PowerDVD Ultra (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray)

[seyfang]

Does Zoomplayer support HD-dvd and HDD playback? Would it make a replacement for PowerDVD?

ZP Pro will play .evo and .m2ts files from HDDVD and BD original discs respectively if AnyDVD is running. You need Haali splitter and sonic cinemaster audio decoder and/or AC3 filter, latest versions. There is no 'dvd' navigator in ZP (yet?) AFAIK, so use media mode and play the relevant files. If the movie is in more than one file (e.g. feature_1.evo, feature_2.evo) then put them in a ZP playlist. Include special feature files if you wish.

I now hardly ever use PDVD because I cant get rid of the "critical component update ..." message and I cant control the behaviour of the codecs.

MPC can also play HDDVD and BD but I find it easier to confgure the filter chain in ZP.

For mpc, see posts in various forums by Sarah99.

[laguna_b]

ZP Pro will play .evo and .m2ts files from HDDVD and BD original discs respectively if AnyDVD is running. You need Haali splitter and sonic cinemaster audio decoder and/or AC3 filter, latest versions. There is no 'dvd' navigator in ZP (yet?) AFAIK, so use media mode and play the relevant files. If the movie is in more than one file (e.g. feature_1.evo, feature_2.evo) then put them in a ZP playlist. Include special feature files if you wish.

I now hardly ever use PDVD because I cant get rid of the "critical component update ..." message and I cant control the behaviour of the codecs.

MPC can also play HDDVD and BD but I find it easier to confgure the filter chain in ZP.

For mpc, see posts in various forums by Sarah99.

I assume AnyDVD is only needed if the HD-DVDs have not been ripped clean of protection. Will it read copy protection free HD-DVD of the hard drive?

[seyfang]

Yes

[BobSalita]

Edit: Need to retract this info. My nag screen reappeared. I compared the registry before and after registration but there appears to be no changes.

I believe this registry file will eliminate PowerDVD's periodic registration nag screen. Note that [HKEY ... 0000 should all be a single line. Better to use the attached file. Unzip and import into Window's RegEdit program.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CyberLink\PowerDVD]
"noRunReg"=dword:00000000

[bialio]

Just saw an interesting post over at slysofts forums :

http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=68228&postcount=22

Looks like a workaround for HDD payback.

btl.

[Laserfan]

I believe this registry file will eliminate PowerDVD's periodic registration nag screen.Thanks BobSalita for the tip. I'd been suffering from this malady after an upgrade, but since a recent PC crash and re-install the problem hasn't reappeared. Still, I will file-away this info... :)

[tahustvedt]

Something strange happened today. I fired up PDVD and it was all in french. I could not change the language back to english because french was the only option. I updated to the newest version and it was still french but the english option was available again so that fixed it. Anyone else have that happen?

It seems to work well with the latest version. The menus in 2001 work and Reclock works so I'm happy. :)

[nm88]

ZP Pro will play .evo and .m2ts files from HDDVD and BD original discs respectively if AnyDVD is running.Do you have to set any custom decoders in smart play, or does it just automatically work itself out once you have the proper filters installed?

[seyfang]

I believe this registry file will eliminate PowerDVD's periodic registration nag screen. Note that [HKEY ... 0000 should all be a single line. Better to use the attached file. Unzip and import into Window's RegEdit program.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\CyberLink\PowerDVD]
"noRunReg"=dword:00000000

This didnt work for me. has anyone else tried it?

[seyfang]

Do you have to set any custom decoders in smart play, or does it just automatically work itself out once you have the proper filters installed?

I set haali media splitter for evo and mpeg2 transport, and sonic audio decoder for AC3 and MPEG2. I think it worked the rest out..

[Davinleeds]

FYI; I was attempting to put together Media Player Classic with Sonic4.2 and Haali Splitter to play hd and once I installed Sonic, PDVD wouldn't play zip from hdd and then locked me up tighter than ... So uninstalled Sonic and all my hdd movies play. PDVD sensitive to audio installs.

[Andy o]

OK, I'm having a pretty weird phenomenon.

Playing Ratatouille BD. With or without AnyDVD, from HDD or the disc, it's the same. While playing, I have these very brief audio gaps. The weird thing is that they happen exactly at the same time. They happen with all the soundtracks, including the DD ones. I'm guessing this is either a video card issue or Power DVD.

I had no problems with Spiderman 3 and TrueHD soundtrack. I played for a while the uncompressed soundtrack on that disc too and it seemed OK.

Using PDVD 3319a, nVidia 8600GTS with 163.75 drivers, and my soundcard is a Sondigo Inferno.

If you would like to try and reproduce this (please!). There's a very brief audio gap at 10:28 exactly (Ratatouille blu-ray). When Emile (the fat rat) is balancing himself on the chandelier just a split second after he starts to balance back after when tries to reach the other rat's hand. There are other gaps too, they are fairly frequent during that scene. Have to test some more.

The disc is squeaky-clean and seems brand-new (it's an online rental). Thanks for any ideas.

[multiblitz]

How do I know if I have with my version (3104a) and my hardware under vista the 16fps or 20fps bug ? Did you guys only estimated it or is thee a way of acutally measuring it ?

[xnaron]

"Get an MCE keyboard and you can program away to your hearts content.. I have this button, Eject BD, Eject HD, Screenshots and more all from the keyboard on my Harmony. "

"application exit is simply Alt-F4...."

Yeah, I know I could use my keyboard and Alt+F4 but I haven't found a way to teach my Harmony 890 to do that. Everything else I want to do happens with one button push for an activity; I don't want to have to use multiple devices to do what I need to do and a keyboard will not do the associated activities like turn on my eSATA HDD box, turn projector on/off, raise/lower trapdoor screen, dim lights.... What I have decided to do for now is just send a "start" command to MCE from the remote during the movie exit activities; this doesn't close PDVD but it brings MCE on top so I don't see that caustic red skin--kinda the out-of-sight/out-of-mind approach and PDVD is ready to be brought forward to top the next time I launch a movie via MyMovies. So, now the only time I have to deal with closing/minimizing PDVD is when I need to perform maintenance on the HTPC, backup movies...etc

Thanks for the suggestions!


Are you able to use the media center remote to navigate within PowerDVD (menus, play, stop, pause etc)? If so can you point me in the direction of how to do this?

thanks,
Brendin

[BobSalita]

I edited my above post to retract the registry tweak to stop the nag screen. This morning the nag screen reappeared. My bad.

[Al Sherwood]

I have bought a couple of titles to test my PowerDVD set-up, Fifth Element is one of them...

So, on the movies jacket it says both Dolby Digital and DD TrueHD, but when I look at the audio set-up menu all I see is TrueHD and 5 channel PCM, no DD 5.1?

If I choose either sound track all I see at my receiver (S/PDIF) is 2 channel PCM? If I go into the PowerDVD configuration and under the sound tab enable 'S/PDIF Mixing' (only available when the movie is playing), then only the 'mixing - DTS' radio button is selectable?

Any way, if I do all of this then go back to the main menu of the movie and enble the multi-channel sound track once gain, I get DTS Neo 6...

What's up with all of that, any suggestions on how this is to be set or how to get Dolby Digital 'mixing - AC3' to be available as an option in PowerDVD audio?

Thanks

[sarah99]

FYI; I was attempting to put together Media Player Classic with Sonic4.2 and Haali Splitter to play hd and once I installed Sonic, PDVD wouldn't play zip from hdd and then locked me up tighter than ... So uninstalled Sonic and all my hdd movies play. PDVD sensitive to audio installs.

Sonic 4.2 is no good for HD-DVD anyway, it doesn't play DD+ ..... you need Sonic 4.3

[pacrat]

Need some help please as this problem I am having is driving me crazy.. and I mean crazy. Anyway I am trying to play Live Free or Die Hard from the hard drive. I am playing from an ISO file. I can get it to play very jerky on my work pc with only a Athalon 64 3800+ and Nvida 6200. However on my HTPC with is a dual core amd 5000+ with an ati 2600 video card it will not play. I have tryed it with ati drivers 7.10 and 7.11. It is serverly microblocked when it starts and then it freezes up the system. My cpu is only running at 38%. I have tryed all versions of PDVD with no success. Both computers are running Vista. I look forward to any and all advice. Thanks

[sigma957]

I have bought a couple of titles to test my PowerDVD set-up, Fifth Element is one of them...

So, on the movies jacket it says both Dolby Digital and DD TrueHD, but when I look at the audio set-up menu all I see is TrueHD and 5 channel PCM, no DD 5.1?

If I choose either sound track all I see at my receiver (S/PDIF) is 2 channel PCM? If I go into the PowerDVD configuration and under the sound tab enable 'S/PDIF Mixing' (only available when the movie is playing), then only the 'mixing - DTS' radio button is selectable?

Any way, if I do all of this then go back to the main menu of the movie and enble the multi-channel sound track once gain, I get DTS Neo 6...

What's up with all of that, any suggestions on how this is to be set or how to get Dolby Digital 'mixing - AC3' to be available as an option in PowerDVD audio?

ThanksYour only options to use lossless audio in PDVD are to select "6 speaker" audio and use the analog outputs on your sound card, or to select "Use SPDIF" with DTS mixing.

AFAIK, the AC3 mixing option is never available in PDVD. Perhaps it is a feature they will support in a future release. DTS mixing encodes the losless audio on the fly into DTS. This is also what most standalone players do.

I haven't tried the latest patch, but DTS mixing only seems to work with PCM audio. If I try it with TrueHD, I get 2.0 PCM sound. This can be a problem, as I recently encountered a disc that has only TrueHD and DD 2.0 soundtracks.

[Al Sherwood]

Your only options to use lossless audio in PDVD are to select "6 speaker" audio and use the analog outputs on your sound card, or to select "Use SPDIF" with DTS mixing.

AFAIK, the AC3 mixing option is never available in PDVD. Perhaps it is a feature they will support in a future release. DTS mixing encodes the losless audio on the fly into DTS. This is also what most standalone players do.

I haven't tried the latest patch, but DTS mixing only seems to work with PCM audio. If I try it with TrueHD, I get 2.0 PCM sound. This can be a problem, as I recently encountered a disc that has only TrueHD and DD 2.0 soundtracks.

Thanks for replying, I could use 6 speaker audio but I prefer the S/PDIF route.

