PowerDVD Ultra (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray)

[clehner]

3319a plays the Spider-Man Trilogy just fine (tried Australian and German versions).

However, you MUST have an HDCP compliant display (no alternative here with digital output for the moment) and - which is a much bigger problem - you cannot use reclock with this version.

So, if it stays like this, PDVD is out for me!

I just hope there is another software out soon that can play BR and HD-DVD without these problems.

[i2k]

Has anyone got the current version running on VIsta 64?

[TokyoShoe]

Supposedly you disconnect your PC from the internet and it works fine.

You're missing the point of my question.

I know you can disconnect from the internet and get the disks to play. Want I need to know is.. can anyone get Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra to actually DOWNLOAD the Web Content?

I'd like to be able to use the special features on HEROES and TRANSFORMERS that you have to download.

[Alpha10]

3319a plays the Spider-Man Trilogy just fine (tried Australian and German versions).

I think it will play them but lots of us are getting very significant stuttering with our CPUs sat at 100%.........

[Stereodude]

So, after getting my LG dual format drives I tried out some Blu-Ray discs and HD-DVD discs, and I have some general audio questions about PowerDVD Ultra 3319a (non OEM). 1) Can it actually decode True-HD 5.1? It seems like it can't. When I play discs with DD True-HD 5.1 PowerDVD only says it's DD True-HD 2.0 (or MLP 2.0 on some discs) and I get stereo output. 2) Does it actually support DTS-HD and DTS-HD MA fully? It seems like it won't decode 7.1 DTS-HD or DTS-HD MA audio to 7.1, but only to 5.1. PowerDVD reports DTS-HD MA 7.1 tracks as DTS-HD 5.1. :confused:

Do I have this right, or am I seeing things inconsistent with other people?

[Rathbone]

I think it will play them but lots of us are getting very significant stuttering with our CPUs sat at 100%.........

I don't know why so many people are bashing PowerDVD Ultra. I have version 3319a and It plays every HD DVD and Bluray I put in without any problems on my rig (AMD X2 4600+ @ 5,2 Ghz, Asus 8600GTS) in Vista. AnyDVD, Reclock and even WinXP are programs that do not apply to the HD rules. So you are bashing PowerDVD cause AnyDVD and reclock don't work? Come on!!! Use it as it is intended by the HD rules and almost every problem will be gone.

[Rathbone]

So, after getting my LG dual format drives I tried out some Blu-Ray discs and HD-DVD discs, and I have some general audio questions about PowerDVD Ultra 3319a (non OEM). 1) Can it actually decode True-HD 5.1? It seems like it can't. When I play discs with DD True-HD 5.1 PowerDVD only says it's DD True-HD 2.0 (or MLP 2.0 on some discs) and I get stereo output. 2) Does it actually support DTS-HD and DTS-HD MA fully? It seems like it won't decode 7.1 DTS-HD or DTS-HD MA audio to 7.1, but only to 5.1. PowerDVD reports DTS-HD MA 7.1 tracks as DTS-HD 5.1. :confused:

Do I have this right, or am I seeing things inconsistent with other people?

Yes it does! While I write this, The Reaping plays fine with TrueHD 5.1 and yesterday I watched Resident Evil with DTS-HD 5.1 and Spider-Man 3 with PCM 5.1. No problems.

However, if I am correct PowerDVD Ultra cannot play 7.1 HD Audio. Ghost of Mae Nak gives me only 5.1. So you are right in this point.

[DaveFi]

This program is all screwed up. So I finally get my program all set up, and I connect my motherboard's built in surround sound for HTPC and my Audigy for gaming and even after I disable the Audigy in drivers PowerDVD refuses to acknowledge that and continues to try to send sound to the Audigy!!!:mad: I thought the whole point of Vista was dynamic switching, etc, etc?

What a waste...

[Stereodude]

Yes it does! While I write this, The Rwaping plays fine with TrueHD 5.1 and yesterday I watched Resident Evil in DTS-HD 5.1. No problems.

However, if I am correct PowerDVD Ultra cannot play 7.1 HD Audio. Ghost of Mae Nak gives me only 5.1.I can get it to decode DTS-HD / DTS-HD MA 5.1 fine (though I think it doesn't actually support the MA extension and treats MA as just DTS-HD), but of the discs I've tried (Matrix, 5th Element Remastered) DD True-HD doesn't decode to 5.1. The PowerDVD reports it as 2.0 in both cases. I do have the speaker selection set to SPDIF though. Not sure if that has something to do with it.

[bully666]

Guys..where to get the 3319a.

On this page: http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/patch/enu/index.jsp I only get 3319.0 and when I run the update again, it says I have th latest version?

[Rathbone]

Guys..where to get the 3319a.

On this page: http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/patch/enu/index.jsp I only get 3319.0 and when I run the update again, it says I have th latest version?

Contact Cyberlink support.

[bully666]

3319a.0

is this the latest?

[Rathbone]

3319a.0

is this the latest?

Yes

[Davinleeds]

Mine is 3319, OEM, not Ultra and for HDDVD, so may be the difference.

[IAM4UK]

I don't know why so many people are bashing PowerDVD Ultra. I have version 3319a and It plays every HD DVD and Bluray I put in without any problems on my rig (AMD X2 4600+ @ 5,2 Ghz, Asus 8600GTS) in Vista. AnyDVD, Reclock and even WinXP are programs that do not apply to the HD rules. So you are bashing PowerDVD cause AnyDVD and reclock don't work? Come on!!! Use it as it is intended by the HD rules and almost every problem will be gone.

Because it DOES NOT work like that. I bought HDCP-compliant equipment, and Cyberlink doesn't play new discs. Cyberlink support is horrific. It's a mess of a program, and a bad company.

[IAM4UK]

Contact Cyberlink support.

Good luck with that; they have been non-repsonsive for weeks.

[Rathbone]

Because it DOES NOT work like that. I bought HDCP-compliant equipment, and Cyberlink doesn't play new discs. Cyberlink support is horrific. It's a mess of a program, and a bad company.

Which discs don't play?

[bully666]

Ok, I have the latest version then.

But it sucks, powerDVD just shuts down, randomly.

back to 3104 i guess.

[Rathbone]

Good luck with that; they have been non-repsonsive for weeks.


Then search the web. You can find the patch everywhere.

[arfster]

Their support sent me the patch no probs. Haven't installed it though, since things are working well atm. Anyone know what differences are between 3319 and 3319a?

[Rathbone]

Their support sent me the patch no probs. Haven't installed it though, since things are working well atm. Anyone know what differences are between 3319 and 3319a?


Spider-Man didn't work with 3319.0 if I remember correctly.

[IAM4UK]

Which discs don't play?

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Eyes Wide Shut
haven't bothered trying "Transformers," or the SpiderMan movies.

[TokyoShoe]

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Eyes Wide Shut
haven't bothered trying "Transformers," or the SpiderMan movies.

Transformers plays just fine for me, I just have to hit "ENTER" at the "DOWNLOADING WEB CONTENT" screen. Once I do that, it starts up and plays like a champ.

[rdewey]

Has anyone here installed the latest version of PDVD ultra on Vista home premium, and then tried to play a home video file from media center? When I do this, media center crashes. If I uninstall PDVD ultra, the problem goes away. This is clearly a bug due to PDVD, I guess. Any thoughts on a fix?

I have tried running the utility that sets the default decoder; this makes no difference in this behavior.


Any thoughts about this? Cyberlink support sent me an outlandish suggestion about disabling all startup items, hacking the Vista registry, and reinstalling PDVD ultra and setting screen to 1024x768 as a supposed "fix" for this. Before I try this, I'd like to know if I'm the only one with this problem...

[Nimo]

Any thoughts about this? Cyberlink support sent me an outlandish suggestion about disabling all startup items, hacking the Vista registry, and reinstalling PDVD ultra and setting screen to 1024x768 as a supposed "fix" for this. Before I try this, I'd like to know if I'm the only one with this problem...

You gotta be kidding I wouldn't do it, tell them if it screws your PC will they pay for it? You know the answer to that... But in all honesty they suck and they don't care about you or your PC, you have to remember the bugs are released on purpose to keep you coming back and old corp tactic. And these guys more than fit the bill. Because of them I had to start backing images up and I got tired of that, just isn't worth it.

Their player is just not worth it imo, wait for Arcsoft they should be releasing their player very soon.

[IanD]

I can get it to decode DTS-HD / DTS-HD MA 5.1 fine (though I think it doesn't actually support the MA extension and treats MA as just DTS-HD), but of the discs I've tried (Matrix, 5th Element Remastered) DD True-HD doesn't decode to 5.1. The PowerDVD reports it as 2.0 in both cases. I do have the speaker selection set to SPDIF though. Not sure if that has something to do with it.
If you are using analogue audio outputs, set onboard audio to 5.1 and choose 6 channel in PowerDVD. I'm getting 5.1 channel decoding with TrueHD and DTS-HD using that setup.

If using SPDIF, I can't help you, but SPDIF settings should only be used if actually connected via optical or coaxial digital audio output.

It's possible PDVD 3319 is no longer working the same as it did in earlier versions for HD audio.

[IanD]

Their player is just not worth it imo, wait for Arcsoft they should be releasing their player very soon.
It's a very frustrating time for XP users wanting to play legitimately purchased HD-DVDs.

I have to use Slysoft to play Transformers with PowerDVD 2911, because 3319 windowboxes video and forces HA on. Even then, the image is aliased in HA mode and doesn't display at the full potential of the format. Surprisingly, in software decode mode, PowerDVD does not have the aliasing issue and produces a much better image so I can see what I'm missing, however it sucks >100% of a C2D 2.8GHz CPU, so I get a juddery slideshow.

What I would like to know is: when are Cyberlink/Nvidia going to get their act together and provide HA that works as well as software decoding, but at HA CPU levels for XP?

[rdewey]

This is amazing, but I actually did exactly what they suggested (minus reinstalling my video and sound drivers and setting my screen resolution to 1024x768) and IT ACTUALLY WORKS! My windows media center no longer crashes when accessing video files as it used to with Power DVD ultra installed. I guess the problem was that something running the last time I installed PDVD interfered with it's proper installation, and the real fix was installing it in the special mode of Vista where it doesn't load any startup programs; when installed in this mode, the installation didn't corrupt my Media Center.

Chalk up one for Cyberlink tech support...

[IanD]

Their player is just not worth it imo, wait for Arcsoft they should be releasing their player very soon.
The Arcsoft japanese trial does not work properly for me either in XP: will only produce an image in software decode mode and then it maxes my CPU and creates a slideshow. I can't see an official release fixing this if the trial doesn't already work.

