Connecting Bluray player to NEC2000C / JSD-60

[Carl Martin]

in addition to lt/rt dcps something i've seen (heard) a few times is a dcp from a mono film where the center channel is normal but, as well, the r and l channels are in fact an rt and lt version of the mono track. i suppose the reasoning is that whether the theater uses a "DCP 2.0" format or not, sound will come out one way or another. ms. 45 is the example i remember, because they also fucked up the picture so that the first "reel" used different chip real estate from the rest of the movie. i can't remember if i automated a lens shift or did it on the fly, but it took some fussing to get that right before the show. then when the actual show was on, the audio went out of sync halfway through the third "reel". thinking it somehow had something to do with my running in format 80, i switched back and forth between that and format 88 several times (and had to ride the level to compensate), trying to listen for sync... in a dialog-sparse movie. testing it again later with no pressure, i determined that indeed the dcp audio did go out of sync at that point and it had nothing to do with what sound format i ran it in.

never saw any problems like these with that title in 35mm....

[Steve Guttag]

They absolutely SHOULD but as Carsten has indicated...they don't. In fact, you can get classic titles that were mono but they put their standard mono mix on L/R rather than apply it to just C. That is one reason, I have a "DCP 2.0" format on most of our systems (and all QSYS) just to handle such nonsense. Ad companies are also notorious for issuing "stereo" tracks on Left/Right only.

[Harold Hallikainen]

It really seems that if the master is Lt/Rt, it should be decoded by the studio to 5.1 when making the DCP. I see DCPoMatic has some decoders for that. The "Simple Matrix" in the JSD series is the same as DCP O Matic "stereo to 5.1 upmixer B." The "active matrix" is more Pro Logic like (buried deep in a hard coded DSP).

Harold

[Carsten Kurz]

Well, permitted, according to ISDCF and DCI, not. But, there are quite a number of repertoire DCPs which had A/SR Lt/Rt tracks originally in their film masters, and were converted without discrete multichannel surround master tracks. So, I know quite a few projectionists who have set up their systems to decode Lt/Rt.

- Carsten

[Harold Hallikainen]

Also, regarding Lt/Rt in DCPs (is that permitted?), Lt/Rt are probably on AES pair 1, while the DI-84 is on AES pair 4. It's possible to rewire the AES input and change the mixer coefficients to compensate.

Harold

[Harold Hallikainen]

Correct! Without the DI-84 (another DSP), the JSD-60 can only do "Simple Matrx" where surrounds are driven by L-R. I don't remember for sure, but I think Simple Matrix just loads the mixer coefficients to give this result.

Harold

[Carsten Kurz]

So, if you feed stereo PCM through the Coax/Toslink with Active Matrix enabled, it will do Prologic-Style, and if you feed it bitstream ac3/dts,it will automatically decode it to discrete surround?

Does that also mean, a JSD-60 without the DI-84 can not do Active Matrix (e.g. for Lt/Rt in DCPs)?

- Carsten

[Harold Hallikainen]

Note that on the JSD-60, "Active Matrix" routes the encoded audio through the DI-84 board that can decode Dolby and DTS. It can also take two channel audio and convert it to 7.1 using a method similar to Pro Logic.

"Passive Matrix" on the JSD-60 just drives the surrounds with L-R.

Harold

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

This is so easy to set up I find it hard to believe it's gone past a half dozen posts, with Harold's posts being the definitive answer. I set up BR Players for 95% of my customers, or about 300 of them. One also has to create a DVI input with the proper color space, etc as well in order for this to work. Set the lens manually, or make presets for it if you want and tie those to a couple different DVI Macros. I have found BR aspect ratios to be very non standard though. .