As for the mixing options at least I know not to fight with trying to get AC3 working now! ;)

When it comes to 'S/PDIF mixing' the can be turned on or off regardless that SPDIF is selected in the 'speaker environment' pull duwn, what is the difference to using mixing or not? In other words, what is mixing?

[Al Sherwood]

Need some help please as this problem I am having is driving me crazy.. and I mean crazy. Anyway I am trying to play Live Free or Die Hard from the hard drive. I am playing from an ISO file. I can get it to play very jerky on my work pc with only a Athalon 64 3800+ and Nvida 6200. However on my HTPC with is a dual core amd 5000+ with an ati 2600 video card it will not play. I have tryed it with ati drivers 7.10 and 7.11. It is serverly microblocked when it starts and then it freezes up the system. My cpu is only running at 38%. I have tryed all versions of PDVD with no success. Both computers are running Vista. I look forward to any and all advice. Thanks

I don't know about the situation with the 'Nvidia' card but the PC that has the ATI 2600 I might...

I have a Vista based HTPC with an ATI HD2600Pro and with the 4 different versions of Catalyst I have tried only 7.7 allows the 'ATI Avivo' hardware acceleration to remain checked once the movie starts to play.

This finding appers to be unaffected by what version of PowerDVD you are running, I have tried a few and found that I needed Catalyst 7.7

[Davinleeds]

Sonic 4.2 is no good for HD-DVD anyway, it doesn't play DD+ ..... you need Sonic 4.3

That's ok Sarah, I didn't even get to try.

As far as play back from hdd, I never use the PDVD gui. I enable .xpl and .dat under PDVD, open PDVD, open my computer, open hdd the has my movie, double click on movie. Depending on movie it works by double clicking the ADV OBJ, then double clicking the .dat or .xpl folder. This will start the movie from the beginning. Some movies don't and you have to open the HDDVD TS and search for the .evo1 . When that portion ends you double click the next .evo2.
I disabled connect for new content and cookies. Might seem lengthy but it takes 20 seconds or so.

[mulatojp]

Hi Folks,
I'm using Pdvd ultra 7.3.3319a and a xbox 360 add-on but i'm only getting half the picture. My mb is a gigabyte ga-ma69g-s3h with hdmi out and ati 7.11 drivers. any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[laguna_b]

Hi Folks,
I'm using Pdvd ultra 7.3.3319a and a xbox 360 add-on but i'm only getting half the picture. My mb is a gigabyte ga-ma69g-s3h with hdmi out and ati 7.11 drivers. any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

I have the same setup and the problem, so they say, is that the drivers for the ATI 1250 are not upgraded to support this release. This is a known problem and the paid tech support (joke) has claimed variously that a fix was on the way and that a fix was needed by ATI. Back off to an earlier release and the problem will go away for most HD-DVDs. For others with more recent "codings" they will play ONLY on this release and not on the earlier one.

I got my OEM earlier release with the HP HD-DVD drive

Alternatively you can add an ATI card like a 2600 based card and they claim it will be supported by those drives. I have an iMac as well that runs XP and when I do the full upgrade like you have, it should play everything since it has the 2600 inside and its drivers.

Hope this helps....

[mulatojp]

Thanks for the reply laguna,
an earlier release of pdvd or ati driver?

[laguna_b]

Thanks for the reply laguna,
an earlier release of pdvd or ati driver?


Sorry, an early release of the PDVD. I will try upgrading the version I have on the iMac and see if it works with the newest 3319 release I have which does still have HDD support. The 2600 driver are alleged to support this release while the 1250 drivers do not...according to PowerDVD.

[chris_fowler99]

I just bought the download version of PowerDVD from newegg and installed. It says there's an update, so I clicked to download that.

When I try to update it wants to uninstall the current version and install the new version.

Does this mean that every time I install an update I'm going to have to reactivate with my key and everything? :(

[laguna_b]

I just bought the download version of PowerDVD from newegg and installed. It says there's an update, so I clicked to download that.

When I try to update it wants to uninstall the current version and install the new version.

Does this mean that every time I install an update I'm going to have to reactivate with my key and everything? :(


Make sure you save old versions since they have eliminated support of playback from the HDD in the most current. It doesn't always get better.

[ssaeed]

seems to be like that for now...pain in the ass having to enter the key again and again.

[chris_fowler99]

Make sure you save old versions since they have eliminated support of playback from the HDD in the most current. It doesn't always get better.

Not planning on ripping HD-DVD or Blu-Ray to the HDD, if I can help it, so I'm good there.

But it really does require a complete reinstall and activation on every update? :confused:

[nowandthen]

Something strange happened today. I fired up PDVD and it was all in french. I could not change the language back to english because french was the only option. I updated to the newest version and it was still french but the english option was available again so that fixed it. Anyone else have that happen?

LOL

After reading 4007 posts about the trials and tribulations of PDVD, I couldn't help but get a big laugh out of this one.

Now I know Cyberlink is f'ing with us. :p

[drsmithdtv]

Just saw an interesting post over at slysofts forums :

http://forum.slysoft.com/showpost.php?p=68228&postcount=22

Looks like a workaround for HDD payback.

btl.
I've tried this with 3516 but ran into the following problems with HD-DVD playback from HDD.

1) I was able select OK within PowerDVD's file browser but there was no playback.

2) Playback directly from the .XPL file resulted in error code 80040265 and no playback.

3) Playback directly from a .EVO worked but CPU load was very high suggesting no GPU acceleration (Nvidia 8600GTS) even though it was enabled.

[sensui]

Does anyone know a hotkey/shortcut to bring up the pop-up menu when playing back a HD-DVD? From reading around, I can only see that "J" brings you back to the main menu. Thanks.

[Andy o]

Does anyone know a hotkey/shortcut to bring up the pop-up menu when playing back a HD-DVD? From reading around, I can only see that "J" brings you back to the main menu. Thanks.

The HD-DVD interface is horrifically cumbersome in PowerDVD. The "enable mouse" ability is worthless. I wonder why they couldn't just do like regular DVDs and "point and shoot" so to speak. Anyway, just use the arrows to navigate the menu. It's simple, most movies have the menu come from either below or the left side. If it comes from below, just press the up arrow. If it comes from the left, press right.

And while I'm at it, why the freaking hell do PG DOWN and PG UP not work as 5 sec. seek, like on DVDs and blu-ray? I can't do seek easily, so I have to go by FF and RW, right? Shortcuts F and B for DVD and blu-ray. For HD-DVD??? F and CTRL+B! What the @#%$#% is that! I have found myself making useless bookmarks every time I want to do an easy rewind. And programming a mouse or keyboard or the remote button to CTRL+B doesn't seem to work either. Oh well.

Other things, no ability to turn subtitles off (only on, and toggle through available ones) with the U shortcut (not so with blu-ray and DVD), no ability to right-click and change subtitles or audio (not so with blu-ray and DVD), blah, blah, blah.

[sensui]

Thanks Andy....I do agree that PowerDVD has a lot of wacky quirks but in all seriousness, they got a lot more issues to sort out before worrying about the details like the hotkeys (though annoying). Thanks for the heads up on the menu thing, works great.

[Andy o]

hehe, yeah I just needed to vent a little. It has been bugging me for a long time, but now that I finally got bluray, and see bluray works much better, it just was the last drop.

[pospower]

does anyone have a link or can anyone e-mial me the latest version of Powerdvd that works with HD playback. I only have 3104a and the latest update.

[Vern Dias]

Not sure where you ar coming from, but unless you purchased PowerDVD ULTRA, U pay your money and order PDVD Ultra if you want HD playback...

PowerDVD 7 is not the same as PowerDVD ultra and there is no upgrade path. There is also no trial on PowerDVD Ultra.... (but they will give you a refund if you are unhappy)

Vern

[nonamesleft]

I don't have the time to read through all the post in this thread but thought I would tell people the work around I have found for playing HD content from my HDD. I am converting the HD folders containing the .evo files into .iso files then mounting them with Deamon tools. Once they are mounted you can play them from PowerDVD like you would a regular HD DVD disc. Hey, if it let's me play the movies I already have ripped to my drives until something better happens I'm happy with it.

Good Luck

[Dan@SI]

Brendin,

I don't use any of the special navigation stuff during HD or BR movies so I haven't wrung out the menu thing. But, I can pause, FF, skip, stop, etc using my Harmony 890 controlling MCE/MyMovies/PDVD.

[Mastiff]

Vern, I think he was missing a D, he probably meant HDD playback of HD movies.

[Rathbone]

Just discovered that the BD region change trick with CLDSHowX.ini doesn't work anymore in 3516.

[wally0206]

Is there way to enable dual display for HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? It works for me with sd dvd.

[wineds]

LOL

After reading 4007 posts about the trials and tribulations of PDVD, I couldn't help but get a big laugh out of this one.

Now I know Cyberlink is f'ing with us.


Couldn't agree more. Hopefully Arcsoft digital theatre will be available soon :D

[MidnightWatcher]

Is there way to enable dual display for HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? It works for me with sd dvd.
Unfortunately, this is an HDCP requirement afaik.

[bialio]

For the blu-ray popup menu, CTRL-P.

For most of the shortcuts available in PDVD, see this sight :

http://www.keyxl.com/aaab43b/275/PowerDVD-Ultra-keyboard-shortcuts.htm

btl.

[jvrobert]

Does this horrible, horrible piece of software (PowerDVD) seem to randomly play subtitles all the time in HD-DVD's for anyone else? Sometimes I just sit, stare at the screen, drool, and just mesmerize myself with how absolutely poor this software is. It simply amazes me. Take this as my sterling recommendation to never, ever buy PowerDVD- it's a tinker toy piece of crap.

Anyway, my ranting aside, is there a solution to this other than editing the XPL file?

[bran82]

Is it just for me or is the latest 2 patches breaking .MKV acceleration completely? I know about the FPS bug but now I get 50-75% CPU utilization with DXVA activated on x264 rips :(

[Andy o]

Does this horrible, horrible piece of software (PowerDVD) seem to randomly play subtitles all the time in HD-DVD's for anyone else? Sometimes I just sit, stare at the screen, drool, and just mesmerize myself with how absolutely poor this software is. It simply amazes me. Take this as my sterling recommendation to never, ever buy PowerDVD- it's a tinker toy piece of crap.

