Quick video of new M-Class GUI

[AnOutsider]

Wow... Amazing that this is mainstream.

[cinelife]

Yes, unfortunately, being essentially "computer" driven causes delays while the disc is being set up to execute.


Jim

[AnOutsider]

But if the kscape effectively rips the movie to disc, what's the problem at that point? Just spooling up a fairly large file?

[brodricj]

There's just nothing in the embedded demo video that convinces me to change my opinion on this upgrade. It would need to be very "aggressive" pricing to tip the balance here. The killer is still lack of support for LPCM. Until it can be demonstrated that lossy audio playback on M500 is as good as lossless audio playback on PS3, then I'll wait for M500 Mk2.

[JerryL]

I agree that the UI improvements are really nice and no doubt if I had the new player I would enjoy it but is it making me feel like I am losing out if I do not have it? Not at all.

I think disc load times are a function of optical drive read speed + how fast the CPU can process info + memory speed. I think even with a hard drive based system youre still going to have a lot of data to be processed by the CPU. Sometimes the pauses for warnings are programmed.

[cinelife]

Originally Posted by cinelife

Give the post above, I decided to re-test the timing. I've got some clarification, and an apology. I'm not sure when, how, or why we recorded 2-3 seconds start time after selecting "Play Movie" from the usual K screen, but that is not the case based on what I just tested here. It is in my notes, but it is not correct. I just tested two methods, 1. New (non-imported) BR disc (Harry Potter), and 2. Already imported Lord of the Rings (LOTR) Fellowship...

I first timed the playback on the Sony and Denon BR players, from Harry Potter disc inserted, to the time the FBI warning appeared on screen. These were 42 and 39 seconds, respectively. I then did the same with Potter in the M500, and got 16 seconds to the K OSD "disc in tray" screen, and an additional 22 seconds after selecting "Play Disc" (note: the "Play Movie" option was not available) before seeing content on screen.

I then placed the LOTR BR in the M500 tray (interestingly, the system knows when a disc has already been imported and does not bring up the usual "disc in tray, what do you want to do prompt," in fact, inserting the disc does nothing on screen). If you want to work the disc in the tray, you have to select "disc" from the horizontal menu in the K menu system.

Sorry to diverge, back to the timing. After inserting the physical disc in the tray, selecting "play movie" from the LOTR metadata page resulted in a 21 second delay before the movie started. Still better than other BR Players, but NOT the 2-3 seconds I reported earlier. Still not sure why that was inaccurate, and I do apologize for the incorrect timing. I'm going to check several other movies I looked at for timing to see if perhaps one of those was somehow much faster.

Given this finding, perhaps THIS is what K is trying to improve, but I'm not sure.


Jim

Decided to repost on the timing just to be clear (I created some confusion with the initial post).

If you have already imported a BR movie, and you select "play movie" from the metadata page you get after selecting a movie from list/covers menu's OR you press "play" on the K remote while in list/covers menu, the average start time for the movie is about 15 seconds. I tried several different movies and that was the average start time. One was actually 12 seconds. None was more than 16 seconds.


Jim

[iansilv]

Is it possible that part of this delay is checking for the disk in the tray, or was that addressed by the system checking the disk when it is first inserted? Would the Vault reduce this?

[cinelife]

I suspect that is the main reason, and it would be nice if that delay was reduced in the disc loader, but frankly, the more I play with it the less bothersome it seems. (But I would still like the time shortened if possible.)


Jim

[JerryL]

15 seconds to load a BR is very fast compared to the current state of the market.

[cinelife]

Yup, I'm satisfied with that start time. It actually "feels" faster. It would be nice however if the time could be shortened.

That certainly isn't preventing me from upgrading my players.

Funny, a couple of days ago my wife actually asked when a new player for the Master Bedroom would arrive and when I indicated it would be a couple of weeks (my choice, the units are available) she asked if I wouldn't mind moving the M500 we do have out of the theatre!!) (Of course that's a "no-go," but we are still talking about it, or rather she's still talking about it.)


Jim