With my PS3 broken again (this time thanks to a visitor, not the PS3s fault) I went out and purchased a Samsung BD6500. Instead of my usual tons of research, I went with a quick comparison and it had all the features I wanted (all audio formats decoded, accept streaming audio, movies etc. and SW updates via internet.) at a very good price ($200)and the few reviews I read were favorable. Also, an error on my travel expenses left me with a credit that removed the guilt of buying another player while waiting for another fix on the PS3.

I'm pretty happy with it but I do have one issue not fixed after performing the software upgrade. Randomly, a BD will start into the movie and there will be no center channel. The rest of the channels sound great but the center is missing.

I finally discovered that resetting the receiver input to the appropriate input for the BD player will bring it back. Therefore, it's not "directly" an issue with the new player but is most likely some sort of HDMI handshaking issue with this particular pairing. Receiver = Denon 3806

I have not experienced this issue ever with my PS3 or Toshiba HD player and I'm currently borrowing the HDMI cable formerly connected to the PS3 so the cable should be good.

Any thoughts out there? I hate to take it back when I'm otherwise satisfied and there is no guarantee another player would not have the same issue. Unlikely, but certainly possible.

Hiya Murph,
Any chance it could be related to power up sequence and timing? If the receiver is on 1st and on the correct input and is ready to receive signal from the player might that help?

Only reason I thought of this is I will sometimes see an HDCP error message on our Pioneer receiver when everything turns on from cold with the Harmony. It hasn't affected anything (no loss of channels or signal), but I only notice it with a certain start-up sequence.

Cheers,

HDMI is convenient for wiring, but man is it a pain. I tried so many things with my system that in theory should all be exactly the same (trying different inputs) but things just worked differently for whatever reason.

I agree with trying to power things on a different order, or perhaps swapping inputs in the receiver for a couple devices. I definately have more HDCP issues with BD than I do/did with my HD DVD player.

Edit: It also could very well be the Denon itself, I'm not sure if that thing has any new firmware or even how easy it is to update. I have a 2310 and notice a couple things that can also be fixed by changing away from that input and then back to the right one, such as the volume overlay on the screen which sometimes won't work (maybe once a month)... Finicky things.

Possible. I haven't programmed a macro for this yet on my Universal Remote but I'll try reversing the order as I am turning the player on first prior to changing inputs because it takes a bit to boot up. Therefore there is a good chance your suggestion is sound, excuse the pun.

An oddity that I forgot to mention is that I do get 5.1 channels showing up on both the input and output visual displays.

Definately sounds like the receiver is the source of the problem, since it receiving the proper signal. Does it happen every time, or just part of the time?

This has nothing to do with your problem but let me know how the 6500 is with standard DVDs. My 1600 has layer break problems and stalls out or skips badly, it also has a hard time with minor scratches on DVD's. It reminds me of my old Sony I swapped out for my HD931 Samsung which has been a workhorse, never any problems.

Didn't get to experiment with it at all last night. Way to warm an evening. We went for a nice long bike ride instead.

OK. I have finally done some testing.

Pausing, right up until the BR player is fully booted before letting the receiver switch to it, does get rid of the initial 'missing center channel' problem. Good Call!

However!!

It can be brought back 100% of the time by using the FFW, RWD, or Skip buttons.