Anyway, my ranting aside, is there a solution to this other than editing the XPL file?

Been following this thread for months now and I don't recall anyone else having this problem. It seems that most of the "bugs" of this software are actually deliberate, thus all the jabs at Cyberlink. But we kid. We kid because we love.

[dastrong]

Hi All

Just thought I would share this and see if anyone can help. I recently installed Patch 3516 onto my machine so I could play spider man 3. Unfortunately it maxed out my processor. Now a few days down the line I have had a breakthrough. I recently configured MPC (evr version) to let me play m2ts files. When I played spiderman 3 it used 18% of the processor using the powerdvd h.264 decoder. Any ideas anyone!!!!

[Alpha10]

Hi All

Just thought I would share this and see if anyone can help. I recently installed Patch 3516 onto my machine so I could play spider man 3. Unfortunately it maxed out my processor. Now a few days down the line I have had a breakthrough. I recently configured MPC (evr version) to let me play m2ts files. When I played spiderman 3 it used 18% of the processor using the powerdvd h.264 decoder. Any ideas anyone!!!!

Have you put in a ticket about spider-man 3 max'ing your CPU? I have had one in but they are claiming it is my PC's fault as they haven't heard anything about it from anyone else?

[dastrong]

Have you put in a ticket about spider-man 3 max'ing your CPU? I have had one in but they are claiming it is my PC's fault as they haven't heard anything about it from anyone else?

I shall raise one now. It is definately their software if MPC can run it at 18% processor usage.

[Alpha10]

I shall raise one now. It is definately their software if MPC can run it at 18% processor usage.

That is brilliant, thank you very much. I actually have the problem on all three Spider-man films...

[arfster]

Hi All

Just thought I would share this and see if anyone can help. I recently installed Patch 3516 onto my machine so I could play spider man 3. Unfortunately it maxed out my processor. Now a few days down the line I have had a breakthrough. I recently configured MPC (evr version) to let me play m2ts files. When I played spiderman 3 it used 18% of the processor using the powerdvd h.264 decoder. Any ideas anyone!!!!


Could be non-graphics stuff (interactive, lossless, menus etc) causing higher CPU. Playing through directshow/MPC isn't bothering with any of that.

[ssaeed]

guys,

we should definitely be sending in bug reports to cyberlink to help them improve their program. Unfortunately its the only software that can playback bluray and hddvds at the moment so it's in our best interest to do so. Perhaps one of us can setup a website with bug reports such as the 100% cpu usage in spiderman along with a complete system listing (I'm sure there is s/w out there that does that) and make Cyberlink aware of this.

[i2k]

www.sysinternals.com should give you free tools to produce these reports.

[penngray]

Unfortunately its the only software that can playback bluray and hddvds at the moment so it's in our best interest to do so. Perhaps one of us can setup a website with bug reports such as the 100% cpu usage in spiderman along with a complete system listing (I'm sure there is s/w out there that does that) and make Cyberlink aware of this.

um...we pay $100 for a piece of software and then someone thinks its our job to debug it?

lol, that is fine for open source, freeware stuff but if I pay money and they are making money, they should DEBUG this stuff.

Btw, powerDVD is not the only player that will play HD content from what Im reading. Its the only package that we buy and it screws us though ;)

[mikeaymar]

This is great info, thanks.
Now, is there something similar for the MCE remote functions. I have noticed that some of the remote commands do different things for different media format. For example, in DVD/BD (as I recall) the play button on the remote returns you to 1x speed from a fast forward mode, but in HDDVD the play button doesn't get you back to 1x, it is ignored, and you have to cycle through the fast forward modes to get back to 1x. There are some other examples I can't recall right now.
BTW, I am using the Speedzap remote.
Thanks
Mike

For the blu-ray popup menu, CTRL-P.

For most of the shortcuts available in PDVD, see this sight :

http://www.keyxl.com/aaab43b/275/PowerDVD-Ultra-keyboard-shortcuts.htm

btl.

[aliendna51]

Btw, powerDVD is not the only player that will play HD content from what Im reading. Its the only package that we buy and it screws us though ;)

Are you referring to the upcoming ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre/Extreme or is there something else I should be aware of?
Though the best news about software HD decoding I've heard lately is the upcoming open source MLP/TrueHD decoding feature in ffdshow..

[Mastiff]

um...we pay $100 for a piece of software and then someone thinks its our job to debug it?

Not uncommon. Micro$oft has done that since...well, at least since Windoze 3.1. As far as I can remember (and I have been using the stuff since the beginning - I'm a very patient guy!) I have only had three problem free versions of Windows: 3.11 for Workgroups, NT4 and 2000 Advanced Server. The rest has been more or less alpha software a year or so after release...

[Al Sherwood]

I just bought the download version of PowerDVD from newegg and installed. It says there's an update, so I clicked to download that.

When I try to update it wants to uninstall the current version and install the new version.

Does this mean that every time I install an update I'm going to have to reactivate with my key and everything? :(

Maybe not, when I went from 3319f to 3516 it was a simple case of running the update that I downloaded from Cyberlink then of course entering the key...

[Al Sherwood]

does anyone have a link or can anyone e-mial me the latest version of Powerdvd that works with HD playback. I only have 3104a and the latest update.

If you value (easy) playback of the HDD files, stay put, version 3319f doesn't support HDD playback nor does 3516, infact on 3516 they greyed out the 'OK' buttone when you select the file to be played!

People are working on this but to my knowledge nobody has fixed this for version 3516 yet.

[laguna_b]

I have the OEM version which through Cyberlink is upgraded to 3319 no letter. I am able to play from the HDD, generally with no problem. I use SPDIF output which seems to be decoded in my receiver to 5.1. I have seen many discussions about audio here. My only multichannel choice is SPDIF cause I am using an iMac. Am I missing anything in audio? Are there other alternatives?
I don't plan to upgrade to newer releases before testing them on my PC tom make sure I can get around the HDD limitations.

[Al Sherwood]

Is there way to enable dual display for HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? It works for me with sd dvd.

I run the latest version of Ultra (3516) and from my HTPC I drive a Benq W9000 (DVI/HDCP compliant) and a Viewsonic Airpanel V150p (VGA non HDCP) at the same time. I can show the movie on either screen...

I run an ATI HD2600Pro card with dual monitor support, Catalyst 7.7 and have the monitors set to a 'extended deskop' configuration.

[chris_fowler99]

Maybe not, when I went from 3319f to 3516 it was a simple case of running the update that I downloaded from Cyberlink then of course entering the key...

The reason you had to re-enter the key is because it did a complete uninstall and reinstall when it updated.

I've never seen a piece of software that required you to re-enter the activation key every time it updated. :confused:

[Al Sherwood]

I have the OEM version which through Cyberlink is upgraded to 3319 no letter. I am able to play from the HDD, generally with no problem. I use SPDIF output which seems to be decoded in my receiver to 5.1. I have seen many discussions about audio here. My only multichannel choice is SPDIF cause I am using an iMac. Am I missing anything in audio? Are there other alternatives?
I don't plan to upgrade to newer releases before testing them on my PC tom make sure I can get around the HDD limitations.

A couple of things:

As for the audio, you should be fine with SPDIF, other then Dolby True HD which only passes though HDMI it doesn't get much better! Some like 6 channel analog output but I don't see lot of advantage to that.

You mention upgrading from OEM to 3319 with no letter, I looked and looked on the Cyberlink website and could not find an upgrade path from my OEM version (2925) without buying a key (which I did in the end), but now I am at 3516 and it does not support HDD playback. :mad:

I would actually consider going back to 3319 (no letter), can you outline how you went from OEM to 3319?

[laguna_b]

A couple of things:

As for the audio, you should be fine with SPDIF, other then Dolby True HD which only passes though HDMI it doesn't get much better! Some like 6 channel analog output but I don't see lot of advantage to that.

You mention upgrading from OEM to 3319 with no letter, I looked and looked on the Cyberlink website and could not find an upgrade path from my OEM version (2925) without buying a key (which I did in the end), but now I am at 3516 and it does not support HDD playback. :mad:

I would actually consider going back to 3319 (no letter), can you outline how you went from OEM to 3319?

Yes, I was having problems getting my version to run after upgrading from the CD version to the mandatory downloaded version. The problem details were not important. I bought their "voice support" and after many iterations and run arounds they send me an email with links to 4 files to sequentially install, the last of which was the 3319. The files are long, about 80-100mb so I am not sure if they are emailable but you can PM me and we can try....
It will put you back to the OEM version path though.

[vvista]

A couple of things:

As for the audio, you should be fine with SPDIF, other then Dolby True HD which only passes though HDMI it doesn't get much better! Some like 6 channel analog output but I don't see lot of advantage to that.

You mention upgrading from OEM to 3319 with no letter, I looked and looked on the Cyberlink website and could not find an upgrade path from my OEM version (2925) without buying a key (which I did in the end), but now I am at 3516 and it does not support HDD playback. :mad:

I would actually consider going back to 3319 (no letter), can you outline how you went from OEM to 3319?When you play a movie that needs a new patch, PowerDVD prompts you to download a new version. The LG ODD version is 2925; when you update, it becomes 3304.

[laguna_b]

When you play a movie that needs a new patch, PowerDVD prompts you to download a new version. The LG ODD version is 2925; when you update, it becomes 3304.

You can ignore it though...

[Al Sherwood]

When you play a movie that needs a new patch, PowerDVD prompts you to download a new version. The LG ODD version is 2925; when you update, it becomes 3304.

Ahhh, I see, I have heard of this before, but the problem for me was I didn't play the right movie.

I played about 5 or 6 HD-DVD movies and never saw a request to update the player.

Any idea what movie would need to played on the LG OEM version (2925) to get the update prompt?

[Al Sherwood]

You can ignore it though...

I guess the idea was to get to the latest version possible but retain HDD playback...

[laguna_b]

I guess the idea was to get to the latest version possible but retain HDD playback...
3319 no letter was the last I know of that supported HDD. Anyone know later?

[vvista]

Ahhh, I see, I have heard of this before, but the problem for me was I didn't play the right movie.

I played about 5 or 6 HD-DVD movies and never saw a request to update the player.

