jjarmoc,

you could try using the Elecard "setup" program to temporarily de-register the elecard codec.

I like the summary posted here :) Great job.

Lets not blame Artisan and their 1 tech support dude that is in dire need of xanix for this MS DRM nightmere

"Users with cookies turned off "

Now, excuse me, but wha??! This doesn't have anything to do with a web browser, why do they care? Are they setting some funky cookie tracking our web browsing or something?

Originally posted by Dreamwriter
"Users with cookies turned off "

Now, excuse me, but wha??! This doesn't have anything to do with a web browser, why do they care? Are they setting some funky cookie tracking our web browsing or something?

Dreamwriter,

In developing the user interface and user experience with T2, the team that put this together tried to balance user experience and technical limitations while always protecting the user's privacy.

As you may have seen in Standing in the Shadows of Motown, we used the .hta format which allowed us to communicate with the user's system directly without cookies.

For T2 we used the interActual player which is a customized shell for IE that holds an embedded player object (it is basically a skin on IE with scripting).

Cookies are being used because we have no other way to communicate with the system. We believe that relying on a IE Shell interface, with an embedded WM9 Player, that uses cookies is what is creating many of the problems that are being communicated on this and other boards. We are aiming to get to the point where protected content on a DVD requires as little communication with the user as possible.

We appreciate the passion and the depth of thinking that has happened as part of this thread. We are doing everything possible to ensure future projects take into account all of your very valuable feedback.

-Ezra

Please take one lesson among the many to heart...

Not one single person has expressed anything but disgust at the interactual player... It is quite simply a pig and a detriment to the whole project...

The BMW clips were seamless in thier DRM implementation... A Experience like that and a guarantee that servers will remain operational would be enough to sway me to WMP from DVD MPEG.

I have a Athlon 950 512mb pc133
Geforce 4 ti4600
SB audigy


Its officially time for a new Motherboard, Processor and faster memory. I copied it to my hd because it was choppy (only a 2x dvdrom) When I played it back from the hd it was better but unwatchable. By the way it does work with Windows media center edition. (still choppy as hell, of course) :mad:

I'm playing it back from my HDs (RAID 0) with a P4 2.4 @ 533 fsb and 512 MB PC1066 RDRAM. It's watchable, but there are constant stutters and they're always in the same places.

Just finished watching T2:HD and the pricture quality was truly awesome. Had to transfer the files to my hard drive since the dvdrom was a bit slow. License acquirement was simply and easy.

Did not have any stuttering on my Athlon XP 2500+ Barton @ 2.167 GHz, 512MB HyperX DDR333, and ATi Radeon 7500 64MB on an Asus A78VX-X motherboard.

Originally posted by PillPu$her
I'm playing it back from my HDs (RAID 0) with a P4 2.4 @ 533 fsb and 512 MB PC1066 RDRAM. It's watchable, but there are constant stutters and they're always in the same places.

I have the same processor and the same result. When I overclock it to 2.7G it still runs reliably AND no stutters. It will also run at 2.88G. I have never had a compelling reason to overclock but this is just that. I think that since this is the "low end" of that core you might also have success with overclocking. For me it was defnitely worth the minimal risk. Just make sure that the temperature remains nominal.

Thanks. I appreciate the target frequencies. Unfortunately, I'm using an Intel mobo, which is not overclocking friendly (no fsb controls). I read in this month's ExtremePC about some software overclocking utilities that I may try. The only reason that I am hesitant is that I am running my RAID0 off a PCI card. Without being able to lock the PCI bus, I'm afraid I might screw up my array (including my operating system). If anyone else has tried this or read about it in other forums, I will gladly take any advice. I would really like to be able to show this thing off on my HTPC to my friends but not unless it's flawless. Otherwise, it just makes all of my efforts on an otherwise great HTPC look foolish.

I scanned through this thread and didn't see an answer to this:
Can you get Dolby Digital 5.1 from this disc via coaxial output on a soundcard to a receiver?

Dolby Digital works fine for regular DVD's but the T2 HD DVD only outputs pro logic.

Tim,

You must've missed all the posts on this. The HD WMV file does NOT have a DD encoded soundtrack. Surround sound is only available in the native WMA encoded format, and since no current recievers decode WMA, the only options are stereo over the S/PDIF (which your reciever can convert to PL)or 5.1 surround over the analog outputs. I've got the analog outs from my on-board sound card patched into the 6-channel inputs on my reciever, that way I can at least use my amp & speakers, and it seems to work OK for me.

Originally posted by daredevil23
Did not have any stuttering on my Athlon XP 2500+ Barton @ 2.167 GHz, 512MB HyperX DDR333, and ATi Radeon 7500 64MB on an Asus A78VX-X motherboard.

OK, I was a little disturbed when I read your post. I still can't get mine to play with no stuttering at 2.4 GHz. What OS and sound card are you using? What are you outputting to (monitor, HDTV, projector)? Are you using Powerstrip?

I think XP has too many processes running in the background. Does anyone know a way to turn off the majority of these processes? I tried Ctrl-Alt-Del, but it was too trial and error and caused some problems.

Two new things to report. When I turn off my onboard sound, I get fewer stutters on playback. Also, I haven't had to reregister in two weeks.

Background services in XP can be turned off via START > RUN > services.msc then hit enter. Some trial and error is needed to determine what you what to shut off. A right click on any service then properties and you can restart or disable services. You'll also be prevented from disabling services needed for Windows to boot. Safer then msconfig where you can disabled functions Windows needs to boot.

Originally posted by PillPu$her
OK, I was a little disturbed when I read your post. I still can't get mine to play with no stuttering at 2.4 GHz. What OS and sound card are you using? What are you outputting to (monitor, HDTV, projector)? Are you using Powerstrip?

I think XP has too many processes running in the background. Does anyone know a way to turn off the majority of these processes? I tried Ctrl-Alt-Del, but it was too trial and error and caused some problems.

Two new things to report. When I turn off my onboard sound, I get fewer stutters on playback. Also, I haven't had to reregister in two weeks. I think you might be a little bit confused here, since no 2.4 GHz Athlons are available. I think you have a 2.4 GHz P4 and daredevil23 has an Athlon XP. That's the crucial difference here. There is actually some point behind the rating system. A Barton running at 2.167 GHz would be rated at 3000+.

Yes, I missed that part about the Barton. I don't know AMD specs at all. That would definitely explain the difference in playback quality.

I tried playing T2X on my P4 2.53 desktop running W2K. Video was much smoother with less stutters. The other differences in this system are that my desktop has a sound card (Audigy vs. onboard 2-ch), no powerstrip (CRT 1024*768 vs. HDTV), and a G4 4600Ti with 128 Mbs vs. the AIW 8500DV with 64 Mbs. The CPU and the added video RAM are probably the most important changes, but it obviously made a big difference.

I may try to switch out my cpu's, turn off powerstrip and other system resources, and get an external sound card like the Sonica Theater by M-Audio (mATX--need I say more). If that doesn't do it, you can look for a slightly used P4 2.4B or 2.53B on Ebay. :)

Originally posted by Tedd
Background services in XP can be turned off via START > RUN > services.msc then hit enter. Some trial and error is needed to determine what you what to shut off. A right click on any service then properties and you can restart or disable services. You'll also be prevented from disabling services needed for Windows to boot. Safer then msconfig where you can disabled functions Windows needs to boot.

BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU DISABLE SERVICES!

Some of these services are VITAL for windows to even boot.

I highly recommend to you go there:
http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
(This is a REFERENCE for techies BTW)

If you are not sure, do not turn it off or you might spend a lot of time cleaning up the mistakes...

Arno

Thanks Lee,

I did miss that discussion. Thanks. Why can't microsoft(or Artisan) just add a 5.1 digital track to the dvd???

Tim

Anyone know why when I play WM9 HD clips in 720p my system reboots?

WM9 High Definition Clips can be downloaded here (http://windowsmedia.com/9series/demoCenter/VideoQuality.asp?page=6&lookup=videoQuality) .

I know 1080p clips won't run on my system .. a 720p clip should run at least. I'v updated the video drivers to the latest by nivida.

Here are my specs:
Intel D845GBV Motherboard
Intel P4-2.4GHz - 533MHz FSB
512MB DDR PC2700 Kingston Memory
80GB Seagate Barracuda IV IDE ATA-100/7200RPM Hard Drive
Leadtek WinFast GeForce 4 Ti4200 64MB DDR 4X AGP
Sparkle 350-Watt Power Supply
SoundMax Integrated Digital Audio Sound Card
Intel 10/100 NIC Ethernet Card
Toshiba 16x DVD-ROM

Originally posted by Tedd
Background services in XP can be turned off via START > RUN > services.msc then hit enter. Some trial and error is needed to determine what you what to shut off. A right click on any service then properties and you can restart or disable services. You'll also be prevented from disabling services needed for Windows to boot. Safer then msconfig where you can disabled functions Windows needs to boot.

Or you could try using the EndItAll utility - it's pretty good at identifying what is safe to shut down and what isn't, though you can override its choices if you think you know better. I sometimes run it when doing a capture (if I'm worried about dropping frames), and it closes down 20-odd things - it's amazing how much non-vital stuff runs automatically.

I've got a an XP1.7 the 1080 clip plays fine with no stutters on the other hand on my brothers comp with the same cpu it stutters like crazy ,so CPU speed is certainly not the only culprit for poor playback.

nevermind I fixed it. I updated bios again to a more recent one, updated sound drivers and also changed refresh rate on my LCD from 60Hz to 72Hz.

Watched the HD version yesterday on my PC. I was amazed that it was practically stutter free on my 1700+ with only 256mb ram.. 64mb 4200. cpu usage was averaging at 90%... all my system requirements are about half of what the back of the dvd case says but it works fine so im happy. I do have a Game Theater Xp so i did have the 5.1 output.. which sounded awesome.

Just rub it in, why doncha?!:mad:

1080p is Great!
Well, this was just the excuse I needed to make me finally throw in the towel on my old 866 Mhz P3 that has served me well for a couple years. I decided to build a new HTPC & here is what I ended up building.


P4 3.0 Ghz 800 Mhz FSB
Asus P4P800 Deluxe
2 Kingston 400 Mhz 512 Mb DDR
180 Gb WD
120 Gb Seagate SATA
Sapphire (ATI) 9500 w/ 64 Mb
Audiophile 2496 (from the old HTPC)

I had do struggle with the custom resolution with the Catalyst 3.5 driver to not get a tiled desktop running 1080p but the results of the WMP9 player totally BLOW AWAY the DVD on a 96" wide screen on a NEC XG135LC front CRT projector. The player absolutely sucks but the PQ is to die for. Now we just need more titles :(. I do get fairly long pauses (about a second) on chapter changes and the licensing thing is a PITA but all of this can be worked out in time.

Mike

MikeEby, You aren't using Interactual player are you??? You can do this directly in Media player. You loose the chapter function but the slider still works.

Bear in mind that the slow response and the pauses are not the fault of the player. They are pretty much enherent in the streaming format. So the player is not going to be able to overcome these basic limitations.

The solution for the pausing would be to put this in one gigantic file but windows files system have a file size limit of 2G or 4G so that won't work either.

