's a table in one of the threads that says it does everything but Master Audio, which is what I'm going on.