Jon2

Picked up the Harryhausen Clash BR not long ago and while I did check out some of the extras as soon as I got it home, I didn't try to watch the movie until today. This is the BR that came in the digibook case.

The problem is that while the extras played fine and still do, I'm getting no sound with the movie. I haven't heard of any reported issues with this release, but then again I don't keep up on all the discs with issues.

We moved a few months ago and our sound system is not yet re-installed, so sound goes from our Panasonic DMP-BD35 directly to our Samsung TV (LN40C630) via HDMI.

We had the player and TV prior to our move and they've worked without a hitch before and after the move. Except for a occasional library BR disc (Crank 2) that wouldn't play, I haven't had any problems with any disc in this player.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Solid Snake

Might be a setting issue w/ the player.

Superdaddy

This is a known and previously reported issue. I'll see if I can dig up a link or two about it.

slimdude

I had this blu-ray for awhile, but it's never been opened. I'm going to check it, to see if the audio is defected on the movie, and i'll post an update on the results. Oh, by the way, it's BD not BR.!

Superdaddy

Okay, here's a link about the sound problem as discussed at blu-ray.com.

In a nutshell, apparently some players do not output the sound if they are set to bitstream for the audio. Switching to PCM solved the problem. If it's not playing for you, check to see if your player is set to bitstream audio. If it is, trying switching to PCM and see what happens.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/blu-ray-mov...sh-titans.html

slimdude

Well, I've opened, and tested the audio of Clash of the Titans (digibook) and the audio plays perfectly without a hitch. I didn't watch the entire movie at the time, but I am surprise, this blu-ray has 17 subtitles on this disc, besides English. I detect from the video quality that, Warner Brothers didn't restored this movie at all. You may be disappointed with the picture though!

Jon2

Thanks everyone! Much appreciated.

I'm not sure what my BR player's sound settings are. I can't check it out right now as the better half is watching the news and and later Biggest Loser, so it will have to be later tonight.

In case anyone's interested, I'll post a follow up.

P.S. For slimdude, not to be argumentative, but I don't think there is an "official" abbreviation. I prefer BR. Maybe it's due to 20 years of working in a business associated with the real estate industry, where BD is the abbreviation for bedroom.

Josh Z

Ah, but around here, "BR" is short for Blade Runner.

I don't know that it's officially "official," in the sense that someone has claimed copyright on it, but "BD" is generally accepted as the abbreviation for Blu-ray Disc.

Also, the Blu-ray Disc Association calls itself the BDA.

Jon2

Unfortunately, I still can't get any sound... at normal playback speed at any rate. By accident I discovered that when I push the first notch on the fast forward button I get sound. And by sound I mean the english language sound track for the movie. The foreign languages I checked appear to work fine at normal speed.

Anyone else have a Panasonic DMP-BD35? I'm wondering if there are other settings in the audio menus I should adjust, or if a firmware update would help. Our Pani has never had one as I don't know how it's done.

Or could it be the audio settings on my TV?

We have another BR player (a Sony that Disney sold thru their DMR program), but it's still packed away from our move. I don't know if I want to go to the trouble to set it up at this time. From what I've read about the CotT sound issue on the blu-ray forum thread, a number of people there had Sony players. From the way the thread reads, it appears a lot of them might have been left with the issue unresolved.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks again.

BSTNFAN

Is the English soundtrack 5.1, but the others are 2.0? As you have this running directly to your TV, it could be that you're outputting a signal the TV can't understand and when you fast forward it downrezzes (or something along those lines). Did you tell the Panny that it's now hooked up to only stereo?

davidh777

Some of the footage looks great, some looks mediocre. I assume it's a matter of source material.

I've always understood it to be BD, probably because the "ray" is lower case.

Superdaddy

The English audio on this disc is 2.0.

Superdaddy

Yup, I think so. This is especially the case with the process shots that have Harryhausen's animation added to the live action. Super grainy, but I'm glad WB didn't try to scrub it all away. I saw this twice theatrically and this is pretty much what it looks like.

For what it's worth, I watched my copy on a Panasonic SC-BT200, and can report no problem playing the English track when set to bitstream.

Jon2

Here's the end of my story, FWIW.

My sound issue is now resolved... at least as far as the CotT BR is concerned.

Since several attempts to adjust audio settings didn't appear to be accomplishing much, I decided to try a firmware update. Since my Pani's firmware was at 1.5 and the current version is 2.2, I figured it needed it anyway.

While the actual firmware updating process went easily and without a hitch, getting to that point was another story.

My Panasonic is not hooked up to the internet and never was, so I had to manually update it. According to the Panasonic website, you download an exe file, then expand and burn it to a CD_R. This requires a PC running Windows XP because the CD must be in the ISO9660 format since "packet-writing" isn't supported, and the Windows Vista standard writing app doesn't support ISO9660.

Well... that's another problem. I'm a Mac guy. Anytime I've downloaded anything that turns out to be an exe file, I always considered it useless and deleted it.

I thought this was a dead end, then I remembered my son's Mac mini. He lives next door and he's running Windows 7 on his mini. So I went over, downloaded the file, then expanded and burned it to a CD. Came back, put the CD in the Pani, and... it just spit it back out. I tried several times, but it wouldn't accept it.

At this point my only alternative was to wait few days until I could go into town (I'm 40 miles north of Phoenix) and buy a 50 foot ethernet cable to run to our modem in my workshop.

Well... I'm not the type that likes to wait. Since I felt I had nothing to lose, I went and downloaded the update exe file to my Mac. I tried Suffit Expander and it extracted the firmware update (PANA_DVD.FRM) from the exe file. A right-click on that file brought up (among other things) a "burn to Disc" command.

I put that disc in the Panasonic... and now we're back to the part that went easily and without a hitch.

To be honest, I didn't expect what I did would work. When I tried something similar a few years ago (only with a flash drive instead of a CD) to update my son's PS3, it didn't work.

I guess you can learn something new everyday. I certainly learned a couple today.



P.S. I still prefer BR.

AmityBoatTours

They did do restoration on it,( i know this because we screened the restored print of it at the theatre last year, and they talked about the restoration done for the film) its just the movie was shot with several different film stocks, and the quality of those film stocks used vary greatly.
The movie looks the best it has ever looked on home video pretty much right with how it looked in the theatrical release, I know that there are some people who really complained about the grain especially in some of the opening shots, but this is how this film looked in theatres due to the cheap film stock used and other conditions durring production.

Superdaddy

Jon2, glad to hear the firmware update resolved your problem.