Sony BDP-A6000 and 480/576i output?

[Jules]

After looking round for a dual HDMI output Blu-ray player to replace my little used Oppo BDP83 (which doesn't do 3D), I've just purchased a Sony BDP-A6000 and got around to plugging it in and tinkering with it.

However, I've already discovered a slight issue with it... though I may just have been spoiled with the Oppo for the last few years. The Oppos are after all known to do things properly.

Here's the deal... I want to be able to output 1080p 24 Blu-ray content as 1080p 24. I also want to be able to output 480i/576i DVD content as 480i/576i. The reason for this is both my AV Amp and TV are pretty high end and do a better job at deinterlacing / upscaling.

I can force 576i output in the players menu and get everything as 576i. Not what I want.
There is an option to output 'original resolution' which you'd expect to do what I want. Sadly it doesn't.
It leaves 1080p 24 material untouched, but deinterlaces 480i/576i content to 480p/576p.

Is this a known 'feature', and can it be bypassed in anyway?

 

[Iain-]

After looking round for a dual HDMI output Blu-ray player to replace my little used Oppo BDP83 (which doesn't do 3D), I've just purchased a Sony BDP-A6000 and got around to plugging it in and tinkering with it.

However, I've already discovered a slight issue with it... though I may just have been spoiled with the Oppo for the last few years. The Oppos are after all known to do things properly.

Here's the deal... I want to be able to output 1080p 24 Blu-ray content as 1080p 24. I also want to be able to output 480i/576i DVD content as 480i/576i. The reason for this is both my AV Amp and TV are pretty high end and do a better job at deinterlacing / upscaling.

I can force 576i output in the players menu and get everything as 576i. Not what I want.
There is an option to output 'original resolution' which you'd expect to do what I want. Sadly it doesn't.
It leaves 1080p 24 material untouched, but deinterlaces 480i/576i content to 480p/576p.

Is this a known 'feature', and can it be bypassed in anyway?

I have the following kit:

• Sony BDP-S790
• Pioneer DV-610 DVD Player
  
• Denon AVR-3313
• Harmony One

Currently, the output of the DV-610 (576i) goes to AVR and it de-interlaces and scales the output to 1080/50P. AVR does a great job of this. S790 AVR input is configured for BD pass-through as 1080/24P.

I've been considering retiring the DV-610 and using the second output of S790 for DVD. That way I'll have one player for it all. Second output of it will replace DV-610 input to AVR and Harmony One activity.

That leaves just one BDP setting (original resolution/576i) to manually configure depending whether media is BD or DVD. Frankly though in the tests I've done, I haven't been able to notice a great deal of difference between 576i and 576p.

 

[Jules]

Another thing you should be aware of then, is that the Sony machines (and possibly all machines with dual HDMI.. I don't know) will not pipe multichannel audio through both outputs.

It seams if you want to pipe multi channel audio to your receiver, you must activate the 'separate' mode where only the video leaves HDMI1, and only the audio leaves HDMI2.
It does not appear as though you can have truly parallel outputs.
This is disappointing for me as had plans to be able choose between watching with or without the AV amp switched on.

However, despite my 2 gripes with this machine it does solve my 3D issue without needing to replace my AV amplifier, and it is both quiet and speedy in operation.

 

[Iain-]

Another thing you should be aware of then, is that the Sony machines (and possibly all machines with dual HDMI.. I don't know) will not pipe multichannel audio through both outputs.

It seams if you want to pipe multi channel audio to your receiver, you must activate the 'separate' mode where only the video leaves HDMI1, and only the audio leaves HDMI2.
It does not appear as though you can have truly parallel outputs.
This is disappointing for me as had plans to be able choose between watching with or without the AV amp switched on.

However, despite my 2 gripes with this machine it does solve my 3D issue without needing to replace my AV amplifier, and it is both quiet and speedy in operation.

That's not the way HDMI works.

HDMI data flows in both directions between source and sink. If there's no sink, then data will only flow in a circuit where source and sink are communicating with each other.

In my case, one output of S790 is connected to BDP AVR input and the other is connected to DVD AVR input. HDMI data will only flow to the sink to which the AVR is switched; BDP or DVD but not both concurrently.

EDIT: BTW AFAICT, S790 and A6000 are essentially identical internally. Only difference seems to be the case of A6000.