I have a feeling the Arcsoft installation is also futzing with the PowerDVD installation when trying to access the advanced video dialogue. PowerDVD crashes in a similar way to what it does when the cineplayer 4.3 audio decoder is installed.

It's a player nightmare at the moment for XP and I can't see it improving.

I can't avoid the feeling that the industry is persuading consumers to move to Vista to play HD, by ensuring an XP solution always has issues and produces imperfect results. It was kinda obvious from the start when Nvidia refused to release accelerated drivers for the newer graphics cards for XP until 6 months after Vista and it still isn't working properly. I they didn't want to allow XP playback, why not make that clear from the start, instead of leading us to believe it would be possible via XP?

And to think that 9 months ago I was able to play King Kong with PowerDVD 6.5 and an ATI X300 in software decode mode in XP with 50% usage of a C2D 2.4GHz CPU.

[originalsnuffy]

My general understanding is that one of the very few benefits of Vista is the media capability, especially with protected data streams. I think this was a key design consideration for Microsoft.

Most of my machines are XP, except for the media center PC. This seems about right for now. Vista breaks quite a few of my XP apps.

[Nimo]

This is amazing, but I actually did exactly what they suggested (minus reinstalling my video and sound drivers and setting my screen resolution to 1024x768) and IT ACTUALLY WORKS! My windows media center no longer crashes when accessing video files as it used to with Power DVD ultra installed. I guess the problem was that something running the last time I installed PDVD interfered with it's proper installation, and the real fix was installing it in the special mode of Vista where it doesn't load any startup programs; when installed in this mode, the installation didn't corrupt my Media Center.

Chalk up one for Cyberlink tech support...

How does this benefit people with a 1080p panel?

[Andy o]

I cant beleive I read all 3247 posts of this thread and did not get an answer to the question about "The Host" menu Not working...


That's because I don't think anybody knows how to fix it. There is a workaround, though, for changing subtitles and languages, and jumping to scenes that I and probably others have posted before. Right-click and keyboard shortcuts are your friends.

[XxDeadlyxX]

Yep Spider-man movies work fine with build 3319a, I thought 3319a was basically the same as 3319, thanks guys :cool:

Any way to get AnyDVD to work with 3319? When trying to play any Blu-ray movie PowerDVD prompts for an update.

[one_2go]

Good luck with that; they have been non-repsonsive for weeks.
I got my link for 3319a download within days. Telling them that the recorded BBC h.264 material will not play in PDVD. However when I requested this from support they wanted my KEY and when they sent me the link they also gave me a UserID and password to download the from the link.

[Rathbone]

Yep Spider-man movies work fine with build 3319a, I thought 3319a was basically the same as 3319, thanks guys :cool:

Any way to get AnyDVD to work with 3319? When trying to play any Blu-ray movie PowerDVD prompts for an update.

There is a rumour going around that PDVD blocks AnyDVD in the latest versions, cause AACS told them. Don't know if it's true tough.

[slothy]

powerdvd (latest patch) and anydvd (newest one .93 i believe) have no probs working together for me.

[mva5580]

2 things:

1) I still cannot install the latest patch that you're instructed to download when trying to play Transformers. I download it just fine, but when the files are extracting to install, the installer just closes and there is nothing I can do about it. I have a question into Cyberlink awaiting response.

2) Is there a way to verify in the program (or somewhere else) that PowerDVD Ultra is outputting 1080p? I have a Dell 2407 LCD and nvidia 8800gts, and I just want to be sure that things are running at the highest resolution possible. I've tinkered around but I can't seem to find a place which tells you the output resolution of the current title. Is there a way to do this? Thanks.

[originalsnuffy]

I don't use AnyDVD; but if I understand correctly, this program really does two things. One, it has some kind of driver that somehow neutralizes the HDCP issues during run-time. I gather that current versions of PowerDVD look for this driver and won't run if it is also present.

Second, I think AnyDVD also is a ripper. So my guess is that if you can rip the title but not run the run-time driver you should be able to play back the files.

Playing back the latest discs looks like a challenge based on various posts. Lately I've been using the Cyberlink drivers under windows media center so I have not fooled too much with HD DVD discs. But I have a new batch of Kubricks coming...so it will be interesting to see what works and what does not work.

[DireWolf08]

It's a very frustrating time for XP users wanting to play legitimately purchased HD-DVDs.

I have to use Slysoft to play Transformers with PowerDVD 2911, because 3319 windowboxes video and forces HA on. Even then, the image is aliased in HA mode and doesn't display at the full potential of the format. Surprisingly, in software decode mode, PowerDVD does not have the aliasing issue and produces a much better image so I can see what I'm missing, however it sucks >100% of a C2D 2.8GHz CPU, so I get a juddery slideshow.

What I would like to know is: when are Cyberlink/Nvidia going to get their act together and provide HA that works as well as software decoding, but at HA CPU levels for XP?

Should high bitrate content be eating up a 2.8GHz C2D? That seems really high CPU usage for that thing. People have gotten non-accelerated playback working fine on 2GHz C2D, IIRC.

[DireWolf08]

And by the way, I think I have been officially cured of wanting to add HD-DVD/Blu-Ray to my HTPC as of yet. This program just sounds awful, especially if you have to PAY for it. There free, open-source programs out there that are supported better than this.

[Alpha10]

I don't know why so many people are bashing PowerDVD Ultra. I have version 3319a and It plays every HD DVD and Bluray I put in without any problems on my rig (AMD X2 4600+ @ 5,2 Ghz, Asus 8600GTS) in Vista. AnyDVD, Reclock and even WinXP are programs that do not apply to the HD rules. So you are bashing PowerDVD cause AnyDVD and reclock don't work? Come on!!! Use it as it is intended by the HD rules and almost every problem will be gone.

What are you on Rathbone, one too many visits to Munich? Where in my post that you quote is the ANY MENTION of AnyDVD, Vista or ReClock?????

None of which I am using..............

We are 'bashing' PowerDVD because some of us are completely fed up with Beta Testing a piece of cr@p software, downloading and installing countless patches for nearly 10 months now, just to find the next 'feature'

I am using a vanilla XP build with all other processes disabled, 2gig RAM, 4.2GHz AMD x2 and an ATI X1950Pro (512Mb) now that for almost everything else runs at about 50% CPU usage and runs fine, with all three Spider-man films, it stutters with 100% CPU usage......and you think that is fine do you?

[penngray]

So the what version of PowerDVD actually plays HD or BR disks?

I downloaded a trial version of 7.0 and it doesnt do it so I guess only Ultra does it?? (of course I read in forums about 6.5 playing EVO files (ripped HD DVDs) so its all FUBAR!!!)

I cant believe we have to jump through hoops and do all this crap to play a simple HD-DVD. Now I know why I stick to Standard DVDs, this stuff is horrible, completely idiotic way to have to make things work.

I hope they fail period with HD, they dont deserve any money for this crap.

[Rathbone]

What are you on Rathbone, one too many visits to Munich? Where in my post that you quote is the ANY MENTION of AnyDVD, Vista or ReClock?????

None of which I am using..............

We are 'bashing' PowerDVD because some of us are completely fed up with Beta Testing a piece of cr@p software, downloading and installing countless patches for nearly 10 months now, just to find the next 'feature'

I am using a vanilla XP build with all other processes disabled, 2gig RAM, 4.2GHz AMD x2 and an ATI X1950Pro (512Mb) now that for almost everything else runs at about 50% CPU usage and runs fine, with all three Spider-man films, it stutters with 100% CPU usage......and you think that is fine do you?

I live nowhere near Munich ;-)

PowerDVD and that whole HD thing wasn't made for XP. XP is old and the manufacturers of the software, drivers etc. have to let's say emulate all the things that Vista brings by default for playing HDM. Think of secure paths for video and audio for example or built in HD codecs. I and about five other people I know own PowerDVD Ultra and Vista, have HDCP
compliant equipment and play our discs by AACS rules. And guess what: No one has a problem with it. OK, new keys and that kind of things are inevitable, but are solved quite fast by Cyberlink.

Bottom of the line is: With the right equipment PowerDVD Ultra works as it should.

[penngray]

Bottom of the line is: With the right equipment PowerDVD Ultra works as it should.


The G33 intel chipset with onboard HDMI doesnt work with it, many have had problems but according to the websites it should be supported.. I have screwed around all day with it.

The advisor is BS too saying my display isnt HDCP compliant, Im connected via HDMI too. Its "crappy bleeding edge" I guess but I would think they would make it easy to work with.

I just built the very nice HTPC over the weekend and I really shouldnt have to buy a separate video card.


PowerDVD Ultra is the only one that will play HD-DVD or BRs right?

[indieke2]

I, have The invisible on BD, genuine disc.

It is the first that wil not play! At once my HDCP card is nott HDCP any more!

An evening wasted! I have installed the latest 319 a version, nothing to do about it.

[Rathbone]

The G33 intel chipset with onboard HDMI doesnt work with it, many have had problems but according to the websites it should be supported.. I have screwed around all day with it.

The advisor is BS too saying my display isnt HDCP compliant, Im connected via HDMI too. Its "crappy bleeding edge" I guess but I would think they would make it easy to work with.

I just built the very nice HTPC over the weekend and I really shouldnt have to buy a separate video card.


PowerDVD Ultra is the only one that will play HD-DVD or BRs right?

Nope, there is also Nero Showtime 4.1 with HD/BD Plugin (good, but still quite unstable) and ArcSoft TotalMediaTheatre (not released yet, but looks promising).

[Stereodude]

I, have The invisible on BD, genuine disc.

It is the first that wil not play! At once my HDCP card is nott HDCP any more!

An evening wasted! I have installed the latest 319 a version, nothing to do about it.What video card do you have?

[indieke2]

What video card do you have?

A ATI 2600 XT. No everything is HDCP, older one's work. With the latest version of PWDVD there seems to be problem with BD's. I went back to the previous version, everything works fine then, except the invisible. I read that there were issues, especially, on Disney discs.

[Nimo]

The latest AnyD 6193 does play on the fly with DT2 I also tested this with PDVD 3104.0 with my garage PC and it also plays. The player when launched PDVD will bring up a dialog box about an untrusted certificate, just run the wizard so windows will accept it. Then the player will play the movie of course I'm talking about Transformers.

[bk1987]

The Arcsoft japanese trial does not work properly for me either in XP: will only produce an image in software decode mode and then it maxes my CPU and creates a slideshow. I can't see an official release fixing this if the trial doesn't already work.