Originally posted by IUnknown
MikeEby, You aren't using Interactual player are you??? You can do this directly in Media player. You loose the chapter function but the slider still works.

Bear in mind that the slow response and the pauses are not the fault of the player. They are pretty much enherent in the streaming format. So the player is not going to be able to overcome these basic limitations.

The solution for the pausing would be to put this in one gigantic file but windows files system have a file size limit of 2G or 4G so that won't work either.

No I am not using the Interactural player... The damm thing can't handle 1920 X 1080p @ true color. When I start it I get an error message the resolution and or color density it too high, Go figure.... Anyway its not ready for prime time yet but the technology shows promise.

Originally posted by IUnknown
The solution for the pausing would be to put this in one gigantic file but windows files system have a file size limit of 2G or 4G so that won't work either.

That was true with Windows 98 but is not the case with Windows 2000/XP.
I can have 10GB files with no problems.

Arno

So is it possible to join WMP videos into one large file under XP, or is there a limitation in the player itself?

You could join the files if you could edit and merge the data without running into the copy protection. I don't have the disc here, but you can always try:
copy /b file1.wmv + file2.wmv + ... + filen.wmv outfile.wmv
just entering the names of each file with a + and join them - I would try the first 2 and see if it blows up first. You should be able to copy them from the DVD to your hd this way (that would be quicker).

Oh, and I can get it playing, but this system is too slow to be watchable (1.1a GHz Tualatin-256 Celeron at 1.47GHz/133 with 512MB RAM).
I got the 1440x816 cropped anamorphic clip from the ms website to play in Zoom at about 21fps though (using custom aspect ratio setting) on my 1280x720 desktop.

I always thought that FAT32 limit files to 4gig and that NTFS will do larger files.

I had to o/c my 2.4C to 3GHz, but ran fine (no problems) after I did that. Clarity is superior to other DVDs in my collection, but I really hate the sound quality from the interactual player. No S/P DIF meant external decoder and poor bass response

Originally posted by pederb
I always thought that FAT32 limit files to 4gig and that NTFS will do larger files.

That is correct. So you can only create one huge file if you are using NT/2000/XP with a NTFS file system. I also think the original AVI spec didn't allow more that a 2GB file no matter what operating system. This might of been 4GB. I guess these limitations were removing with WMA files.

More out of curiosity than anything else I bought the T2 Extreme package and had no problem playing the high-def movie using Interactual player, but I get too many dropped frames. My machine is a P4-2.4GHz w/512MB RAM & Radeon 7500. I didn't get much better results with Media Player.

So I downloaded some of those high-res clips from the Microsoft site, and noticed that they WAAAY better from Zoomplayer. The difference is dramatic! Clips that were chopper on WM9 are butter smooth on ZP.

How do you play the T2 HD-DVD using Zoomplayer?

hey guys i appreciate what you guys have done to make playing this title that much easier. unfortunately all of a sudden i am unable to get a license. when i run dvdrun.exe a message pops up saying i need an internet connection and ie 5.0 or higher both of which i have not sure what to do the help page for this release mentions the error 4.01 or above but everything in the registry is as it should any ideas?

Yes, I was also getting some weird script errors on thursday getting a license from DVDRUN. After 3 tried it worked fine.

Zoom player is NOT faster then WM9 when all is fair. WM9 player is using post processing (tools->options) to "smooth" the image.

If you turn that off you should use 10-20% less CPU time,

I think you need 2.7ghz and fast (400mhz) ram. I was playing with overclocking my 2.4 and at 2.6ghz (385mhz ram) I was dropping some frames, but at 2.7 and 400mhz I don't drop any (except at chapter end points),

At 2.8ghz I could play it off the DVD but my system is not stable. Even in DMA mode the DVD drive still sucks CPU cycles.

Oh, upon closer examination of this thread, I see that ZP cannot play the files because it doesn't have DRM functionality built into it.

In that case, how does one hack this thing to get around DRM completely? IA and WMP9 do not provide smooth playback but ZP does. I'd like to copy the files to the hard drive, strip out the DRM stuff completely, and just burn a new DVD that will actually work properly.

Teacher, Teacher, Mr. Baxtoer is being a BAAAAAD BOY!

Darius

unfortunately it's been 2 days i've been getting the error must have internet connection and ie 5.0 and above cna't be my system since nothing has changed

Tools ->Options ->Performance

TUrn off video smoothing

This will be as fast as zoomplayer.

i don't understand when people say that you need almost 3ghz to play this kind of file

the extreme HDTV wmv edition plays perfectly on my computer..
going to post the setup maybe there is something magic in my computer

asus a7n8x Nforce 2
Radeon 9500 ( OC to 9700 pro 128mb)
512 ddr400 corsair 2-2-2
AMD ahtlon XP 2100 @ 1750ghz
WAveterminal 192l sound card
mmm don't remmeber brand 40gig hd
dvd rom from lg i think
that's about it!

and it plays perfectly.no dropping, no jerking ..i even run a few small apps in the background at same time ( prolly takes about 5% cpu )



anyone found a way to remove DRM stuff off the WMV files?
i searched on the internet, only found to remove WMA licenses stuff..

JinMTVT

What program did you use for the playback? I have just about the same system you have and may try the DVD after all. Did you try any of the Windows high-rez clips. I am able to get Coral Reef to play perfect with BSPlayer and WMP9, but with Zoomplayer it stutters.

JinMTV -

To be honest, I just dont' believe you are not overclocking the **** out of that CPU of yours :) Seriously, it is not watchable on my friends Barton core AMD and is barely watchable on my P4-2.7/1GB RAM/400mhz RAM

There is no way to remove the DRM. IMHO breaking it will be nearly imposible, and once someone does, MS just upgrades the DRm and the cycle starts all over again. There are layers and layers to the DRM and alot of it is intergrated into windows. Hence, to break DRM it sounds like you would have to break ALOT of windows itself

i am not ocin my cpu at all..
i have all the misery to keep it cool at this speed without the use of a high noise fan..there wouln't be any point in getting more noise for 5-10% power increse here..

welli've played all th 720 and 1080 clips from WMP9 stuff on the web..inside WMP an all of them plays perfectly

i can also play a few HTDV captures ( 720p? ) HDTV trailers that i've dlded from here this winter

extreme dvd works flawlessly on wmp at 1600 1200

maybe your friends with barton core don't have their computer running straight!i odn't know ..
what i know is that it plays smooth on my computer! and i'm happy with tha :p ahhaah

i couldn't try T2 HDTV in ZP because of the licenseing issue..
but coral reef plays good in ZP without having changed any WMV codecs settings or additional filters..

Which chipset do you have?

You can play T2 insude of WM9 player just fine. It will get the license for you.

Originally posted by sjchmura
Tools ->Options ->Performance

TUrn off video smoothing

This will be as fast as zoomplayer.

I don't see this in my WMP9. Is Video Smooting called something else, or do you have another version of WMP?

yes it gets the license for T2 from interactual player..then i just drag the wmv files in WMP , i don't start the dvd from wmp actually

chipset is the Nforce 2 on the asus a7n8x
nothing special

Tools->Options->Peroformance->Advanced

uncheck "use video smoothing"

It is there. This is the release WM9. You can also turn this on and off in the registry (do a search) to enable it for Zoomplayer

Originally posted by sjchmura
Tools->Options->Peroformance->Advanced

uncheck "use video smoothing"

It is there. This is the release WM9. You can also turn this on and off in the registry (do a search) to enable it for Zoomplayer

By following your thread, I get these options:
Digital Video: Small -> Large
Video Acceleration:
Use Video Mixing Renderer (check)
Use Overlays (check)
Legacy Video Renderer:
Use YUV flipping (check)
Use RGB flipping (check)
Use Primary Surfaces (check)

What am I doing wrong?

Let me go out on a limb here and praise Microsoft/Artisan/THX for a amazing piece of software compression, I never imagined that a 2 hour long movie in 1920x1080 progressive could fit into 6.5 GB and still look this good. I say well done.

On a 3 GHZ machine I ran smooth, no problems. Even with a less than optimal display, a 17 in 1280x1024 LCD display it looked real good. Noticeably better than the DVD version,

I agree with most of the other posters that the IA player is a POS. And there is obviously some work to do on DRM and DD encoded sound. But overall I am impressed.

well day 4 of stupid error needing an internet connection and ie 5.0 or higher if anyone has any suggestions they would be greatly appreciated

the only thing that would make it better is to find a way to remove the stupid DRM stuff from the files..ehehe
then we could be running the file from any player :)

Originally posted by sjchmura
There is no way to remove the DRM. IMHO breaking it will be nearly imposible, and once someone does, MS just upgrades the DRm and the cycle starts all over again. There are layers and layers to the DRM and alot of it is intergrated into windows. Hence, to break DRM it sounds like you would have to break ALOT of windows itself

Let's hope you're wrong, cause there is no way in hell I'm going to watch movies with Media Player.

I don't mind paying for movies at all, but I want to be able to play them using the best software available.

You know, the funny thing about this DRM stuff, is I don't really understand why they even needed it in the first place. It's not like DVD's became a non-viable format when DSS was cracked. The licensing model used for DVD's was working just fine. DVD's continue to make ****loads of money! What's the big deal?

If they just sold movies in WMP9 on a double-layered DVD with no special encryption/licensing, they would still make boatloads of money. Most people would rather just pay the $20 rather than go to the trouble of pirating their own copy of a movie. Most people prefer to have the nice movie case, they want to have a properly ink-stamped disc, they don't want to waste hours making their own.

DRM is unneccesary.

Mbaxter

DRM is here to stay. Get used to it. I have come to the same conclusion. I think what we need to do is pressure MS to allow 3rd parties to access the DRM and not just the IA Player.

iTUNES DRM will be broken in 5 minutes once it is released on Windows - or so I have been told. SO far no one has broken the DRM for MS and, from what Iunderstand, it will be nearly impossible to break the DRM and NOT break the OS.

DRM if it works well is a good thing. It can be painless or painful. The Shadows in mowtown is painless. YOu get the license once and can play it back in MyHTPC or zoomplayer or whatever. This is farmore painful

PillPisher: Are you using WM9 for XP???? I dunno - I have it on mine

As many problems as there are here I'm not sure the M$ DRM in its current form will ever get popular enough that anyone bothers to hack it. I get the impression that Microsoft and the Hollywood companies are not exactly workiing together happily to make any of this easy.

But nobody works very hard to hack a format that no one uses anyway. I likely won't buy anymore M$ HD-DVD's until I start hearing more stories of them working easily and repeatedly on the first try.

- Tom

Tom i personally iddn't have any problems at all playing the files with MP ..

the problem is that it is not really FUN
if someone wants to watch this portion of the DVD and is not connected to the internet what happens then ?

