Stupid question regarding playing DVD-audio disks....

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by MRamble, Jul 12, 2018.

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  1. MRamble

    MRamble Forum Resident Thread Starter

    How do I play them without the player connected to a TV?

    My SACD player also plays DVD-audio disks but the player isn't connected to a TV/monitor. When I insert the DVD a main menu comes up which I won't be able to see because it's not hooked up anywhere.

    Am I missing something? :hide:
     
    Rick Bartlett likes this.
  2. Rick Bartlett

    Rick Bartlett Forum Resident

    Great question...
    :wtf:
    what happens when you press enter a couple of times when you insert the disc?
    it doesn't help on making decisions on stereo, surround sound etc etc..
    interesting question.
     
    MRamble likes this.
  3. Chazz

    Chazz Music Addict

    Location:
    Southeastern, US
    You will need a TV, unfortunately, in order to select the mix you want to play. DVD-A's contain several mixes including 5.1, 2 channel hi-rez and a DVD video mix that is not hi-rez. My universal player has a menu setting that sets a default mix to play for all discs. To set this up, I temporarily connected a TV monitor to acces the menu settings i needed to see in order to set my player to default to the 2 channel hi-rez mix, I don't have a srround set-up. Now I can put in a DVD-A disc and press play without using a TV. Different players might not allow for this in menu settings however.
     
  4. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    You have two options:

    1. Hook up the player to a TV or some kind of alternative display, using whatever connections your player offers you.

    2. Take the player to a TV, hook it up temporarily and view the menus. Write down what steps you have to take to get to where you want to go.

    Basically, to play DVD-A discs you need a display. Otherwise, it'll just load to the main menu and you won't get any further. When I first got my Doors Perception set, I removed my Oppo DVD player from my system and took it to the living room and hooked it to the TV and wrote down all the steps it took to play the multichannel program, and that's how I used it until I finally integrated my computer monitor into my audio system. It's a pain in the neck but DVD-A was a format designed to be used in an integrated home theater system.

    P.S. Keep in mind that if you put your DVD-A disc in a player that does not support DVD-A, you'll get a different menu than what you'll get on a DVD-A compatible player. The steps may be the same or they may not be.
     
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  5. DigMyGroove

    DigMyGroove Forum Resident

    You aren’t missing anything.

    In order to navigate the menus and access the sound selections you want, you must have a monitor hookup. I use one like this, a $24 foldable 4.3 inch LCD dash monitor, nice to be able to close it when not in use and less dust on the screen. You’ll also have to buy a power chord for it, but that’s an inexpensive purchase too. It’s as simple as connecting the basic yellow tipped video cable from the monitor to your player.
     
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  6. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    Ha! I looked all over the place for some solution like that several years ago and never found it! Of course now I have my computer monitor integrated into my system so I no longer need it, but that's a cool solution!
     
    MRamble likes this.
  7. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    No doubt, I find that's exactly the solution I should look for...so long as I have the facilities to hook it up without taking my main television monitor off line; all I really want to do is, turn the big one off when I don't really need it.

    (But then - horrors! - how would I ever catch my Geico commercials while I'm playing my surround discs!)
     
    MRamble likes this.
  8. MRamble

    MRamble Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Always saw this as my very last resort....might have to do it! Thanks!

    Ah--that might work too! Great idea.

    Thanks all!
     
    dkmonroe likes this.
  9. gd0

    gd0 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies

    Location:
    Golden Gate
    Heh, I tried that once or twice. It's a sure path to madness.

    Just get yourself a little monitor.

    That $24 job is nifty. Where was that when I was shopping (years ago)? Got a 7" for $60 or so.

    Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
     
    forthlin, dkmonroe and MRamble like this.
  10. slovell

    slovell Retired Mudshark

    Location:
    Chesnee, SC, USA
    That's really the biggest thing that turned me away from DVD-Audio. Having to have my tv on to access the menu was just ridiculous.
     
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  11. MRamble

    MRamble Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I haven't played several different titles in years purely because I knew it would be annoying to access them without a screen.
     
    showtaper likes this.
  12. OldSoul

    OldSoul Don't you hear the wind blowin'?

    Location:
    NYC
    Is there no AUDIO button on the remote of the player? If the is, you can press that to go to different mixes.
     
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  13. jfbar167

    jfbar167 Forum Resident

    Location:
    SW Florida
    Not that it is a solution, but I had a Denon 2910 that "automatically" played (by default) the multichannel high rez track EVERY time. Of course, that SAME player eventually would QUIT reading most disks. It was a great run while it lasted.
     
