Small but perfectly formed JBL home cinema

[JBL 4645]

I sussed out how to get the rear centre back for Dolby Stereo Digital 6channel or EX working again.

I refreshed breathed and thought it though and after seeing arhh! The answer was staring at me for days now. I’d just use one of the extra inputs and re-plug the lead from Pioneer VSP-200 with Y-jack connected to centre out and send the two RCA phone jacks to the Marantz 1030 tape input. Sorted!

I stuck a bit masking tape on the front marked the sound formats that I need to use. So if I’m using the Sony BDP-S550 to play Dolby Stereo Digital TrueHD 8channel I select the 1030 to Aux mode.

If I happen to be using the Sony BDP-S550 for Dolby Stereo Digital 6channel or PCM6channel or one of the other DVD I’d set the mode on the 1030 to Tape mode.

Still I have to set the level on the main AVR carefully to make sure the levels are balanced as the 1030 isn’t connected to the main AVR Kenwood KRF-X9050D, however the main AVR is sending the rear centre back for matrix use when using it for Dolby Stereo Digital 6chanmnel, sounds confusing doesn’t it.

Got, Eraser (1996) up and running with matrix overhead and centre back along with sidewall surrounds, only listening to the surrounds at the moment. Chapter 20 though 21 and 22 WOW!

So now I’m catered for all sound formats, after pause and a bit of re-thinking.

I might do diagram later on showing how all these, spaghetti leads are connected up. I wouldn't mind a spaghetti bolognese right now!

[JBL 4645]

I’m looking into future customizing the extra new surround channel outputs to support a few matrix decoders, but I’d need to do a thorough listening to, see how much or how often there’s centre phantom sounds between (left side and rear left back as well as right side and right rear back)?

If I think its beneficial I’d stretch it to 14channles or 13.1 at present I can use the overhead with 8channel but that will get it’s sound information off the sidewall surrounds, I haven’t tried it yet to see how it sounds. So, 8 channles.x1 matrix.1overhead and x1 LFE.1, 9.1?

[JBL 4645]

I was thinking early evening last night as its now today, isn’t the time zone jut great.

What if I used two Dolby Stereo pro-logic matrix decoders attached to (left front and left rear) (right front and right rear) why?

Well some mixes in Dolby 6channel or even 4channel discrete have what is called centre phantom that will be very brief when certain noticeable sound effects pass from front to rear or rear to front will only produce a foggy centre phantom image.

So why not just place a few decoders inline and get the centre phantom image to position itself somewhere along the sidewall surrounds?

Films with stereo surrounds will work smartly while films with mono surround discrete will produce a stereo surround like effect.

The way it will work is first sound panning from front, then the second sound or (centre phantom) will position itself somewhere along the sidewall, the last sound pan is when it reaches the rear back milliseconds later played over all surrounds at the same time.

I tried this last year and it worked out fairly well with Grand Canyon (1991) Dolby Stereo digital 4.0channels with the sound directed to play overhead then over to rear surrounds or centre back.

So why not try and create it for the side surrounds sometime later as I don’t have enough matching decoders or amps to make it work, but in theory it should work, there is just one snag thou.

The sound imaging pan from centre to surrounds I have to devise a way for the sound to pan from centre back and work along the sidewalls so only way is to use an audio mixer and a third Dolby pro-logic decoder and use the mixers inputs and set pan pots accordingly to send out the signals to the amps. This will make listening to film soundtracks just a bit more exciting.

[JBL 4645]

Phillips customer support all I can say is bravo! I just got off the phone as they called me, twice this, morning and afternoon. One, call from Phillips the other from their service department.

They can’t find what has cursed the issue with my BDP3000 s (The fault could be anywhere on the main PCB one chip that has thousands of connections, needle in haystack I guess?)

So they’re going to replace it with newer model BDP7000 series that supports onboard DolbyTrueHD8channel decoding as well as dtshdma (not that I care for dtshdam). It also has a 3D support so I guess I can’t grumble rather than I’m cuffed with the outcome.

The service engineer told me that it will also come with unlocked regional coding so I guess that means it can play any regional bluray title. Now that is customer support!

The player should be here maybe tomorrow, the very least Monday.

I’d recommend Phillips to friends.

Technical specifications
http://www.philips.co.uk/c/blu-ray-d...specifications

[moparfan]

DTS-MA seems to have taken over blu-ray. It's kinda tough to limit yourself to just watching the "correctly" encoded movies.