Will it be the same for all other HDTV DVD WMP9?
i hope that someone has the patience and power to crack this POS off.
as mbaxter said, i paid for the disc, now i want to play it where and how i want . :p

I'm in Australia.
Getting a licence for Shadows of Motown was painless.
And so it should be, I paid good money for it.
T2 is another matter.
Some European membeers have been able to simply enter a Proxy for T2 and it worked. Well, not for me. I have truly tried.I paid good money for it and to limit a movie to the US is absurd. The pc format is universal, so should the wm9 file.
Anyway, anyone know of a way around all this?
Note: the usual proxy fix does not work, it knows I'm using an anonymous proxy server and politely declines from doing any more.
F**** microsoft, Artisan, Interactual etc.
I know nth american users don't care about this but the rest of the world does not want to be excluded of HD. We have HD in Australia, so why shouldn't we get the access? Why does it have to be Nth Am all the time?

moggy

I'm still waiting to get it, shipped six weeks ago from Deep Discount DVD and has not been seen since. They will not answer any of my emails. Looks like better asking for a refund huh Moggy... Not happy JAN....

You sad, sad, aussies (lotsa bigoted thing I could say about your history), and nowadays, you have Howard, Telsra, and is quite a few thousand miles away from the nearest place that mostly speaks english. (New Zealand doesn't count...we found traces of sheep dna in the people).

In seriousness, you have to find an *unpublicised* proxie server as that Artisan makes an effort to find proxies and deny requests from them. Best to find something academic or big business related hint, hint, know some good geek in the US...

Darius

No, not sad at all. Much better off, overall.
I have my offair HD, any region DVDs and R1 D-VHS HD movies with my Sony1292.
Howard is a definite minus though. Conservative a***hole he is.
You didn't say where your opinion was coming from in this wide world.
I notice that most americans don't bother putting their location in the heading, nowhere else but the US I guess, is there? .

In seriousness, thanks. I sort of guessed that I would have to do something like that. It won't be easy. Ideally I'd like to have a pay as you go diallup based in the US. International calls for a few minutes is ok.
It all gets too hard. I'll try to find an unused proxy, but in the end I have no problem in telling Mr Gates to bugger off and just forget the whole wm9 thing.

Cheers and salutations
Moggy
p.s. The D-VHS T2 is the worst pix quality of all my D-Theater tapes.
The sound is abysmal.
It would be nice to see a better picture version.

I was lucky enough to be able to aquire the licence first time from Australia, but I cheated and used one of the US proxies of my employer.

The only problem I had was that WMP9 kept crashing on me every 20 mins or so, did anyone else have this problem?

Although it is a great effort to get a HD movie onto one DVD, I didn;t think that the picture quality was as good as some of the other HD I have seen.

Regards

John

Moggy,

Most americans really like Aus right now. You are one of the few countries that does not hate us so that makes you an ally.

:)

Yeah, the region thing is painful. Supposedly if you call Artisan adnsay you bought it IN THE STATES on vacation, went home and it won't play they will give you a license

Sorry kinda OT.... I received a replacement Keepcase (whatever) free from Artisan yesterday. The original was ripped to he** by trying to remove the sheet metal outer case. Forget where I read about the replacements, but it worked for me.

BTW; last night when I tried to watch T2 it needed a refresh, but it got the license first try, no problem. Seems it runs for 5 days? Thank God, Standing in the Shadows is still happy with the first one. And still wondering when / if the BMW ad's will self distruct? My thinks, one has to wonder about all this....... none the less it's still fun, I guess.

Take care......

well i'm still getting that stupid error with dvdrun which makes it impossible to get the license. don't know how they could sell a product that is such a hassel

Sp|ke
Have you tried this?
Some Troubleshooting Tips
====================

For issues with the InterActual player, you can start by looking at their support site. They also have a customized FAQ for T2 up now with lots of helpful information.

General support: http://support.interactual.com/

T2 FAQ: http://player.interactual.com/help/...ticles/0134.asp

Workaround to acquire licenses
=======================

We have noticed a number posts on licensing issues and workarounds to acquire a license and/or play the movie from the Windows Media Player. Below is a description of a direct way to acquire a license from a command prompt and play content from the Media Player. Note, as already posted WM9S player is required, and chapter seek does not function in WM9S Player. Interactual implemented this and other functionality.

a. From a command prompt (Start…Run…"cmd"), navigate to the DVD drive root.

b. Run the DVDRUN.EXE program (type DVDRUN.EXE and hit enter). The program should exit silently if successful, or display an error dialog if a problem was encountered. For instance, if the PC is not connected to the internet, a dialog will display saying that an internet connection is required.

c. Once DVDRUN has finished, start Windows Media Player 9 Series. Do a File…Open, and navigate to the folder on the DVD that contains the WMV files: \common\win\lang\en\t2x\esource. To play the entire film, simply open the CHAP_0.ASX file. You can also open the WMV files individually.

d. The license acquisition window will come up and a EULA will appear the first time through. Once you agree to the EULA, a license will be delivered. Press the play button to start the movie.

Just as with the InterActual Player, you will need to acquire new licenses, using this method from the DVD, every 5 days.

Regards,
Patrick

have you tried these Sp|ke?

Some Troubleshooting Tips
====================

For issues with the InterActual player, you can start by looking at their support site. They also have a customized FAQ for T2 up now with lots of helpful information.

General support: http://support.interactual.com/

T2 FAQ: http://player.interactual.com/help/...ticles/0134.asp

Workaround to acquire licenses
=======================

We have noticed a number posts on licensing issues and workarounds to acquire a license and/or play the movie from the Windows Media Player. Below is a description of a direct way to acquire a license from a command prompt and play content from the Media Player. Note, as already posted WM9S player is required, and chapter seek does not function in WM9S Player. Interactual implemented this and other functionality.

a. From a command prompt (Start…Run…"cmd"), navigate to the DVD drive root.

b. Run the DVDRUN.EXE program (type DVDRUN.EXE and hit enter). The program should exit silently if successful, or display an error dialog if a problem was encountered. For instance, if the PC is not connected to the internet, a dialog will display saying that an internet connection is required.

c. Once DVDRUN has finished, start Windows Media Player 9 Series. Do a File…Open, and navigate to the folder on the DVD that contains the WMV files: \common\win\lang\en\t2x\esource. To play the entire film, simply open the CHAP_0.ASX file. You can also open the WMV files individually.

d. The license acquisition window will come up and a EULA will appear the first time through. Once you agree to the EULA, a license will be delivered. Press the play button to start the movie.

Just as with the InterActual Player, you will need to acquire new licenses, using this method from the DVD, every 5 days.

Hi moggy & smallville!

You both have pm!

Best Regards,
KBDVD.

course i tried those that's how i got the license originally but now i get the error running dvdrun.exe nothing in my computer changed these suggestions were offered from interactual technologies

Please note that if you are on a network where your computer's identity
cannot be confirmed by the license site, then this content will not work.
The error may occur if the license site is unable to determine that you have
the original T2 disc in your drive (this is one of the checks it performs
when granting a license to you).
If your computer is not on a network like that, you could try resetting your
Internet Explorer security options to "Default" by clicking the "Default"
button found under the Security and Privacy tabs in your Internet Options
panel, and see if that allows the authentication to proceed. If you still
have problems, you may need to temporarily enable DMZ Host on your router's
administration screen, which will forward all of your system's ports outside
of the router's control.

my computer is not on a network and i'm not using a router :o\

Echt?!? I just arrived home from holidays in US and bought the T2 HD DVD and it says I can't view it because I am outside of the US and Canada!?!

My friend said I can come here to get help? Can someone help me?

Sp|ke

Have you tried following the security update screen that comes up automatically to renew the license first vs. running dvdrun.exe?

Either way, the info below should help resolve the issue.
Note - The licensing will not work for:

Users from Anonymous Proxy Server
Users with IP addresses from Outside the US & Canada
Users without a valid DVD in the Drive
Users without Windows Media 9 Player
Users from Proxy Servers from Outsite the US & Canada
Users with cookies turned off
Users who decline the EULA
Users who have rolled back their system clocks
Users who have a system clock that is off more than 7 days from today’s date and time
Users must have access rights to change your registry settings.


If none of the above are issues, then I suggest the following:

Delete the registry key for dvdrun.exe to force dvdrun to execute:
- Run regedit.exe (Start->Run. Type regedit.exe and hit enter)
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE->Software->Artisan
- Delete the entire T2 Key.

This will force your system to go fetch a license.

P-

Sorry, but this has probably been answered before.

Can I let a friend borrow the T2 HD disk without any problems.

Thanks.

hey pats12 not sure what you mean by the security update but everything else is as it should i've tried all the suggestions on the board and since i was able to get the license twice and nothing has changed on my system i'm not sure what the prob could be. i live in a region1 area not using a proxy, clock is accurate etc.

just so people know exactlly what i get here's a pic

hey Spike.
You sure are having some abnormal issues while playing back from the CD.

The security check is the little window that is displayed when the 5 day license is expired. Did you follow those instructions when prompted?

Maybe a reboot is in order...

i don't remember any security check the only thing that pops up when trying to play the files is the license aquisition screen asking me to insert dvd

what happens when you insert the CD and the license acquisition process occurs?

uh when you insert the dvd it asks if you want to install interactual dvd player and once you do that the dvd plays you only get to the license part when you select the high definition part and after that the little error box pops up and you get the insert dvd message

I've been going through this thread and there really isn't any consensus on what exactly is the system requirement to playback HD-WMV. I have tested the Coral 1080p sample clip on three 3GHz P4 systems of different configurations and none of them can playback smoothly. I believe there's more to it than just CPU clock speed though I have not been able to figure out yet. It seems to have something to do with the performance of the audio subsystem.

I do wish people would stop refering to T2 Extreme as having an output pixel size of 1920w x 1080h. It does'nt. It's output pixel size is infact 1440w x 816h!

And don't forget out of that you only see around 616 vertical pixels worth of image, as the remainder is matte.

Details, details!

The image still looks 'painfully' good though!

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
And don't forget out of that you only see around 616 vertical pixels worth of image, as the remainder is matte.

I wish you know you are wrong!

regards,

Li On

"Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
And don't forget out of that you only see around 616 vertical pixels worth of image, as the remainder is matte"

yes, that is wrong.

Nich

OK you guys. Why am I wrong?

Are you saying that all the 816 vertical pixels are image!

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
OK you guys. Why am I wrong?

Are you saying that all the 816 vertical pixels are image!
816 lines is 1080 in 2.35.
WMP adds the black bars, so it's definitely like if it was 1080p including black bars !

Thanks for confiming that.

I had assumed that M$ had cheated and included mattes within the 16:9 (1.77:1) source image area. Hence the 1440 pixel width and not 1920!

I purchased the DVD while I was over in the states on business. While staying at a friends house I (or should I say we) were able to view the HD content his progressive scan 43" plasma monitor. Absolutely amazing quality images - Gob-smacking as some of us say in the UK!

However back in the UK, I have been more than a little disappointed that it's not a straight forward proceedure to watch the disc. So I downloaded the HD trailer a few mins ago to remind myself just how good the image quality was.

I then ran the file thru' M$ Media Stream Editior to see if I could separate the audio from the video streams. It worked with no problems at all.

I wonder is it possible to do this with the main movie if you have a licence?

Are you saying that all the 816 vertical pixels are image!

Yes, the black bars are not encoded. it is also non-square pixel.

To see full vertical resolution on a 16x9 display you must run at 1920 x 1080, to see full vertical resolution on 4x3 display you must run at 1920 x 1440.