    MRamble likes this.
  14. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    In my experience, that only works once you've got the disk playing. If you're just sitting at the top menu, hitting the Audio button won't do anything. Once you've got the disc playing, you can use the Audio button to switch between stereo and 5.1 or other options.

    Some Blu-rays (like the Yes Tales From Topographic Oceans) are programmed to use "headless operation", which means that the colored buttons on your remote can be used to select particular programs. But that doesn't work for any discs not programmed that way.
     
    MRamble likes this.
  15. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Crap, their was a youtube video showcasing a couple players including Oppo where there was a couple remote tricks to by-pass the menu and would go straight to playing (once the user of course set up his or her preferences) My Onkyo was included in the tips.
     
    MRamble likes this.
  16. OldSoul

    OldSoul Don't you hear the wind blowin'?

    Location:
    NYC
    That's what I meant. I know it would probably be annoying to get the album playing, find the right audio option, even restart, but so are the options.
     
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  17. DigMyGroove

    DigMyGroove Forum Resident

    Not “might work”, does work, I’ve had this set up for a couple of years. These monitors while cheap, also aren’t ling lasting. I had a couple of a diffetent model die, the version I linked to has been fine so far and I prefer the design far more.
     
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  18. Doug_B

    Doug_B Time Traveler

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Back in the earlier days of DVD-A, I had a similar problem. I had video in the same room, but I was using a projector, which is not something you want to fire up just to select menus for audio purposes. I had (and still have) a programmable remote and observed that DVD-As (at least at that time) fell into two methods of selecting what you wanted, so I programmed a couple of macros for that. Even though it worked at the time, it was a bit "kludgy" (and time consuming to run through the entire macro, which contained a lot of menu navigation movements).

    I found that there were add'l perks to having another display in the room, so I eventually bit the bullet and went down the path of an additional screen, a smaller LCD TV on the side wall near where I sit (ha, 32" diag small). Among other things, I now am file-based for my audio, using an Oppo, so this screen comes in handy for that.

    Doug
     
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  19. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    I cheated with my DVDAs and BDs. I ripped the audio from them and burned audio only BDRs from the rips. Insert disc, hit play, no menus. I keep a spindle if home made discs next to my Sony surround system and keep the originals safely on the shelf.

    Edit: and with the Oppo everything is ripped onto a USB hard drive and I can use the Oppo iOS app to control it. Sadly, I guess it will be a matter of time before the Oppo app isn’t updated now they have gone.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2018
    MRamble likes this.
  20. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    This is just one of the reasons why DVD Audio failed. You couldn't include it as part of an audio-only system because you needed a TV to get through the menus.
     
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  21. JonUrban

    JonUrban SHF Member #497

    Location:
    Connecticut
    A lot of it has to do with the way the discs were authored. It was very easy to author a DVD-A to play a default layer right out of the gate, either the 5.1 or the 2.0. The user then could press the AUDIO button on their remote and switch to the opposite track. However, when authored in this manner, the fancy menu with all of the options that included videos and bonus interviews and stuff would not be accessible.

    SHF Forum member Neil Wilkes who authored the King Crimson, Yes, and Steven Wilson DVD-A's (among others) authored these DVD-A's so that they would play the 5.1 right out of the gate. The WEA DVD-A's and those by other labels didn't do the same.

    It's the "fault" of the authoring and the player. For example, the DVD-A players in my Acura's (and I've had a few) always played just like a CD. No monitor needed. So you can't blame the format - blame the hardware/authoring.
     
    MRamble likes this.
  22. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    They should have thought of this and made a backlit LCD display on the front of the player part of the standard to allow you to use it to play DVD Audio discs without the need for a monitor/TV. I had a similar experience when playing CDs on my Philips CDi player. Although I could do the basic functions (play, stop, next track, last track) via the remote, for anything fancier (such as setting up a program) required a television.
     
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  23. ady_lister

    ady_lister Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Wallsend
    Yeah - I remember my Neil Young Harvest and Fleetwood Mac Rumours start playing automatically without touching the remote.

    I'm pretty sure that unlike normal DVDs you can't just press the 'AUDIO' on the remote to seamlessly skip between mixes. I remember always having to go back to Main Menu.
     
    MRamble likes this.
  24. TarnishedEars

    TarnishedEars Forum Resident

    Location:
    The Seattle area
    Exactly. And this is one major reason why I always preferred SACDs over DVD-Audio.
     
  25. Claude Benshaul

    Claude Benshaul Forum Resident

    Hook it up to a receiver and the receiver to the TV. Get a cheap one with an HT bypass that will allow you to connect it to your preamp or integrated.
     
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