Any idea what movie would need to played on the LG OEM version (2925) to get the update prompt?HD DVD does not have the awful BD+; Hairspray BD is the one!:(

[laguna_b]

HD DVD does not have the awful BD+; Hairspray BD is the one!:(


Sony is even starting to publicly doubt their own propaganda about winning the format war....the Paramount shift was the death knell for Blu dominance. The question will be how to reconcile now. BD+ will likely die with it as they have enough problems establishing cross compatibilities with HD-DVD as it is. I bet the war will be over Q108 after taking beating over Xmas season....both camps well below their own forecasts as user await the end of the war.

[ssaeed]

This is like the DVD-R and DVD+R battle in some ways, in the end everyone buys a DVD burner that burns both and everyones a winner. Same will happen with HDDVD and BLURAY, combo players will thrive.

[rgroves]

Well, I don't think it'll be labeled as a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player in the end. It'll be something like a "HD DVD +/-" With the + being BD+ and the - being HD-DVD.

But I do agree. It seems both formats say they are winning, and neither of them are loosing. It'll be like this for quite some time, unless someone sticks to low priced, high-quality players AND low-cost media. That overall will decide who's name does on the DUAL-FORMAT Standard players ... i.e. HD DVD +/- or Blu-Ray +/-

[sensui]

Hi,
Didn't get a real response on a thread on its own so I figure I ask here....anyone notice when playing Transformers HD-DVD at the end of chapter 12 beginning of chapter 13 during the part where Sam's parents talk about grounding him for being late (right after Optimus Prime tells the autobots to go into recon mode) has a stop/stutter? I thought it was a bad disc so I exchanged it and the same thing happened on the new disc. I haven't seen this problem on other BDs and HD-DVDs ever so I wanted to ask.....strangely, playing this with the arcsoft player does not display this behavior....I've tried 3104 and 3319a with the same results....just wanted to see what others thought. Thanks.

[t30t28t16t12]

I saw the same thing and I have no idea how to fix it.

Hi,
Didn't get a real response on a thread on its own so I figure I ask here....anyone notice when playing Transformers HD-DVD at the end of chapter 12 beginning of chapter 13 during the part where Sam's parents talk about grounding him for being late (right after Optimus Prime tells the autobots to go into recon mode) has a stop/stutter? I thought it was a bad disc so I exchanged it and the same thing happened on the new disc. I haven't seen this problem on other BDs and HD-DVDs ever so I wanted to ask.....strangely, playing this with the arcsoft player does not display this behavior....I've tried 3104 and 3319a with the same results....just wanted to see what others thought. Thanks.

[MickeyDora]

Hi,
Didn't get a real response on a thread on its own so I figure I ask here....anyone notice when playing Transformers HD-DVD at the end of chapter 12 beginning of chapter 13 during the part where Sam's parents talk about grounding him for being late (right after Optimus Prime tells the autobots to go into recon mode) has a stop/stutter? I thought it was a bad disc so I exchanged it and the same thing happened on the new disc. I haven't seen this problem on other BDs and HD-DVDs ever so I wanted to ask.....strangely, playing this with the arcsoft player does not display this behavior....I've tried 3104 and 3319a with the same results....just wanted to see what others thought. Thanks.

I have it too and I suspect that it may be a bad layer break.

[Tinker]

Hi,
Didn't get a real response on a thread on its own so I figure I ask here....anyone notice when playing Transformers HD-DVD at the end of chapter 12 beginning of chapter 13 during the part where Sam's parents talk about grounding him for being late (right after Optimus Prime tells the autobots to go into recon mode) has a stop/stutter? I thought it was a bad disc so I exchanged it and the same thing happened on the new disc. I haven't seen this problem on other BDs and HD-DVDs ever so I wanted to ask.....strangely, playing this with the arcsoft player does not display this behavior....I've tried 3104 and 3319a with the same results....just wanted to see what others thought. Thanks.

It appears to be the layer break. It happens to be more noticeable with PDVD. I don't notice it with the 360ao with the X360 as the player. That the point where Sams's father talks about grounding him for being late, a word is cut off.

[sensui]

On one hand, thanks for clarifying that for me everyone...glad to know I'm not the only one stuck with this.....you guys are right, the arcsoft player shows some weirdness there and it's somewhat less noticeable but it doesn't stutter like powerdvd. Yet another interesting quirk I guess. While I'm at it, just wanted to see what people did in windows vista to get rid of random playback hiccups (cuz they're not full stutters...more like little hiccups at random times) during the playback of HD content...I seemd to have fixed it by making setting powerdvd to have higher priority in the taskbar manager and upgrading to 4 gigs of memory....I also disabled windows search service, readyboost, and superfetch as a just in case last night. Wondering if anyone else has any more tips on eliminating this quirk. Thanks in advance.

[one_2go]

Been following this thread now for months and I am starting to lean to the solution that Sarah99 offered playback without PWDVD using MPC and several other codecs/dlls.

I guess the tools will come eventually where customization of the discs for HDD playback is the way to go, just as it happened for DVDs. For the time being it is a bit too cludgy all the EVODemux & TSRemux but it will eventually render Power Crap obsolete.

[jvrobert]

I just mailed Cyberlink about the "no playback from HDD" feature removal in the newer versions, they basically replied "tough crap, you can no longer do this".

Does anyone have solid information that they're going to change this or that there will be a working hack? I tried the "mishmash older version files" hack on Slysoft's forum, but it didn't playback right.

On a related note, what are the chances of getting them to invalidate my key and give me a refund? I'll give back the piece of crap and go buy a hardware player instead of patronize such a penny-ante software chop shop. Not that I'm bitter.

[ssaeed]

jvrobert...if you go buy a hardware player you definitely wont be able to playback the discs from your drive :-) But seriously, why don't you just make ISO images of the discs and then mount and play them?

[jvrobert]

jvrobert...if you go buy a hardware player you definitely wont be able to playback the discs from your drive :-) But seriously, why don't you just make ISO images of the discs and then mount and play them?

True enough. I may make ISO images, it's just such a silly and pointless thing it makes me somewhat angry ;).

Do their masters in Hollywood think not being able to play backups from HDD is going to prevent piracy? It just makes no sense. If they want to stop piracy, go after the torrents and P2P and offer a sane HD download product.

I guess they're so desparate to protect their sad little buggy whip business they're trying any stupid little thing they can.

[almostinsane]

Well if you can't play it from a PC then it will prevent piracy. How many SACD discs have you seen available for download? Zero. That's because you can't play them in a PC.

[talon95]

Probably promotes piracy as more PC users will be inclined to just use recodes of the disks.

[jvrobert]

Problem is you _can_ play them on the PC. They simply can't stop that. You can play them any number of ways. They're just making it annoying to do so, even for people who own the HDDVDs and don't download off of torrents.

No matter - within 3 months there will be at least a few more avenues to play HDDVD on the PC, and PowerDVD will just be a horrible memory.

[RichB]

Problem is you _can_ play them on the PC. They simply can't stop that. You can play them any number of ways. They're just making it annoying to do so, even for people who own the HDDVDs and don't download off of torrents.

No matter - within 3 months there will be at least a few more avenues to play HDDVD on the PC, and PowerDVD will just be a horrible memory.

It will be nice if they still permit hard disk playback. If not, we will need a free player and AnyDVD.

- Rich

[kapone]

Well if you can't play it from a PC then it will prevent piracy. How many SACD discs have you seen available for download? Zero. That's because you can't play them in a PC.

SACD was NEVER playable on a PC. No drive and codec combination existed (and doesn't even today), that could do that.

In the case of PowerDVD, it's not the same. They can't sell something with an advertised feature and take it away later. Well, they can, but that also means that the customer must have a choice of a refund, since the software may no longer do what the customer bought it for. If they had never allowed playback from a hard disk, this wouldn't even be an issue.

[ssaeed]

I hear Nero 8 with Nero Showtime is shaping up nicely as an option.

[Andy o]

Hi,
Didn't get a real response on a thread on its own so I figure I ask here....anyone notice when playing Transformers HD-DVD at the end of chapter 12 beginning of chapter 13 during the part where Sam's parents talk about grounding him for being late (right after Optimus Prime tells the autobots to go into recon mode) has a stop/stutter? I thought it was a bad disc so I exchanged it and the same thing happened on the new disc. I haven't seen this problem on other BDs and HD-DVDs ever so I wanted to ask.....strangely, playing this with the arcsoft player does not display this behavior....I've tried 3104 and 3319a with the same results....just wanted to see what others thought. Thanks.

I also think it's a layer break, but I have had it with every HD DVD I can remember watching even from HDD. Not a big deal for me, though, just one little stutter per movie, and it's always in a scene change.

[Andy o]

Well if you can't play it from a PC then it will prevent piracy. How many SACD discs have you seen available for download? Zero. That's because you can't play them in a PC.

I think that's more due to the fact that SACD never got to be popular. Similarly,
DVD-Audio discs were playable, but still they are difficult to strip of the DRM because nobody bothered.

[sensui]

Interesting Andy that you mentioned this....I really thought it was just transformers since I have watched shrek 3 and the 2 bournes but I have not noticed any kind of stutter like that of transformers. I've got to watch more movies instead of tinkering with this =P

[archibael]

In the case of PowerDVD, it's not the same. They can't sell something with an advertised feature and take it away later. Well, they can, but that also means that the customer must have a choice of a refund, since the software may no longer do what the customer bought it for. If they had never allowed playback from a hard disk, this wouldn't even be an issue.

Was it ever an "advertised feature", or just something that happened to work? I'm just curious. The one is grounds for lawsuit, the other is just grounds for complaints and requests for refunds.

[user4avsforum]

Well if you can't play it from a PC then it will prevent piracy. How many SACD discs have you seen available for download? Zero. That's because you can't play them in a PC.

Or it is because most people don't know what a SACD is and the rest don't care since they are downloading a compressed audio file anyway.

If you add up all of the people who have SACDs and are willing to rip them and make them available for download; then cross reference that with all of the people who want to download SACDs and are willing to take the time to download the very large audio files that are necessary to gain the benefit of the better audio quality... I bet those three people will tell you it is too much trouble :)

[laguna_b]

Well if you can't play it from a PC then it will prevent piracy. How many SACD discs have you seen available for download? Zero. That's because you can't play them in a PC.

