divx/avi on bd80

[mcwayne1]

I went and looked at the panasonic dmp bd80 as i have an onkyo 603 non hdmi avr....... I bought along a disc with avi files and an 8gig flash drive with avi and mkv files to test........to my horror when avi files are played two huge GREY sidepanels show as well as the standard top and bottom black bars............ When you stretch the aspect ratio to remove the GREY bars the image looks wrong...........Has any one else seen this fault..........?

[MrBoylan]

I went and looked at the panasonic dmp bd80 as i have an onkyo 603 non hdmi avr....... I bought along a disc with avi files and an 8gig flash drive with avi and mkv files to test........to my horror when avi files are played two huge GREY sidepanels show as well as the standard top and bottom black bars............ When you stretch the aspect ratio to remove the GREY bars the image looks wrong...........Has any one else seen this fault..........?

MKV files are not supported at all on the BD80. AVI files are only supported with supported codecs like Divx. I suspect what you were playing was XVid-encoded or something similar, right? If it was Divx and is one of the approved Divx releases then it should display in the proper aspect ratio, but if it's not then good luck!

The Panasonic players are definitely not as flexible or capable at playing AVIs as some other Blu-ray players we've tested. Specifically the LG BD390, OPPO BDP-83 and Samsung BD-P3600 are better so I would recommend looking at one of those if MKV and AVI file playback are important to you. I'm not 100% sure the OPPO does MKVs but I've played a few Dixv and Xvid AVIs and with one or two exceptions they've been fine.

The BD390 has been pretty solid with this stuff in my experience.

-CB

[cowbot]

I went and looked at the panasonic dmp bd80 as i have an onkyo 603 non hdmi avr....... I bought along a disc with avi files and an 8gig flash drive with avi and mkv files to test........to my horror when avi files are played two huge GREY sidepanels show as well as the standard top and bottom black bars............ When you stretch the aspect ratio to remove the GREY bars the image looks wrong...........Has any one else seen this fault..........?

Aha! Good to see someone else has a problem with this. How come i don't see a thousand complaints online?

The only thing i could do is rip all my DVDs to avi, put them on a USB HDD, and add black borders myself -- but that would take 3 months of my life.

[MrBoylan]

Aha! Good to see someone else has a problem with this. How come i don't see a thousand complaints online?

The only thing i could do is rip all my DVDs to avi, put them on a USB HDD, and add black borders myself -- but that would take 3 months of my life.

If these are indeed Divx-encoded files then you should open a case with Panasonic to investigate. I've only seen the aspect ratio problems with XVid and other non-Divx codecs which aren't officially supported.

If you've already tried the sub-menu button's aspect ratio controls and that doesn't do what you need, then you could try adjusting the aspect ratio in your TV to compensate, or just return it and get a Samsung BD-P3600 or LG BD390 either of which supports AVIs better than the BD80.

-CB