I have a feeling the Arcsoft installation is also futzing with the PowerDVD installation when trying to access the advanced video dialogue. PowerDVD crashes in a similar way to what it does when the cineplayer 4.3 audio decoder is installed.

It's a player nightmare at the moment for XP and I can't see it improving.

I can't avoid the feeling that the industry is persuading consumers to move to Vista to play HD, by ensuring an XP solution always has issues and produces imperfect results. It was kinda obvious from the start when Nvidia refused to release accelerated drivers for the newer graphics cards for XP until 6 months after Vista and it still isn't working properly. I they didn't want to allow XP playback, why not make that clear from the start, instead of leading us to believe it would be possible via XP?

And to think that 9 months ago I was able to play King Kong with PowerDVD 6.5 and an ATI X300 in software decode mode in XP with 50% usage of a C2D 2.4GHz CPU.

according to this http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/26/avivo_hd_vs_purevideo/ it seems the Nvidia cards and software cant compare to ATI in XP, its a long article but starting at page 9 the ratings clearly show ati better in XP

[IanD]

I don't use AnyDVD; but if I understand correctly, this program really does two things. One, it has some kind of driver that somehow neutralizes the HDCP issues during run-time. I gather that current versions of PowerDVD look for this driver and won't run if it is also present.

Second, I think AnyDVD also is a ripper. So my guess is that if you can rip the title but not run the run-time driver you should be able to play back the files.
As I understand it, AnyDVD HD installs a driver that filters data streaming from the drive. In effect it decrypts the data and strips AACS before PowerDVD sees it. Consequently, without AACS requirement for the data, HDCP should not be applicable on the video output.

Because AnyDVD HD decrypts the data on the fly, it can also be used to copy that data elsewhere: in effect a rip.

I don't think there is a separate run-time driver and ripper: they are both part of the same driver process and ripping is just a side effect.
Should high bitrate content be eating up a 2.8GHz C2D? That seems really high CPU usage for that thing. People have gotten non-accelerated playback working fine on 2GHz C2D, IIRC.
No, it shouldn't. I suspect it is something to do with PowerDVD and XP as it happens on both Nvidia and ATI GPUs. PowerDVD doesn't provide access to it's inner workings, except via a few vague Video Quality settings. It's possible that Best Quality, for example, applies de-interlacing, noise reduction, edge enhancement and contrast stretching which could suck a lot of extra CPU cycles. But we aren't given a fine choice as to what processing occurs (and I would like that choice).

PowerDVD and that whole HD thing wasn't made for XP.

Bottom of the line is: With the right equipment PowerDVD Ultra works as it should.
If that's the case, then why is Cyberlink including XP as a valid platform for HD in the requirements?

I haven't seen any official statement that says HD playback will only be supported (properly) via Vista: all the marketing has included XP too. If it never was the true intention to properly support HD playback via XP, then the consumer has been mislead into purchasing costly required hardware that will never work properly.

With the latest version of PWDVD there seems to be problem with BD's. I went back to the previous version, everything works fine then, except the invisible. I read that there were issues, especially, on Disney discs.
Some recent BD discs include BD+ (a DRM extension) which is probably still in beta stage for the software players.
according to this http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/26/avivo_hd_vs_purevideo/ it seems the Nvidia cards and software cant compare to ATI in XP, its a long article but starting at page 9 the ratings clearly show ati better in XP
Yes, very interesting: I wonder whether the low-end cards are actually capable, but have been nobbled in the drivers to push sales of the more expensive versions.

It must be remembered that VC-1 and AVC 1080p24 don't require sophisticated post processing, so the main requirement for this feature would probably be for less-than-stellar interlaced broadcast HDTV. Playing the interlaced HD-DVD extra "300 Fact or Fiction" in XP with a 8600GT and PowerDVD, demonstrates that de-interlacing is being performed quite well under XP (at least with that particular GPU), so that particular case is handled too.

I experimented with a 2400Pro in XP but didn't like the lack of 72Hz option, strange noisy colours, aliasing, blurrier appearance compared to Nvidia, slideshow appearance of menus and "300 Fact or Fiction" although granted I was using Catalyst 7.7. I've sold the card now as I was so disappointed, so can't test further. I do agree that it offloaded the CPU far more than Nvidia's offerings.

We've been sold a pup with XP and HD IMO. but I sincerely hope the powers that be decide to offer full support sooner rather than later. I strongly believe the solution is already known, but is being witheld and delayed for commercial reasons.

[AnthonyB]

Is U-Control possible with PowerDVD?

[bk1987]

[QUOTE=IanD;12052624]


If that's the case, then why is Cyberlink including XP as a valid platform for HD in the requirements?

I haven't seen any official statement that says HD playback will only be supported (properly) via Vista: all the marketing has included XP too. If it never was the true intention to properly support HD playback via XP, then the consumer has been mislead into purchasing costly required hardware that will never work properly.

i think they include it because XP is on some 90% of the pc's today, they need to sell there software and if they sold it just to vista they just cut there market share down to 10% of the PC's out there

[IanD]

i think they include it because XP is on some 90% of the pc's today, they need to sell there software and if they sold it just to vista they just cut there market share down to 10% of the PC's out there
However, the bad will generated by releasing a product that doesn't work properly must damage the company reputation.

I personally am getting heartily sick of beta software masquerading as a polished product and being asked to pay premium prices.

[indieke2]

Some recent BD discs include BD+ (a DRM extension) which is probably still in beta stage for the software players.

This could be possible, but.....

"The invisible", is cracked and can be found on the internet. Iread it is not BD +, but just has a codec, that is difficult to read in some cases.

[vladd]

This could be possible, but.....

"Transformers", is cracked and can be found on the internet. Iread it is not BD +, but just has a codec, that is difficult to read in some cases.Transformers was released on HD-DVD. It does not have BD+ (which is on BluRay).

[indieke2]

Sorry was refering to "the invisible!"

[Rathbone]

i think they include it because XP is on some 90% of the pc's today, they need to sell there software and if they sold it just to vista they just cut there market share down to 10% of the PC's out there

Thanks, that's exactly my point! It's clear that companies have problems implementing HD in XP cause it's not native. PQ in PowerDVD is worse in XP than Vista, Purevideo HD support for XP came months after Vista and still doesn't work properly etc.

[Alpha10]

Thanks, that's exactly my point! It's clear that companies have problems implementing HD in XP cause it's not native. PQ in PowerDVD is worse in XP than Vista, Purevideo HD support for XP came months after Vista and still doesn't work properly etc.

I've seen this hinted at a few times, is PQ really better in Vista? Who else has noticed this?

Your getting me tempted to the dark-side :D

[takisot]

With my ATI X1950 pro, the PQ is IDENTICAL in XP and Vista (dual boot system), displaying through a JVC HD-1 projector and a Pionneer 5080 Kuro plasma.
The same exact results with an ATI 2600 XT.
Software player Powerdvd latest build.

[Alpha10]

With my ATI X1950 pro, the PQ is IDENTICAL in XP and Vista (dual boot system), displaying through a JVC HD-1 projector and a Pionneer 5080 Kuro plasma.
The same exact results with an ATI 2600 XT.
Software player Powerdvd latest build.

Thaks for the reply, that is very interesting, any others?

Cheers

[arfster]

I've seen this hinted at a few times, is PQ really better in Vista? Who else has noticed this?


I doubt it's universally true - under some circumstances it might be though. For example, PDVD appears to use overlay in XP, but EVR in Vista. For some cards/drivers, the latter works better (does it still do a levels expansion in xp overlay btw?).

Outside the protectedpathDRMhell setup that is HTPC Bluray/HDDVD, the only other issue is renderers. In XP I always had to use vmr9 renderless with exclusive mode to get rid of it, which not all players support (Theatertek and Zoomplayer do, but WMP uses vmr7). In Vista EVR doesn't need an exclusive mode for this, and I've never seen it tear - you also have a wider selection of players that support it, including WMP and PDVD.

[takisot]

I doubt it's universally true - under some circumstances it might be though. For example, PDVD appears to use overlay in XP, but EVR in Vista. For some cards/drivers, the latter works better (does it still do a levels expansion in xp overlay btw?).

Outside the protectedpathDRMhell setup that is HTPC Bluray/HDDVD, the only other issue is renderers. In XP I always had to use vmr9 renderless with exclusive mode to get rid of it, which not all players support (Theatertek and Zoomplayer do, but WMP uses vmr7). In Vista EVR doesn't need an exclusive mode for this, and I've never seen it tear - you also have a wider selection of players that support it, including WMP and PDVD.


I do not think that PDVD uses EVR in Vista, but I would love this to be the case. It behaves exaclty like in XP ie Overlay. I am trying to use the color and gamma VMR9 controls of the ATI driver or Powerstrip, but they do not "listen" with Powerdvd in Vista and XP! So, how are you certain that EVR is working?

[arfster]

I am trying to use the color and gamma VMR9 controls of the ATI driver or Powerstrip, but they do not "listen" with Powerdvd in Vista and XP! So, how are you certain that EVR is working?

Definitely I wouldn't say I'm certain, but on the other hand catalyst colour controls do work for me (Vista32, 2600xt, cat7.7, pdvd3319) with HDDVD and Bluray.

[dvbnick]

This is amazing, but I actually did exactly what they suggested (minus reinstalling my video and sound drivers and setting my screen resolution to 1024x768) and IT ACTUALLY WORKS! My windows media center no longer crashes when accessing video files as it used to with Power DVD ultra installed.

Hi, same problem here, crash while entering video. What did Cyberlink tell you to do in detail (hacking Vista?)?
Thanx and greetings,
dvbnick

[bk1987]

With my ATI X1950 pro, the PQ is IDENTICAL in XP and Vista (dual boot system), displaying through a JVC HD-1 projector and a Pionneer 5080 Kuro plasma.
The same exact results with an ATI 2600 XT.
Software player Powerdvd latest build.

It seems that for some reason using ATI cards produces the same PQ in XP & Vista but the Nvidia 8*** cards are producing a better picture in vista,

[penngray]

WTF, has anyone ever ordered PowerDVD ultra online???

That had to be my worst experience ever in ordering a product online. I have spent the past 45 minutes trying to order it and it seems like it takes the order but I never get my download option.


There isnt even a 1-800 number to get things figured out. This is BS!!

So far in my opinion this is a horrible company and horrible product!!!!!

[IAM4UK]

Cyberlink has convinced me they are a horrible company, also, penngray.

[penngray]

Well after 1+ hours, I finally was able to buy a copy. Man, I knew I shouldnt have started an HD movie HTPC project last week.

Playing the Ripped King Kong worked ok but my new HTPC is having problems with the HD-DVD itself.

