New "upconverting" Panasonic DVD-S97 player

Got a new Panasonic DVD-S97 "upconverting" DVD player for Christmas.
Yesterday, set it up, fiddled with the menus and tried it out, mostly using
the "Gladiator" DVD. Our TV is a Sony 60" HDTV, KDF-60XS955.

The DVD player is connected to the TV via HDMI cable. You can set the
player to send the picture to your TV as 480i, 480p, 720p or 1080i.
Actually, it noticeably improved the quality of the DVD picture even when I
was inadvertently sending it out at 480i. Guess my TV, which converts
everything to 788p in the end, anyway, just liked what it was getting. But
setting the DVD player to 720p produced the best results on my set. At
720p, the "upconversion" really works so that the picture really looks very
close to HD quality. Most people, I think, would not be aware of the
difference; they would think they were watching HD.

We also tried sending it to the TV at 1080i but that seemed to produce a
slightly softer, not quite so good a picture as 720p. But I imagine results
of this experiment would vary from set to set.

Audio sounds great. I am running audio via coax digital cable directly from
the DVD player into my receiver and just turning off the audio-out via HDMI.
But you can run audio through the HDMI cable to play through the TV set
speakers, if you want to. I tried that and it sounded great. In theory, if
my receiver had HDMI in and out, then I could have run the HDMI out from the
DVD, into the receiver, then out of the receiver via HDMI and into the TV
for the video. But my receiver does not have HDMI inputs or outputs.

This player has a ton of menu settings for just about everything you can
imagine. I don't even know where I would start to try to describe any of
them.

Bottom line, based on just an hour or so of watching DVD's and fiddling
around with it -- we love it.

mack
austin

Mack McKinnon wrote:
Got a new Panasonic DVD-S97 "upconverting" DVD player for Christmas.
Yesterday, set it up, fiddled with the menus and tried it out, mostly
using
the "Gladiator" DVD. Our TV is a Sony 60" HDTV, KDF-60XS955.

The DVD player is connected to the TV via HDMI cable. You can set
the
player to send the picture to your TV as 480i, 480p, 720p or 1080i.
Actually, it noticeably improved the quality of the DVD picture even
when I
was inadvertently sending it out at 480i. Guess my TV, which
converts
everything to 788p in the end, anyway, just liked what it was
getting. But
setting the DVD player to 720p produced the best results on my set.
At
720p, the "upconversion" really works so that the picture really
looks very
close to HD quality. Most people, I think, would not be aware of the

difference; they would think they were watching HD.

We also tried sending it to the TV at 1080i but that seemed to
produce a
slightly softer, not quite so good a picture as 720p. But I imagine
results
of this experiment would vary from set to set.

Audio sounds great. I am running audio via coax digital cable
directly from
the DVD player into my receiver and just turning off the audio-out
via HDMI.
But you can run audio through the HDMI cable to play through the TV
set
speakers, if you want to. I tried that and it sounded great. In
theory, if
my receiver had HDMI in and out, then I could have run the HDMI out
from the
DVD, into the receiver, then out of the receiver via HDMI and into
the TV
for the video. But my receiver does not have HDMI inputs or outputs.

This player has a ton of menu settings for just about everything you
can
imagine. I don't even know where I would start to try to describe
any of
them.

Bottom line, based on just an hour or so of watching DVD's and
fiddling
around with it -- we love it.

mack
austin

Mack,
Good post!
I have noticed there seems to be a problem in configuring TVs with HDMI
connectors. The below quoted post concerns another brand tv but may
also apply to the XS955.

-"Sound output can be PCM or Raw
-PCM is for two speaker systems
-Raw is for DTS/Dolby Digital/etc
-When the HDMI cable is hooked up to the TV, if you want the TV
speakers to
work, you must have the sound set to PCM.
-If you set the sound to Raw when the HDMI cable is hooked up, the HDMI
cable will not output any sound (this is done to protect the TV's
speakers)

Hence the confusion- Yes, if you want BOTH the tv AND the Receiver
speakers
to work, you must do as the tech suggests and 1)have the sound set to
PCM
and 2)output the sound from the TV to the receiver. But from what I
gathered
from the manual, if you don't mind turning off the TV speakers, you can
digitally output the sound from the DVD player to the receiver while
the
HDMI cable goes to the TV. You simply have to set the sound output to
'Raw'
to do so (and in so doing, you automatically disable sound output
through
the HDMI cable)."

Have you tried the PCM vs RAW setting on the Sony settings? I don't
know if this was addressed in the S97 player manual.

