Happy holidays everyone!

Santa was good to me this year, bringing a Samsung BD-P1500 Bluray player. I also received three movies and Firefly (!). So far, though, I've run into one problem:

On The Dark Knight, I get this problem where the sound keeps cutting out. It ranges from .25-1 second, so not long, but it happens enough to be highly distracting. Oddly, it appears to happen during loud scenes, particularly when there's a big rumbling. So not just explosions, but when something is knocked down by that explosion. Or when the Tumbler plows through a wall - stuff like that. When it happens, all the speaker indicators go out on the receiver like there's no audio input. It's very strange, because I've watched good long portions of a couple other movies on it (Wall-E and Sunshine - an excellent space thriller) and neither had this problem, though neither had these kinds of explosions, but Sunshine has some very loud scenes.

As far as setup goes, I've got optical audio from the Samsung to my Sony (STR-DE985, I believe) receiver, and HDMI from the Samsung to my TV (clearly, I'm not using the audio from the HDMI cable). The Samsung is outputting bitstream, since I couldn't get surround out of my receiver any other way, and the DVD player it replaced was also doing bitstream.

So does anyone have any suggestions for what might be happening?

Dude, you can get Firefly in blu-ray? I'm so *there*.

I've been having a funny thing where the digital audio for Dolby Digital things (from DVR, PS3, etc.) occasionally cuts out for .25-1.00 sec and it's totally random (not on explosions). My stereo is a Panasonic.

But yeah, it's sure sounding like it's specifically because of the loud stuff in your case. I wonder if it's vibration from the sub making a connection problem? Are your optical cables really tight?

I also had similar problem a few days ago when I watched the same movie (only regular DVD) at a friends place, but with us it started way out in the movie and the sound stuttered a bit and then completely disappeared. For us it was fixed by turning down the sound a little bit, so we figured it could be because of overheating (the receiver is in a closed stereobench, only open on the front).

Stig

It's a long shot, but make sure your player has the latest firmware.

Happy Holidays,
Stu

Another longshot: Toslink or SP/DIF can't handle all the high-tech new sound formats that are part of Bluray. Your Bluray player could be down-converting the newer audio stuff to a traditional Dolby Digital or DTS or whatever. A firmware upgrade could help with that. Alternatively, there might be a Dolby Digital track on the disc which was poorly mastered. You might see if there's some other way to route audio from your Bluray player to your amp (e.g., two channel analog), just to see whether the problem persists. You might also try borrowing a receiver that can suck the high-tech audio bits from the HDMI plug.

(Personally, I'm holding off another year on Bluray, or until my current cheapo DVD player bites the dust. If I went Bluray, I'd also want to get a new receiver, and then I'd probably want to get a subwoofer, and ... I've got other things to worry about right now.)

Definitely update the firmware like everyone has said. On my copy of TDK I remember it defaulted to standard Dolby Digital 5.1, not Dolby Digital TrueHD, so your player by default should be sending out a signal your receiver already knows on that disc.

And don't forget Serenity comes out on Tuesday! You'll love how good that movie looks in high def! I personally won't be double dipping on it as I have it on HD DVD. Still need to get Firefly on BD though. I caught it on Universal HD a couple months back and I definitely thought it looked good.

Thanks everyone.

I forgot to mention that I had all the firmware updates that were available (it took FOREVER! - like 40 minutes for each of two updates).

I'm really hoping it's not the receiver. I don't think I can afford to upgrade that at the moment, even though I'd LOVE to have HDMI switching. I might try to see if there's a different audio track on the disc, though.

And yes, Firefly is on Bluray. I'm super excited about that. There are only going to be a few areas where I double-dip, but that and Serenity are two that I won't mind.

Sadly, the one TV show I'd give my right arm to see on bluray I'm sure will never happen: Carnivale. Easily the most gorgeous TV show ever made (IMO), and I'd kill to see it in hi-def since I never got to see it in HD initially.