[Nimo]

WTF, has anyone ever ordered PowerDVD ultra online???

That had to be my worst experience ever in ordering a product online. I have spent the past 45 minutes trying to order it and it seems like it takes the order but I never get my download option.


There isnt even a 1-800 number to get things figured out. This is BS!!

So far in my opinion this is a horrible company and horrible product!!!!!

Are you by any chance using Fire Fox? Because in able for you to get the update links you have to use IE. I also agree they are a terrible company, as Ian mention how can they pass this off as a polished product when guys have to go into their registry's and hack their own system to get things working again.

And how do you like the walk the plank deal they give you, with Ultra you can't even try it out because they know how crappy this player really is. I remember when they released a DVD player and in their advertisement they listed a certain codec well I bought into that and when I tried to playback a certain disk it wouldn't play it.

When I looked in the list of filters it wasn't even there, so I asked them to refund my money that was in 04 and I never did get my money back. Their email response was like dealing with a 5th grader.

Although we are stuck with this player for the moment, when Arcsoft releases their version I'm almost positive everybody here will jump ship on Cyber. If things work out with this promising player I say we do a Cyber Bonfire and toss our Cyberlink players into the flames.

Since I danced around this so many times and cut off countless chicken heads because of them, it would actually feel good to throw it back in their faces and say we are tired of being your alpha/beta testers!! for your buggy product!!

I can't wait till that day comes and I hope sooner than later. And there is no reason why it shouldn't work in XP, heck most of the players that the forum members put our own together is a better player than what we bought. Take Pirates for instance I will only watch that in MPC because of the higher PQ without overlays when you see like this you can't go back. As far as XP over Vista I've been testing this OS since the beta public testing even though I see no difference in PQ I still use XP because I feel the performace level of Vista is no where near XP.

And it doesn't grind your HDD's to death because of the new svhost implementation and that stupid indexing even though you think you turned it off.

[penngray]

No, Im using explorer and it took about 10 times for me to get an order through, can wait and see 10 charges to my credit card :eek:


Okay back to testing.....Inserting a HDDVD seems to hang up my HTPC. The HTPC is brand new (built on the weekend), its fast, its good and it has the HD2600pro card in it so it can not be a PC performance issue. I do have the new LG combo BR/HD DVD drive in it. PowerDVD takes forever to load when I have an HD-DVD in the drive.


No real performance issues when playing ripped DVDs except if I press next chapter too fast ( I can hang PowerDVD).

I do have a question about a movie fitting on my 42" 1080p LCD. Right now I have King Kong ripped and Im playing it but its fits in the middle of my screen leaving big black borders on both sides and top/bottom. Why doesnt it fill the screen like regular movies do with WMP??

[slothy]

my order went thru without probs, it did take like 2 hours to get the email with link to download though.

[Nimo]

No, Im using explorer and it took about 10 times for me to get an order through, can wait and see 10 charges to my credit card :eek:


Okay back to testing.....Inserting a HDDVD seems to hang up my HTPC. The HTPC is brand new (built on the weekend), its fast, its good and it has the HD2600pro card in it so it can not be a PC performance issue. I do have the new LG combo BR/HD DVD drive in it. PowerDVD takes forever to load when I have an HD-DVD in the drive.


No real performance issues when playing ripped DVDs except if I press next chapter too fast ( I can hang PowerDVD).

I do have a question about a movie fitting on my 42" 1080p LCD. Right now I have King Kong ripped and Im playing it but its fits in the middle of my screen leaving big black borders on both sides and top/bottom. Why doesnt it fill the screen like regular movies do with WMP??

OMFG!!:eek: Are you serious? A grand? I hope you get your money back and not some Christmas Turkey!

There seems to be a problem with the latest patch it creates window boxing, I think Ian mentioned it in an early thread you might be better off with an early build. For us HTPC'rs we have to have AnyDVD because were sticking to either 2911 build or 3104.0 I'm using 3104.0 because it seems to play most of the disks except for the later titles.

It also depends on what file format your trying to play, even Tranformers locks up some standalone's. The Radeon has it's issues to so you might want to pop in there to see whats up. When they release the 8800GT in HDMI I will probably pick one of these up, but I held out on the 85/86 series because I learned my lessen with the 6800 fiasco. Glad I did wait, but for now my Diamond GT is doing it's job but sucks for game play. The new 320 bit cards should handle shaders with ease and playback HD without breaking a sweat. Even though it's DX10 based I'll still run it in XP.

[penngray]

OMFG!! Are you serious? A grand? I hope you get your money back and not some Christmas Turkey!

lol, I dont think it charged 10 times...Im hoping it didnt. I only have ONE email in the end and I think that is a good thing, it just took over 1 hour to get an order through.

I used AnyDVD to rip King Kong, I just played King Kong HD-DVD on my XBOX360 to test it out and of course its full screen so its definitely the anyDVD rip or PowerDVD.

Are you saying I should have loaded the latest patch for PowerDVD Ultra?

[JKohn]

It seems that for some reason using ATI cards produces the same PQ in XP & Vista but the Nvidia 8*** cards are producing a better picture in vista,
A lot of the video/quality problems seem to have more to do with NVidia drivers than anything else (window-boxing, HWA crashes, aliasing, etc). PDVD seems to be running OK for me on XP with an ATI card, although I still think the application is a steaming pile of @!$#@ compared to TheaterTek.

[arfster]

I do have a question about a movie fitting on my 42" 1080p LCD. Right now I have King Kong ripped and Im playing it but its fits in the middle of my screen leaving big black borders on both sides and top/bottom. Why doesnt it fill the screen like regular movies do with WMP??

Search for vforcemaxressize, it can be fixed via an ATI driver registry change.

[penngray]

PDVD seems to be running OK for me on XP with an ATI card

Do you get "window boxing"? Im trying to figure out how to stretch the movie to full screen but no matter what I get a black box around the movie. Too small for regular viewing on my 61" JVC 1080p

[Nimo]

The latest patch from PDVD is causing the window boxing, click on cyberlink in the upper left, then click on your name it will tell you what version you have. If they gave a full install of the latest build then you will either have to get a ticket for support and ask for an earlier build or just google it and hope they email you back .

I can't go past 3104.0 because if I change anything in my setup I get the 16fps bug in MPC. And if I can't playback P1 in MPC I turn into a Bear.:mad:

[penngray]

DVD Version : 7.3.3319a.0


I guess I will downgrade and retry, thanks

[gtgray]

my order went thru without probs, it did take like 2 hours to get the email with link to download though.

2 Hours that is pretty good. When I bought it back in the early part of the year it was about 14 hours.

[penngray]

Search for vforcemaxressize, it can be fixed via an ATI driver registry change.

Missed that suggestion, trying now.

[penngray]

Search for vforcemaxressize, it can be fixed via an ATI driver registry change.

Yes, Yes that was the fix needed very nice.

I googled vforcemaxressize and found this link

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?p=59555

then, it pointed me to this link for a quick way to update my registry.

http://exdeus.home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/

lol, now I can watch it be choppy on full screen :D :eek: If its not one thing its the next thing. It wasnt choppy before now it is.

[Nimo]

Penngray another band aid for you if your using XP.
http://reclock.free.fr/

[takisot]

Definitely I wouldn't say I'm certain, but on the other hand catalyst colour controls do work for me (Vista32, 2600xt, cat7.7, pdvd3319) with HDDVD and Bluray.


Which color controls? The ATI Catalyst control panel has two sets of color controls. The first on the list can be used only under VMR and have more options and the second ones are only Overlay so I assume those are the ones that are working for you.

[RedTee]

This latest PDVD is still buggy 3319. With Transformers ripped to HD, it would still crash (and lead to system reboot). However with version 2911, no problems. Will stop upgrading PDWD and just wait for AnyDVD HD to crack the disc so I don't have to keep upgrading buggy Cyberlink betas.

Even with a 2400pro, with Transformers, cpu uasge is 40% on dual core. I wonder if the integrated RS 780 chipset will be better for HD DVD?

As for a standalone, will be on the lookout during Black Friday for a XA2.


If you have an HDMI/HDCP HDTV, then standalone is the only way to go at the moment for stable playback.

However, for those who need 72Hz for CRT display, an HTPC is the only option at the moment and it sucks.

I don't think the industry really wants PC playback of protected HD material to succeed, so I guess they are making it as difficult as possible in the hopes it will dissuade most consumers.

[arfster]

Which color controls? The ATI Catalyst control panel has two sets of color controls. The first on the list can be used only under VMR and have more options and the second ones are only Overlay so I assume those are the ones that are working for you.


For PDVD while playing HDDVD/Bluray, monitor properties/avivo color and avivo video/basic color both work. The main color menu only affects the desktop, not video playback.

Using MPC to test different renderers:

EVR: all three affect video
VMR9: all three affect video with dxva on. Without dxva, avivo video/basic color doesn't
Overlay: only avivo video/basic color affects video.


EVR custom presenter perhaps?

[penngray]

Penngray another band aid for you if your using XP.

Sorry, I forgot to list that Im using Vista home premium.

[penngray]

Well after all my rants today, things are working much better.

I ripped King Kong, Matrix, 300 and Transformers and all play back without issue.

I also have Spiderman 3 now and AMAZINGLY I put in my GREAT NEW combo drive and powerDVD started playing WITHOUT issue :D :D

pretty impressive!

After a weekend of compatibility questions and mobo vs PDVD debatese I actually have a HTPC can play BR and HD-DVDs even the latest movies.


Time to work on getting it integrated into my complete home A/V distribution system.

[JKohn]

Time to work on getting it integrated into my complete home A/V distribution system.Good luck with that; I've found PDVD to be problematic for external control even with Girder. Some commands work, some work "some of the time" and some jsut don't seem to work. It doesn't help that they don't use a standard windows menu and WM_COMMANDS, but seem to have their own internal menu system.

[penngray]

I've found PDVD to be problematic for external control even with Girder.

Thanks, I figured it isnt going to work to well for awhile.

I have full control of Zoomplayer right now for standard DVD playback and it works awesome.

If I can just get PDVD to start up with a specific movie folder in mind I think the rest is default and I never have to touch it. I would hope it can shutdown too after the movie.

For now I have only a few HD movies so controlling it manually is okay. I will have it connected to my component video switch though so I can send it to any room in the house that is a good start. Time to use HDfury too.

[indieke2]

Well for me there was no way to play "the invisible" BD!

Tried everything, different versions of Powerdvd I did not change the drivers, as everything is working too well now!

