Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Is there a PROFESSIONAL DVD player?

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-14-2008, 10:13 AM:

Seems like at two of my venues now, we are destined to use have to use DVD as the source for titles which no longer have run-able release prints. I have already experienced the maddening joy of using consumer crap as a playback source. Dinkly little UNBALANCED RCA outputs feeding soundtrack audio along with lovely groundloop hum both 60hz as well as 120hz and harmonics thereafter. AND naturally they put menu junk on the screen. We did have a Pioneer "pro" unit, or so that's what Pioneer called it, and yes, it did have XLR balanced out, but it had no indication whatsoever what it was doing -- no time, either remaining or elapsed, not even a function indication (play, stop, pause, etc) on the front panel. You had to push a button and assume that it was actually doing what you wanted, or you could make it display function on the video out, which is crap.

One of the video guys said emphatically that as of yet, there is only consumer BluRay, no pro BluRay gear . He wasn't that sure about a good pro sDVD unit.

Anyone know what's out there? What I would like to see -- a player that NEVER shows a menu with the video output, or at least can be set so that's ALWAYS the default. It should then have some sort of local display where you can see everything in the way of menus and functions, along with time, frames and SMPTE code (on an LCD screen?). Analog audio should be BALANCED, plus the full array of digital outs as well. This doesn't sound too outragous a Want List for a PRO machine. And of course the IDEAL -- a button that allowes the operator to ADVANCE past a frozen frame(s). THAT'S something that should be a piece of cake and standard in my book, yet it sure isn't on consumer DVD units. If you freeze, you are screwed. It would really be nice to be able to recover from such glitch, which, in terms of presentation, is a major catastrophy. Why not have a skip-ahead function that can be preset to specific number of frames or seconds -- you keep pushing it until you past the glitch? With NO indication of this on the screen, of course.

Anyone know of or used a brand/model of a pro DVD player that works well in a theatrical setting?

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 08-14-2008, 11:36 AM:

Frank, I feel your pain. We just had a week of DVD shows and it is a royal pain. I'm going to wait for a proBlueRay at this point, but it would have been nice to have proDVD

As for the ability to skip frozen frames, ours (Sony SLV-D300P) has a Slow/Fast advance on the remote that skips frames by 2x (or 4x,8x,16x...). Not pretty, but unless the DVD is totally screwed, you can get past the bad part.

I've also found, a really cheap DVD player will play things our SLV (which was expensive at the time) won't. You may not get component out or full stereo, but at least you're getting the show on.

Does anyone just load to a hard drive and play off of that?

Posted by Gene Stavis (Member # 110) on 08-14-2008, 12:40 PM:

Frank:

James Bond of Full Aperture Systems in Chicago has installed modified DVD and Blu-Ray machines in our booths. Contact him for details. An off-the-shelf DVD played superbly on our 50 foot screen in a test run. Of course, it wouldn't fool a trained eye, but the private audience was wowed.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 08-14-2008, 06:06 PM:

The Panasonic BD30 works fine and dandy for me.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-14-2008, 08:58 PM:

Denon has two "pro" players...the DN-V210 and DN-V310 . The only difference is that the 310 has RS-232.

They are "Pro-Sumer" in the sense that they do have analog unbalanced out but it also has coax as well as TosLink digital. the composite and component feeds (as well as HDMI) are all hot so you can set up monitoring in addition to the higher quality outputs. The BIGGEST selling point on them is the "auto play" feature. If you activate it...99% of the time, when you insert a disc, it SKIPS THE FBI WARNINGS AND MENUS!!! As such, it starts right up with the feature presentation...my customers seem to just love it. Note, there is nothing that stops you from putting the disc in, letting it begin, then hit the skip-back button and then pause so it is "cued" for the show.

The OSD can be turned off without the remote and the "set up" can be accessed even if there is a disc in the machine (many lesser DVD players seem to not be able to do this.

It is also possible to make them region-free...a handy feature in some venues.

On the more "professional" front...Pioneer has one that is truely professional...how about a separate output JUST for menus and crap. It is the DVD-V8000

Note, even the Pioneer uses RCA outputs. Remember, no matter how you cut it...DVD is a Consumer format (as is Blu-Ray).