If you are running at a lower resolution, you are scaling down and todays video cards are not using enough taps to get the best possible image. (Up until know all of their efforts have been in scaling up, which requires a lot less taps.)

Hey Sp|ke,
Sounds like your experiencing a symptom some others have come across. The reason for the message is that the DVDRUN.EXE has not finished running. This error will show up if the, "Continue" button is pressed very quickly after the T2 requirements page comes up, or if there was a problem connecting to the license server.
What to do? - Go back to the main menu and step thru the requirements page one more time. I'd say wait 30 seconds before hitting the continue button. That should fix it.

the message pops up before hitting continue and no even if i try and click dvdrun.exe it does finish running

Sp|ke,
this is odd.

did you try the fixes from my earlier posting?

i've been reading this board since the first post so yes i have tried every suggestion posted

Sp|ke.
Did you copy the files to your hard drive?

i'm using the ones on the disc

I tried playing this the other night and it played fine. The only problem though was that I had no dialogue! Effects and music played but no dialogue. What could that be? Brian

Are there any new WMV clips with higher bitrates? ANYTHING new? I just moved, just wondering :)

Originally posted by usabrian
I tried playing this the other night and it played fine. The only problem though was that I had no dialogue! Effects and music played but no dialogue. What could that be? Brian

Digital out? Won't work. You need to use analog speaker outs.

This plays perfectly on my xp2000 system w/64 mb Radeon 9000. Too bad I can only extract surround with my setup.

Is there any trick to copying the file onto the hard drive? I tried it the other day, and I kept getting an error about half way through, though I can't remember what the error was, I'll try it again today. I was just using Windows Explorer to do the copy. Any other advise?

Regards

John

You have to use DVD ripping software like DVD Decrypter to copy to hard drive. DVD files are encrypted, simple file copying won't work.

My system config:

Athlon XP 2000+ (1667mhz)
Abit NV7m NVIDIA NForce 420-D motherboard
GeForce4 Ti4200 128M (AGP 4x variant)
266mhz front-side-bus (133mhz DDR)
2x PC2100 DDR 256M (512M total)
2x Samsung SpinPoint P40 80G 7200rpm IDE HDD (RAID0; 160G total)
Windows XP Professional, SP1, Windows Media Player 9

I can't comment on the DVD (don't own it), but the sample from the website e (same resolution as the DVD) plays fine with no skips. CPU usage ranges from 60% to 95%.

Is this scene just particularly easy on CPU usage or are the hardware requirements overstated?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he was refering to the WM9 files, not the VOBs. It's possible you're hitting the 2GB/4GB wall. Convert to at least FAT32 or NTFS file systems.

Originally posted by ThumperBoy
You have to use DVD ripping software like DVD Decrypter to copy to hard drive. DVD files are encrypted, simple file copying won't work.

Originally posted by lmychajluk
Digital out? Won't work. You need to use analog speaker outs.

Incorrect information.
The audio is multi-channel WMP, and to properly mix down to 2-channel for SP/DIF passthru, you must set your Windows speaker configuration to "2 speakers"...this is why you have no center channel.

I'm using an M-Audio DeltaDio 2496 card via optical output to my pre-pro & this configuration works fine.

I thought he meant you probably had to use analog out to get all 5.1 sound channels.

- Tom

well i've did some experimenting and tried putting in an anonymous proxy to see if i still get the same prob. and i get the message about me running an anon proxy which means that the process at least gets to the point in checking the internet connection and in acknowledged that i was connected. now if anyone has a working non anon us/canada proxy i would love to test it to see if that works....

Suppsoedly even the NFORCE boards are not encoding the 5.1 to DD correctly under WM9. I am sure this is a MS/NVIDIA issue that can be fixed (*I thgouth the NFORCE just took the DS Out and converted all 6 channels) but I guess it is more complex then that.

Anyone know what a CSS error is and how to fix when trying to use the InterActual Player??

kbdvd thanks for your pm's appreciate it. Finally got it today five weeks later after ordering - amazing huh...

Can't get it to acquire a license tried everything it mentionds here, including dvdrun and deleting the registry key etc etc.

Just sits there and says acquiring license - nothing happens...

any way to get this thing to play without acquiring a license. Tried to copy files to HD but no good... WM9 opens and still tries to acquire a license.

Originally posted by smallville
Anyone know what a CSS error is and how to fix when trying to use the InterActual Player??

This looks like Region Coding error. Change your drive with Region Killer to R1 and the error should disappear.

Tomas

Originally posted by smallville
Anyone know what a CSS error is and how to fix when trying to use the InterActual Player??

I got rid of this by deleting some of the other DVD programs on my computer. It has to do with the encryption.

Remember, you can manually click on the "dvdrun.exe" file in the home directory on the DVD, that is one way to aquire the license without using the IA player.

I have just watched T2 Extreme HD DVD w/ WM9. I can not tell much of a difference from watching the regular T2 Extreme DVD using TheaterTek w/FFDSHOW enabled. There is no difference and really see no reason to get on the bandwagon with HD DVD. I would consider HD DVD when you do not need a license or software decoding to playback the file. It should definitely utilize some common hardware codec to playback the file (ie. MyHD, ATI Radeon 9xxx, etc).

Originally posted by edrossy
I have just watched T2 Extreme HD DVD w/ WM9. I can not tell much of a difference from watching the regular T2 Extreme DVD using TheaterTek w/FFDSHOW enabled. There is no difference and really see no reason to get on the bandwagon with HD DVD. I would consider HD DVD when you do not need a license or software decoding to playback the file. It should definitely utilize some common hardware codec to playback the file (ie. MyHD, ATI Radeon 9xxx, etc).

What projector are you using?

jim

Originally posted by Ebola_4_U
What projector are you using?

jim


I am using Sanyo PLV60HT @ 1365x768 w/ 92in DIY Screen

I guess it is very subjective if you can see the detail difference or not. Myself, I can see a "big" difference in detail level (more pixels in the original picture) between the Terminator HD trailer and the DVD, but I guess not everyone is able to tell the difference.

jim

Ya the DVD is much blurier then the WMV9 encoded version... it's obvious lol... in some scenes its TOTALLY blown away almost like satellite feed (well almost) but... thats just some scenes... (like the snake/cobra fence scene, the sprinkling water and john's neighbourghood, when arnold drives that car, etc...). I want to see some other movies in wmv9 though .. :/ Or higher bitrate T3 o_O

well just for run i decided to put in my standing in the shadows of motown dvd to see if i can get the license for that and guess what.. I could. I don't know what that tells me but it tells me something aint right ;o)

I don't understand what the problem is :X I did it with SUCH ease.

I installed that played and got license then uninstalled.

In WMV however, you could run that dvdrun.exe or whatever and then run wmv with the file and itll let u accept license (otherwise the button is greyed out or something i forget been a while since i did it).

This is in regards to Terminator. Even though it's this easy... I still don't want this wacky 'security' because its just blah.. having to download a license non-stop ... especially if its an HTPC rig with no internet access.

heh believe me i know how 'easy" it is i have had the license before just the past month i've been unable to get it

I posted this question before, but unfortunately did not get an answer.

Once you've transfered the WMV9 files to your hard disk. And then assuming you have a valid license to play back the movie.

Is it then possible to use M$'s Media Stream Editor to create separate audio & video streams?

I managed to do it with the HD trailer on M$ web site but of course this clip does not have protection.

Well, that would be illegal. In fact, I am note sure if telling you how to do it (if you could) is illegal under the DCMA.

MS would frown upon that alot I think. This has been discussed on the MS devlopers forum.

Originally posted by ThumperBoy
You have to use DVD ripping software like DVD Decrypter to copy to hard drive. DVD files are encrypted, simple file copying won't work.

I copied the files across to the hard drive.
I opened the files through WMP9 and it plays back perfectly.
You still get a few seconds of black between files.
The next time I powered up the PC and opened WMP9, T2 HD was listed at the top left corner of the black WMP9 screen, I hit play and of it went like a charm.
I copied the files across last Mon so it will be interesting to see if it still plays at the weekend.

tried the same thing RTFM but WMP9 just sits there when I try to open the file and says acquiring license. Did you copy the WMV files?

smallville, I copied all the files, I think there were 15 altogether, and saved them in 'My Documents'
I then opened WMP9 and from 'file' I think I selected the one called common and then kept clicking on the icon which had the big file (6.9 GB?) each time and eventually all the files popped up and I clicked on one and it started playing much to my surprise as I'm not too clued up on PCs. I guess I just got lucky.
It's 1.40 am so I will check it again tomorrow and give a more detailed account of what I did if I can remember.

WM9 won't get the license. The standard WM9 workaround calls for you running (double click) on dvdrun.exe. You may have to double click the one on the DVD.

NOTE: This post has to occur on every page of the overall post....it was on the last page but not this one.

I've tried running DVDRun as instructed seems to make no difference.....must be doing something wrong.

RTFM,

RTFM - chap-0.asx :)

But there is no manual :p

Go to "run" type cmd, dos prompt showes up type your dvd location
( ):\dvdrun hit enter. Now it should work, atleast mine is.

When I'm playing T2 via WMP9 off the hard drive, it says in the black bar below the screen:
Playing 6790k bits/sec
Protected Content
Clip:Terminator 2 Judgement Day
Copyright 1991

This is when playing the whole film, not the website clips.
Today is the 5th day so tomorrow will be judgement day to see if it keeps playing without renewing the licence.

well i've been in contact with interactual, artisan and my isp my issues seem unique and unsolvable. I even made an iso of it and mounted it to see if was the actual disc that was causing problems but it wasn't.

Well, I guess deep down I knew this was coming. Even running off the hard disc, after five days it's asked to me to aquire a licence and guess what, it says aquiring licence and it just hangs. Oh well after 5 days of T2, I think I've seen enough.
I've passed the 2 disc set onto a friend. Maybe I should have passed it onto someone I don't like!

Originally posted by RTFM
Well, I guess deep down I knew this was coming. Even running off the hard disc, after five days it's asked to me to aquire a licence and guess what, it says aquiring licence and it just hangs.

Have you inserted the actual DVD? Without that you cannot acquire the license even though you have the files copied on the harddrive. I have got the license already four times without any major problem (and I am from Europe).

Tomas

i'd like to know what proxy you're using since your in england and they don't allow anonymous proxies i'd like to see i can get the license using it. bare in mind i'm even in canada lol

Originally posted by ^Sp|ke^
i'd like to know what proxy you're using since your in england and they don't allow anonymous proxies i'd like to see i can get the license using it. bare in mind i'm even in canada lol

I'll PM you the proxy server I used

heh thanks but that's a no go i'm about to give up lol

Can someone please PM me a proxy server that actually works..! Thanks

Yahoo!! After spending many hours getting this b*&$ard to work, I finally got it going...

Basically, you need to find a US public proxy server that ain't blacklisted. After stumbling around for a while, I found an app specifically written for this task. Its called SurfNOW and it downloads a list from google of publically available proxy servers..

http://www.loomsoft.com/download/download.php?id=1

Download the app, install it, and after a few minutes, you'll get a list of available proxies. Select one, use it, and try loading the .asx file in WMP9, it'll go off and grab a licence. If it stalls, or doesn't load after a while, try the next proxy server on the list. Keep trying until you find one that works. I think it took me about 4 goes and I eventually got it..

