BDP9700 Latest Firmware upgrade (V3.85.10) has been released

[Toengel]

Hi,

at the moment you can of course select between CD and SACD - it also works for analogue outputs.

However, if you don't have connected any device at HDMI-AVR, you will always get SACD-DSD-Multichannel - even if you have selected DSD-Stereo... I hope, this will be fixed in the next release.

Toengel@Alex

[Rin]

Dear Rin,

This is a very interesting piece of finding.
May I have more details about his original cable vs the new cable? Cables should have markings like for example CAT1, CAT2. It would be great if you can take a photo of the markings.

Kind regards,
Philips moderation team

Now remember these cables are cheaper than cheap: The "bad one" cost me €2,69 and the "good one" was only €2,19. Neither cable has any technical markings on it, but both feature this text: "HIGH SPEED HDMI CABLE WITH ETHERNET".

Impossible to "see" the problem but as a physicist I'm thinking:
- Connectors might be off-spec / bad connection
- Wiring might be off-spec / picking up interference
- Ferrites might induce picking up interference

If you want the bad cable for testing, then I'd be more than happy to send it to you. Or you can just visit your local "Action" store and get the one with the orange connectors and the big ferrite rings. Those shops are EVERYWHERE in The Netherlands and probably in Germany also. Guaranteed to get your BDP9700 on it's knees

http://www.action.nl/
http://www.action.de/

The bad cable looks like this:
http://shop.webics.nl/product_image/...uls_001_WS.jpg

All this assuming it 's a cable-problem of coarse, which has not been "proven" yet. Not a single crash yet since getting rid of it though...

[Stormen]

If I got this right. At 10 Mb you have more signal in the cable core. At 100 there is starting to be as much electrical field outside the cable as the inside. At 1-10Gb/s there is more signal around the actual copper cable than inside.
networkcable and cat6 or cat7 gigabitnetwork thats getting really hard to install in a house. The cable shouldnt be bent more than a big basket ball. Prefered inflateble beach-ball.
Hdmi transfer rate is 10.2 Gbit So hdmi is sensitive.

[ktl]

Hi all,

Yesterday I bought a 9700 as I could no longer resist the temptation. So far I have no regret, it is truly amazing piece of equipment. Great sound, what more can I say?

But I have questions about SACD playing with the following settings (pre-installed firmware v3.80):

audio->digital audio->auto
preference->sacd->sacd

Result: I got no sound on analog stereo outputs. However, if I changed "audio->digital audio" to "pcm", I had sound.

(1) Is the player reading the sacd layer?
(2) Is it reading dsd stereo mix on the sacd layer? or am I just getting downmixed stereo sound?
(3) Are the stereo analog outputs derived from the same source as the coaxial or optical digital connector from the hardware point of view?

Thanks.

KTL

[Toengel]

Hi,

are you using the stereo outputs of the 2.0-connectors or the 7.1-connectors? Do you have something connected to the HDMI-AVR? If not, it's not possible to chose DSD-Stereo at the moment. It will always play DSD-Multichannel if the SACD layer is selected.

Toengel@Alex

[ktl]

Hi Toengel,

TV is connected to composite output and my stereo pre-amplifier is connected to the 2-ch audio outputs of 9700 (I'm not interested in multichannel). I have no HDMI connection.

With setting:

audio->digital audio->auto
preference->sacd->cdda

I got a louder sound, but when I changed:

audio->digital audio->pcm
preference->sacd->sacd

I got a softer sound but I didn't seem to lose any channel other than stereo sound.

KTL

[macrochris]

I have same issue after upgrade to latest firmware. The player seems cannot be turned off. It still show vertical color bars or just a blank screen (not turn off screen as our TV still show has input signal) after i power off. Also, my external harddisk still on! Please help to fix it asap. Also, where can I get the 3.8 firmware? I want to fall back first, thx.

Chris

[macrochris]

seems fix the power off issue. I download the latest firmware to usb and flash again. The player can now power off with no signal at video output and external harddisk is now power off at the same time.... so strange.. Before do this, i have tried to reset to default setting but no success. After reflash the firmware is ok now...

[Toengel]

Hi,

@ktl
use the stereo output of the 7.1-connectors and deactivate all not used connections (rear, sub, etc).

Since you don't have anything connected to the HDMI-MAIN, the DSD-Multichannel part is always played...

Toengel@Alex

[Gerhard]

Hi,

just a quick reply from SACD testing. So far I got no sound drops. The issue seems to be gone. Thanks.

Wrt. to the display during CD/SACD playback - I think there's still enough room for improvement.

