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Ali Tait
12-10-2011, 06:55
I'm wondering if anyone can help me with a problem. I work away from home, and I take my Vaio laptop with me, which has a blu ray drive. The place I am staying has a large flatscreen Pioneer jobbie, to which I have connected the Laptop via HDMI. It plays DVD's fine, but I recently bought the Star Wars blu ray boxset, and this will not play via HDMI on the tv, saying "This display environment is not supported" or somesuch. I know it will work as I've played blu rays at home from the laptop onto our Toshiba.

I have tried switching off the laptop screen, but to no avail, so I thought I'd tap the knowledge here. Anyone any ideas?

The Vinyl Adventure
12-10-2011, 07:30
It's probably a 720 screen that doesn't like 1080p
In the the bluray player program see if there is a way to set it to output in a downscaled format ... 1080i or 720p will more than likely work I'd guess
Just try the resolutions until one works ...

Ali Tait
12-10-2011, 07:38
Yes, tried that too mate. Still didn't work. Thanks for trying though!

The Vinyl Adventure
12-10-2011, 08:07
No worries!
Try a VGA cable instead?

Stratmangler
12-10-2011, 08:08
Have you tried other Blu Rays through the Vaio/Pioneer ?
It might be copy protection on the Star Wars Discs.

MartinT
12-10-2011, 09:54
It's most likely an incompatible display format for the TV and may be trying to show, e.g. 1080p on a non-hi-res set. As Hamish says, try a VGA cable if the TV has an appropriate socket.

Ali Tait
12-10-2011, 10:07
I'd have thought if the tv has an HDMI input, it would play blu rays?

I don't have another blu ray to try, I'll go and buy one.

Stratmangler
12-10-2011, 10:14
I'd have thought if the tv has an HDMI input, it would play blu rays?

I don't have another blu ray to try, I'll go and buy one.

My thinking is that maybe the PC isn't outputting to the TV because there's copy protection in place to stop it doing it.
With a BDP I suspect that everything would work fine.

MartinT
12-10-2011, 10:21
I'd have thought if the tv has an HDMI input, it would play blu rays?

Not necessarily! For instance, my old TV would accept 1080i into HDMI but not 1080p. I had to configure my player to send only 1080i and then it worked. You can maybe configure your laptop BD software to do the same. BDs generally want to send as 1080p, i.e. the highest resolution.

Stratmangler
12-10-2011, 10:26
Not necessarily! For instance, my old TV would accept 1080i into HDMI but not 1080p. I had to configure my player to send only 1080i and then it worked. You can maybe configure your laptop BD software to do the same. BDs generally want to send as 1080p, i.e. the highest resolution.

Thinking about it Pioneer stopped making TVs a few years ago - it's a possibility (although unlikely) that the TV doesn't support progressive scan.

MartinT
12-10-2011, 10:35
Yep - my old Sony (only about six years old) didn't support progressive 1080p.

Ali Tait
12-10-2011, 12:34
Have had a look and the Pioneer is a PDP 435PE, and it supports 1080p, so it looks like Chris is correct, it must be a copyright issue. Anyone know how to get round this?

MartinT
12-10-2011, 12:43
Does it play on the laptop screen? If so, then a VGA cable will work as it does not carry the copyright info like the HDMI interface does.

Ali Tait
12-10-2011, 12:50
Yes, plays fine on the laptop. No VGA on the telly unfortunately, it's one of those with a "media box", with proprietary leads to the telly. Just has scart, component video and HDMI.

Stratmangler
12-10-2011, 13:00
Just googled the problem, and there seems to have been a fair few people with issues with the Star Wars Blu Rays - it definitely looks more like copyright protection kicking in :steam:

Ali Tait
12-10-2011, 13:06
Yes, I'd googled it too and got nowhere, hence why I asked here. Guess I'll just have to buy a blu ray player.

Ali Tait
12-10-2011, 14:19
Solved it by downloading Any DVD HD free trial version. Will do for now. At least I can watch the bloody films on the telly now.

Stratmangler
12-10-2011, 15:55
Solved it by downloading Any DVD HD free trial version. Will do for now. At least I can watch the bloody films on the telly now.

Excellent :)

MartinT
12-10-2011, 16:22
Nice one. Anything to get past the very silly region/copyright controls that the film companies first tried with DVD and failed and have now tried with Blu-ray and failed. All they do is hack off real buyers and do nothing to stop real pirates.

Ali Tait
12-10-2011, 16:40
Indeed. If I want to play blu rays from my laptop onto my telly, why the bloody hell shouldn't I be able to do so?

That program looks useful though, I might buy it. I noted on the net that some folk were having trouble with these discs even on dedicated players.

MartinT
12-10-2011, 16:57
I've not any problems yet with the new Star Wars trilogy on my Sony BDP-S300 and that's a fairly early machine. Mind you, it's had five firmware updates over its life to accommodate new discs.

Ali Tait
12-10-2011, 19:16
Aye, it was with particular machines I believe. This really shouldn't happen though. A player should play any disc!

Reid Malenfant
12-10-2011, 19:23
You'd have thought so Ali ;) I remember a big stink a good while back where CDs got encoded so they wouldn't play on a CD Rom drive just when lots of manufacturers were fitting the very same into CD players...

& there CDs wouldn't play :rolleyes:

MartinT
12-10-2011, 19:28
The Blu-ray standard does allow for additional java and menu development so firmware updates are a norm for BD players. Several times I've bought a disc that won't start up or show the menu, so off I go to the Sony site, download and burn the latest firmware to disc and burn it into the player. I'm fairly used to it now but it has always enabled new discs to be played so it's good to see that support is ongoing.

Reid Malenfant
12-10-2011, 19:32
I must be lucky as i have never had a problem playing anything & never updated a thing :cool:

MartinT
12-10-2011, 20:06
Is your player a newer type with a network connection? They tend to update automatically, as do PS3s.

Reid Malenfant
13-10-2011, 16:29
Yes, but not wireless (i don't think)... Besides which, it's never been plugged into a network :eyebrows: