Incredibles DVD - popping noises?
 

I just picked up The Incredibles WS from MicroCenter ($14.99) and tried it out this afternoon. There were about half a dozen points in the movie, during loud passages (fights in the jungle, eg.), where I heard loud and sharp popping sounds. I've had my HT setup for quite a while and it's never had any problems like this before (Wharfedale Emerald speakers, Denon 2801 receiver, Pioneer DVD with optical audio-out).

I'm going to try some other loud stuff on my system later to see if the problem lies therein, but as I said, I've never had anything like this happen before so I'm more inclined to suspect the DVD. Is it possible that I got a bum DVD?

It's possible that your DVD was bad. I have experience none of these problems with my "Incredibles" DVD.

DIdnt have those but I had a fraction of a second of pixelation.

It's probably your copy, I'd say exchange it.

Just out of curiosity, was it a flutter type sound from your sub? I have actually encounterd this on some other DVD's when played really loud, mostly during explosions and such, but got it quite a bit on the Incredibles DVD. Tried a bunch of DVD's and was able to not hear the sounds but it was really tough to iron out the Incredibles DVD

Nope, not a flutter sound, and definitely not the sub (since I don't have one :). This was a distinct pop or crackle noise.

Return the disc. If it happens again...its the dvd player :)

It sounds to me like you're overdriving either your receiver or your speakers. The LFE on "The Incredibles" is pretty strong at points, and if the pops are happening only during loud passages, I'd say that's your problem.

Which model of Wharfedale Emeralds do you have, and what are your bass management settings on your receiver?

The sides are Emerald 95s. The center is an Emerald CR. The treble and bass are both set to +6dB and I heard the pops with the receiver at -10dB.

I'm kind of skeptical about the idea of a bum DVD-- how rare is such an occurrence? I'll try to swap it anyway just in case.

BTW, what is LFE?

[edit: I'm guessing LFE = low frequency effects, now that I think about it]

In addition to bass and treble controls, Dolby Digital and DTS have settings for bass management, which typically involves telling your receiver whether or not you have a subwoofer, as well as whether you front left and right main speakers are "large" or "small," so the receiver knows where to send the LFE (low frequency effects).

Some of the reviews I've seen for the Emerald 95s suggest they can't handle really deep LFE and require a subwoofer. I suspect your speakers are bottoming out.

As far as a bad DVD, there are defective DVDs out there, but I've never heard of a defect manifesting itself in the way you're experiencing.

Play with your receiver settings. Set the speakers to "small," and/or back off the bass setting a little bit and turn your volume down. Play a part of the movie where you know the popping occurs and see what happens.

Are you sure it's not the dvd player?

I remember hearing the popping noises but they weren't from the dvd movie or the system it came from the dvd player power cable.

I don't know why it happen since I don't pull the cable or play with it and it look intact when I inspect it but it did came from there and it was doing those popping noises now and then until I one day I perceived the odor of burning rubber and guess what? my player was dead of a short. :yack: :(

Definitely sounds like a speaker bottoming just from the brief description here. Not good. Speakers will survive that a couple times, but repeated bottoming WILL trash the driver.

Try adding a sub if you can spend a bit. That would reduce the strain on your other speakers.

I agree strongly that this sounds like a speaker being overdriven.

Question for pan2: do you have these set as "small" speakers in your receiver setup? If not, you must do so if you have also told the receiver you have no subwoofer; otherwise it will try to feed the LFE (yes, Low Frequency Effects) channel (aka the ".1 channel") to your Emeralds.

If they are set to small, and the subwoofer setting is "off," then you need to ascertain exactly what your receiver does with bass and LFE information under these circumstances.

Trying to push full-range bass plus LFE plus generally high-level sound through small speakers is a good way to get them to make crunching noises. This often precedes the onset of an uncomfortable silence. So make sure this isn't what your system is, intentionally or not, set up to do.

And yeah, get yourself a powered subwoofer...

RichC

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I checked the setup and the front and center speakers were set to large. I set them all to small and tried again, but I still get the popping sounds. Will adding a sub to my system take some of the load off the speakers, or does setting them to small already have that same effect?

I'm going to try exchanging the DVD and see if that helps, but I'll look into getting a sub too. I know this is getting off topic, but any suggestions on where to look for info about buying a sub?

It sounds like the "small/sub no" combo on your receiver tries to send all the bass to the speakers. As an experiment, try the setting "small/sub yes" with a crossover of 120Hz or higher. (It will do no harm to set the sub to "yes" even though none is connected.)

The sound will be thin, but I bet the popping goes away. That would demonstrate that it was bass energy being sent to speakers that can't handle it, rather than the disc itself, causing the popping.

Try the "home theater gear" forum or whatever it's called for questions about subs (several old threads there on the topic).

RichC

How much do you want to spend? How big a space do you have for a sub?

Same here. Just enough to annoy me. I thought about taking it back. But not sure if it is worth the trouble.

At which particular point did you observe the 'pixellation', if you don't mind me asking?

Don't mind at all. When Mr. Incredible is shaking the kitty out of the tree. Right before it cuts to the old woman catching it. Also during the end credits. One of the animations shows "Mr. Incredible" punching the air. Looks like a seriously bad ATARI 2600 character.

I could swear it happened in a couple of explosions too. But I only paused on the above mentions and noticed it as a defect in the disc and not my player.

I had to crank "down" the input to my sub for this DVD. My sub was clipping at several moments in the movie. Fine now, though!

I will agree with the sub issue here, I think that Pixar CRANKED up the bass on The Incredibles! Which is good if you can handle it but apparently my sub cant handle the big boom stuff, had to turn my sub down half!

That loud metallic popping noise is probably the result of a faulty disc. Trade it in.

Despite all evidence and logic to the contrary.

Best reason in the world for SV.

Well I exchanged the DVD, since that was the easiest and cheapest possible solution, but the problem remains so I guess I need to find myself a sub. Thanks for the advice, everyone.