Real pirates can make the discs...all they need is content and that is readily available....and rippable

Similarly,
DVD-Audio discs were playable, but still they are difficult to strip of the DRM because nobody bothered.

Ironic that failure of the format is one way to prevent piracy :)

[RichB]

Real pirates can make the discs...all they need is content and that is readily available....and rippable



Ironic that failure of the format is one way to prevent piracy :)

Right. Sony protected their content so well no-one bought it :p

- Rich

[IAM4UK]

The SACD were not pirated due to lack of interest, not some technological hurdle. That's my guess.

My main over the pirates is that their bufoonery causes the studios to treat me (and you other fine people) as thieves. So I wish the pirates would knock it off already.

[aliendna51]

...you guys are right, the arcsoft player shows some weirdness there and it's somewhat less noticeable but it doesn't stutter like powerdvd...

So, where exactly did you get the arcsoft totalmedia theatre/extreme that plays bd/hddvd, since it hasn't been officially released yet? Unless I'm missing something...

[laguna_b]

The SACD were not pirated due to lack of interest, not some technological hurdle. That's my guess.

My main over the pirates is that their bufoonery causes the studios to treat me (and you other fine people) as thieves. So I wish the pirates would knock it off already.


No, I wish the studios would STOP TREATING their customers as thieves...they have clearly lost the war against piracy but are winning against us their customers!

[skibum5000]

Well if you can't play it from a PC then it will prevent piracy. How many SACD discs have you seen available for download? Zero. That's because you can't play them in a PC.

and how many sales have you seen for SACD discs. one or two copies per title :D
granted the MP# portable low-quality binge has SOME to do with it and the fact they made it a crappy format for piracy fears comapred to DVD-audio has some too though.

[skibum5000]

The SACD were not pirated due to lack of interest, not some technological hurdle. That's my guess.

My main over the pirates is that their bufoonery causes the studios to treat me (and you other fine people) as thieves. So I wish the pirates would knock it off already.

who pirates 24bit 96khz movie audio only? and yet the studios have pressured the PC players into downsampling even though it isn't really even in AACS that they should need to.

look at the original DivX plans and all that sort of crap, even withotu priacy they want to lock down more and more and restrict fair use.

at this point all the HDCP and this and that crap has me so pissed i've swtiched to be all for the pirates and hackers and i hoep they stick to the studios as much as they can.

[hamish b]

not to add to the ever expanding list of pdvd glitches, does any body else have random mouse appearances during playback of hd material
its only the mouse pointer that pops up, nothing else and happens say about every 5-10 mins
thought it was chapter skips but it isnt
ive disconnected my wireless keyboard whilst playback is going and still happens
its not a biggy, too much else going wrong for me to really worry about it but wondering if im the only one

[Jim HTPC]

not to add to the ever expanding list of pdvd glitches, does any body else have random mouse appearances during playback of hd material
its only the mouse pointer that pops up, nothing else and happens say about every 5-10 mins
thought it was chapter skips but it isnt
ive disconnected my wireless keyboard whilst playback is going and still happens
its not a biggy, too much else going wrong for me to really worry about it but wondering if im the only one

It happens to me too sometimes. Just move the mouse to the bottom of the screen (actually below) and you will not see it anymore. Even if it flashes.

[arfster]

Problem is you _can_ play them on the PC. They simply can't stop that. You can play them any number of ways. They're just making it annoying to do so, even for people who own the HDDVDs and don't download off of torrents.


Or to rephrase: they're making it annoying almost exclusively for honest purchasers. Those who download just fire the thing through WMP or whatever.

The other day I couldn't get a BD+ disc to run without crashing the playback software on my expensively assembled HTPC. After screwing around with it for overly long, I went off and downloaded the thing instead. It ran without a problem.

Congratulations Sony and co - you've made it so even legit users have to pirate. Makes me wonder why I don't just download the thing in the first place, and donate the money to charity instead.

[sensui]

So, where exactly did you get the arcsoft totalmedia theatre/extreme that plays bd/hddvd, since it hasn't been officially released yet? Unless I'm missing something...

It was just a quick trial running the demo. I am eagerly awaiting the final English version to be available as well.

[turbospeed]

Exactly i remember when i bougth hl2 , at first it worked great then they started to push update after update because according to them some people were pirating their software and every update made things worse and worse to the point i stopped playing the game.

now my friend with a pirated copy ran it without a single problem and no need to update and wait every single time he wanted to play.

[mikeaymar]

SACD, now there's a successful media format. NOT!!!!
Sorry, I couldn't help myself. The truly successful formats (VHS, CD, DVD) all seem to have found some comfortable place that allows both commercial success of prerecorded content and flexibiltity to play on the 'evil' PC platform...
Again, apologies for the 'attack'
Mike

Well if you can't play it from a PC then it will prevent piracy. How many SACD discs have you seen available for download? Zero. That's because you can't play them in a PC.

Sorry, I didn't read all the equivalent posts after the original from 'almostinsane'. But, if you read this far, you read mine as well anyway.......

[Andy o]

not to add to the ever expanding list of pdvd glitches, does any body else have random mouse appearances during playback of hd material
its only the mouse pointer that pops up, nothing else and happens say about every 5-10 mins
thought it was chapter skips but it isnt
ive disconnected my wireless keyboard whilst playback is going and still happens
its not a biggy, too much else going wrong for me to really worry about it but wondering if im the only one

WOW, YES! Thank you. Haha. I though it might probably be some process in my PC like a messenger contact doing something or crap like that in the background, I didn't give it much importance until you have mentioned it! I just hide the mouse in the right edge of the screen, but still it's noticeable, if not a little annoying.

[Favelle]

Or it is because most people don't know what a SACD is and the rest don't care since they are downloading a compressed audio file anyway.

If you add up all of the people who have SACDs and are willing to rip them and make them available for download; then cross reference that with all of the people who want to download SACDs and are willing to take the time to download the very large audio files that are necessary to gain the benefit of the better audio quality... I bet those three people will tell you it is too much trouble :)


LOL!!! +1

[aravs]

was wondering if anyone here has suffered from this or has a solution.

I tried pdvd ultra 7.3 build 3319 on a e6300 and asus p5b under winxp32 with 4gb ram and a pcie evga 7900gs oc. seems to work fine no freezes or glitches. I can access all the menus easily and make changes

I tried the same pdvd ultra 7.3 build 3319 on an amd athlon 3200+ s754 and msi k8n neo platinum under winxp32 mce with 2gb ram and a agp diamond hd2600pro. every time i try to change settings or access configuration with or without a movie playing from the hdd, the screen and my entire system freezes and i basically have to do a hard shutdown, ctrl+alt+delete wont even work, i have to shutdown via my power button. Is there a known issue with socket 754 amd processors and pdvd? I'm also running anydvd 6.123 are they incompatible with one another? Could it be problems with trying to enable hardware acceleration with my hd2600pro? Thing is with that, i can tick off to use HA in the menu before a video starts but checking it during playback, it becomes greyd out. The screen freezes seem to occur randomly when accessing the configuration menus but almost always when i'm trying to set audio to output spdif (which also doesnt work). when i have left it playing a video it almost always plays for a while then bsod with some error i cant even read in time before the system automatically restarts.

Anyone have any expericence/solutions with this? :( any input would be appreciated

[pospower]

Anyone tried to switch from older version to new after getting a refund. I'm having second thoughts after hearing I can make ISO file and play on new player version. question will my key work?

[ssaeed]

aravs,
I had the same problem, my setup was K8N Neo Platinum with Athlon 3000+ and HIS 2600XT. The system was very unstable and PowerDVD would freeze the computer everytime I exited it or crash when I opened the configuration window. I also noticed my processor was plugged at 40% all the time, even after a fresh reboot. In task manager the process tab showed 99% CPU free but in the performance tab the CPU graph showed 40% usage. I downloaded Process Monitor from SysINternals and it showed some weird "Hardware Init" process taking 40% of the CPU.

Needless to say I gave up on it and bought a new system. I did however go back and install my older Radeon 9800 video card, replacing the 2600XT and the CPU usage bug went away..not sure what that was all about.

[bk1987]

i just received my refund, purchased in june 07

[Paul_PDX]

Returned mine today by requesting refund from Element5. Could never get Transformers to play at all and it would frequently shut off Avivo and drop back into software playback and then just stutter the playback in freeze frames.

Now to see if they give me my money back.

PDVDU is definitely the worst piece of software I have bought in about 10 years. Too bad the movie industry is trying to force HTPC out of this business. Hopefully a future player will improve this situation.


Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H
ATI x1250 HDMI w/HDCP
AMD Athlon X2 64 5200+ F3
XBOX360 HD-DVD

[ssaeed]

does PDVDU allow you to forward to a random portion of the film by clicking on the progress bar? I don't have my combo drive yet and and on wmv1 encoded files on my computer I can only FF at 2x speed, not sure if that was a limitation for films played back from an optical drive as well.

[TokyoShoe]

does PDVDU allow you to forward to a random portion of the film by clicking on the progress bar? I don't have my combo drive yet and and on wmv1 encoded files on my computer I can only FF at 2x speed, not sure if that was a limitation for films played back from an optical drive as well.

I can click on random parts of the playback progress and go to that part of the movie, yeah.

[bjmills]

Hi all,

I am running an older build of PDVD Ultra (26xx I think) and it seems to work okay. When I "upgrade" to 3104a or 3319, I still have sound and menus, but just blackness where the movie should be. I'm using AnyDVD HD, Nvidia 7600GS, and component video cables. I had thought the fact I'm running analog cables might be it, but I thought AnyDVD would get around that. Any thoughts?

Brad

[bk1987]

[QUOTE=Paul_PDX;12329281]

PDVDU is definitely the worst piece of software I have bought in about 10 years. Too bad the movie industry is trying to force HTPC out of this business. Hopefully a future player will improve this situation.

i hope so, it seems to me they are just making it harder for anyone to use hd dvd and blu ray, i mean these companies say they want HDM to succeed but there actions and roadblocks are making it impossible i have stopped buying any hdm until they get there act together which i hope will be soon, but i have a feeling none of these formates will be as successful as they could be

[Tinker]

Hi all,

I am running an older build of PDVD Ultra (26xx I think) and it seems to work okay. When I "upgrade" to 3104a or 3319, I still have sound and menus, but just blackness where the movie should be. I'm using AnyDVD HD, Nvidia 7600GS, and component video cables. I had thought the fact I'm running analog cables might be it, but I thought AnyDVD would get around that. Any thoughts?