I used dvd fab hD, a free hd Decrypter to copy the didc on my HD. Guess what, it worked, PWDVD played it without any problem!:rolleyes:

But it is too stupid that i can't play a bD, with my pioneer, HDCP install, and Powerdvd! I don't want to rip my discs, all the time, Pwdvd should play BD, and it could be that Fab hd will not handle the latest discs.....

[Favelle]

This latest PDVD is still buggy 3319. With Transformers ripped to HD, it would still crash (and lead to system reboot). However with version 2911, no problems. Will stop upgrading PDWD and just wait for AnyDVD HD to crack the disc so I don't have to keep upgrading buggy Cyberlink betas.

Even with a 2400pro, with Transformers, cpu uasge is 40% on dual core. I wonder if the integrated RS 780 chipset will be better for HD DVD?

As for a standalone, will be on the lookout during Black Friday for a XA2.

I agree man. I am staying with a stable version of PowerDVD like 2911 or 3014a....and I'll just wait for AnyDVD HD to crack it. I'm not doing the patch dance with Cyberlink anymore.....no way.

[lsdavinci]

Well after all my rants today, things are working much better.

I ripped King Kong, Matrix, 300 and Transformers and all play back without issue.

I also have Spiderman 3 now and AMAZINGLY I put in my GREAT NEW combo drive and powerDVD started playing WITHOUT issue :D :D

pretty impressive!

After a weekend of compatibility questions and mobo vs PDVD debatese I actually have a HTPC can play BR and HD-DVDs even the latest movies.


Time to work on getting it integrated into my complete home A/V distribution system.


And the version you have is......... :confused:

[md0u8142]

hi there, been lurking on these forums for awhile now, loads of useful information, thanks a lot! without everyones help, i wouldn't have been able to sort out my htpc for highdef disc playback, now all we need is cyberlnk to sort out their own software!!

penngrey, how did you manage to play spiderman 3??

when i play it i get a flash of a spider logo then a blank screen with no sound but powerdvd does not crash. the same happens with vacancy on bluray as well, which plays fine on my ps3 though.

i have vista ultimate,powerdvd version 3319, and the latest nvidia driver 169.04 for my 8800gts and everything is hdcp compliant, even transformers plays fine without any noticable stutter.
have the old anydvd hd 6.1.7.5 does anyone know if the latest anydvd hd will help, or am i stuck waiting for cyberlink to update powerdvd again?

anyone heard of arcsoft releasing an english version yet?

anyone else have any luck with spiderman 3? i see that if you buy a new sony vaio laptop ar series you can get spiderman 3 for free with it, and it comes with intervideo bd for playback, anyone know if this is better/more stable than powerdvd at all?

cheers again for everyones help,

Ash

[XxDeadlyxX]

hi there, been lurking on these forums for awhile now, loads of useful information, thanks a lot! without everyones help, i wouldn't have been able to sort out my htpc for highdef disc playback, now all we need is cyberlnk to sort out their own software!!

penngrey, how did you manage to play spiderman 3??

when i play it i get a flash of a spider logo then a blank screen with no sound but powerdvd does not crash. the same happens with vacancy on bluray as well, which plays fine on my ps3 though.

i have vista ultimate,powerdvd version 3319, and the latest nvidia driver 169.04 for my 8800gts and everything is hdcp compliant, even transformers plays fine without any noticable stutter.
have the old anydvd hd 6.1.7.5 does anyone know if the latest anydvd hd will help, or am i stuck waiting for cyberlink to update powerdvd again?

anyone heard of arcsoft releasing an english version yet?

anyone else have any luck with spiderman 3? i see that if you buy a new sony vaio laptop ar series you can get spiderman 3 for free with it, and it comes with intervideo bd for playback, anyone know if this is better/more stable than powerdvd at all?

cheers again for everyones help,

Ash

The only way to get Spider-man movies to work is use build 3319a, not 3319.

[indieke2]

I have the same issues MD.

I had no problems with HDDVD, then at once my computer is recognised as HDCP. I only have one BD, "the invisible", and its exactely the same as you describe.

Ripped bD's play fine. But that is not why I have a BD player for!:(

And I have not the same card, I have an ATI 2600, so it is not your drivers either!

[IAM4UK]

With PDVDU 7.3.3104a, should the nag-o-gram about "updating a critical component" keep popping up? I thought that was only with the 3319 builds...

[Andy o]

Arfster and all, just some info. Other nVidia 8000 users can back me up on this, maybe?

nVidia in their latest beta 169.04 seems to have implemented levels expansion only for HD (testing here HD-DVDs with PDVD 3319). It doesn't expand with SD content (regular DVDs).

Anyone else getting this? I wonder if it's on purpose. No nVidia driver since I've had my 8600GTS ever did expansion. Using Vista x86.

[lsdavinci]

The only way to get Spider-man movies to work is use build 3319a, not 3319.

I assume you got the 3319a patch from cyberlink. did that patch have "3319a" in the name of the file or was it just "3319"? I just got a link from them with "3319" and not with the "a". I already have 3319 so I'm hoping this is not a goose-chase.

[penngray]

And the version you have is.........

Just bought the software yesterday (read above my huge problems :( )

So its whatever PDVD version that I downloaded yesterday when I purchased PowerDVD ultra for $100. The HTPC is off right now and Im relocating it into my AV closet so I can not confirm.

[md0u8142]

thanks for the quick reply

ah i see 3319a, how do i get that version, the only available update is version 3104!, my powerdvd automatically updated itself to 3319 from cyberlink anyone got a link for the 3319a at all?

using anydvd hd i keep getting the annoying critical update but it doesnt download anything!

anyone else have same prob?

Ash

[md0u8142]

Arfster and all, just some info. Other nVidia 8000 users can back me up on this, maybe?

nVidia in their latest beta 169.04 seems to have implemented levels expansion only for HD (testing here HD-DVDs with PDVD 3319). It doesn't expand with SD content (regular DVDs).

Anyone else getting this? I wonder if it's on purpose. No nVidia driver since I've had my 8600GTS ever did expansion. Using Vista x86.


what do you mean levels expansion or am i being stupid?

Ash

[IAM4UK]

using anydvd hd i keep getting the annoying critical update but it doesnt download anything!

anyone else have same prob?

Yes, I have the same problem. It did download and install an update one time--perhaps I had AnyDVD off then. But even after downloading and updating, it now still says there is a critical update, and it does nothing.

Hey, Cyberlink: How about just providing a working version, sans nag-o-gram?

Hey, Studios: How about sticking to a standard, rather than pushing out discs that keep requiring updates? Oh, you're worried about the pirates. Newsflash: they're gonna break your encryption. Make the recordable media too expensive for their piracy to be viable. Treat your paying customers with a bit of respect.

[CCDAstro]

anyone heard of arcsoft releasing an english version yet?

Not yet. You can check This Page (http://www.arcsoft.com/products/totalmediatheatre/) once and a while or sign up to be notified. I may get that when it shows up. It is the only version of anything that plays "Surf's Up" on my system. I do plan to get a hardware player but those idiots do not seem to be a whole lot faster or less idiotic than the software player folks. This crap just really is not ready for prime time....

[IAM4UK]

What would have happened to DVD-Video, had it been as fouled up as HD-DVD and bD? DVD-Video had to fend off Circuit City's Digital Video Express nonsense, and still became the fastest-adopted consumer media I can remember. The standard was the standard. Dual-layer posed about the only glitch on first-gen players, and that was very minor.

Do the HD-DVD Forum and Bluray Disc Association want HD media to fail?

[arfster]

Anyone else getting this? I wonder if it's on purpose. No nVidia driver since I've had my 8600GTS ever did expansion. Using Vista x86.

They used to do that a while back, with 84.xx or thereabouts. No sign of ATI fixing theirs though - I reported it in July.......

[maxleung]

nVidia in their latest beta 169.04 seems to have implemented levels expansion only for HD (testing here HD-DVDs with PDVD 3319). It doesn't expand with SD content (regular DVDs).

As far as I know, PowerDVD 7.x ALWAYS enforces levels expansions with the default color settings in the PowerDVD config (Original color setting). Try playing around with the color controls in PowerDVD. For example, brightness of +4 and contrast of -7 may work for you as a workaround. However, you will see banding in the gray ramps in HD-DVD Video Essentials. The banding is present even with the original color settings.

I have an NVIDIA 8800GT (G92) with PowerDVD 7.3.3104 I think. Driver is the latest official version currently on NVIDIA's site (169.04 I think).

I must report that there is NO banding and NO level expansions if I use a directshow player like MPC or KMPlayer. However, this requires AnyDVD and lots of specialized filters (there is a separate thread here for HD-DVD/Blu-ray playback using MPC).

BTW - there is also gray ramp banding with the ATI 2400 Pro card that I had - I suspect PowerDVD always does levels expansion on all cards - and when you try to remove the level expansion, you still get banding.

[Nimo]

Hi max, how do you like that card so far? I'm seriously thinking about getting one of these. I'm waiting for HDMI and price drops. My 7600 just can't handle gaming due to the 128 bit interface 340 sounds promising.

[penngray]

ah i see 3319a, how do i get that version, the only available update is version 3104!, my powerdvd automatically updated itself to 3319 from cyberlink anyone got a link for the 3319a at all?

I sent you a PM.

[maxleung]

Nimo: The card is very good. Overpriced right now because of demand (XFX 8800GT 512mb is the model I have - I'm trying to exchange for the eVGA because of superior customer support of the latter, but supplies are very very short). The stock cooler isn't too loud - not bad for a single slot solution. However, I still plan on adding an aftermarket cooler - probably a hacked Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 6 with individual memory heatsinks.

The card is fast in games. And h/w accel of video is the same as the 8600GTS as far as I can tell. However, the h/w accel isn't needed if you have a fast Core2Duo CPU to go with it (2.4 Ghz or greater IMHO).

The PQ in PowerDVD appears to be the same as the 7900GT card I have, at first glance. I don't like PowerDVD's PQ because of color weirdness.

[Nimo]

Nimo: The card is very good. Overpriced right now because of demand (XFX 8800GT 512mb is the model I have - I'm trying to exchange for the eVGA because of superior customer support of the latter, but supplies are very very short). The stock cooler isn't too loud - not bad for a single slot solution. However, I still plan on adding an aftermarket cooler - probably a hacked Arctic Cooling NV Silencer 6 with individual memory heatsinks.

The card is fast in games. And h/w accel of video is the same as the 8600GTS as far as I can tell. However, the h/w accel isn't needed if you have a fast Core2Duo CPU to go with it (2.4 Ghz or greater IMHO).

The PQ in PowerDVD appears to be the same as the 7900GT card I have, at first glance. I don't like PowerDVD's PQ because of color weirdness.