Thank f%*k for that... Only reason I bought the EE dvd was to get the HD ver.. Yay!

The powers that be are monitoring this forum and getting programs/proxies from ehre to block. Now you can only watch it for 5 days. After that it expires

I am curious as to why Media Player does not allow me to watch in fullscreen mode. It tries to do fullscreen and then it returns to skin mode. Any ideas, or do I have to installed the dreaded InterActual player?

Daredevil23, the cursor/pointer/arrow whatever has to be in the picture area for the skin mode to disappear

Daredevil23, the cursor/pointer/arrow whatever has to be in the picture area for the skin mode to disappear

s

I would use the ATI component adaptor to the HDTV component input on your Mits TV. Then I would use Karnis' ATI timings for the 1776*1000i resolution. This gives me the best picture quality with the least amount of overscan on my Mits 16x9. Most other resolutions using the ATI adaptor result in a virtual (or scrolling) desktop. Enjoy.

Ya I do 1776x1000 interlaced too ('optimized 1080i hah..'), maybe some day ATI will be more kind to it's customers and allow custom timings.. none the less looks kinda nice :)

There is a fuss going on in slashdot saying somp'm about a hole in thr drm...but more fuss about the rediculous and pathetic buy.com music service and M$'s role in it

Darius

Originally posted by shah8
There is a fuss going on in slashdot saying somp'm about a hole in thr drm...but more fuss about the rediculous and pathetic buy.com music service and M$'s role in it

Darius

I think I catch your drift

well i readabout this crackin drm which involves you opening the file in graphedit which would be nice if it actually would open the files. I don't know about the audio files but none of the drm video files like t2 or shadows of motown would load

In WMP9 how do you get to full screen mode without anything else? alt-enter will take the widescreen out to full size, but you still have the silver frame from wmp at top and bottom. Nothing that I can find takes out the menu bar and the silver stuff at the same time. Any clues? (I know I can blank it out on the pj but would like to avoid that.

Secondly, I see quite a difference in PQ between WMP9 and WinDVD Platinum playing the same T2 files. WinDVD is considerably softer than WMP9, but I've never seen that mentioned here. Do I have something set incorrectly? Using software decode and default settings.

--Bill

Bill, that normally goes away but the mouse pointer must be within the picture area.

Jeff

Originally posted by bblue
In WMP9 how do you get to full screen mode without anything else? alt-enter will take the widescreen out to full size, but you still have the silver frame from wmp at top and bottom. Nothing that I can find takes out the menu bar and the silver stuff at the same time. Any clues? (I know I can blank it out on the pj but would like to avoid that.

Go into Tools/Options/Performance/Advanced and toggle off Full Screen Controls

Jeff, you know, I've seen it go away once or twice but could never figure out why. And of course just touching the mouse brings it back and with the timeout (apparently) so long I never figured that out.

Jim, boy they couldn't have buried that any better if they tried. Yeah, I guess wanting a clean screen is an advanced option-- right. Sheesh.

Thanks for the responses.

--Bill

Ok,

SO I finally get around to trying to watch T2 HD and guess what....it sits on the Windows Media Player Update grey box that says "Upgrading" (after I clicked begin upgrade."

What is with all of these issues??

Can someone please help me out? I have tried getting this to work for about 3 hours now.

I am in Dallas, TX so I do not know what the hell the problem is.

Originally posted by tj21
So when will the T2 be released in the movie theaters in Europe? Or wait, that has already happened 12 years ago. And when will we see "staggered" T2 HD DVD European release? This does not make any sense to me.

Tomas

Cinema release staggering is only one part of the story.
Region coding also exists because of different organizations around the world owning the distribution rights for that country.
So to please their distributors the film houses decided to annoy every single consumer.

Originally posted by mikey p
KBDVD.... Right on, as we say here state side, and BTW; I have had trouble with the MS demo disc and T2, hell I live here, this is non sense!

Thanks for clearing me up on the number to times this title had been released, I only have one other, the last DVD version, I guess you could buy the D-Theater tape copy and view it in HD, but wonder what the law is on you (for example) buying a JVC 30K and a tape copy of the subject title, all very interesting.
mikey

I thoroughly agree with kbdvd.
I also have to live with this region coding nonsense.
Almost every single DVD player sold in Australia is de-region coded. I don't know of any that aren't. With Australia about to sign a free trade agreement with US, I wonder if it will include region coding dismantling? I'm not holding my breath.
Re 30k:
I imported a JVC 30k and have currently about 20 D-Theater tapes. I only use the JVC for this and do not use it for recording or any other nonsense. Like R1 DVDs, no law is broken. Just another hurdle for non-US people.

I'm only getting what I can best guess are the rear surround channels. I'm playing T2 from the interplay player. I have an Audigy 2 connected to a Sony receiver by a digital optical cable. The sony is showing that it's receiving a PCM 96kHz signal.

Wow, I was about to post this exact same thing. Ditto for me, except I have a Magnavox receiver. Only limited sound coming through. Is there a way to change WMP9 to output correctly?

-MP

I'm only getting what I can best guess are the rear surround channels. I'm playing T2 from the interplay player. I have an Audigy 2 connected to a Sony receiver by a digital optical cable. The sony is showing that it's receiving a PCM 96kHz signal.


Wow, I was about to post this exact same thing. Ditto for me, except I have a Magnavox receiver. Only limited sound coming through. Is there a way to change WMP9 to output correctly?

If you are playing the WM version of T2 and want full 5.1 sound you need to hook up to your receiver via analog since S/PDIF doesn't carry Windows Media audio - and even if it did your receiver wouldn't know how to decode Windows Media audio.

Heh, that's what I was afraid the answer would be. Ah well, easy enough to do but a pain to switch :).

-MP

Yeah, switching cables is no fun. BTW, you might be interested in Amir's post regarding possible future directions of audio for WM9 movies:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=2174407#post2174407


<snip>
"Obviously, DD/DTS have an advantage as far as receiver availability is concerned. We are doing three things to go beyond the current solution of using analog outputs:

1. Using the bandwidth available on 1394/USB 2.0 to send the uncompressed stream to the receiver. PC does the decoding still but since the bits stay in digital domain, they are not subject to analog round-trip and can also be corrected for base management, etc. As receivers get more sophisticated, you can imagine these solutions appearing on them.

2. Putting WMA Pro in the receiver and carrying the compressed stream over S/PDIF. We are in the process of getting IEC to approve the codec stream ID for WMA Pro and while I can not mention names or schedules, there are receiver manufacturers who are working on WMA Pro decoding.

3. A "dongle" that takes uncompressed stream in #1 above and encodes it back to DTS/DD. Yes, the quality will suffer some especially in the case of DD, but you get compatibility with all the current receivers.

There is yet another solution which is having a sound card in the PC with on-board DTS/DD encoder ala Xbox/Nvidia chipsets. But we are not pushing on this as the cost of the encoder+codec royalty is probably too high to justify for a consumer sound card although if this solution appeals to you, you may want to let you favorite vendor know"
<snip>

Ok,

I finally get the license and it says to click PLAY to continue. Well, the Play button is in grey, meaning I cannot click it. The only other choice is cancel, and that one I can click. It appears to still be trying to get the license, even though it says it has it....

Any ideas on what is going on?

Same thing happens if I run it through WM9 or the Inter. Player.

This is driving me nuts!!!!!!

Why do I spend $$$ on a product and it takes WEEKS to be able to watch the damn thing.

Microsoft people, please respond.

I can give you a step by step process if you want me to. This is ridiculus.


__________________

I finally had time to get the T2 disc and tried it today. The registration at first did not work (the play button was grayed in). I just ejected the disc and reinserted and this time the registration had the "agree" and after I pushed it the play button was there. I pushed it and the DVD started to play with no problem. It stuttered at the beginning only. I did not watch all of it due to the audio problem.

My problem is I cannot get the DD5.1 to work. I have the Maudio DiO and the onboard Nvideo with my A7N8X motherboard. How would I get analog from my sound cards to my Sony receiver? The DiO does have L/R outputs, so would this work?

Any way to get this to work?

My system is as listed below.

AMD Athlon XP 2000 (1.7 ghz)
A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard
Radeon 9500 Pro (128)

Why not use the onboard dolby digital encoding to send the 5.1 from WM9 to the receiver? Else you need a card that will output 5.1 analog and have 6 wires going.

What CPU do you need to play the T2 HD version? my Athlon XP1700 can not play at all without skipping MOST of the frames, is even a Athlon XP3200 sufficiently fast to play it without skipping any frames???

Originally posted by sjchmura
Why not use the onboard dolby digital encoding to send the 5.1 from WM9 to the receiver? Else you need a card that will output 5.1 analog and have 6 wires going.

I will play around with my onboard audio. I just do not know if the A7N8X Deluxe will decode DD. If it does I should be able to run the coaxial out to my receiver.

Is this correct?

The NFORECE2 deluxe version has the MCP. To be honest, why bother with AMD crap execpt for the decoding :)

Well,

Mine FINALLY plays....the problem was, get this:

My CLOCK was set to Feb 2003....how that happened, I have no idea.

It does work now, with 5.1 sound.

Only problem now is when I first start it, the video is missing (TV turns to blue screen but audio is there)....however, if I hit ESC it all comes back and works fine. Good enough for me!

It does look very nice.

Am I the only one who finds the sound quality (as encoded by the nForce) to be really odd? It sounds as if it's been tremendously overcompressed. There's a great deal of difference between the loud and soft sounds, and the quiet sounds are distinctly lacking in dimensionality and detail. The surround effects are awkward and artificial/tinny. I'm thinking something might be screwed up with my DD encoder on my Asus A7N8X board, I was wondering if someone using a Revo or Audigy 2 with analog passthrough might confirm or deny that what I'm hearing is the norm. Exactly what bitrate is the WMA audio anyway?

What exactly is the speed part for in the menu?

I missed like 20 pages on this thread, but has anyone thought of a way to use the DD from the regular DVD (disc 1) while watching the HD version? Personally, I don't have any WMA 5.1 - DD 5.1 encoder, and even if I did, I'm sure it doesn't sound good.

Could there be a way to play the WM9 video (mute the sound in WMP) and at the same time play the ac3 audio files (ripped to the HD) with an audio player like Winamp or something, and figure out a way to maintain sync? Maybe cue them both up to the same point, and use a girder command to hit play on both players at the exact same time. If there's a delay with one or the other, put a delay in girder to compensate. Has anyone discussed this yet?

One difficulty with that is that the version of T2 on the DVD is different from the WMP9 HD version. The DVD version has extra scenes that were cut from the version that they used for the HD version. I'm not sure why they did this, but they did it anyway.

Regards

John

Has anyone been able to get the DD5.1 using the A7N8X Deluxe MB with its onboard audio?

I have the A7N8X Deluxe using the Nvidia enclosed drivers and tools (drivers are dated 6/17/03, whichh are the latest) and am getting DD 5.1 via SPDIF (no need for all those wires!).

You must go into the Nvidia sound program (at work, can't remember the name) and check the box for Dd 5.1 encoding (again at work, but it is the 2nd from the top).