Steve

Posted by Sam King (Member # 4029) on 08-14-2008, 10:04 PM:

One word, OPPO. We have several ion the building that run DVD's 24x7 and are still running great. It's the only thing we use for our DVD screenings. They are priced about twice as much as standard DVD players but not nearly as much as "reference" DVD players.

Posted by Joe Elliott (Member # 4006) on 08-15-2008, 01:41 PM:

Have you thought of using a computer with dual DVI outputs, one monitor in the booth, the other is your projector. Use VLC player, so that you have 5.1 surround (WMP, BSPLAYER, etc don't do surround). You could have a DVD player in it and a Blue-ray. A little more expense, but it also allows you to do Powerpoint presentations too.

Edit: I should remark, that with a good quality audio card, you shouldn't get hum even though it isn't balenced. Or at least I should say, I didn't get any hum.

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 08-15-2008, 05:37 PM:

On most Sony DVD players, you can put it into pause, and if you use the pause button to take it out of pause there will not be any "info" put on the screen. if you use the play button to take it out of pause, it WILL put crap on the screen. Note: most DVD players will not stay in pause forever. Cue your player, and pause it just minutes before you need to roll it.

BTW, there are devices that will take consumer unbalanced audio, and give you balanced audio.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 08-15-2008, 08:18 PM:

VLC is not professional-quality software. It's not terrible, but it is simply not solid, and even with dual monitors, you still get glitches at the start and ends of programs.

I think fundamentally a proper pro BD or DVD player needs to have one video output with menus and overlays, and one without. Kind of like a high-end VTR (like the Sony HDW5000). Possibly with its own LCD display (again, the HDW5000), but not necessary in an environment where you can supply your own superior video monitor.

I suppose that if you really cared it is perhaps true that putting effort into bulletproofing VLC might be easier than sitting back and being sad about the commercial offerings. But it's not a small task (and this presumes you're a software developer).

I have run some HD trailers off a laptop running VLC (for those rare cases where we couldn't get 35mm trailers for upcoming shows), and it's a horrible pain. Especially if there is more than one, getting the cueing to work, without the flashing of window decorations and resizing inbetween, is very awkward. And perhaps the single-most annoying part is the substantial delay
when hitting play/pause. Like 500ms or so. It is hell for cueing.

--jhawk

Posted by Andy Frodsham (Member # 4061) on 08-16-2008, 03:14 AM:

Generally, we've been lucky with the very few DVD screenings we have done. We have the facility to preview output from the DVD player on a seperate monitor and have a small electrical shutter fitted in front of our video projector to prevent any menus being shown by mistake.

Having said this, we did have one very massive freeze-up right in the middle of a Wim Wenders screening. This was one of those 'solid as a rock' freeze-ups where we had to re-boot the player and fast forward to about three minutes beyond the freeze. We now pre-screen all our DVDs.

I'm waiting for Blu-ray to become more established before we start looking for a new player - hopefully something more resilient. Our existing device is a Denon unit - supposedly well-rated!

I'd also like to see (although this is another thread) professional video projectors (I don't mean digital cinema ones) fitted with a video OUTPUT. This would be useful to adjust picture settings/ratios (with the shutter closed) without the audience seeing. At present, this has to be done BEFORE our audience arrives.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-16-2008, 03:16 AM:

Good info, guys. Thanks. Going the computer route I think moves further away from an intuitive, user-friendly system -- think the old Ampex tape transports with big, simple push buttons that you can put your fingers on and feel. You push play, you feel the button go it, you hear a CLICK and it plays. [thumbsup]

The Denon DN-V210 sounds just about right. Balanced would be nice, its advantage that you don't have to worry as much about the possibility of loops, but if you are putting it into a known system that has been properly setup, it can be (should be) as clean as balanced. I have also found that having an AC isolation transformer handy can knock out hum where all manner of futzing with the audio side can't. Saves lots of time when a client comes into the theatre with their own hodgepodge of unbalanced consumer crap.

quote: Steve Guttag
Remember, no matter how you cut it...DVD is a Consumer format (as is Blu-Ray).

Yah, that not withstanding, I bet Pioneer has managed to slap a Pro price tag on that DVD-V8000!