Thanks for quick review, yea I'll just wait till after xmas, my 7600 is doing just fine for now. If I put in my second card it can play games, but SLi sucks for HTPC and doesn't render certain files proper even though you have it disabled.

It kinda sucks because my old 7800GT can handle both HD and games due to the 256 bits, but not HDCP compliant I hate to just let the card sit doing nothing. Because it's a way better card than the 7600 for overall use.

[salacious]

I must report that there is NO banding and NO level expansions if I use a directshow player like MPC or KMPlayer. However, this requires AnyDVD and lots of specialized filters (there is a separate thread here for HD-DVD/Blu-ray playback using MPC).


I used to have a 7600GT and you could see the banding with PowerDVD but no banding when using MPC and the filters. When I tried a 8800GTS the picture was a lot better but not as good as MPC. I'm now using a 8500GT and the PDVD picture is the same as the 8800GTS

[Andy o]

what do you mean levels expansion or am i being stupid?

Ash
The card outputs the video brightness levels not to the original video levels of 16-235 (RGB values), but it expands it to 0-255, which makes black look black and white white. For some people it's a problem, but not a major one for me (below I explain my actual problem).

They used to do that a while back, with 84.xx or thereabouts. No sign of ATI fixing theirs though - I reported it in July.......
The problem for me is that nVidia seems to be doing it only with HD-DVD content and not with standard DVDs or over-the-air HDTV (1080i), so different contrast options need to be set for different types of video. It seems like a bug.

[Stereodude]

The problem for me is that nVidia seems to be doing it only with HD-DVD content and not with standard DVDs or over-the-air HDTV (1080i), so different contrast options need to be set for different types of video. It seems like a bug.That's not exactly true... The problem only seems to be for VC-1, AVC, and H.264 HD-DVD and Blu-Ray content. MPEG-2 Blu-Ray discs, MPEG-2 OTA HD .ts is fine, as is mpeg-2 DVD content.

[Andy o]

That's not exactly true... The problem only seems to be for VC-1, AVC, and H.264 HD-DVD and Blu-Ray content. MPEG-2 Blu-Ray discs, MPEG-2 OTA HD .ts is fine, as is mpeg-2 DVD content.

I don't have bluray, so I wouldn't know, but thanks for confirming. This is with the 169.04 betas right? Previous to this, I was using the 163.71 betas, which worked fine, but there was a green line at the bottom of the video.

[AnthonyB]

What is the current stable build? I was thinking 2911 but I get nag-o-grams with that version too (with AnyDVD)

[one_2go]

For PDVD Ultra the latest Patch is 3319a which though only can be obtained from Customer Support.

[IAM4UK]

For PDVD Ultra the latest Patch is 3319a which though only can be obtained from Customer Support.

And Customer Support is non-responsive. I'm using 3104.a.

[penngray]

What is the current stable build? I was thinking 2911 but I get nag-o-grams with that version too (with AnyDVD)

Im using 3319a and I have played King Kong, Transformers and Spiderman3 using it without problems in the past 3 days.

Its really dumb that Cyberlink doesnt have 3319a easily available, its not like you can use it without the key anyways.

[Laserfan]

One could speculate that they might be anticipating more changes-in-the-works and want to limit the distribution of this to onlly those "with a specific need".

I further expect that this is one heckuva difficult program, given it must support HD-DVD *and* BR, the changes these discs have ALREADY undergone, and the various videocards/systems people are running it with.

I wouldn't want to work in their support dept that's for sure! :o

[gsr]

Does anyone know if PowerDVD Ultra sold at NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681565108SF) is the same as purchasing PowerDVD Ultra direct from Cyberlink in regards to access to patches, customer support from Cyberlink (for what that's worth), etc? It's almost $30 less - I hate to throw money away when I can buy the same thing for less money from a reliable vendor...

[Stereodude]

I don't have bluray, so I wouldn't know, but thanks for confirming. This is with the 169.04 betas right? Previous to this, I was using the 163.71 betas, which worked fine, but there was a green line at the bottom of the video.Actually I need to revise my comments and do some more testing with PowerDVD 3319a... AVC seemed fine yesterday as well when I watched something. Previously, with older versions of powerDVD AVC was dark. I'm not 100% sure what drivers I'm using. I think it's the 163.16's. I'll have to investigate further.

[bk1987]

Thanks for quick review, yea I'll just wait till after xmas, my 7600 is doing just fine for now. If I put in my second card it can play games, but SLi sucks for HTPC and doesn't render certain files proper even though you have it disabled.

It kinda sucks because my old 7800GT can handle both HD and games due to the 256 bits, but not HDCP compliant I hate to just let the card sit doing nothing. Because it's a way better card than the 7600 for overall use.

have you ever tried anydvd HD, it will let you use your 7800gt because it removes the HDCP requirement,

[Dan@SI]

2 issues:

1. "The Lookout" in Blu-Ray will show video fine but there is no audio; there isn't even an audio tab in PDVD. 3 other Blu-Rays do good video and audio.

2. On all of my Blu-Ray DVDs, if I hit chapter skip, PDVD stops; this does not happen on any HDDVDs.

All HDDVD play fine, even Transformers.

Anybody had and solved these problems?

Vista 32 Ultimate/8600gts/1080p-50/163.69/3104a.1/AnyDVD 6.1.9.3/AMD 62FX (dual core @ 2.81MHz)/4 GB RAM/cpu utilization <15%; RAM utilization about 35%

[RichB]

Does anyone know if PowerDVD Ultra sold at NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681565108SF) is the same as purchasing PowerDVD Ultra direct from Cyberlink in regards to access to patches, customer support from Cyberlink (for what that's worth), etc? It's almost $30 less - I hate to throw money away when I can buy the same thing for less money from a reliable vendor...

PowerDVD Utlra is requred for HD DVD/BD playback. That does not look like the right version.

- Rich

[slothy]

PowerDVD Utlra is requred for HD DVD/BD playback. That does not look like the right version.

- Rich



"CyberLink 1565108SF PowerDVD Ultra Downloadable Software"


i think they are just using a generic box for graphic

[RichB]

"CyberLink 1565108SF PowerDVD Ultra Downloadable Software"


i think they are just using a generic box for graphic

OK. Someone else said it was the same version.
Give it a go.

- Rich

[IanD]

I don't have bluray, so I wouldn't know, but thanks for confirming. This is with the 169.04 betas right? Previous to this, I was using the 163.71 betas, which worked fine, but there was a green line at the bottom of the video.
The XP 169.04 beta drivers seem to have dropped the colour correction
tab in the Nvidia CPL completely, plus there is no more None/PAL/NTSC box next to the IVTC checkbox.

It's somewhat alarming when features just disappear from drivers.

With PDVD 2911, the drivers don't seem to have made much difference: I'm still getting aliasing, but otherwise HD-DVD with a 8600GT looks good.

However, very few things now seem to be under the control of the end-user in PowerDVD under XP with acceleration enabled: de-interlacing happens automatically, even if set to None (changing to weave or the 2 hardware accelerated options has no effect) and I don't know what type of de-interlacing is being used; saturation control doesn't seem to have any effect.

[deandob]

Does anyone know if PowerDVD Ultra sold at NewEgg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E1681565108SF) is the same as purchasing PowerDVD Ultra direct from Cyberlink in regards to access to patches, customer support from Cyberlink (for what that's worth), etc? It's almost $30 less - I hate to throw money away when I can buy the same thing for less money from a reliable vendor...


Yes, I went this route for my HD DVD HTPC and it works fine & fully featured. No need to throw away an extra $30 for the same product :D

[skepticon]

The card outputs the video brightness levels not to the original video levels of 16-235 (RGB values), but it expands it to 0-255, which makes black look black and white white. For some people it's a problem, but not a major one for me (below I explain my actual problem).


The problem for me is that nVidia seems to be doing it only with HD-DVD content and not with standard DVDs or over-the-air HDTV (1080i), so different contrast options need to be set for different types of video. It seems like a bug.


The levels expansion with HD-DVD has nothing to do with Nvidia...it's PowerDVD Ultra that's doing this.
In the registry, there's a dword at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CyberLink\PowerDVD\HDDVD called COLORSPACE_OPTION
By default, COLORSPACE_OPTION is set to (3), which results in levels expansion for HD-DVD formats. If you set this value to (1), you will retain proper video levels.

[IanD]

The levels expansion with HD-DVD has nothing to do with Nvidia...it's PowerDVD Ultra that's doing this.
In the registry, there's a dword at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CyberLink\PowerDVD\HDDVD called COLORSPACE_OPTION
By default, COLORSPACE_OPTION is set to (3), which results in levels expansion for HD-DVD formats. If you set this value to (1), you will retain proper video levels.
Thanks for the info, but why would Cyberlink do this without providing an option to change?

Any idea what the colorspace_options actually relate to? BT.709, BT.601, etc?

I would hope that choosing something other than 3 doesn't change BT.709, although I'm aware that other forum threads mention an Nvidia 7600 loses BT.709 capability.

I notice the Nvidia 169.04 beta drivers drop some of the adjustment options in the Control Panel: I want more consumer configurability, not less damn it!

[RichB]

The levels expansion with HD-DVD has nothing to do with Nvidia...it's PowerDVD Ultra that's doing this.
In the registry, there's a dword at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CyberLink\PowerDVD\HDDVD called COLORSPACE_OPTION
By default, COLORSPACE_OPTION is set to (3), which results in levels expansion for HD-DVD formats. If you set this value to (1), you will retain proper video levels.

Does the same option exist for Blu-Ray?

- Rich

[RichB]

I am trying to install a VisionTek 2400Pro AGP card and at the end of the install of the provided drivers and 7.10, I get "0 Display Service Error".

Does anyone have a link to the 7.11 Beta drivers. Maybe they will work.

- Rich

[nm88]

PowerDVD Utlra is requred for HD DVD/BD playback. That does not look like the right version.I downloaded the one from Newegg months ago, because it was $30 cheaper. It's the same full version and can be upgraded with the usual patches.

[tattootearz]

The levels expansion with HD-DVD has nothing to do with Nvidia...it's PowerDVD Ultra that's doing this.
In the registry, there's a dword at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CyberLink\PowerDVD\HDDVD called COLORSPACE_OPTION
By default, COLORSPACE_OPTION is set to (3), which results in levels expansion for HD-DVD formats. If you set this value to (1), you will retain proper video levels.
Just to clarify, is this fix for Windows XP?