I bought the disk, put it in my PC, got the license, and played with no skips and 5.1 without any issues. I can also run it in WMP, but cannot change chapters (as noted previously by others in this topic).

My new machine is A7N8X, Barton 2500 OC to 3200 with a 800A heatsink and 80MM fan running at a steady 109F, XP Pro, 512 of 3200 RAM on a G11.

I'll have to say that the picture is nice and HD like, but not much more than running Gladiator on TT using FFshow.

Originally posted by MrGonk
Am I the only one who finds the sound quality (as encoded by the nForce) to be really odd? It sounds as if it's been tremendously overcompressed. There's a great deal of difference between the loud and soft sounds, and the quiet sounds are distinctly lacking in dimensionality and detail. The surround effects are awkward and artificial/tinny. I'm thinking something might be screwed up with my DD encoder on my Asus A7N8X board, I was wondering if someone using a Revo or Audigy 2 with analog passthrough might confirm or deny that what I'm hearing is the norm. Exactly what bitrate is the WMA audio anyway?

You probably don't have very good sound quality because by the time you're listening to the audio its been lossy-encoded twice using different formats - once into WM9 and again when its lossy-encoded into DD.

That's no good. So is there a way to do the real time encoding without an Nvidia board or whatever you guys have? I have an DFI AD77. It has a VIA 3059 audio controller.

I've got the license without problem (Thanks LiOn).
I have a A7N8X DeLuxe MoBo, tried the WMA -> DD conversion and i can say that i'm not happy of the result.
So, i spent a week, to make a good cable from the 3 headphones jacks to the db-25 connector, the last 5.1 input left on my Rotel reciever... well, when i've got the cable, the license was over and i had to get another one, i treid with the same proxy settings of the first time, and with other 3 but, twice i get a message like " you're connecting from anonymous server, so we can't give you the license" once " error, license only for North America" and with the one of the first license i get a blank window with few lines asking to perform a Refresh Page (yes, in the box for the license).
All the proxy settings i used are US server and were in the link at the beginning of this thread.

It sounds like someone is reading these pages, trying to stop license aquisition.:( :( :(

they have stopped allowing anonymous proxys but don't feel bad i live in canada and still haven't solved my license issues

Newbie question .. I have this disc ... what resolution should I set my graphic card ... to make my TV see a 1080i signal ?

Thanks.

Max

Originally posted by ^Sp|ke^
they have stopped allowing anonymous proxys but don't feel bad i live in canada and still haven't solved my license issues

Sad but true.
Yesterday night i spent an hour trying to get the license, with 40 new proxy settings. None of them worked, so i can’t get the license anymore and i can’t find a way out.
So, i’m asking if someone of you, not from North America, have got the license in the last couple of days?
Is it really over? :)

I’m not asking to break the DRM, just to see the dvd i’ve already paid for. We don’t have HDTV in Europe yet, so this is the only HD material we will be ever able to watch at, for a long time.

I’m sorry that even the North American people are having trouble getting the license. It took me 2 minutes the first time, but it seems i’m paying back my luck now ;)

I think the proxies are being killed 1 at a time. This is what Artisan wanted - again this is not MS.

I think the proxies are being killed 1 at a time. This is what Artisan wanted - again this is not MS.

I'm not sure it matters much. Microsoft probably wants commercial HD-DVD's that can be played on general purpose machines running Windows. But Hollywood definitely does not want that.

- Tom

why can't they just charge $50 dollars for the dvd and forget this licensing scheme. after hearing all these problems i am going to wait until i see this dvd for under 10 bucks. one of the main reasons i began building an hptc was for this coming release.

So there's now no way to watch this disc in Europe?

Originally posted by The Belgain
So there's now no way to watch this disc in Europe?

Sadly the open proxies seem to be out of question now , the only option to get a login/password into a US proxy ,maybe a university . Handy to have some computer literate friends in the US. Was fun while it lasted.

Hi all,

I live in Portugal and for the last 2 hours I've tryed all the proxy but without result.

The best I can get is a message saying that appears that I'm using an anonymous proxy server....

PLEASE, someone send me valid number for name and port.

I just want to view T2 in HD

BTW, I regret buy the disc as soon as possible.
With all this problems, I should wait and get the disc on e-bay... ...

Sincerely
Carlos Manuel

:confused:

Hi,

Same here (France) no way to find a valid proxy... :(

--Patrice (despite owner and buyer of this Artisans Entertainement DVD)

I've sent to cs@artisanent.com 5 or 6 e-mails asking what to do.
No answer until now.

But a question to share with you all:

Is this licence LEGAL ?

DVD's have regions. USA & Canada - region 1 and so on.

I know that a DVD region 1 should not play on a R2 player.

But a Windows Media Video file is NOT a DVD.

The region limits are NOT LEGAL with computer content !!!!!

Why do they do this?
To test what?
Our patience ?
????????????????????????????????????

In a few weeks or days the "free" proxy will be there.
Or a small "proxy_killer.exe" to do the job.

Then, they will complain about the piracy.

Having to have the disc in the PC is a good mesure.
But the proxy veryfication?

Is all this LEGAL ?
I HAVE BUYED MY COPY !
THEY HAVE THE MONEY !
I CAN NOT PLAY WHAT I'VE PAID PAID FOR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does these minds do not realize that they are not preventing piracy like that!

DECREASE the price of the DVD and the piracy stops !
STOP this silly proxy issue and a lot of people will buy the disc.

Because a LOT of people will not buy it, like that !!!!!!

No one likes to copy a DVD.
Simply decrease the prices, stop silly mesures and sell more.

THEY HAVE THE CHEESE AND THE KNIFE !!!!!!

Again,
Is this licence LEGAL ?

I would guarantee it's legal. It says right on the box that you need to meet a minimum amount of requirements to view the HiDefenition version of T2.

This is not more 'illegal' than Universal hyping their "total axcess" DVD's which require an internet connection to view the content.

Also, it's like saying that software manufacturers are breaking the law by requiring that you provide a serial number to use their product.

There's nothing Illegal about putting an extra version of a movie on a DVD that requires an internet connection, a certain version of Windows, a certain amount of RAM and a mimimum processor requirement.

Joe Prybylski:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
There's nothing Illegal about putting an extra version of a movie on a DVD that requires an internet connection, a certain version of Windows, a certain amount of RAM and a mimimum processor requirement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------


I also agree.
But...
In the box DOES NOT say that I have to be connected PHYSICLY in USA or Canada !....

It's not a question of "System Requirements".
It's NOT about having an internet connection.
It's NOT about a certain version of Windows.
It's NOT about the anount of RAM
It's NOT about the processor requirement.

It's about HAVING TO BE in USA or Canada.

Think in this example:
If you buy the disc in New York, for ex., and go spend 2 weeks in summer for London or Berlin or São Paulo or Tokyo or Mexico or Sidney or Lisbon and bring the DVD with you, you CAN NOT play the HD film...

Simply because you are not in USA or Canada ground and the PC to be connected must be to a local ISP provider with a proxy number NOT LEGAL !

This is the point !

NOTHING to do with serial numbers or copyright protections.

Imagine buy WINDOWS XP and have to install it ONLY in USA.
NOT on UK. Or France. Or Portugal.
And after you install it, you go to a diferent country and no more software... ... ... ... ...

It's NOT about serial numbers (good idea) or having to have a ORIGINAL DVD on the Drive (good idea also)

My english is not perfect, but is this clear ?

Isn't that the whole point of Region coding on DVD's? This is a US Region disc, is it not?

I think that the Region coding apply to DVD Video.
(MPEG2 - 720x480 - interlaced - etc., etc., etc..)

DVD-ROM with HD content, I believe, is not under the DVD Org definitions for zones. (?!)

Like all the things, time will solve the problem.
It's only a matter of seconds, hours or days until the "proxy_killer.exe" appears...

One thing for sure, this disc will not "sell" like the others.

Please, remember this:
In USA you have around 240.000.000 people that can buy it and see the HD version.
Only in Europe there is more than 460.000.000 that may want to buy the DVD but are not allowed to see it...
And in the rest of the planet there are a FEW more... (any good atlas will give you an acurate number)

One of this days, someone will understand this, and re-evaluate all these kind of silly mesures.

Until,
Have a nice life.
Carlos

I also find the USA and Canada only restriction somewhat bizarre. The normal DVD region coding is used to control distribution of new movies, so that someone in a country where the movie is still in theaters can't watch a DVD from the USA. But this is an old movie, so what does Artisan have to lose if people outside the USA and Canada watch it? As Camafe says, why limit your customer base, wouldn't you want to sell the HD version to as many people as possible? Very bizarre, but much of what goes on with DRM indicates that the media companies are lacking in logic and common sense. The only thing DRM seems to have accomplished with this HD release is to is piss off paying customers and drive them to piracy.

The 'simple' way to be physically connected in the US or Canada is to open an Internet access account with a provider with international point-of-presence, for example MCI.

There will be lot of access numbers in the US or Canada to which you can then dial for several minutes and obtain the license.

Another alternative is to open a dial-up Internet account with a US/Canadian based ISP.

There is no way that this can be detected and disallowed by the license server.

Maybe signing up with one of those free dialup ISP's might be the most cost effective ,so long as they allow international customers.

It's interesting to see these article in one Site.

People, read it and think on this:

Some people may watch the film and pay for the ticket...
The same people IS NOT ALLOWED to watch the HD Version ... ... ...

I do not know what to call it: Democracy? Justice? Fair play? Freedom?


In http://www.thearnoldfans.com/news/564.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here in the U.S., "American Wedding" took the #1 position at the box office but overseas "Terminator 3" is taking a huge piece of the international pie!

"Terminator 3" has now officially crossed the 140 (U.S.) million mark - an incredible feat for an R rated film! But it will rake in the biggest chunk of cash overseas as it's expected to make around 400 + million worldwide.

"Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines" opened in the UK just this last weekend and the numbers are already enough to pop your CPU and make your endo skull spin! Go Arnold!

Arnold fan Darren sends us the latest box office numbers!

Darren:

Here you go mates,

Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines dominated the international markets over the weekend as it maintained its perfect record of opening number one in every territory and added an estimated $40m for a $141m international running total.

The weekend haul, which includes Japan and Korea where T3 is not being released by Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International (CTFDI), came from 5,800 prints and sparked another chain of notable openings.

In the UK the sci-fi sequel grossed a mighty $9.6m (including Thursday night late shows).

Germany produced $7.7m from 1,062 for the second biggest opening of the year there.

In Spain on 581 prints T3 grossed $5.7m including previews for the sixth biggest opening of all time.

CTFDI took the unusual step of releasing it on a Wednesday in Spain to capitalise on the summer holidays and steal a march on Buena Vista International's Pirates Of The Caribbean, which is scheduled to open there in two weeks.

Brazil produced $1.7m from 483 for the sixth biggest opening there, while $1.2m from 109 in Sweden was the 10th biggest bow and $1.1m from 113 in Austria produced the 13th biggest ever opening.

Finland, South Africa and Israel all scored number one openings while T3 remained number one in Australia and New Zealand for the third consecutive week.

Additional information:

CTFDI (Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International) opened T3 on approximately 1,000 prints in the UK on Aug 1, where it is expected to perform strongly given that school holidays are in force and weather forecasts predict a warm, partly cloudy weekend across most parts of the UK.

