HD Advisor October 2, 2009

[Attebery]

Here is the place to discuss this week's HD Advisor when it goes live on Friday 10/2

[crazzeto]

I was confused at first, I was was thinkign "well I thought it was thursday, but hd advisor is a friday thing" lol

[Attebery]

Picking up friends at the airport tomorrow, but wanted to make sure the thread was in place!

[pazuzu]

For the surge protector part:

I think you absolutely need to invest in a good surge protector, but i do not use one from the ht section of the store, rather the computer section. I spent $80 on a ups that has automatic voltage regulation, been using it for 5 years and have never had a piece of equipment fail on me and i live in a condo where there is problems with brownouts. Its nice to be able to power down your equipment the right way instead of an abrupt shutoff. I have a dlp tv so I can power it down and let the fan cool the bolb so there is less wear and tear.

Just dont be a sucker and buy into monster products. So freaking overated.

[Josh Z]

Link to the column:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...D_Advisor/3509

[Spaulding]

I got Crank 2 to play on a Samsung BD-P1500 by turning off BD-LIVE.

[Spaulding]

I have been using a Cyber Power CP1285AVRLCD, Voltage regulator, Surge protector, Battery backup. Works great.

http://www.cyberpowersystems.com/pro...-category.html

[FoulFoot]

Having lived in lightning-prone areas for years, I'd say it's mandatory to at *least* have a surge protector on all expensive electronic gear. I don't believe there's any benefit to spending much on one, as they're basically just fuses designed to pop before a surge can get through.

Some clarification on terminology:

A "surge" is not caused by a storm. It occurs after a blackout, when the power company restores the power.

A brownout is a dip in the power. Brownouts usually occur in the summer months, when demand exceeds supply (everyone using their air conditioners). When the power comes up to full, it can often cause a surge.

Surge protectors do nothing for power dips. Nor will they stop lightning. In Florida, you can buy a lightning arrestor for your house (a large box that sits on your main power feed), but they're several thousand dollars and I have some doubts that they actually work. A direct lightning strike down your 220V power line is generally considered unstoppable.

In my opinion, power dips are far more frequent, and perhaps more damaging, to delicate electronics than surges. In fact, every time the compressor in your refrigerator or your air conditioner turns on, you get a power dip. You need a battery backup (UPS) system to prevent dips. I've witnessed unprotected computer systems start to exhibit odd behavior after a few years, whereas protected computers rarely do. I attribute that to having a UPS attached.

While many people have a UPS on their computer, they rely on a simple surge protector for their $4k HDTV! Since this is an advice column, I'll recommend what I have attached to my home theater: the Tripp Lite SU1000XLa. It's a UPS *and* an active line conditioner ("active" meaning it constantly smooths the incoming power, rather than only kicking in when a significant dip or surge occurs - like a competing product from Monster). Unfortunately, it's rather expensive ($500 retail, but you can find it a bit cheaper), and it's designed for computer systems, which means it has a really loud fan inside it. I fixed that by opening the case and snipping the fan cables; even without the fan running at all, it doesn't get more than warm to the touch, and now it's completely silent. It can support a total load of 800 watts.

My six cents: power fluctuations, even minor, barely-noticeable ones, cause damage over time to electronics. Protect your investment.

[notsoboo]

To the guy with the BD-P1500 question: If turning off BD Live doesn't work try inserting a memory stick into the USB port before inserting the disc. I've gotten some of my movies to work by doing that.

[RBBrittain]

I agree that you do NOT want the high-priced surge protectors in the home theater section of the store. (Monster's just as overpriced with surge protectors as they are with HDMI cables.) However, if you shop around online you can get better deals on computer surge protectors than in the store.

You also need to know what's the biggest threat in your area. Where I live (central Arkansas), I've almost never had a powerline surge take out electronic equipment; the real problem here is phone-line surges. I've had everything from phones, to dial-up modems, to most recently an AT&T U-verse residential gateway (RG) taken out by phone-line surges, usually during thunderstorms. (Since I live in an apartment, they had to use the existing phone wire.) Though AT&T did replace their RG at no charge--only a week after installing it--I wasted an entire Sunday without TV, phone or Internet waiting for an overworked technician. Guess I had to learn my lesson.

I have two Belkin BE112230-08 surge protectors (currently $14.99 + S&H at Newegg), one for my PC and one for my home theater. It has 12 outlets (6 transformer-sized), 3940 joules of protection ($300K lifetime equipment warranty), and a 75db EMI/RFI noise filter, but no line conditioning or UPS. It also has DSL-grade phone-line protection; since U-verse is just a more advanced form of DSL, it works fine with the U-verse line to my replacement RG. (The RG came with its own Belkin UPS, plugged directly into the wall, for power.) I've never used the coax protection, so I don't know if it gets along with digital cable (or U-verse coax installs); the surge protector it replaced didn't work with digital cable.

This one works well for me; though YMMV, you can't get this good a surge protector for this price at B&Ms--especially Best Buy, even in the computer section.

[psickmusic]

So this Q&A by Joshua Zyber over at http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...D_Advisor/3509 is wrong:

Q: Recently I rented a copy of 'Crank 2' through Netflix. When I tried to play it in my Samsung BDP-1500, the movie wouldn't play. I took the disc and played it on the PS3, and it worked perfectly. Will I have to change my player to play the newer movies, or did I just have bad luck?

A: Unfortunately, disc compatibility issues like this continue to crop up on new releases due to the complexity of Blu-ray's ever-changing encryption and BD-Java programming. Just recently, I found that 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' wouldn't play on two out of my three Blu-ray players.

In most cases, issues like this can be resolved by your Blu-ray player's manufacturer through a firmware update. The first thing you should do is check the current firmware on your player, and then visit the manufacturers' web site to see if there is a more recent firmware. Firmware files can usually be burned to a CD, loaded onto a USB drive, or updated via Ethernet connection. Follow the instructions that the manufacturer provides. If your firmware is up-to-date and the disc still won't play, email the manufacturer a description of the problem (providing the UPC of the disc helps) and ask if they have a solution ready.

-------------------------------------

But he never addressed the real problem or answered the reason why Crank 2 was causing so many problems = that if you have Crank 2 and a Profile 2.0 - Ready machine, you'll need external memory (in the form of a memory card in most caeses) in order for the movie to boot off of

[notsoboo]

Originally Posted by psickmusic

Buncha stuff about the Samsung blu-ray player

If you had read this thread you'd know that Spaulding and I covered this pretty thoroughly already.

[Cochise]

Originally Posted by notsoboo

To the guy with the BD-P1500 question: If turning off BD Live doesn't work try inserting a memory stick into the USB port before inserting the disc. I've gotten some of my movies to work by doing that.

When you say "turning off BD Live", do you mean in the Network Setup area, setting the BD Live Internet Connection to "Prohibit"?

[FoulFoot]

Well, no, it's not traveling at the speed of light -- the copper wire significantly slows it. It's not the speed of lightning that kills, it's the ridiculously high voltage and amperage. Fuses / surge protectors / etc can't stop lightning because it just blows right through them, leaping over any gaps the device tries to put in its way.

Foul

[ethanwa]

One important aspect of surge protectors that you guys are missing in this thread is the dollar value that the protector promises you if there is a failure of the device. Make sure you get a protector that give you insurance well above the total replacement value of your attached equipment. The more value a protector has, the higher end the equipment is that you should put on the device. READ ALL OF THE FINE PRINT ON THE INSURANCE.

Remember, no matter how good your surge protector is, it can and will fail at some point in the future. Protection value is just as important as the electronics inside the device.

Ethan