[Andy o]

The levels expansion with HD-DVD has nothing to do with Nvidia...it's PowerDVD Ultra that's doing this.
In the registry, there's a dword at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CyberLink\PowerDVD\HDDVD called COLORSPACE_OPTION
By default, COLORSPACE_OPTION is set to (3), which results in levels expansion for HD-DVD formats. If you set this value to (1), you will retain proper video levels.

Thanks for the info, I'll try that. Is it the 3319 build of PowerDVD? I had to update to it in order to play the Transformers HD-DVD, but I didn't notice any expansion going on, it was just like 3104, which I didn't have any problems with. But then I updated to 169.04 nVidia drivers, and bam, immediately noticed expansion on HD-DVDs.

I'll have to try all this later. Damn PowerDVD takes so long to install/update that it's tiring doing all this testing.

[kapone]

New problem.

If you have your HD DVDs (I assume for BD as well) ripped to a NAS or server, the SAME movie, if played on more than one machine, causes the SECOND machine to stutter. The first one continues playing flawlessly. Is there some file lokcing going on?

(It's not the server or the machines, or the network. Everything has enough headroom. I can play 4 DIFFERENT HD DVDs from the server just fine).

Problem solved. The upgrade to ver 3319 (not the patch being given out selectively by Cyberlink, but the latest publicly available version) fixed it. Now I can play the SAME HD DVD movie from my server on 5 clients at the same time, without a hitch. :D

[kapone]

I have a question..which one of these images looks "right" in terms of colors? (Ignore the graininess, I'm a bad photographer)

Picture A

http://bimmerboard.com/members/kapone/original/DSCN1602.jpg

Picture B

http://bimmerboard.com/members/kapone/original/DSCN1603.jpg

[skepticon]

Does the same option exist for Blu-Ray?

- Rich


There is no "seperate" option for Blu-Ray, but as the codecs are the same, it SHOULD work with Blue Ray as well. I don't have a Blue Ray drive (yet), so I can't confirm.

[skepticon]

Just to clarify, is this fix for Windows XP?

This works in both XP and Vista

[skepticon]

Thanks for the info, I'll try that. Is it the 3319 build of PowerDVD? I had to update to it in order to play the Transformers HD-DVD, but I didn't notice any expansion going on, it was just like 3104, which I didn't have any problems with. But then I updated to 169.04 nVidia drivers, and bam, immediately noticed expansion on HD-DVDs.

I'll have to try all this later. Damn PowerDVD takes so long to install/update that it's tiring doing all this testing.

I have not yet updated to 3319, after reading all the problems associated with this build. This registy value works will all versions prior to 3319 that I have used, and I have no reason to believe that 3319 would work any differently.

[deandob]

Can someone confirm that it is possible with the latest version of PDVD and Nvidia drivers on Vista that PDVD will use EVR, even if it is only with AnyDVD (eg. ripped)? My setup always switches to overlay, and there is some conflicting info in this thread about EVR working / not working.

[kapone]

Can someone confirm that it is possible with the latest version of PDVD and Nvidia drivers on Vista that PDVD will use EVR, even if it is only with AnyDVD (eg. ripped)? My setup always switches to overlay, and there is some conflicting info in this thread about EVR working / not working.

Still uses overlay only. With 3319.

[deandob]

Thanks. Did prior versions support evr?

[kapone]

Thanks. Did prior versions support evr?

Not that I know of.

[IanD]

The levels expansion with HD-DVD has nothing to do with Nvidia...it's PowerDVD Ultra that's doing this.
In the registry, there's a dword at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CyberLink\PowerDVD\HDDVD called COLORSPACE_OPTION
By default, COLORSPACE_OPTION is set to (3), which results in levels expansion for HD-DVD formats. If you set this value to (1), you will retain proper video levels.
OMG! it works and increases shadow detail that I never saw before. I can now use PowerDVD "Original" settings with all sliders at 0 and levels appear to be correct.

What's more, this single change has completely removed the aliasing that PowerDVD 7.3.2911 and later have been plagued with.

I'm now getting almost perfect PQ with an 8600GT.

Thanks so much for this tweak as now I don't have to consider upgrading PowerDVD (with AnyDVD HD assistance) unless they offer a major improvement.

I was a little hasty with the above comments. With COLORSPACE_OPTION=1, aliasing still exists, but it isn't noticeable at Brightness=0 (and the levels seem correct) and only becomes apparent if Brightness is raised above 4. With COLORSPACE_OPTION=3, aliasing is not noticeable at Brightness=0, however the image is way too dark: if Brightness is raised, the image levels seem to improve, but aliasing then becomes very apparent.

I would be happy with COLORSPACE_OPTION=1 obscuring the aliasing, except that it doesn't appear so colourful or vibrant as COLORSPACE_OPTION=3 (in fact it appears quite dull in comparison). Unfortunately, saturation control does nothing in PowerDVD under XP with HA enabled.

So, this isn't the perfect solution after all, but I wonder what it means with respect to the aliasing.

I note that PowerDVD registry has options to enable VMR and VMR9: I wonder if disabling one or the other will force PowerDVD to give back saturation control or have any other beneficial impact. More experimentation needed.

Disabling VMR or VMR9 did not return saturation control under PowerDVD or have any apparent effect.

I discovered that I get best results so far when playing an HD-DVD in PowerDVD by using "original" colour profile (ensuring all slider values are at 0), COLORSPACE_OPTION=1 in the registry and boosting saturation in the Nvidia Control Panel TV/Video to 55%, whilst reducing Hue to 49% (I seem to have a green push). Aliasing is not noticeable and saturation is as good as with COLORSPACE_OPTION=3 in this configuration. At least I do have control over colour, one way or another.

I would hazard a guess that any video adjustment (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Hue) in PowerDVD amplifies artifacts, (maybe because it turns on shader post processing or something) and that any adjustment is best done in the Nvidia Control Panel.

[Steve Young]

So I bought a XBOX HD DVD player and connected it to my PC (Abit AB9 Quad GT, C2D Q6600 @ 3 Ghz, 2 GB ram, Gigabyte 2600XT w/ccc 7.10) and have it connected to my Pio Pro 150FD via HDMI. I start the King Kong HD DVD that came with the player in PDVD 3319 and when it starts, it pixelates like crazy through the intro, jumpy, then vista crashes, and I have to reboot it. I got it to run in the movie once, but it seems to crash quite a bit.

edit: I am only getting 2 ch audio out also?

[drapp1952]

Kapone, with respect to your pics, on my monitor "A" looks closer to accurate IMO. "B" looks a bit too blue.

Dan

[deandob]

Ian,

Wouldn't it be better to adjust your video in your projector/display rather than the Nvidia driver? I thought (at least with earlier vid cards) that you hurt quality, perhaps due to the 8 bit color processing, when adjusting on the PC. Has this changed with the latest Nvidia drivers / hardware?

Is the level expansion issue a consistent problem with PDVD or only for XP users?

Also, anyone worked out how to use PDVD in VMR9 mode which when I used zoomplayer for SD, looked better than overlay?

[IanD]

Ian,

Wouldn't it be better to adjust your video in your projector/display rather than the Nvidia driver? I thought (at least with earlier vid cards) that you hurt quality, perhaps due to the 8 bit color processing, when adjusting on the PC. Has this changed with the latest Nvidia drivers / hardware?

Is the level expansion issue a consistent problem with PDVD or only for XP users?

Also, anyone worked out how to use PDVD in VMR9 mode which when I used zoomplayer for SD, looked better than overlay?
I think it's only PDVD that is having the issues and it is far easier to adjust saturation etc in the Nvidia Control Panel than it is on the display. Have to see whether the colour boost unnaturally affects other applications, but it's easily adjusted for each case prior to playback anyway. Of course I would prefer that PDVD not perform level expansion or use the wrong colourspace, requiring workarounds.

Since adjusting levels etc in the driver probably occurs near the rendering stage and since all video must pass through this filter anyway, I would guess it is less damaging to perform any adjustment here, although obviously it is going to affect all video (and this is not convenient if the issue is with a single player application). I prefer having adjustments completely under control where I know exactly what they are doing (like in the drivers), compared to PowerDVD where I have no idea what effect (if any) their adjustments have on the quality of the processed output.

PDVD has separate registry entries of EnableVMR and EnableVMR9 for VC1dec in XP. Although they are enabled by default, I'm not sure whether disabling VMR will force VMR9. I think there was a registry entry somewhere for enabling Overlay, so maybe this can be disabled.

We really need an updated DVDgenie for the latest PowerDVD and HD playback. ;)

I think you will need someone who has used both XP and Vista with PDVD to answer your other questions: they will have to drag me kicking and screaming to Vista.

[deandob]

Thanks Ian.

I have a red push using PDVD for HD DVD (which others have told me in another thread I should not be getting with PDVD), and I have adjusted this on my projector which unfortunately throws out the color accuracy of my other sources, but HD is the only source I really care about anyway.

I'll checkout the expansion option on my setup and confirm for those who are reading this if it makes a difference on Vista.

I have a couple of reasons for going to Vista:
- Better audio architecture (XP had a sound mixer that adds distortion when resampling)
- Better Nvidia driver support (eg. Vista driver has a sharpness control which is useful for some sources and works quite well)
- Better future support.

[IanD]

I have a red push using PDVD for HD DVD (which others have told me in another thread I should not be getting with PDVD), and I have adjusted this on my projector which unfortunately throws out the color accuracy of my other sources, but HD is the only source I really care about anyway.

I'll checkout the expansion option on my setup and confirm for those who are reading this if it makes a difference on Vista.

I have a couple of reasons for going to Vista:
- Better audio architecture (XP had a sound mixer that adds distortion when resampling)
- Better Nvidia driver support (eg. Vista driver has a sharpness control which is useful for some sources and works quite well)
- Better future support.
Wouldn't you be better off adjusting levels in the driver only when you need to use PDVD? At least with Nvidia, there is a hue adjustment as well as an RGB adjustment in the Control Panel.

Nvidia Control Panel also has Edge Enhancement (sharpening?) and Noise Reduction sliders, but they don't seem to do anything for PowerDVD in XP, which is strange considering they are XP drivers for Nvidia 8/7/6 GPUs. Then again, maybe they are features made available by the drivers that applications use, rather than operate directly through the drivers without application involvement (like saturation).

I've heard of ASIO and Kernel audio drivers for XP that get around the Kmixer problem, but have not tried them so far.

Future support: well Vista will require damn good future support to overcome it's current inadequacies. ;)

There seem to be enough tweaks and workarounds in XP to provide a satisfactory experience without going to Vista (and its own issues).

Oops: I've just realised that the Nvidia Control Panel RGB adjustment is for RGB Gamma, not straight RGB balance, so not quite so useful. However, I find often the Hue control has just enough red or green "pull" to help offset an application's bias.