By comparison Terminator 2: Judgment Day grossed $4.5m on 302 prints when it opened in the UK in Aug 1991.

The film has already got off to a roaring start on its first day in Spain, where it was released by CFTDI on 599 screens on July 30 and grossed $1.05m (Euros 912,000).

CTFDI released the film on approximately 1,070 prints in Germany on July 31. The film also opens in Finland and Sweden over the weekend.

T2 opened on $6.3m on 474 prints in Germany in Oct 1991 and took $2.9m on 150 in Spain when it opened two months later.

T3 debuted in several smaller European markets last weekend. There were also debuts in several Asian markets.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Microsoft and Artisan:

Keep your eyes open. "The future is not set"

That is it. You can get for 3 pents (is it pents I think) those cards at safeway etc. Sign up for NETZERO in the USA, dial in for 3 pents and get your license for 5 days.

Not perfect but 3 pents is not too much - even in USA money :)

Can't believe more poepel have not thougt of this.

Originally posted by Joe Przybylski
I would guarantee it's legal...

No, i cannot say this is illegal... but IMHO, this thing is out of Artisan’s rights.

Let me explain.

Artisan sure has the Rights to put on the North american Market this new edition of T2.
I don’t think that Artisan has any kind of limitation for the HD material, and also has the rights to present this HD version of this Movie in the same package, to be sold in North America.

Artisan cannot sell this dvd outside North america because they’ve sold the rights for T2 to local Editors in every foreing country.
This means that Artisan can only sell this dvd in North America, but at the same time it doesn’t mean that you can avoid this disc to be shipped and played outside North America, ‘cause IMHO it would be against the rules of the International Trade.

If i buy this disc in the US, then the disc is mine and it isn’t Artisan’s right to rule the way i can use my disc, as long i don't brek any of the law in the country i live in.

Less than 2 years ago the European Comunity Authority for International Trade ( i don’t know if this is the right name) started an investigation to verify whether the regional code is something legal or not. I haven’t yet heard of the results ( yep, the’re slow) but this DRM thing is even worst and IHMO it’s against the principles of International trade.

Nobody’s saying that Artisan broke the Rules and is against the Law using the DRM, the way they’re doing, but it maybe, because there isn’t a law contepling that. :(

You don’t have the right to control the end users like this.

I’ve paid my disc, i bought my disc where Artisan has the right to sell it, and i don’t have the right to watch what i’ve paid for?!

Might it be possible to redirect licence requests to a fake licence server through use of the windows hosts file?

Hi all.

I don't want to start a war here -we already have the Iraq - but I'm still thinking on the legality of the license for the HD version.

Artisan has released the DVD Zone 1. This means that the DVD-video can only play on DVD players zone 1.
That's ok. Quite legal. I agree.

On disc 2 comes a folder with computer content - files to be played on the Windows Media 9.
The software around the files asks for an original DVD on the drive. Anti-piracy measure. That's ok with me. I also agree.
They want to implement any kind of serial number that comes with the disc. I also agree.
They want to sell the disc and any kind of key to ensure that the disc is a original and not a copy. I A G R E E.

But... the files to be played on WM9 are NOT MPEG2.
They are not in NTSC.
They are not PAL.
THEY ARE NOT DVD-VIDEO !!!!!!!!!!!!

They are just DVD-ROM content.

And as mentioned on http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#1.10
Regional codes also apply to DVD-ROM systems, but affect only DVD-Video discs, not DVD-ROM discs containing computer software.

And we are talking on “DVD-ROM COMPUTER SOFTWARE”
DVD players DO NOT play WM9 files !!!!!!!!!

For all this, I still do not believe on this "Legal side”

On this question, all the people that live outside USA/Ca, and that are not allowed to play the disc LEGALLY brought should complain.
Ask a refund or send back the disc. -If Artisan answers... ... ...

On top of this question, the USA / Canada residents should also realise that Artisan and Microsoft denies them, the LEGAL right to see the movie when they travel outside the country.
Is this LEGAL?

BTW. The countdown for the”proxy_killer.exe” as started!

Sincerely
Carlos

Sorry guys, I haven't read all 35 pages of this thread & perhaps this has already been pointed out: Don't you think this is simply an "experiment" by Artisan & Microsoft? To find out the feasibility, acceptance and usage rate of an internet DRM scheme for HD-DVD? For this purpose, they don't care about a world market (yet); they just want to study the US market.

It's just a matter of time before higher capacity DVD-R's are available for people to simply copy current DVD's; and you can already store uncompressed movies on hard disks for around $4 or less. The movie industry needs to introduce HD-DVD sometime, and wants to avoid the hell that the recording industry is facing with piracy.

...simply an "experiment" by Artisan & Microsoft? ...

I beg your pardon, but my pocket and I, we don't feel each other like a mouse in a lab...

Originally posted by tmmort
Sorry guys, I haven't read all 35 pages of this thread & perhaps this has already been pointed out: Don't you think this is simply an "experiment" by Artisan & Microsoft? To find out the feasibility, acceptance and usage rate of an internet DRM scheme for HD-DVD? For this purpose, they don't care about a world market (yet); they just want to study the US market.


I don’t mean to be rude but that can’t be the reason.
I don’t see any good reason not to give the License to the people from other countries.

If you wanna check if the acceptance and usage rate of an internet DRM scheme you wanna have the widest amount of people asking for the license.
If you wanna have feedback on what north american people are thinking about the whole DRM stuff, you just go read US Newsgroups and boards like this paying care only to the US members, or you just add a popup winwods asking “what do you think about getting the license for the movie each time you’d like to watch it?”.
There is no way to me, that refuse the license to the other countries results in a more accurate feedback about the DRM scheme from North american people.

If that would be the reason, they’ve just got the opposite of what they wanted.
Most of the replies here aren’t from North america, and we’re mad about DRM.

I’m sorry Camafe but even if my wallet and i don’t wanna be guinea pig, that’s what we are at the moment.

That FAQ can’t be brought as prove they’re doing something illegal.

The real Experiment, is to find a way to control the way the final user uses a software.
They’ve stopped the licenses for whom with Anonymous proxy setting because this is exactly waht they don’t want to have.

They wanna know who, when and where you’re using “their” Video/Audio files.



It's just a matter of time before higher capacity DVD-R's are available for people to simply copy current DVD's; and you can already store uncompressed movies on hard disks for around $4 or less. The movie industry needs to introduce HD-DVD sometime, and wants to avoid the hell that the recording industry is facing with piracy.

I’m not a Fanatic, nor a Paranoid, i can easily admit that i’ve never downloaded Mp3 i only have original dvd... i’m not a computer geek and i don’t hate Microsoft, just because it’s Microsoft.

Each time there is a copyright protection, there are problems for the common users and it’s just a metter of time before some kid invents the “Threat” for it.
This far , i’ve already heard of a “proxy_killer.exe” and this isn’t the place for divx fanatics; what do you think this is for: copy the disc or watch it.
I believe that if i find the way to break the DRM i will always find a court saying that i’m not guilty because i just wanted to watch this DVD. ;)

I’m worried about what they’re doing to me:
Someone is telling me what i can or cannot do, with MY copy of T2.

And I’m also worried about what they’re trying to do.
This seems like the first step.
We’re asked to get the license for the Media we have at home, then we could only be asking to download a time-limited file if we want to watch a movie.

I’ve talked with an italian journalist of the A/V world and already sent a message to the guy who firstly asked the European Commition about the regional Code.
The man who might change this thing is Mario Monti and his staff; we really hope to get this thing to their attention.

Originally posted by Camafe
On top of this question, the USA / Canada residents should also realise that Artisan and Microsoft denies them, the LEGAL right to see the movie when they travel outside the country.
Is this LEGAL?

Carlos, when you pony up the $100 million to buy Terminator 2, then you can do whatever you want with the film. As of now Artisan owns the full LEGAL rights to the movie and not the general public.

Sorry, but I haven't read all 33 pages of this thread but I can't playback this movie.
I get terrible stuttering in WMP. I have a 2GHz P4 overclocked to 2.66, 256M ram and an ATI 8500DV card. I wish I could use zoomplayer as it plays all the WMP demo clips well.

Turn off post processing and it will play the same in WMP as in ZP...

I used to play this fine using the on-board sound from my MoBo, but since I've "upgraded" to the Audigy2 I get this horrible problem where the video will play for about 30 sec, then it will freeze while it plays the 30 sec of audio it just skipped. Anyone else have this issue?

Has anyone been able to solve the problem of the 8 second interruptions between the chapters?

I find this totally unacceptable. They should not have released the movie if it cannot play continuously.

bb

Faster computer? I didn't have that problem but as you can see above I have worse. Actually, I get the pause between chapters right before it starts doing the audio then visual thing, so I'm thinking it's related to the bus. Otherwise, plays like a DVD w/o DD/DTS.

Copying the WMV files to hard disc sure helped with pauses for me...

I turned off post processing and it's a lot better but still not smooth. I have a 2 GHz overclocked to 2.66.

But is it now the same as in other apps... Do you get the same performance with the trailer as you do the actual film with DRM ??

I can play the trailer perfectly using zoomplayer. I haven't tried it in WMP yet since I disabled postprocessing.
Does the DRM slow it down?

Not sure as I never DL'ed the T2 un DRM'ed version to compare...

Originally posted by Phat Phreddy
Copying the WMV files to hard disc sure helped with pauses for me...

running the movie from the hard disk does appear to shorten the pause but it's still there. Now it's about 3-4 seconds on my system instead of 8.

bb

Originally posted by Phat Phreddy
Not sure as I never DL'ed the T2 un DRM'ed version to compare...

There is an un DRM'ed version of T2HD?

Microsoft has short clips from T2 extreme edition which weren't DRM'd. I think that is what "Phat Phreddy" is talking about.

Originally posted by Phat Phreddy
Turn off post processing and it will play the same in WMP as in ZP...
How do you turn off post processing? I searched through the options but couldn't find anything called post processing.

I think it's called video smoothing

This was an amazing display of WM9 codec at 720P in 6 and 9 Mb / sec files being shown on Joe Kane's co-developed Samsung single chip HD-2 DLP projector . That means that it all can fit on a red laser DVD . This was being delivered from a PC hard drive using NVIDIA card and DVI output to display.

I saw T2 , Standing in the shadows of Motown, ABC footage shot on Phillips 720 P camera as well as clips from Video essentials all in glorious WM9 . This is a winner codec and is available shortly and not 3 years away.

There was also DVHS footage of the NFL shot using 720P cameras which looked pretty stunning on this projector . This is the first single chip DLP that delivers 3D depth of field as good as my CRT . The blacks were all there as well.

This will be a hard act to follow for under $10000.

Why are the windows media files on the disc burried to deep in folders? It took me a while to find it. And why did they split it up into 4 peices? The pause between chunks is quite annoying.

OK....I'm posting to this thread so I can start seeing the posts.....Wonder if I'm going to regret it based upon the sheer volume of posts. If my employer only knew that I blew most of the day today reading the whole thread.....