Brad

did you load the newest Nvidia drivers for the 7 series cards. If that doent work then deinstall all the Nvidia video drivers (only the vid drivers) and re-install the newest Nvidia 7 series drivers again.

[DC2R714]

Anyone have the issue when they start up PDVD it always reverts back to 2 speaker audio. I keep having to change it back to SPDIF before I start the movie. I dont understand why it keeps reverting back to 2 channel. This is with 3319f. Any ideas how I can stop this from happening?

[ssaeed]

guys,
just popped transformers into powerDVD and it goes to a "Web Connected Update" screen and stays there until I hit cancel. I verifed my internet connection is working..what is it trying to do?

[sensui]

web content isn't supported by powerdvd at the moment, all you can do is hit cancel.

[Rew452]

Anyone have the issue when they start up PDVD it always reverts back to 2 speaker audio. I keep having to change it back to SPDIF before I start the movie. I don't understand why it keeps reverting back to 2 channel. This is with 3319f. Any ideas how I can stop this from happening?

Good question! I have the same issue and have yet to find a solution. Cyberlink acknowledges the problem but has yet to offer a fix.

I have asked both here and at several other forums with no replies other than some other have it too.

We are not alone just not the majority in this problem. If anyone has a clue please post.

Rew

[B Leisle]

Good question! I have the same issue and have yet to find a solution. Cyberlink acknowledges the problem but has yet to offer a fix.

I have asked both here and at several other forums with no replies other than some other have it too.

We are not alone just not the majority in this problem. If anyone has a clue please post.

Rew

I've noticed this thread is seeing cross-posting between PowerDVD Retail and PowerDVD OEM, the latter probably mostly from users with the LG combo drive. There are small differences between the two versions, please make sure you articulate which you have so people don't get their wires crossed.

Anyways, I had the retail version and got a refund on it. I restored my HTPC's boot drive to an image prior to installing PowerDVD Retail, then installed PowerDVD OEM that came with my LG drive, which was 2911c.0.

I recently popped in a disc that prompted a PowerDVD popup that said I should upgrade to the most current version of 3516. I downloaded it but have not installed it yet. I then went to the following website: http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/patch/enu/index.jsp. This site is supposed to check your version via an ActiveX plugin and see if it's the most current. This site had me download a different file than 3516, it linked me to 3319.0. I installed this update and am now at 3319.0. Note there's no alpha character after 3319, it seems only the Retail versions update to 3319a.0, 3319e.0, 3319f.0, etc. I have no problems with S/PDIF passing DD and DTS 5.1 consistently without having to manually fix it all the time.

The only film I still can't watch with 3319.0 via HDD playback is Evan Almighty for some reason. Others played it back with lower versions, so I'm not sure what's wrong, maybe my rip got bungled and I need to re-rip it. FF4:Rise of the Silver Surfer and other BD+ discs I've tried play ok from HDD as well, but I'm afraid I'm stuck at 3319.0 because I need HDD playback. I suppose we'll see how long it takes before 3319.0 is unable to play newer releases, but hopefully by then, we'll have alternatives to PowerDVD.

[XxDeadlyxX]

guys,
just popped transformers into powerDVD and it goes to a "Web Connected Update" screen and stays there until I hit cancel. I verifed my internet connection is working..what is it trying to do?

In the new build it works... it will eventually go away by itself and the Web features DO work.

When you insert the disc later after the first time it will only stay there for about 5 seconds too.

[Rew452]

I've noticed this thread is seeing cross-posting between PowerDVD Retail and PowerDVD OEM, the latter probably mostly from users with the LG combo drive. There are small differences between the two versions, please make sure you articulate which you have so people don't get their wires crossed.

Anyways, I had the retail version and got a refund on it. I restored my HTPC's boot drive to an image prior to installing PowerDVD Retail, then installed PowerDVD OEM that came with my LG drive, which was 2911c.0.

I recently popped in a disc that prompted a PowerDVD popup that said I should upgrade to the most current version of 3516. I downloaded it but have not installed it yet. I then went to the following website: http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/patch/enu/index.jsp. This site is supposed to check your version via an ActiveX plugin and see if it's the most current. This site had me download a different file than 3516, it linked me to 3319.0. I installed this update and am now at 3319.0. Note there's no alpha character after 3319, it seems only the Retail versions update to 3319a.0, 3319e.0, 3319f.0, etc. I have no problems with S/PDIF passing DD and DTS 5.1 consistently without having to manually fix it all the time.

The only film I still can't watch with 3319.0 via HDD playback is Evan Almighty for some reason. Others played it back with lower versions, so I'm not sure what's wrong, maybe my rip got bungled and I need to re-rip it. FF4:Rise of the Silver Surfer and other BD+ discs I've tried play ok from HDD as well, but I'm afraid I'm stuck at 3319.0 because I need HDD playback. I suppose we'll see how long it takes before 3319.0 is unable to play newer releases, but hopefully by then, we'll have alternatives to PowerDVD.

It applies to both versions oem and retail. But either should work but there seems to be some hardware / software interface problems on some boards. Mine is a Asus P4C800-E Deluxe which is Analog Devices ADI 1985 SoundMax.

Rew

[TokyoShoe]

In the new build it works... it will eventually go away by itself and the Web features DO work.

When you insert the disc later after the first time it will only stay there for about 5 seconds too.

I can also confirm, Web Enabled Content works for me just fine as well. I ran through some of the downloaded Sector 7 videos for Transformers, as well as one of the view modes that they offer, and I must say I am impressed.

This has to be one of the first times I've upgraded PowerDVD and seen such a major difference in how I actually USE my HD-DVD's.

[Al Sherwood]

I tried to playback non-HD movies on my HTPC and no matter which program I sue the results are the same. The image stutters and the video tears.

I have tried PowerDVD, Media Center and Windows Media Player, all without sucess. In fact one time when I put a disc in to play, it complained that it was from a different region and would not play it back! I restarted the player and everything was fine, but the video was still terrible.

Has this got anything to do with the codecs introduced by PowerDVD and that Windows may now be using for Media Center or Player? Or possibly, is AnyDVD causing a problem? I have seen multiple times where if this program is not running then regular playback of ODD HD/BD movies will not function, and I had to start AnyDVD for playback to start.

Thanks

[aravs]

aravs,
I had the same problem, my setup was K8N Neo Platinum with Athlon 3000+ and HIS 2600XT. The system was very unstable and PowerDVD would freeze the computer everytime I exited it or crash when I opened the configuration window. I also noticed my processor was plugged at 40% all the time, even after a fresh reboot. In task manager the process tab showed 99% CPU free but in the performance tab the CPU graph showed 40% usage. I downloaded Process Monitor from SysINternals and it showed some weird "Hardware Init" process taking 40% of the CPU.

Needless to say I gave up on it and bought a new system. I did however go back and install my older Radeon 9800 video card, replacing the 2600XT and the CPU usage bug went away..not sure what that was all about.

thanks for the response.

wow you had the exact system as me. My system which was supposed to be an upgrade htpc as the k8n neo was in my previous main computer is fairly stable showing no processor usage at idle unlike your yours was showing. its a sad state as pdvd is apparently the only software that can take advantage of the hd2600's hardware acceleration. I like the neo platinum board and dont think i've fully exploited it yet, but i think its a problem with pdvd and will possibly try zoomplayer and mpc, I hated pdvd since sd-dvd days :P.
how long did you try with your old system? what did you end up going with as a new system?

[aravs]

I tried to playback non-HD movies on my HTPC and no matter which program I sue the results are the same. The image stutters and the video tears.

I have tried PowerDVD, Media Center and Windows Media Player, all without sucess. In fact one time when I put a disc in to play, it complained that it was from a different region and would not play it back! I restarted the player and everything was fine, but the video was still terrible.

Has this got anything to do with the codecs introduced by PowerDVD and that Windows may now be using for Media Center or Player? Or possibly, is AnyDVD causing a problem? I have seen multiple times where if this program is not running then regular playback of ODD HD/BD movies will not function, and I had to start AnyDVD for playback to start.

Thanks

what kind of htpc are you running: cpu, mobo, ram, OS, videocard etc. people will be able to help you more if they knew what system you were running. Was playback better before powerdvd? what version? I dont have answers but i'm sure someone else might.

[ssaeed]

I finally got all my parts and got my HTPC up and running.
C2D6750,
Radeon 3850,
Abit IP35 Pro,
2Gigs Ram,
LG GCC-H20L,
500Gb SATA drive,
WinXp 32bit
PowerDVD Ultra Retail with 3516 (latest patch)

Played Transformers (HDDVD) and Live Free Die Hard(BLURAY) last night and they both played back just fine with 5-10% CPU usage in both cases.

Only bug I see so far is PDVD reverting to 2channel stereo instead of SPDIF every so often, I think cyberlink will sort that issue out quickly..hopefully :-)

Navigating the menus with a mouse is a bit of a bother, with the keyboard arrow keys its fine.

I'm just glad it all works, I was struggling to get everything to run on my older AMD 3000+ cpu with 1gig ram and 2600XT.

[ssaeed]

thanks for the response.

wow you had the exact system as me. ......
how long did you try with your old system? what did you end up going with as a new system?

See post above :D

[B Leisle]

Only bug I see so far is PDVD reverting to 2channel stereo instead of SPDIF every so often, I think cyberlink will sort that issue out quickly..hopefully :-)


Did you have this problem in earlier patches? I never saw it in the Retail version up to 3319f.0, nor the OEM version up to 3319.0.

[ssaeed]

B,

Don't know. I just installed the retail version, went to cyberlinks webpage and downloaded the latest greatest patch and applied it. It's not a major issue as all it takes is making sure SPDIF is selected before I start the movie, thankfully it's not dropping to 2 channel mode mid movie..that would blow!

[JDLIVE]

Anyone have the issue when they start up PDVD it always reverts back to 2 speaker audio. I keep having to change it back to SPDIF before I start the movie. I dont understand why it keeps reverting back to 2 channel. This is with 3319f. Any ideas how I can stop this from happening?

That was happening to me a few versions ago when reclock was broken, do you have that installed? I understand the latest version will work with reclock again, though I have only downloaded it and have yet to install it.