[JBL 4645]

The unit has been delayed as other parts, of the UK was so deep with the snow, but that should be also melting away at fast rate now. Temperatures are milder with 8 to (6 or 4 at night-time). So the player should be re-despatched before the end of the month the very least early January 2011.

Sod dtshdma I couldn’t care for it. I did shamelessly buy my dad, The Sound of Music on bluray with that dtshdma8channel. I have the DVD region2 from years ago, not interested in buying another copy of it for 1080i/p line resolution not after seeing the screen captures it looks out of place. 70mm had less grain and it looks like, what one reviewer noticed, it came off a 35mm print which does have a high degree of grain.

I know my dad, likes the film as it played for 2 years in the local Odeon on the Lansdown from 1965, those were the days when films had long runs. Today its 2 to 4 years at most. In the 90’s you might get 6 to 8 week runs, same with the 80’s thou might get 10 weeks or more. 70’s about the same. Today its gotten lesser and lesser and just doesn’t excite me anymore.

[JBL 4645]

The rustling sound must be that cattle cow rustling buzz of sound? I need to get the cable sorted on the SPL db lead to the pc.

I had it up a bit high or a bit high on the sub bass extension for left/right as that is where most of the low end is coming from and the stage fronts as well. The surrounds fade out towards the end

The playback on the low end is going over or near 100dbc needs to be bit lower for good SPL db 80dbc pick-up! I’m going listening to this again.



The surrounds fade out as that is intentional for classic Dolby Stereo 6trcak discrete mixes the art of Dolby 5:24 slowly. This was the dogs bollocks. Let me rephrase that. That was the cats bollocks! WOOOW!

[JBL 4645]

That’s a little better, whoops its still hitting on low end part that is peaking a bit high! Well this is still the Cats Sooty Bollocks of classic Dolby Stereo film. No distortion in here! It’s the overload on the SPL db metre!



I’ll do another video as I’m in Dolby listening mood tonight one with LCR on then one with surrounds on only. As most can’t be asked to monitor their own home cinema might as well do it for you.

[JBL 4645]

Phillips BDP7300 turned up just before midday the model that was issued as replacement that incorporates built-in multi-channel decoder RCA outputs 6channel (over the 8channel that was originally offered).

I’m pleased with the model it performs faster at visual searching over the (Sony BDP-S550).

The visual is still a pleasing aspect of the players function crisp and sharp around colours, contrast and brightness.

The unit is attached to video mode 3 on the Kenwood KRF-X9050D which is now exhausted for video mode inputs, even thou I have 4 players left.

I had to use an optical lead output from BDP7300 to video mode optical input as there is no coaxial digital inputs left.

While Sony BDP-S550 outputs DolbyTrueHD and dtshdma from the player directly from the players built-in multi-channel decoder 6/8channel decoder is good enough for the meantime until I upgrade to a newer AVR that’s not too costly and offers enough video input and digital audio inputs, with RCA 8channel input and 8channel output via RCA.

Phillips was nice enough to supply x2 bluray titles from Warner home entertainment. I Legend (2007) and Batman Begins (2005) both are Dolby TrueHD 6channel.

There was also a HDMI lead in the box so might come handy in the somewhat future?

For the video output I used composite for the CRT widescreen or regular use on the LCD video projector as well as connecting up component RBG for 1080i output on the LCD projector, (that gets little use but its there for when I need it).

The player has USB frontal input for video camera or USB port. I tried out the digital camera which gave a good reasonable picture quality Panasonic widescreen.

Also the engineer supplied a report on the fault on BDP3000 which turned out to be (freezes up when playing disc now won’t function properly, not booting up properly)

I just don’t know what could have caused that fault? Thou I suspect microprocessor chip error of some kind.

[JBL 4645]

Opening the box up. I find x2 bluray titles I Legend (2007) Batman Begins (2005) player cosily supported by Styrofoam users manuals / CD user manual / leads, component RGB / HDMI / power lead / remote control.

[JBL 4645]

The player was wrapped in polystyrene

[JBL 4645]

Wide rear view of the player

[JBL 4645]

Wide front view of the player

[JBL 4645]

Wide top view of the player

The camera flash was reflecting off the white label which reduced the visibility slightly something I should learn from in future when picture taking.

[JBL 4645]

Wide underside view of the player