While I'm here, I'll definitely reiterate what many have said:
the Interactual player is an utter piece of garbage. I have been fighting the CSS error problem for days without success. I played around w/ WMP9 this morning and got it to work, though the stuttering was pretty bad. After reading the posts, I think that I have a bunch of things to try tonight to help clean this up. First of them is to scrap the POS viewer.

I am running an Athlon 2100+, 512M RAM, Geforce 2MX, 40Gig HD, Fortissimo sound card. I have seen a few threads of people w/ same processor that have had success, so I'm hopeful that I can pull it off.....preferably without having to upgrade the video card, which I suspect may be part of the problem.

I'll post anything of importance to the thread. Wish me luck.

Turbodog, I think your video card will prevent any smooth play.

Think positive thoughts! :) We'll see how it goes tonight.....

TurboDog,

I got rid of the CSS problem by uninstalling some other DVD type applications I had on the computer. I'm not sure what the offending one was.

Dick

Windows Media 9 just came out for Mac, so I immediately put my T2 disc in and tried to play the High Definition version. Sadly it just send me to a web site listing compatible players and immediately quit the player. Wonder what it's going to take to get the DRM stuff working on the Mac. Supposedly it's there somewhere as Napster is rumored to be in development for the Mac, and it relies on WiMP DRM.

Jeremy

Help! I've had nothing but problems trying to get past the License Acquisition screen telling me to insert the frigging DVD. My system consists of the following:

Dell 400sc 3.2GHz
Win2K SP4 and all current updates
Power DVD XP 4 (current)
WMP9 (current)
Interactual Player (current)
512MB dual channel ram
ATI 9500 Pro (latest Catylyst driver)

I have taken the DVD out and reinserted it, copied the files to hard drive, tried playing the ASX and WMV files directly in WMP9 etc.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated!

Did you actually acquire the license yet? Go into the disc and find the file named dvdrun.exe. Click on it (must be online)....it shouldn't actually do anything visibly, but that should acquire the license for you. After that, you should be able to get past that screen (for 5 days, then have to do again).

Good Luck. Welcome to the party.

Thanks for the advise TurboDog.

I tried running dvdrun.exe, and still got the same error dialog asking me to insert the disk. I don't see any network activity while the system tries to get the lic but then the insert the disk dialog pops up with Play greyed out and the only option is to Cancel.

Sorry, the last post shoul have read "I do see network activity while the system tries to access the License."

Did you copy all of the files or just the core Windows Media files (3 or 4 of them)? If you copied all of the files, it may require you to execute that dvdrun executable directly from the DVD-ROM. Just a thought.

I got my copy today and managed to license it through WMP9 using the proxy trick. The only WMV file that will play is the fourth file. The other three just turn into "!"and become orange in the playlist in WMP9. Is my DVD damaged or something?

Never mind. A reboot was all that was needed. :)

It works fine now, and I haven't installed POSplayer. I hate that thing!


Wonder if it will work to copy the license from this PC to the HTPC... I have the license-files.

HAHA!!! I got it to work now on my HTPC.

First I tried copying the license backups from my workstation, where I had licensed it first, and then restoring the licenses in WMP9. I did this because I didn't have internet access on my HTPC. It didn't work! Then I tried copying what seemed like the relevant registry key that had changed since I licensed it in the workstation. That didn't work either.

I then decided to try connecting to the internet and licensing it again. I dug up my old 56k modem and stuck it in the HTPC. It already had the drivers and I just registered for a free 56k internet thingy. Then I changed the proxy on the dialup-connection to what had worked before on my DSL and logged on. The licensing seemed to work, except I got a "Please insert DVD and blah-blah" message. Damn! Then I remembered the license backups I had from the other PC and I tried restoring them, and IT WORKED. lol

I'm gonna try running the movie on my low-spec AthlonXP now. :)

What is a good site that lists suitable proxy servers for us International folk ?

what resolution does best for 8inch crt users
when outputing the1920X1080p image.

1440X960p
1280X720p
1920X1080i

There's a link to proxy servers on the first page of this thread. I found a working one in the lists.

Are there any other movies available in this hi resolution format?
I just got my Extreme version of T2 and it really looks great on my HTPC.
2.53ghz P4; Radeon 9700pro AIW

I tried playing the available HD trailers from the Microsoft WMP site but to no avail on my dual 1Gig....not even close. Maybe it is the new WMP9 for OSX? What a humbling experience...guess my dual 1 gig is already out of date ) :

I did download the Matrix HD trailers in Quicktime format which have the same resolution as the WMP trailers but a MUCH lower bitrate (like 1000 kbps). They still look dazzling with the low bitrate. Why is WMP's bitrate so high? I wonder if I could re-encode them in the WMP encoder on my PC with a lower bitrate... I totally want to check em out though! Would be nice on a Cinema Display I bet. Anyone lucky enough to experience this? I also think my AGP slot is 4X with a 64MB card...this I am sure does not help...

any crt owners recommend any particular resolutions to run? I can rup up to 960p?

Me too (just got it only just added a DVD drive to my HTPC), I doubt we see much more, if all the open discussion about breaking the region limitations, bitching and moaning about not having an IP connection on a HTPC, and talk of other license violations that I see in this thread is the norm.

Did anybody actually read the license they agreed to when they installed this or did that change recently?

:rolleyes:

Maybe there are other reasons for the delay in content, but this type of stuff sure can't help when we know "the powers that be" monitor this thread. Its great to not like draconian stuff like this, but it is such a niche product it will just evaporate if the wrong people are po'ed.

Originally posted by sdellutri
Are there any other movies available in this hi resolution format?

Personally, I don't care if the wrong people are po'ed. Hopefully the holdup is that people are NOT buying into the fact that we will accept needing permission to run legally purchased software. The technology is impressive but the implications of where and when I can view software that I have legally purchased, are not in my best interests.

Also Hollywood has no real incentive to give us hd-dvds. They are currently enjoying the marketing success of dvd and will milk it for four or five more years while hdtv numbers grow. Compare it to the music industry. Records, then eight track, then Cosette, then cd, and now DVD-A and SACD. And if it weren't for Napster and the general public acceptance of MP3s as a music standard, their business model will have held up. And with cd sales down 10%, this has to have caught the eye of Hollywood and hence, a desire to monitor and control content. And we, as consumer's are caught in the middle.

Also, are people so naive to think the movie industry actually wants the computer industry in the movie business? This might explain the lack of movies available.

And Matt, I simply do not want my htpc connected to the Internet. It's not "bitching and moaning" as you put it, it is a conscientious choice that I make. I paid for the hardware and I paid for the software and I have to ask for permission to play it ???? You can also bet this thread is being closely monitored and it is public acceptance of this marketing scheme that is being put to the test, not if the public will buy into WMP9 hd-dvd or high definition content.

Did anybody actually read the license they agreed to when they installed this or did that change recently?


Does anybody even expect every buyer to carefully read, understand, and honor the increasing amount of fine print in the various software installations these days? Having to do that effectively increases the cost of installing the software. That constitutes an extra transaction cost that would lower the value of the product if everyone actually felt compelled to do it.


Maybe there are other reasons for the delay in content, but this type of stuff sure can't help when we know "the powers that be" monitor this thread. Its great to not like draconian stuff like this, but it is such a niche product it will just evaporate if the wrong people are po'ed.

The concerned parties or "powers that be" either correctly predicted the market reaction or they did not. If they correctly predicted it then we can assume these comments can do little harm. And if they (or some of them) did not correctly predict the reactions then this should be valuable market feedback for them. Our reactions are probably quite typical of what they can expect in the future.

And this can probably be quite simply summarized so far as:

1) The market would happily buy WM9 HD-DVDs if machines were fast enough or we had hardware video acceleration to easily play them (with working 5.1 audio), and

2) The market will reject the intrusive & buggy DRM they've presented to us so far. (edit: I personally won't be buying any more of these under these conditions)

- Tom

anybody? I am still looking for crt owners with exp with windows media and what resolution they run there crts at. 1080i, 960p,720p?

I just don't understand that people can expect to get every new product handed to them on a silver platter when they don't connect their machine to the internet. If you don't want to fine--what do you propose for a DRM solution for non-internet connected machines then?

Maybe Hollywood doesn't want to be in the HD business right now--they've sure got enough excuse not to be from this thread. I guess I'll just plan on paying a $20 premium for HD-DVD content plus new player, hardware, etc. when/if it ever does come out if WM9 doesn't take off.

Originally posted by Tedd
And Matt, I simply do not want my htpc connected to the Internet. It's not "bitching and moaning" as you put it, it is a conscientious choice that I make. I paid for the hardware and I paid for the software and I have to ask for permission to play it ????

Originally posted by trbarry
Does anybody even expect every buyer to carefully read, understand, and honor the increasing amount of fine print in the various software installations these days? Having to do that effectively increases the cost of installing the software. That constitutes an extra transaction cost that would lower the value of the product if everyone actually felt compelled to do it.

It was pretty simple compared to what I've seen for years. It doesn't even compare (much simpler and shorter) to even trial software licenses from independent publishers I've seen.

[2) The market will reject the intrusive & buggy DRM they've presented to us so far. (edit: I personally won't be buying any more of these under these conditions)

Maybe its gotten better since launch but I had zero problems. So I don't buy it is buggy. Intrusive? I don't agree, but let's see if the choice came down to "intrusive" or not at all, I'd at least like the choice for intrusive.

anybody? I am still looking for crt owners with exp with windows media and what resolution they run there crts at. 1080i, 960p,720p?I'm running 720p on my Ehome 8500 (8" CRT). In fact, I run everything at 720p (HDTV, DVD, etc.). I'm using a 3.04Ghz P4 system and am playing the movie directly off the DVD (after getting the license with the Interactual player).

I'm getting the error message "DVD Navigator not found" when starting the InterActual Player. I've tried all the settings for Navigators, and I have latest WinDVD installed. Is there any way to play the HD content avoiding this error message?

You may have to reinstall the player so it hooks your existing player correctly. If that doesn't work, you may want to update to WMP9. Personally, I always had problems w/ the IA player....so, I dumped it like most here and opted for using WMP9 to play the movie. The only problem with doing it this way is the fact that WMP9 is a system resource hog.

Good Luck.

Hi,
couldn´t the DRM crap be patched out of the WMV file ?
Just copy the T2 WMV file from the DVD to your harddisc and
look for a patch program that will patch the file, so it could
be played without getting a license first...

Probably only the header must be patched to get
the DRM out of the file.

I had seen a while ago on a warez site a file which stated,
that it was a Windows DRM hack.
Probably this would have worked with it...
Sorry, can´t remember , where I saw it.

Regards, Stefan.

There is lots of DRM info, but I don't think it has been hacked for video
http://nlug.org/mail/nlug__2001_10/1106.html
for news

Hi,

The question is if the DRM has been changed to offline format on the re-issue version which is to be released this month?

regards,

Li On

Originally posted by Li On
Hi,

The question is if the DRM has been changed to offline format on the re-issue version which is to be released this month?

regards,

Li On

Hi Li On,

Where did you find information about a "re-issue version"? I cannot find.

I too hope they will re-issue the disc with the new Coral Reef on-disc DRM, however I won't be overly happy at having to purchase the disc yet again! :(

Greg