I'm planning on buying the S97 and was wondering about the
configuration also.
The "raw and pcm" sound decoding options have confused me in the past.

My experience was that with audio going from the S97 player to the TV via
HDMI cable, the TV set speakers (which I normally have turned off) worked
just fine. I had no problem there. It was just the audio output from the
TV set via digital optical cable to the receiver that did not work.
Actually, that is probably not the best way to deliver the audio to the
receiver, anyway. A better way -- and the way I have it set up now -- is to
deliver audio via digital cable directly from the S97 to the receiver.

The only HDMI audio output setting on the S97 is HDMI Audio Output ON or
OFF. Says use OFF "when audio output is not from HDMI AV OUT terminal" (and
vice versa for ON). Mine is now set to OFF.

There is a "PCM Digital Output" menu item in the S97 which is set to 48kHz
by default. You can change to 96, 192 or OFF. But according to the manual
that setting applies to COAX or OPTICAL terminal, not HDMI audio.

There is no menu setting on the Sony XS955 TV set for PCM vs. RAW audio, at
least that I can see.

So, bottom line, appears to me that the HDMI audio output from the S97 works
just fine with this TV set if you are using the TV set speakers but will not
then output via the optical digital from the set to your receiver. If you
want audio from S97 to your receiver, you need to run that direct from S97
to receiver. But, I think, that's the right way to do it, anyway. And
whether or not this applies to any other TV set, well, that I don't know.

mack
austin


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oups.com...

Mack McKinnon wrote:
Got a new Panasonic DVD-S97 "upconverting" DVD player for Christmas.
Yesterday, set it up, fiddled with the menus and tried it out, mostly
using
the "Gladiator" DVD. Our TV is a Sony 60" HDTV, KDF-60XS955.

The DVD player is connected to the TV via HDMI cable. You can set
the
player to send the picture to your TV as 480i, 480p, 720p or 1080i.
Actually, it noticeably improved the quality of the DVD picture even
when I
was inadvertently sending it out at 480i. Guess my TV, which
converts
everything to 788p in the end, anyway, just liked what it was
getting. But
setting the DVD player to 720p produced the best results on my set.
At
720p, the "upconversion" really works so that the picture really
looks very
close to HD quality. Most people, I think, would not be aware of the

difference; they would think they were watching HD.

We also tried sending it to the TV at 1080i but that seemed to
produce a
slightly softer, not quite so good a picture as 720p. But I imagine
results
of this experiment would vary from set to set.

Audio sounds great. I am running audio via coax digital cable
directly from
the DVD player into my receiver and just turning off the audio-out
via HDMI.
But you can run audio through the HDMI cable to play through the TV
set
speakers, if you want to. I tried that and it sounded great. In
theory, if
my receiver had HDMI in and out, then I could have run the HDMI out
from the
DVD, into the receiver, then out of the receiver via HDMI and into
the TV
for the video. But my receiver does not have HDMI inputs or outputs.

This player has a ton of menu settings for just about everything you
can
imagine. I don't even know where I would start to try to describe
any of
them.

Bottom line, based on just an hour or so of watching DVD's and
fiddling
around with it -- we love it.

mack
austin

Mack,
Good post!
I have noticed there seems to be a problem in configuring TVs with HDMI
connectors. The below quoted post concerns another brand tv but may
also apply to the XS955.

-"Sound output can be PCM or Raw
-PCM is for two speaker systems
-Raw is for DTS/Dolby Digital/etc
-When the HDMI cable is hooked up to the TV, if you want the TV
speakers to
work, you must have the sound set to PCM.
-If you set the sound to Raw when the HDMI cable is hooked up, the HDMI
cable will not output any sound (this is done to protect the TV's
speakers)

Hence the confusion- Yes, if you want BOTH the tv AND the Receiver
speakers
to work, you must do as the tech suggests and 1)have the sound set to
PCM
and 2)output the sound from the TV to the receiver. But from what I
gathered
from the manual, if you don't mind turning off the TV speakers, you can
digitally output the sound from the DVD player to the receiver while
the
HDMI cable goes to the TV. You simply have to set the sound output to
'Raw'
to do so (and in so doing, you automatically disable sound output
through
the HDMI cable)."

Have you tried the PCM vs RAW setting on the Sony settings? I don't
know if this was addressed in the S97 player manual.

I'm planning on buying the S97 and was wondering about the
configuration also.
The "raw and pcm" sound decoding options have confused me in the past.