[Carsten Kurz]

Harold, thank you so much for your advice on the JSD. I set the digital coax to Active Matrix and it now sounds really good. No more 2 channel output. So if anyone needs to run a bluray in a pinch and you have a player with both HDMI and Digital Coax Out along with a JSD processor, its a 5 minute job to set it up. And thanks to all of you for the other guidance about setting up the CP650's as well as advice on other bluray player options that would work. I also got the sound to work through the CP650 (although it doesn't sound nearly as good as the JSD, but would be OK in an emergency)!

While matrix gives you some surround - it is not the same as using the D-84 decoder board. For now and this purpose, you may be okay with that solution. If you get the time, you may play around with this and analyze your various processors for their capabilities. We do not show Blurays too often commercially, but often enough to get this right.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Thanks everyone. You gave me several viable options to get this working and its all greatly appreciated.

One option that hasn't yet been discussed in this topic (of I'm just getting blind), is the option to create an actual DCP from a Blu-Ray. You can do this with a tool like MakeMKV and DCP-o-Matic.

Keep in mind that this does take a fair bit of preparation, but once you've got the features from your BluRay made into a DCP, they behave just like any other (unencrypted) DCP.

[Chris Daigle]

Good luck! Let us know how it goes. I'll give whatever help I can (as will others!), but I don't have a JSD-60 here anymore.
Harold

Harold, thank you so much for your advice on the JSD. I set the digital coax to Active Matrix and it now sounds really good. No more 2 channel output. So if anyone needs to run a bluray in a pinch and you have a player with both HDMI and Digital Coax Out along with a JSD processor, its a 5 minute job to set it up. And thanks to all of you for the other guidance about setting up the CP650's as well as advice on other bluray player options that would work. I also got the sound to work through the CP650 (although it doesn't sound nearly as good as the JSD, but would be OK in an emergency)!

[Harold Hallikainen]

You SHOULD be able to use the JSD-60 Windows GUI over USB, RS232, or Ethernet. I've sometimes had USB driver issues, so I like Ethernet, but of course, you need to know the IP address of the JSD-60. If you tell the JSD-60 to use Ethernet, it SHOULD give you a list of JSD-60s on the network. But, if not, you can try Ethernet Discoverer ( http://ftp.uslinc.com/Products/Ether...iceDiscoverer/ ) which should find all USL equipment on the network.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes. I'll give whatever help I can (as will others!), but I don't have a JSD-60 here anymore.

Harold

[Chris Daigle]

Thanks everyone. You gave me several viable options to get this working and its all greatly appreciated. I'm trying to get this going for a local family with two young kids who's mother was killed in a terrible car accident and we are trying to give them a mini diversion to come in and watch a couple shows. And although we've never had the need to run blurays here,it will be nice to have this option going forward given the current situation with no new product. It appears that I may be in luck as the tags on the back of 3 of my JSD-60's show the model as JSD-60D, so that should indicate that I do have the DI-84 board installed. So now I just have to get the manual out to figure out how to access them with my laptop and make the necessary changes. Hopefully then I can just come out of the bluray player with the digital coax out and into the JSD coax in and change the decode option to active matrix. Typically my Strong service tech would handle all this for me but being closed for 6 months we've paused our contract with them until we get back to "normal" so I'm on my own for now! Sorry for sounding stupid, but can you just plug directly into the unit via usb and access the settings if you aren't sure of the assigned IP or what network the JSD's are on? It didn't seem to see any of the units when I put my laptop on the projector network where I would typically run the NEC communicator.

[Marcel Birgelen]

In this case, I'd really go for the 6*RCA to DB25M solution, which really is the most stable option. Otherwise you're dependent on your BluRay player playing exactly the right audio track (AC3 or "plain old" DTS) and your audio-extraction-thingy correctly de-embedding it and putting it onto SP/DIF. Many of those cheaper audio-extractors that do come with analog output do have abysmal DACs on-board and due to the often minimalist design, they also often tend to cross-talk, plus, you'd probably need to go from mini-jack to DB25M... I'd rather trust the DACs on the BluRay player, which usually also have more space, which should also reduce potential cross-talk issues between channels.