Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Official Blue ray options - Denon, Arcam, Pioneer, etc.

Hi Mark

I remember your post about that. I don't understand then why the 598 (with it's Zoran chip and the CUE bug) is inferior via SDI to the Philips 963 via SDI. Is it down to M implementing it in a faulty or manipulated way, or that the Zoran chip itself is "faulty" in how it decodes the info? Which takes me back to my original point...BD players ought to perform similarly, but in reality, will they?

Cheers

George

Denon is showing details of its new universal player, the DVD-A1UDCI, on its US site (see link below)

http://www.usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/4760.asp

With two HDMI outputs this looks like a great partner for the HD621

598 has a C-Cube Ziva 5 MPEG decoder, no?

My 800 SDI cards has some issues that I do not see on a Panasonic SDI modified player. But that says more about the SDI implementation than the players?

BD players ought to perform identically in terms of their fidelity to the digital audio/video coming from the disc over digital outputs. In reality there will be some instances where this isn't the case and those players should probably be avoided (eg the original Samsung Blu-Ray player with the filtering problems).

Mark

Thanks VK, that's the very chappie! I was too lazy to search back to verify my hazy recollection

Cheers

George

HI Mark

I remember discussing this with Henry at CRT Projectors a few years ago, and at that stage he'd modded a number of different manufacturers' players (inc an 800). He was of the opinion that the Ziva chip was one of the worst performing on the market, as it consistently produced inferior results to other chipsets he was modding. Now your point could still stand, but I feel that as he used the same two board types on all his mods, and had clocked up quite a few, lends some credibility to his comments.

Cheers

George

His comments imply that the Ziva chip was at fault for not decoding the data correctly or corrupting it in some way then, which means the player should probably avoided?

Certainly the SDI output of my 800 blows away the component, but that's also to do with the fact that DVD was supposed to be filtered at the higher frequencies but the SDI mods got around this and so always looked sharper, particular with test patterns. I suspect Meridian would argue that the Ziva was conforming with this standard and so is perfect...

But with Blu I don't think there is such filtering. All players should output the same image data unless something is going wrong...

Mark

My 980 came (direct from Oppo) already hacked - did not need to go through even this process.

You do have to re-hack it if you install new firmware though.

I just wanted to add that several versions of the PS3 supported SACD. There's a table that breaks it down on this website.
Cheers,
Sam

http://www.ps3sacd.com/ps3hardware.html

So I'm looking to get a Bluray player but would like one which would play SACDs. Apparently the latest generation Bluray players have dropped this feature. Other than the Denon unit coming out which retails for around $4300, it looks like my options are limited.

I was hoping to get a universal Bluray player and use it in conjunction with the HD621 to feed into my 568.2MM.

Oppo BDP-83 is coming soon.

Kal