Now all we have to do is wait for Denon to make a sister BluRay DVD player to match the sDVD unit.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-16-2008, 08:07 AM:

quote: Andy Frodsham
I'd also like to see (although this is another thread) professional video projectors (I don't mean digital cinema ones) fitted with a video OUTPUT. This would be useful to adjust picture settings/ratios (with the shutter closed) without the audience seeing. At present, this has to be done BEFORE our audience arrives.

Agreed.

The closest that I have been able to come to this is on the Panasonic 7700 with the network card installed. You can turn off the on-screen display and use a laptop computer to control all of the functions. The information that would normally be displayed on the screen is instead displayed on the computer monitor. The web interface is rather clunky (essentially an on-screen version of the remote control's buttons), but could be more automated in a permanent installation.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 08-16-2008, 09:15 AM:

Actually, you have me confused. In a professional setup, you ought to have a switch/scaler anyhow, and that device should be able to give you a preview output of any source.

In any case, though, some projectors do have this kind of output, pretty much intended for stacking. We have, e.g., a Sharp XGV-10WU, which has VGA and component outputs for stacking, and you can hook up a preview monitor. (Though you need one for VGA sources and one for component sources...)

Lastly, if this is just for DVDs, presumably your DVD player has component outputs you're using, and a composite output you're not using, and you can hijack the composite output for preview purposes.

--jhawk

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 08-16-2008, 09:20 AM:

John, Dump VLC. Use ZPlayer with FFDShow codecs. I play all of my trailers using this set up. You get solid 5.1 out, and zplayer can be set up to hold on black before and after each trailer pack. The set up can be alittle intimidating, but once you get a feel for it, It's an extrememly flexible system.

As for DVD though, I use an inexpensive sony model with progressive out. The ACS-2048 scales it up for the Barco, and the results are the best I've seen for DVD. We had an expensive LG SuperBlue player, but that thing had all sorts of reliability issues. A plain cheap $50-70 DVD player with progressive out works fantastic.

Theatres that play a lot of DVD or alternate content would benefit from a Dolby DMA-8, which allows you to connect the digital outputs from a viriety of sources into your existing sound system. Then you don't need to worry about ballenced output, and you get discrete 5.1

Posted by Andy Frodsham (Member # 4061) on 08-16-2008, 10:32 AM:

John, it's not the source output which is the problem!

It is easy, I agree, to hook-up a monitor to a second output from, say, a DVD player or digital video deck. It's the fact that you need to control and alter settings on the video projector itself! These settings can be accessed via specific menus and displayed on screen but this is very awkward when you have an audience sitting in the theatre! You need some sort of 'preview' output from the video projector itself so these settings may be adjusted WITHOUT the picture on the screen.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 08-16-2008, 11:03 AM:

What projector settings do you have to adjust in real-time? Are these settings like zoom and lens shift when switching between aspect ratios? Or something else? Does your projector not have an RS232 control that lets you automate this?

--jhawk

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-16-2008, 01:35 PM:

When you are doing a film/video festival, you have to adjust for all of the parameters you just mentioned AND more than once, I was wishing I could tweak color temp, gamma, etc. for a particular title while the show was running. Automating thru RS232 -- if a projector even allowed that, it would not be practical in these situations where content is throw at you literally minutes before a show. It's not the way it should be, and I tell the organizers there has to be published criteria that entries have to meet, and there are, but nevertheless, the producers rarely let you decide to cancel a title because it's authored incorrectly or not to your spec. They expect you to "make it work." And you do, or at least you try. It's just the reality of the beast. So a projector that works with you rather than against you is what you look for.

The Barcos that I was using for the Chaplin/Carl Davis show have actual mechanical dowsers which when you pushed the button on the remote, slammed shut with an audible noise -- just like the zipper shutter on a 35mm projector. Sweet. And very familiar and comforting, I must say. Only I would really like to convert those hand-held remotes with their gawdawful tinny-winny little buttons made for infant size fingers, to a hardwired control panel with more appropriate buttons with tatile feel and made for actual grownup hands. The feedback/status LCD panel that is on the back of the projector would be nice to be duplicated on the customized control panel as well. You push a button, the LCD panel says PAUSE, you hear the dowser, all is right with the world.