[Al Sherwood]

what kind of htpc are you running: cpu, mobo, ram, OS, videocard etc. people will be able to help you more if they knew what system you were running. Was playback better before powerdvd? what version? I dont have answers but i'm sure someone else might.

I was going to add this information to my signature until I saw the red message about no equipment lists! :confused:

Anyway, the HTPC is built on a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L, Intel 945 3.4Ghz, 2GB Ram, ATI HD2600Pro (Cat 7.7), LG GCC-H20L, Vista Home Premium and PowerDVD 3516, AnyDVD 3.1.6.3 (?)

As for playback before PowerDVD, never tried it because the focus was HD!

[vvista]

I finally got all my parts and got my HTPC up and running.
C2D6750,
Radeon 3850,
Abit IP35 Pro,
2Gigs Ram,
LG GCC-H20L,
500Gb SATA drive,
WinXp 32bit
PowerDVD Ultra Retail with 3516 (latest patch)
Big quality difference between HD 2600XT and HD 3850 card? Which HD 3850 brand do you have and is it quiet? Thanks!:)

[sensui]

Guys, I got everything running on my system below and am fairly satisfied with the setup for BD and HD-DVD playback:

Core2Duo 6850
4 gigs of ddr2 6400 memory
evga 8800gt KO edition

Question is, I sometimes still got small stutters (very minor and happens randomly from time to time).....I've tried disabling the excess services (windows seach, superfetch, readyboost etc) and creating multiple page files across different sata drives and it doesn't seem to have completely went away under windows vista 32 bit ultimate. I am very tempted to go back to windows XP to see if I can get this small annoyance (random and rare) to go away but I read about people saying better PQ is achieved through vista. Just wanted to see what people think about changing over to XP to run powerdvd for HD stuff. Thanks.

[DC2R714]

That was happening to me a few versions ago when reclock was broken, do you have that installed? I understand the latest version will work with reclock again, though I have only downloaded it and have yet to install it.

I do not use Reclock. I am using the Retail version of PDVD, and I am using an Asus P5B Deluxe MB.

Has only one person gotten the web enabled content to work? Mine doesnt work.

[brado32]

Hi, cant get live free die hard to run on PDVD ultra..

I have the combo LG drive and I have many other title of HD and BD that work fine..

Got this disc from netflix and tried it and I get severe stuttering.. I tried to play with some setting in power dvd and it seemed to get a little better but not watchable..

I have an nvidia 8600

any ideas??

-Brad

[LilGator]

I want to say AnyDVD ... BDSVM ... but I can't form a complete sentence.

[ssaeed]

Big quality difference between HD 2600XT and HD 3850 card? Which HD 3850 brand do you have and is it quiet? Thanks!:)

Can't tell cause I could never get the 2600XT to work on my system. I don't expect there to be any difference for video, the 3850 is faster for gaming. I picked up the Diamond MM 3850 and yes its very quiet.

[talon95]

Hi, cant get live free die hard to run on PDVD ultra..

I have the combo LG drive and I have many other title of HD and BD that work fine..

Got this disc from netflix and tried it and I get severe stuttering.. I tried to play with some setting in power dvd and it seemed to get a little better but not watchable..

I have an nvidia 8600

any ideas??

-Brad

Be more specific, PDVD version, vid driver version, operating system, etc...

I had similar trouble in XP with my 8800GT and the 169.09 drivers and PDVD 3319a. 169.02 fixed the problem though. I also still have bad pixelization in Ratatouille in XP, but not in Vista (169.02).

[AngelEyes]

I am running 3319 via my HDD over a gigabit network. Most of my titles seem to pause during playback at some point or other. It doesn't matter if it is HD-DVD or Bluray. Sometimes it starts up again and other times it 'stops' and goes back to the default red lady picture.

Processor rarely goes above 50%.

Should I try reverting to 3104a, Slysoft seem to reommend this as the best version?

I haven't watched anything for weeks without this issue and it is getting very annoying :(

C2D E4400 3Ghz
2GB DDR2 800
nVidia 8500 GT
Gigabyte P35 S3

[Al Sherwood]

I want to say AnyDVD ... BDSVM ... but I can't form a complete sentence.

BDSVM?

[B Leisle]

BDSVM?

It's the directory on Blu-ray discs that holds the BD+ files/protection. If you rip with AnyDVD HD or let AnyDVD HD run in the background, it should bypass BD+. I'm guessing Live Free or Die Hard is FOX's newest jewel with BD+. The need for this is because Cyberlink is about 3 months behind the 8 ball and doesn't have their player updated before the brand new BD+ titles may ship, so you either use AnyDVD HD or you just look at your nice pretty blu-ray movie case because you can't play the movie. :mad:

So much for the argument that DRM only hampers pirates......

[Al Sherwood]

It's the directory on Blu-ray discs that holds the BD+ files/protection. If you rip with AnyDVD HD or let AnyDVD HD run in the background, it should bypass BD+. I'm guessing Live Free or Die Hard is FOX's newest jewel with BD+. The need for this is because Cyberlink is about 3 months behind the 8 ball and doesn't have their player updated before the brand new BD+ titles may ship, so you either use AnyDVD HD or you just look at your nice pretty blu-ray movie case because you can't play the movie. :mad:

So much for the argument that DRM only hampers pirates......

You know, that is what I hate about Sony, they come up with some cool stuff and then make it so expensive nobody wants it (Location Free TV), so proprietary that nobody joins in (Mini Disc), or just plain buggy Blur-Ray!

They are just making all of this so painful, I was going to sell my Toshiba HD-A20, but I think considering the 'hobby' this Hi-Def HTPC has become, I'll be keeping it, at least it works and plays both my regular DVD's and HD-DVD's.

Nothing ruins the movie experience more then stutter and frozen playback!

[hdtv00]

HAHA I LOVE so many people are now wiping their asses with this joke of a product. Let's all send a collective pile of crap to cyberlink for xmas.

[jcoles]

Since the GGC-H20L is only available in Canada at this time, I spoke with tech support for Canada LG today about the BD+ problem. He told me they are in the beta stages for a firmware upgrade for their drive and it should be posted on the Canadian website within the week. This should solve the BD+ problem and negate the need to buy the retail version of PDVD.

[Andy o]

Hi, cant get live free die hard to run on PDVD ultra..

I have the combo LG drive and I have many other title of HD and BD that work fine..

Got this disc from netflix and tried it and I get severe stuttering.. I tried to play with some setting in power dvd and it seemed to get a little better but not watchable..

I have an nvidia 8600

any ideas??

-Brad

I also have the LG drive, and this blu-ray disc does work, with or without AnyDVD, I'm on Vista using PowerDVD 3319.a, nVidia 8600GTS with 163.75 drivers.

It's the directory on Blu-ray discs that holds the BD+ files/protection. If you rip with AnyDVD HD or let AnyDVD HD run in the background, it should bypass BD+. I'm guessing Live Free or Die Hard is FOX's newest jewel with BD+. The need for this is because Cyberlink is about 3 months behind the 8 ball and doesn't have their player updated before the brand new BD+ titles may ship, so you either use AnyDVD HD or you just look at your nice pretty blu-ray movie case because you can't play the movie. :mad:

So much for the argument that DRM only hampers pirates......

I just tried this movie, as I said above, and it works with PowerDVD 3319.a in Vista. No troubles here, besides the usual stuff. Works with or without AnyDVD.

[Andy o]

Since the GGC-H20L is only available in Canada at this time, I spoke with tech support for Canada LG today about the BD+ problem. He told me they are in the beta stages for a firmware upgrade for their drive and it should be posted on the Canadian website within the week. This should solve the BD+ problem and negate the need to buy the retail version of PDVD.

Hi, maybe I missed something, but what is "the BD+ problem" (besides the usual BS)? I mean, is there any particular problem with this drive and BD+ discs, and how would BD+ affect the drive's ability to read the disc? It seems to me BD+ compatibility is in the software realm.

[jcoles]

The folks at LG Canada acknowledged that their drive would not play the newer BD software which may be what's driving some folks nuts here. Seems Sony made some changes in their titles after the specs were supposedly finalized and the player couldn't decode them with the OEM PDVD software that comes with the drive. Their fix in the firmware will solve this without having to update/upgrade PDVD.

[rdewey]

I have noticed that I get stuttering VIDEO (only with camera panning) when using PowerDVD ultra to play a standard DVD title, but this stuttering is NOT present when playing the same DVD within Vista media center. Moreover, there is NO stuttering when playing a Blu-ray or HD DVD disk with PowerDVD ultra. Anyone experienced this strange phenomenon and have any idea what is going on? I am running a Q6600 chip with an Nvidia 8800GTS so I have plenty of power...

[B Leisle]

I also have the LG drive, and this blu-ray disc does work, with or without AnyDVD, I'm on Vista using PowerDVD 3319.a, nVidia 8600GTS with 163.75 drivers.

I just tried this movie, as I said above, and it works with PowerDVD 3319.a in Vista. No troubles here, besides the usual stuff. Works with or without AnyDVD.

If you've got 3319a.x, then you're using PowerDVD Retail or patched the Retail to the OEM (not sure what happens if you try to do that). The OEM patches to 3319.0 (no "a"), then 3516 - not sure of the exact version of 3516 because I haven't and won't install it because I need HDD playback and don't want to resort to making ISOs.

I don't have Live Free or Die Hard yet, so I'm not sure how it will play on mine.

