Sony BDP-6500 and 5500 series playback issues

DKM wrote on 6/26/2015, 7:10 AM
Vegas Pro 13 mastered blue-ray discs won't play in the new Sony BDP-6500 and 5500 series blu-ray players. The discs I mastered have a menu and chapter index. The discs load and play the intro but hang just after the Play and Chapter Index links come on screen. Pulling the power cord and re-connecting is the only way to get the disc out of the machine after it hangs.

My older Sony players (BDP-S570 and BDP-S380) play the same discs fine.

Anyone encounter a similar problem? What's the verifiable fix?

Comments

DGates wrote on 6/26/2015, 7:15 AM
What media are you using? How fast are you burning them?
DKM wrote on 6/26/2015, 8:05 AM
The disc was mastered on Memorex BD-R 6X 25GB Single Layer blanks. The master plays fine as do all clones in the Sony BDP-S570, BDP-S380, LG BP220, and LG BD550 players (and I suspect other older players.
musicvid10 wrote on 6/26/2015, 8:52 AM
Get some Verbatim discs and back off the burn speed a bit.
Post back with your results.
Tech Diver wrote on 6/26/2015, 9:41 AM
@DKM - Did you perform a firmware upgrade on the 6500 yet? If not, please do so and try again. I just got one and will do some testing over the next few days.

Peter
dxdy wrote on 6/26/2015, 12:00 PM
You said the master was created with Vegas Pro 13. Was it actually DVD Architect? What version?

I cannot imagine why this would make a difference, but it is free and worth a try:

Let DVDA prepare a .iso image file. Then use (free) Imgburn to do the actual burn.
astar wrote on 6/26/2015, 4:17 PM
Do not ever buy Memorex media, pure crap with loads of production flaws. The reason all the big box stores and office stores carry Memorex is simply for profit margin, not quality.
DGates wrote on 6/26/2015, 8:59 PM
"...Get some Verbatim discs and back off the burn speed a bit..."

Ditto. That would've been my recommendation.
DKM wrote on 6/30/2015, 6:12 AM
DVD Architect Pro 6.0 (Build 237) was used for burning the master after creation in Vegas Pro 13. Sorry for the confusion.

After much testing with the Sony BDP-S5500, here's the problem:

The Sony BDP-S5500 (with the latest firmware update [6/05/2015 Version M25.R.0214]) hangs with menus that contain sub-menus. My older Sony players (BDP-S570 and S380) do not have this problem.

The menu that is problematic has two options that appear after an animated/movie intro: PLAY and CHAPTER INDEX. PLAY is the default/Highlighted option. The Chapter Index contains a number of sub-menu pages. The BDP-S5500 series freezes after the PLAY/CHAPTER INDEX options slide on the screen but before PLAY becomes highlighted. A power off/on sequence is required to get the disc out of the machine.

The same master plays fine on both Sony BDP-S570 and S380 machines, giving access to all menu options.

I eliminated the CHAPTER INDEX menu option, leaving only the PLAY option and recompiled a new master. This plays fine on all Sony players tested: BDP-S5500, S570, and S-380.

The idea occurred to me after I realized I had created many blu-ray discs in the past with a single menu option (PLAY). I tried each in the new BDP-S5500 series and they all worked fine.

I suspect a new firmware update is needed for the BDP-S5500 series. The BDP-S6500 series has the same problem and I believe the whole new Sony line has the same problem (BDP-S3500, BDP-S1500) although not personally tested.
Several friends had the 6500 machine and experienced the same problem.

BTW, I re-mastered using Verbatim Hard Coat discs (which I prefer) although I don't believe it made any difference since sub-menu discs on Verbatim won't play in the BDP-S5500 either.

Burn speed was limited to Verbatim's 6x (even though DVD Architecture kept resetting to 10x at setup).

Hope that helps everyone.