Panasonic BD80 multi-channel analog output issues

[vern]

I have now setup the system. Except for the mess of wires and keeping track of them I must admit it went pretty good. It seems I do have some control on the LFE and have recovered from its loss initially. I seemed to have lost the link on how to manage the speakers in the BD80 player. I can't seem to get into the setup where the speakers are identified and one can adjust the level and delay. I'm more curious to see how the player has identified them, than to adjust there, since I think the pioneer is doing its job. Would you recommend trying to mix in the back surround into the side surround? Seems the receiver will allow this. I only have a 5.1 setup and a smallish room. I have a set of 17-20 yr old paradigms. Large towers, centre, sub and small atoms for side surround.
Watching Wall-e and GI Joe in blue ray is like a breath of fresh air from regular dvd and our cable. Hope to have our cable upgraded to HD this friday.
Chris thanks for all the tips your knowledge is irreplacable.

[vern]

I'm sorry but I have now found the info for getting into the individual speaker setup on the BD80. My question after reading it again is. Do you double clic on the ok button on the remote when the 5.1 / 7.1 option is showing? Or do you advance to next screen and clic again on the ok button. I guess I sound somewhat techie challenged right now, but last night was a tad frustrating as I was not able to access the speaker setup screen as depicted in the user manual. Thanks in advance.

[MrBoylan]

I have now setup the system. Except for the mess of wires and keeping track of them I must admit it went pretty good. It seems I do have some control on the LFE and have recovered from its loss initially. I seemed to have lost the link on how to manage the speakers in the BD80 player. I can't seem to get into the setup where the speakers are identified and one can adjust the level and delay. I'm more curious to see how the player has identified them, than to adjust there, since I think the pioneer is doing its job. Would you recommend trying to mix in the back surround into the side surround? Seems the receiver will allow this. I only have a 5.1 setup and a smallish room. I have a set of 17-20 yr old paradigms. Large towers, centre, sub and small atoms for side surround.
Watching Wall-e and GI Joe in blue ray is like a breath of fresh air from regular dvd and our cable. Hope to have our cable upgraded to HD this friday.
Chris thanks for all the tips your knowledge is irreplacable.

Hi, Vern,

I moved this to a new thread as it's not really TV-related, but player-related. If you have a 5.1 set-up then your best bet is to select the 2-ch+5.1-ch output option in the BD80 instead of the 7.1-ch option. Then just use the 5.1 outputs (6 RCA cables) between player and receiver. Disconnect the cables you have right now between the rear outputs and the receiver if you are using 8 cables.

Doing so will activate meta data in the Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD mix to deliver a 5.1 channel mix instead of 7.1. This is probably a better bet than having the receiver downmix a 7.1 input back down to 5.1. And in the case of multi-channel PCM 7.1 titles, the player will do the mixdown to 5.1.

-CB

[MrBoylan]

I'm sorry but I have now found the info for getting into the individual speaker setup on the BD80. My question after reading it again is. Do you double clic on the ok button on the remote when the 5.1 / 7.1 option is showing? Or do you advance to next screen and clic again on the ok button. I guess I sound somewhat techie challenged right now, but last night was a tad frustrating as I was not able to access the speaker setup screen as depicted in the user manual. Thanks in advance.

Yeah, it's a little tricky getting into that speaker calibration screen, but it will help you to get things optimized. We had to send back our review sample of the BD80 so I can't confirm the exact key sequence but when you select 2-ch+5.1-ch (as I mentioned in the previous post), you hit the OK button on the remote once then again on the screen that follows. It doesn't seem like you need to press OK again on that screen but you do in order to proceed to the speaker configuration panel.

Try it again and let us know if you still have trouble getting into that screen.

-CB

[vern]

Thanks Chris for the tips on how to get into the speaker setup menu. Your advice was quite correct, tap the "ok" button twice from the channel configuration pane and viola, your ready to test tone the speakers. I am a little puzzled as to why you can do all the speakers and not the sub? But, in the end, on my A/V receiver I think I am able to adjust the level and delays there as well. As a result I have left the BD80 speaker setup to default.(all zeros). As for the firmware update, once I purchased a 35 ft. RJ45 cable I was ready to begin. The update went without any problems.
As for my original post's, I am sorry for not posting in this forum first.

[MrBoylan]

Thanks Chris for the tips on how to get into the speaker setup menu. Your advice was quite correct, tap the "ok" button twice from the channel configuration pane and viola, your ready to test tone the speakers. I am a little puzzled as to why you can do all the speakers and not the sub? But, in the end, on my A/V receiver I think I am able to adjust the level and delays there as well. As a result I have left the BD80 speaker setup to default.(all zeros). As for the firmware update, once I purchased a 35 ft. RJ45 cable I was ready to begin. The update went without any problems.
As for my original post's, I am sorry for not posting in this forum first.

No apologies necessary. I just move stuff around if it makes sense rather than go too far off-topic in an existing thread. It makes it easier for other people to find answers to similar questions later if they're in their own threads.

The BD80 does allow you to adjust the sub (on/off, delays and level cut) but it just doesn't have a test tone for the sub. So you have to use either your favorite movie or music disc or use a test disc with bass test tones for this. Kind of a pain to play the music or tones, then stop, enter the set-up menu, make changes, save them, resume play on the disc, but it can be done. But if your receiver is one of the rare ones that supports level and delay adjustments on the multi-channel analog inputs then you are probably better off making all your adjustments there.

-CB