I have noticed that I get stuttering VIDEO (only with camera panning) when using PowerDVD ultra to play a standard DVD title, but this stuttering is NOT present when playing the same DVD within Vista media center. Moreover, there is NO stuttering when playing a Blu-ray or HD DVD disk with PowerDVD ultra. Anyone experienced this strange phenomenon and have any idea what is going on? I am running a Q6600 chip with an Nvidia 8800GTS so I have plenty of power...
Al Sherwood posted something similar here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=12338407&postcount=4130

[hamish b]

Guys, I got everything running on my system below and am fairly satisfied with the setup for BD and HD-DVD playback:

Core2Duo 6850
4 gigs of ddr2 6400 memory
evga 8800gt KO edition

Question is, I sometimes still got small stutters (very minor and happens randomly from time to time).....I've tried disabling the excess services (windows seach, superfetch, readyboost etc) and creating multiple page files across different sata drives and it doesn't seem to have completely went away under windows vista 32 bit ultimate. I am very tempted to go back to windows XP to see if I can get this small annoyance (random and rare) to go away but I read about people saying better PQ is achieved through vista. Just wanted to see what people think about changing over to XP to run powerdvd for HD stuff. Thanks.

i get the same thing. I get 10 minutes or more of perfect playback at 48hz but it does this hiccup and it takes about a minute to get back to smooth playback. give it another 10 or so minutes, hiccup etc......
it gets quite annoying. Its like it its a frame rate problem where it goes to a different frame rate occasionally ie something other than 24fps and it takes the evr renederer some time to get back to 24fps.

i dont know whether its the cyberlink decoder or the card (i guess its the cyberlink decoder)

system is 2600xt, vista hp, powerdvd 3319, 1920x1080p at 48hz

[skibum5000]

I have noticed that I get stuttering VIDEO (only with camera panning) when using PowerDVD ultra to play a standard DVD title, but this stuttering is NOT present when playing the same DVD within Vista media center. Moreover, there is NO stuttering when playing a Blu-ray or HD DVD disk with PowerDVD ultra. Anyone experienced this strange phenomenon and have any idea what is going on? I am running a Q6600 chip with an Nvidia 8800GTS so I have plenty of power...

wishi had your problem. i get bad stuttering and low frame rates with spiderman and 28 weeks later among select other AVC titles using compressed lossless audio. but regualr DVDs are perfect, not that i play too many of those anymore.

have AMD X2 4400+ and 8800 GTS which was claimed by cyblerink to be powerful enough, but maybe not, maybe its BD+ slowing it down or maybe AVC and compressed lossless take more than they expected.

[mule]

@B Leisle: fyi: "die hard" plays fine for me with the 3319.0 OEM-version.

TheMule!

[sarah99]

The folks at LG Canada acknowledged that their drive would not play the newer BD software which may be what's driving some folks nuts here. Seems Sony made some changes in their titles after the specs were supposedly finalized and the player couldn't decode them with the OEM PDVD software that comes with the drive. Their fix in the firmware will solve this without having to update/upgrade PDVD.

This seems extremely unlikely as BD+ is a software decoding problem and nothing to do with the firmware of a PC Blu-Ray drive.

Just to point out the DH4 plays perfectly off My hard drive using PowerDVD Ultra 3319 (and anyDVD hd to rip)

I am running 3319 via my HDD over a gigabit network. Most of my titles seem to pause during playback at some point or other. It doesn't matter if it is HD-DVD or Bluray. Sometimes it starts up again and other times it 'stops' and goes back to the default red lady picture.

This will be a network problem.

[bjmills]

did you load the newest Nvidia drivers for the 7 series cards. If that doent work then deinstall all the Nvidia video drivers (only the vid drivers) and re-install the newest Nvidia 7 series drivers again.

Thanks for the reply! I tried doing this (uninstalling and installing). I believe it was version 169.<something> which I just downloaded a week or so ago. No difference. I'll have to try running a HDMI cable and see if that makes a difference...

[jeffreydeng]

I have Live Free Or Die Hard and it plays well using PS3. However I would like to watch it from HTPC also. So I created iso file using PS3 SAK V1.0 and using ANYDVD HD to rip all files into the HDD. At the ripping process I am sure that ANYDVD will remove the region code as well as the AACS protection. I copied all files except AACS folder to the HDD including BD+.

WHen I play it from HDD using both PDVD 3319a and 3516 (from iso image) I got following message.

" This disc is coded in region A and will not play on this device. PLease eject the disc and play on a region A player".

ANYDVD shows that the disc is region free and PDVD is set to region A. So I am stuck here.

I wonder whether this is BD+ thing or due to some bug in PS3 SAK that the disc was not ripped correctly.

By the way, so far I had no problem in ripping BD movie using PS3 SAK including Ocean's Thirteen. But this 'Die Hard' may be the first disc I rip which has BD+.

Does any body have the same experience and what I can try?

THanks for all comments in advance!

[Andy o]

I did have the Region trouble a couple of times when starting up Live Free or Die Hard, but only a couple of times, and then went away. It seemed like a glitch. I used the disc directly from the LG drive, though, with AnyDVD enabled. I didn't rip it to disc, nor used a PS3. Using 3319.a in Vista.

[jeffreydeng]

I did have the Region trouble a couple of times when starting up Live Free or Die Hard, but only a couple of times, and then went away. It seemed like a glitch. I used the disc directly from the LG drive, though, with AnyDVD enabled. I didn't rip it to disc, nor used a PS3. Using 3319.a in Vista.


Thanks for the info. So basiclly you just restart PDVD several times and tried to play it and the message just went away? How about if you play it now?

[brado32]

I also have the LG drive, and this blu-ray disc does work, with or without AnyDVD, I'm on Vista using PowerDVD 3319.a, nVidia 8600GTS with 163.75 drivers.



I just tried this movie, as I said above, and it works with PowerDVD 3319.a in Vista. No troubles here, besides the usual stuff. Works with or without AnyDVD.
So, im a little confused on rev numbers for Power DVD ultra.. where do I get specific rev versions.. I just bought the latest and greatest Power DVD ultra from their website..

thanks

-Brad

[ssaeed]

I have the LG drive, what software can I use to make an ISO of a bluray or hddvd movie? And what software is used to mount that ISO?

Thanks

[sarah99]

WHen I play it from HDD using both PDVD 3319a and 3516 (from iso image) I got following message.

" This disc is coded in region A and will not play on this device. PLease eject the disc and play on a region A player".

ANYDVD shows that the disc is region free and PDVD is set to region A. So I am stuck here.

AnyDVD HD does not correctly remove the region coding from region locked Blu-Ray in all cases, but selecting "remove region coding" will effectively destroy any playback on these problem disks. Leave the region coding alone, set the region as required.

PS
If you ripped the Blu-Ray and don't want to rip the entire disk again, just recopy the index.bdmv, and the movieobject.bdmv files.

[sigma957]

All a drive does is read 1s and 0s off the disc. Playback capabilities are determined by the software.This is not entirely true. When the HD-A1 first came out, people tried pulling the HD-DVD drive out and putting it in a computer. They found out that even though the PC recognized it and could read standard DVDs just fine, you could not use it for HD-DVD because AACS requires a hardware component that these drives lacked. The Xbox 360 drive does have it, so it became the drive everyone used. It's entirely possible that BD+ requires some hardware/firmware component to be present in the drive.

[bk1987]

I have the LG drive, what software can I use to make an ISO of a bluray or hddvd movie? And what software is used to mount that ISO?

Thanks

image burn using UDF not iso, http://www.imgburn.com/, and than mount with,http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php?mode=ViewCategory&catid=5

[brado32]

I also have the LG drive, and this blu-ray disc does work, with or without AnyDVD, I'm on Vista using PowerDVD 3319.a, nVidia 8600GTS with 163.75 drivers.



I just tried this movie, as I said above, and it works with PowerDVD 3319.a in Vista. No troubles here, besides the usual stuff. Works with or without AnyDVD.
THe cyberlink web site only seems to have 3516 version.. where would I find this magical 3319.a version??

thanks

-B

[Darren Wadsworth]

Hi, cant get live free die hard to run on PDVD ultra..

I have the combo LG drive and I have many other title of HD and BD that work fine..

Got this disc from netflix and tried it and I get severe stuttering.. I tried to play with some setting in power dvd and it seemed to get a little better but not watchable..

I have an nvidia 8600

any ideas??

-Brad

I have an 8600gt. PDVD Ultra 3516. Live Free or Die Hard plays fine.

Windows XP though


Darren

[jeffreydeng]

AnyDVD HD does not correctly remove the region coding from region locked Blu-Ray in all cases, but selecting "remove region coding" will effectively destroy any playback on these problem disks. Leave the region coding alone, set the region as required.

PS
If you ripped the Blu-Ray and don't want to rip the entire disk again, just recopy the index.bdmv, and the movieobject.bdmv files.

Appreciate the response and I will try it when I get home tonight.

[jeffreydeng]

THe cyberlink web site only seems to have 3516 version.. where would I find this magical 3319.a version??

thanks

-B

Google it. You will find it on the web. We are not allowed to post link in this forum. If you really want it PM me and I will email you 3319a.

[sarah99]

This is not entirely true. When the HD-A1 first came out, people tried pulling the HD-DVD drive out and putting it in a computer. They found out that even though the PC recognized it and could read standard DVDs just fine, you could not use it for HD-DVD

Are you sure they didn't just need UDF 2.5 drivers installed. When the HD-A1 came out these drivers weren't available. If you remove them ... the HD-DVD drives can read DVD and CD but not HD-DVD

[Al Sherwood]

THe cyberlink web site only seems to have 3516 version.. where would I find this magical 3319.a version??

thanks

-B

This seems to be quite true, when I reinstalled my OEM copy of PDVD (2911) every time I played a disc it asked to be updated, the update was 3516 in all cases, also the upgrade button on the configuration panel takes you to 3516 as well! Maybe Cyberlink is being forward acting and moving everybody away from HDD playback?

BTW, now at 3319.0, and there is a problem with playback of every disc I try, Transformers starts and the screen stays on the 'updating web content' message? A perfect Storm won't even start from ODD?

In fact, when I try and play a disc and AnyDVD is not running, PDVD posts an error about not being able to initialize the player?

[ssaeed]

Al,

Enable mouse support in HDDVD via PDVD configuration (HDDVD tab) and hit cancel on the Updating web content button. I had the same issue and it worked for me. the next couple of times it showed up for a few seconds and then went away automatically.

Run the latest PDVD path 3516, it works well.

[Al Sherwood]

Al,

Enable mouse support in HDDVD via PDVD configuration (HDDVD tab) and hit cancel on the Updating web content button. I had the same issue and it worked for me. the next couple of times it showed up for a few seconds and then went away automatically.

Run the latest PDVD path 3516, it works well.

Ahhh Yes the mouse control, forgot about that! :o

Tonight I'll try again.

I have a copy of 3516, yes it worked well, I was hoping to go back to 3319 for HDD based files though.

[vvista]

Run the latest PDVD path 3516, it works well.Is this the version that prevents HDD playback?