[deandob]

Just as easy to adjust the projector, but I get lazy and don't bother anyway, as I know it will be right for PDVD. The video processing features don't seem to make much of a difference for Vista PDVD either, but they should as this processing happens transparently to the application, especially as its using the overlay renderer.

PDVD does not support ASIO or Kernel streaming drivers for HD audio, but you can use your 2 channel sources through another player like foobar.

[Andy o]

I have not yet updated to 3319, after reading all the problems associated with this build. This registy value works will all versions prior to 3319 that I have used, and I have no reason to believe that 3319 would work any differently.

OK, I just downgraded to the 163.71 nVidia drivers and the expansion is gone for HD-DVDs. I didn't do anything with PowerDVD, still have 3319.0. Weird. Either is just the nVidia drivers, or a combination of the both of them.

[tahustvedt]

Is everyone using nvidia cards? Sems like Nvidia is nothing but trouble with HD playback.

IanD, what do you mean by aliasing? Do you mean posterization?

[IanD]

Is everyone using nvidia cards? Sems like Nvidia is nothing but trouble with HD playback.

IanD, what do you mean by aliasing? Do you mean posterization?
Both Nvidia and ATI have their own share of issues. I prefer Nvidia for their 72Hz out of the box, PQ, drivers that uninstall easily and less registry hacking required.

Aliasing is the sort of stair-stepping you get on edges: most notable if interlaced fields aren't processed adequately when displayed progressively.

I'm not sure what causes the aliasing I see, but I suspect PowerDVD is performing pulldown, interlacing and de-interlacing (badly) to output 30fps on 24fps source. My guess is it's easier for Cyberlink to process everything into 30fps progressive and output it that way regardless, so 24fps, 30fps and 60i are handled in the same way.

I don't get posterisation with an 8600GT or an 8400GS, but I do with a 7600GS.

[Andy o]

Is everyone using nvidia cards? Sems like Nvidia is nothing but trouble with HD playback.

IanD, what do you mean by aliasing? Do you mean posterization?

Oh, boy. You should check out the Radeon HD thread. For me, nVidia has been as good as it gets. The expansion thing is just a little bug, and it's already gone. I had much worse problems with the HD2400 pro and then a HD2600 pro. On the other hand, though, if you get an ATI HD 2000, you'll learn lots about how to tweak the registry.

nVidia seems to have trouble in XP, and they came out very late with their XP drivers, so they're no saints either. IanD though, seems to be having a very unusually hard time with it. I guess it's just bad luck (not really luck, but you know what I mean).

[tahustvedt]

I have no problems with my X1950 Pro, and I only see recommendations for nvidia. I have only seen recommendations for Nvidia for as long as PDVDU has been out, and it seems like there has been problems ever since. :)

[gsr]

Oh, boy. You should check out the Radeon HD thread. For me, nVidia has been as good as it gets. The expansion thing is just a little bug, and it's already gone. I had much worse problems with the HD2400 pro and then a HD2600 pro. On the other hand, though, if you get an ATI HD 2000, you'll learn lots about how to tweak the registry.

nVidia seems to have trouble in XP, and they came out very late with their XP drivers, so they're no saints either. IanD though, seems to be having a very unusually hard time with it. I guess it's just bad luck (not really luck, but you know what I mean).

Having owned cards from both ATI and nVidia (though with a lot more ATI's over the years), I think the following statements are fair:

ATI and nVidia chipsets both result in great graphics cards.
ATI and nVidia chipsets both result in bad graphics cards.
They both put out wonderful drivers and they both put out horrible drivers.
For every problem thread for one, there's almost always a problem thread for the other (usually for different problems).

Basically, pick your poison and go with the one that is the closest fit to your needs at the time. You'll most likely end up with a headache either way :).

For my most recent HTPC build, I ended up going with a HD2600 XT as XP support was important to me and I felt that full hardware acceleration for VC1 has the potential to be a nice plus. If gaming had been on the priority list, I would have gone with one of the GeForce options.

[IanD]

Finally had time to sit down and watch Transformers HD-DVD with my XP, C2D 2.8GHz, 8600GT 169.04, PDVD 2911, 1920x1440p72 setup in the best quality I have been able to achieve so far.

Discovered that I needed to reset the Nvidia driver saturation and hue settings to 0 as they were distorting the image colour. This was interesting after I adjusted them to compensate for an apparent de-saturation on King Kong, but maybe King Kong was meant to look dull at the beginning.

I noticed a mild amount of motion problems in the image: like a ghost that moved backwards, but it wasn't majorly annoying. Wondering if this is pulldown effect when viewed at 72Hz.

Also noticed that pausing the movie for a while and then resuming resulted in major frame drops so the image started to look something like a slideshow. I had to keep pausing and resuming soon after to get it back to normal (a buffering issue?).

Then, at around the point towards the end of the movie where the towtruck with Bumblebee escapes the scene and Optimus does a side-slide before transforming, the image froze on Optimus broadside and then BSOD with a Machine Exception Error. After restarting things, I had constant dropped frame slideshow effects that I couldn't eliminate. I turned the system off and let it cool for 30 minutes. When I resumed the movie just before the problematic event, all was well as before.

I'm guessing the constant stress of decoding AVC in the GPU for 1.5 hours continuous caused an overheat, although with a passively cooled Gigabyte 8600GT, I wouldn't have thought it would be an issue.

I did notice CPU usage during decoding was a constant 15%, so the GPU was offloading most of the processing.

I'm not happy, because the HTPC approach does not seem able to produce perfect results with a moderate setup. If the standalones supported a 72Hz VGA output with configurable resolution option, I would be there in a flash.

[IanD]

For those of you having jerky/slideshow playback, here is an experience to ponder.

I've been getting good playback finally with a C2D 2.8GHz 8600GT XP PDVD 2911 setup, however I notice that when playing movies by navigating the menu structure, whilst the title itself is accelerated by the GPU, the setup for the title and switching between titles briefly spikes my CPU near to 100%.

I use 300 HD-DVD as a good test for standard and interlaced VC-1 content and IME handling.

The CPU spike doesn't seem to have caused any particular issues so far with 300 playback, however I decided to stop overclocking my CPU and return it to its 2.2GHz standard speed.

As soon as I attempted to play the movie proper, I had the initial CPU spike, but the movie played back like a slideshow. I switched to one of the extras and that was fine. Switched to the IME and that was fine. Changed back to movie proper and now that was fine.

Now, I haven't experienced the slideshow effect, when playing a movie proper from the beginning, until I lowered the CPU speed.

I'm beginning to wonder if a slow(ish) CPU can get overtaxed when initialising a file for playback and falls behind in what it needs to do, resulting in the accelerated pipeline getting out of sync somehow.

If this is valid, then despite a GPU being capable of offloading a CPU almost 100% when decoding a file, if the CPU is not fast enough to cope with initialisation then it could lead to playback problems.

Maybe this is just a flaw in PowerDVD that is highlighted in XP by a slower CPU.

[NickB]

IanD,

I'd like to ask if you would make a change and set COLORSPACE_OPTION=2. I noticed that with my 8400GS that if it was set to 3 it was too dark, but when set to 1 it was a bit undersaturated. I changed it to 2 and I seem to have the best of both settings. I have all my shadow detail back, plus it seems the saturation is almost the same as when it was set to 3.

Also, I remember seeing a post from you where you weren't happy with your 8400GS. Can you explain why you upgraded? I seem to be able to play all the discs I have with approx 20% cpu (Apocolypto, Mystery Men, LIT), they all play smooth with no stutters or audio drop outs. I'm wondering if I've got something misconfigured (like half resolution or something), because it just plain works.

Thanks,

Nick

OMG! it works and increases shadow detail that I never saw before. I can now use PowerDVD "Original" settings with all sliders at 0 and levels appear to be correct.

<snip>

I would be happy with COLORSPACE_OPTION=1 obscuring the aliasing, except that it doesn't appear so colourful or vibrant as COLORSPACE_OPTION=3 (in fact it appears quite dull in comparison). Unfortunately, saturation control does nothing in PowerDVD under XP with HA enabled.

<snip>

I would hazard a guess that any video adjustment (Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Hue) in PowerDVD amplifies artifacts, (maybe because it turns on shader post processing or something) and that any adjustment is best done in the Nvidia Control Panel.

[skepticon]

Nick, you are bastardizing the process of achieving an accurate image.
If your display is an HDTV or similar, calibrate your display to proper video levels and set colorspace_option to 1. That's it. If your display is a standard computer monitor that is calibrated for PC levels, than just leave colorspace_option set to 3. There's nothing subjective about this, and no reason for anyone to do anything else to try to achieve a "best of both worlds." If you are, than I guarantee you that you're just screwing up your black/white levels, and you aren't getting an accurate image.

[NickB]

Well call me a bastard then, or tell me what I need to do to make things "right". I'm feeding a Mitsubishi HD1000 72P DLP with an Nvidia 8400GS using a DVI to HDMI cable. I had my projector dialed in using DVE for my other sources and HD looked great on it when I was using my ATI 9600 and my old AMD rig. However, I've just recently switched to an Intel E6320 and an Nvidia 8400GS, so I'm trying to get things sorted out.

One thing I found is that with colorspace set to 2, it seems the same as when I was running the 9600, however when set it to 1 everything is sort of dull (kind of like it didn't actually switch into the HDTV colorspace). I've been switching back and forth from 1 to 2 on all my movies tonight and I can't tell any difference in the black/white levels between the two, but the colors just seem "right" with it set to 2. When it's set to 1 I have to fiddle with the Nvidia color settings in the driver and it causes other artifacts.

skepticon, what do these settings do exactly? From messing with HTPC's over the last 4 years or so, it seems they alter more than just level expansion.

[bialio]

I recently jumped into the PowerDVD game with the purchase of the LG Combo BD / HD-DVD drive.

It's working fine so far - but i see a lot of posts on here about color space issues etc.

How can I determine if Cyberlink and/or my video driver / card are putting out the correct colors? PQ is fantastic, so I have no complaints. But I do want it to be "right."

Running with an 8500GT in Vista 32. Not sure what version NVIDIA drivers I'm using - they are a few months old.

I'm having my HT ISF calibrated next weekend, so I'd like to get everything neutral up to the point it hits the screen so that the calibrator can just mess with my projector color settings and not have to correct color issues from the source.....

btl.

[IanD]

IanD,

I'd like to ask if you would make a change and set COLORSPACE_OPTION=2. I noticed that with my 8400GS that if it was set to 3 it was too dark, but when set to 1 it was a bit undersaturated. I changed it to 2 and I seem