BTW, the stacked Barco R6+ each have a remote so in order to close the mechanical dowsers both at the same time, you have to aim two remotes at the projectors and press the "pause" button (that's what they call the mechanical dowser). It's pretty awarkward. I think you can set the addresses of one of the remote to talk to both projectors, but we didn't get that far in the learning curve to figure out all the niceities. It was a long road just to figure out all the convergence stuff to get a good sharp picture on the screen. In time.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 08-16-2008, 04:35 PM:

It sounds like you just haven't done your setup homework. Most projectors with RS232 let you do anything you can do with the remote. Obviously you can't be sitting there leafing through the manual, but with a little advance planning, you should be able to meet your needs.

Extron and Crestron and Tr2n will be happy to sell you nice remotes with big buttons and feedback that talk RS232 to the projector and other devices.

--jhawk

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-19-2008, 10:21 AM:

You're right. We got to play with those projectors literally 2 days before the Chaplin event. And that was the last show of the season so now they are locked away. Next summer I'll have more time see what they can do. I've got a year to peruse the manual. It would be even better if I had the projector to investigate cause and effect.

BTW, does BluRay have anamophic versions with which you can use one of those Schneider 10 million dollar 1.5x anamorphic adaptors on the projector to avoid letterboxing blow-ups? Does BluRay, in fact, do letterboxing at all on the discs or does it always assume a 16:9 display? My understanding is the Barco 9+ is using 1.37 native chips, not 16:9. I really don't want to have to be using only part of the DMD and then have to blow-up up the image to fill the screen when dealing with scope material, should we ever wind up having to do scope from a DVD.

Posted by Demetris Thoupis (Member # 833) on 08-19-2008, 11:52 AM:

Both BluRay and standard DVD have the 16:9 format (cinemascope equivalent). When using a decent projector like a Barco, you can install an extra lens in front of it which will expand the 16:9 image to full cinemascope experience (note that if you have any subtitles enabled will be chopped). As far as I am concerned, what we did in a theater here which had an issue like yours, we took a JVC dvd and hooked the component output to the video projector and the composite to a local monitor. The projector of course has video blank mode and the projectionist enables it until the feature starts. As far as sound is concerned, this JVC has full 5.1 coaxial analog outputs. We hooked it up to a CP500 processor and we have full digital sound from the dvd in the theater! No buzzing or anything.
Demetris

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 08-19-2008, 03:39 PM:

Note: some DVD players will not output composit when the unit is set to progressive mode.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 08-25-2008, 09:27 PM:

So I got one of the Denon players that Steve likes and can confirm that it is an excellent unit. The region-free mod works fine, too.

Does anyone know if there is an SDI mod for this unit? It uses the Zoran ZR36888HLCG chipset. I have yet to find an SDI mod kit online that mentions this chipset in the documentation. Any ideas?

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 08-25-2008, 10:06 PM:

Hmmmm....don't recall that sale [Wink]

There are numerous ways to get to SDI or HDSDI...Gefen and AJA are the popular boxes that will get you there digitally.

Gefen DVI to HD/SDI

AJA HDMI to HD/SDI

Steve

Posted by Brian Dooda (Member # 3941) on 10-04-2008, 10:24 AM:

Hi Steve,
You mentioned being able to make the Denon DN-V210 all-region. Is it a simple sequence of buttons to push on the remote or more complicated circuitry switching. If it is just a code, I would love to know how to do it. I can't find any web sites describing how to hack these. I've been using these decks for a while and their biggest drawback for me is they are not all-region out of the box. Otherwise they've been great.
Thanks,
Brian

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-04-2008, 11:04 AM:

The Denon region-free hack is trivial. On the remote, do the following:

OPEN/CLOSE
1
4
7
0
0

The last "0" is actually the region code; you can set it to a specific region or "0" for all regions.

In the player menu, you can also set the TV type to NTSC, PAL, or multi. If set to NTSC or PAL, the player will convert all disks to that standard; if set to multi, it will output in the original format of the disk (i.e. PAL disks will play in PAL, which won't work if you have an NTSC-only monitor).

Posted by Alan Gouger (Member # 543) on 10-04-2008, 12:19 PM:

Here is a company that sells HD SDI mod kits or you can purchase the player with the mod all ready in place. Not cheap but they work great, Ive used a few from this company. Make sure you chose or work with the rt player as some will only output 1080i via HD SDi while others will output native 1080P 24 rt off the disc.