Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Yet Another 596 Issue

Hi everyone,

If you recall, I recently posted about an issue with my 596 and the latest Indiana Jones DVD's. Well, I'm sad to say I have yet another issue with my 596. Here is the message I've just sent to Meridian. I'll keep you posted on what happens.

Dan W.


- - -


To Whom It May Concern:

Last night while watching a movie, my 596 DVD player ceased operating and has seemingly
now decided that it no longer likes DVD's. Here is the sequence of events that occurred:

1) I was watching the Region 1, NTSC DVD of Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
and had gotten to Chapter 25 or so of the movie when I paused the DVD in order
to take care of some things around the house.

2) When I returned to watch the movie, perhaps 10 to 15 minutes later, the 596 had gone
into shutdown, as expected. When I pressed play to resume the movie, the 596 began sequencing
up but never began playing the movie and ceased responding to remote control inputs or
front-panel key presses.

3) In order to unfreeze the 596, I power-cycled the player and it came back to life.

4) To pick up where I left off in the movie, I went into the DVD's Select a Scene menu,
navigated to Chapter 25 and pressed select. At that point, the 596 "froze" and nothing happened.
The movie did not begin playing Chapter 25 and the DVD menu remained on screen. Again,
the 596 was no longer responding to the remote control or to front-panel key presses.

5) I again power-cycled the 596 in order to bring it back to life.

6) After turning the power back on,the 596 spun up the LOTR disc, took a few seconds and
then displayed "No Disc". I removed the DVD, re-inserted, same thing "No Disc".
I inserted a CD and it came up and played fine. Re-trying the LOTR and several other DVD's
they all now come up the same: No Disc.


I am at a complete loss as to what could be wrong. Any suggestions on anything I can
try here at home myself to "fix" my 596? Or do I need to bite the bullet and take it
to my dealer and have it sent back to Meridian for servicing?

My 596 is roughly 2.5 years old and is running Software Version 1.32.

As much as I enjoy the phenomenal sound and picture created by my Meridian gear
(I also have the 568, 562V.2 and 558), I am growing increasingly frustrated with the quirks
and foibles of, primarily, the 596. If this were some $100-$200 DVD player, I'd just shrug
off the issues, throw out the player and purchase a new one. However, after spending close
to $4000USD on this player, I think it is entirely reasonable that I have very high expectations
that the 596 should operate flawlessly.

I thank you in advance for a quick and speedy response to this issue.

Regards,

Dan Westerberg

A couple of days ago I would have responded that you probably have a fault with your machine as, although I had a lot of problems like those described in your two posts with early issues of the firmware, recently I have had no problems with my 596 (V1.30).

That was until last night when I was watching Once Upon a time in the West (R1). I had a complete freeze up at the end of Chapter 13 and had to power cycle to recover. This may be at the layer change as it is almost exactly halfway through the film. After reboot, I selected Chapter 14 directly using the Meridian OSD and all worked fine to the end of the film. I also tried fast search back and forward past the "freeze point" and everything works OK.

Are these issues of discs being authored differently these days? If so, why do they always seem to play OK on cheap players?

Malcolm

Hi all,

Quick followup to my 596 woes...

I received a response from Meridian-America, recomending that I try re-downloading the system software to the 596, as perhaps it had become corrupted.

So, I downloaded 1.32 to the 596 and this did allow the player to once again recognize DVD's. However, I still had stability/lockup issues 1.32 when trying to navigate certain DVD's menus.

As a result, I have backed off my 596 to software 1.3 and it seems to be back to it's old self and is stable.

Of course, this means that I'm back to square one with respect to my issue with playing the Indiana Jones DVD's. Oh well.

Regards,

Dan W.

Dan

What firmware is in your ROM drive? You can find this on the Information page of the 596 setup.

Hi Stacy,

Info on 596 reports the following data:

Region Code 1
Firmware 1.3
Compiled 280602
Microcode W-2411
Drive L013
DVS-LDR DSL-710A


Dan W.

you need to update your firmware in the drive ring Meridian they will supply FOC

adding drive firmware and product software should fix these issues did for my mate.

he got disk from Meridian uk they are v.helpful even let me ring them to go through instuctions what to do.

When I requested a firmware update, M just e-mailed me the file and the instructions. I burnt the file to a CD-R and followed the directions, all went well.

Steve

Do you mean firmware or microcode?

I presume the firmware, indicated as 1.3, is the system software that I download via my PC.

The microcode is the drive related software, correct? I think I recall having updated that once in the past already.

Any idea what rev the microcode should be at?

Thanks,

Dan W.

my mates is LV17

Lerxst,
It's not the firmware that you load via the RS232 socket and PC. This is the actual rom drive driver software which is loaded via a particular sequence of open/close draw, on/off/stop type stuff from a CD.

Definitely get in touch with M for this as you need to do it properly. FWIW, when I had a 596 I did this a couple of times.

Rgds

Nick

What I meant to say is the ROM drive update, this is why I had to burn it to a CD. M supplied the directions, all went well.

Steve