- Gerhard

[Tom_247]

Hi everyone,

I have been very unfortunate with this firmware upgrade. I got the player with firmwire 3.7 something, I don't remember. It worked fine, but I had just tried two or three blu-rays, not watched a whole movie or anything until I saw on the support homepage this brand new firmware upgrade to 3.85.10 and it says right there always upgrade to latest firmware to get "optimal performance". Well what did I know.

Since I upgraded I have the following issues that I didn't have before:

- The player won't correctly communicate with the tv anymore after start-up => the screen stays black and no home screen or other can be seen. I then have to push the HDMI button on my old Philips blu-ray player and change the resolution a few times, then suddenly the home screen appears. The new remote doesn't even have such a button so I am very glad to still have kept the old player + remote. This happens every time I switch on the player and I already tried: changing the hdmi cable, changing the hdmi port on the t.v. and setting the player back to factory settings, all to no avail
- Watching a movie there were small hick-ups, I'd call them. The picture would freeze for a few seconds then continue at a somewhat later point (in essence jump over some scenes). I could then rewind and watch the missing part. This only worked a few times since these hick-ups occured more and more frequently. At some point the player wouldn't let me rewind anymore and more or less continually freeze and jump. This was with a 2D blu-ray disc. I then put the disc in my old player and it played perfectly, without a single freeze or similar. So this has to be the player, not the disc. Also at that point I unplugged the player and put it in a corner.

I am now waiting for a new firmware upgrade hoping this might bring back the basic functions of seeing the home screen after switching on and being able to play a regular 2D blu-ray without interruptions.

So much for the firmware upgrade 3.85.10. I wish I'd left it with the old firmware, you know what they say - never change a running system ... though I have to admit, the stuff with the freezing picture might also have been there before, just I hadn't watched long enough to notice it.

Is there a way to get back the old firmware anyway?

[Toengel]

Hi,

- install the firmware again
- don't forget to load factory defaults after upgrade

Toengel@Alex

[Stormen]

Can confirm toengels comment. Last 2 updates I had to update with USB and make factoryresett to make them work. Dont aske me why :-)

[Tom_247]

Hi,

thank you for your suggestions. I did make a factory reset after the original firmware update already, I saw this somewhere that this is what should be done. This first update I did via WiFi network connection and it ran flawlessly, after the following factory reset I had said blank screen since the player started up again as part of the factory reset and this is when the HDMI doesn't work. I first connected via yellow analogue video connection (which worked without problems) and only later found out I could switch HDMI solutions around a few times and the screen will then appear also via HDMI.

Since then I tried to re-install the firmware (from USB, since network says no "new" firmware available) several times already. Strangely it took several tries to get it to run properly once. I think I tried it maybe three times and only then did it work. At first it said only FE and not BE or the other way round. When finally both things passed and the update was finished I did a factory reset once again, but this did not change anything regarding the start-up behavior (I didn't try watching a disc anymore since this other issue was not resolved I have/had no hope that this would work better).

Then, maybe two days later, I tried to re-install from USB again, the same thing, it took two tries to work, then it did, I did a factory reset and the result was: no change, still no screen at start-up.

I am thinking strongly about returning the whole player, but it's a bit of a hassle since I bought it online (from Philips Online Shop) and don't know the details of their return procedure and have little time to arrange shipment or such since I'm currently very busy at work during office hours.

And I like the features of the product, I'd like it to work, don't want to have to return it ...

Maybe I'll find time to call Philips support tomorrow and they can come up with a different approach/other possible solution.

Thanks
Best regards
Thomas

[kvic]

Hi

Finally got time to play around with version 3.85.10. Here are my impressions:

1. Picture is slightly brighter than 3.80; it's good improvement in my opinion. it looks better than 9600 from my memory. 9700 is very "film-like" which I like.
2. On startup seems resetting HDMI output for good. It succeeds most of the time. hence, regardless of HDMI signal on ocassionally (with diagonal/vertical strips) when 9700 enters standby. Power on resets back to normal. It works most of the time. So far I only got one pink screen on start up. I believe 9700 was so messy up when it entered standby in this particular case. That also means 3.85.10 is more stable than before but still not so stable in certain functionalities. In particular the Smart TV functionality. After playing around with Smart TV, 9700 could end up in messy states.

Btw, if you turn on Auto-standby, and play a long playlist on YouTube. The standby timer will ignore youtube playing and 9700 enters standby. Shall be easy to fix...

Also, there is another thread with a person asking about GPT support. The thread is closed. Hence, I cannot respond but I dropped him a private message. With 3.85.10 GPT partitions/HDD shall be recognised by 9700. Disk size does not matter I believe (though with some test to confirm will be good). 9600 definitely does not support GPT partition/HDD.

Cheers.