PowerDVD Ultra (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray)

[Al Sherwood]

Good to hear your getting somewhere on your issues.

I really don't have the space to worry about ISO/File playback.. i'm only running 2 500gb drives and now, they are housing all the HD sports games i miss. lol. Currently at 90% capacity.

I'll definately be upgrading to the free upgrade... then waiting i think for the Arcsoft solution. It sounds to be the most flexible in terms of what i want. Right now, my Media Center PC is the SHIZZNIT.. lol. All my friends marvel at it and when i add Blu/HD playback on it, i'm expecting to BLOW peoples minds lol.

One question i have since your using PowerDVD now.. hows the audio? Do you have it fed into a reciever or is it processed via computer speakers?

Yeah, it's cool when the HTPC can do so much, especially when the images and sound are first rate!

The sound is being fed via SPDIF to my receiver from the motherboard ( Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L) , DD+ or DTS multichannel comes though perfectly.

[Tong Chia]

I see the same thing on my 8800GT, XP SP2 Athlon 4400+
on Transformers. I was going to try this on Vista but it appears
that it may be a waste of time.

I get severe blocking everytime there is MPEG4 AVC content. I am
beginning to think that AVC/H264 decoding is broken on the 8800GT
eg Ratatouille. A couple of the Elecard H264 clips also show the same
blocking problem

When I go back to my 7800 GTX the AVC blocking problem goes away
(I think it is using software for most of the decode, CPU load is about 70%)

The 8800GT HW AVC Acceleration is halfbaked.
I am going to return the 8800GT until Nvidia/Cyberlink get this thing right.

I have an 8800GT, CPU C2D6850, 4GRam, Vista 64, and it's playing perfectly in PowerDVD ultra except Transformers HD-DVD.
For this particulat movie half of the screen is black and wite and the other half has some inversed colors.
Anyone having the same issue?

[pospower]

What is the work around I just saw mentioned that will enable you to play HD off your HDrive again with new version. I missed that post. thanks in advance.

[Cap.T]

Tong Chia is it possible to deactivate HWA in PowerDVD with the 8800 GT?

[blingo]

I have added HWUVD_DisableH264 and HWUVD_DisableVC1 both to the registry but hardware acceleration is still on. How the hell do i get rid of ati avivo.

[blingo]

Finally got HA to stay turned off but the picture is still fuzzy. I can only see half the picture and even that flickers.

[rcoe]

What is the work around I just saw mentioned that will enable you to play HD off your HDrive again with new version. I missed that post. thanks in advance.


To store it as an ISO and play it from there. Although many expect this loophole to be closed in the future.

I am still using the 3104 version and it plays great on all my machines.

[talon95]

I see the same thing on my 8800GT, XP SP2 Athlon 4400+
on Transformers. I was going to try this on Vista but it appears
that it may be a waste of time.

I get severe blocking everytime there is MPEG4 AVC content. I am
beginning to think that AVC/H264 decoding is broken on the 8800GT
eg Ratatouille. A couple of the Elecard H264 clips also show the same
blocking problem

When I go back to my 7800 GTX the AVC blocking problem goes away
(I think it is using software for most of the decode, CPU load is about 70%)

The 8800GT HW AVC Acceleration is halfbaked.
I am going to return the 8800GT until Nvidia/Cyberlink get this thing right.

You must have some other problem. Transformers works for me.

WinXP SP2
Core2D@3.15Gig
8800GT
169.02

Only disk I've found that does not work is Ratatouille. It *does* work in Vista with 169.02 though.

[Nimo]

I am still using the 3104 version and it plays great on all my machines.

Yup same here 3104 is as far as I will go, and the latest AnyD but still prefer MPC for playback. As far as the the down sampling goes I still think it's sending MLP to the sound card because I can't tell any difference in loss. Using the Sonic decoders it lists the same MLP 5.1 6419 kbps in MPC so I don't think my build is DS in PDVD and if it is I can't hear the difference.

[jeffreydeng]

To store it as an ISO and play it from there. Although many expect this loophole to be closed in the future.

I am still using the 3104 version and it plays great on all my machines.


I am using 3319a and so far everything worked fine except it doesnt play Evan Almighty at all unless you rename the 002 XPL file to block playing the web content.

[blingo]

Finally got HA to stay turned off but the picture is still fuzzy. I can only see half the picture and even that flickers.

Reinstalled windows and same s**t still doesnt work. Normal DVD are playing fine in powerdvd. Just my Blu-ray and HD-DVD wont work.

[cmichel04]

I have issues with all the HD-DVD that have u-control or some kind of special BS (Troy, Bourne movies, Transformers, Shreak 3,...). ALl the rest of the movies are working ok.
Aparently this is a bug for 8800GT cards (driver 169.xx)
All the Blu-ray movies work perfectly.

Is there a newer build for PowerDVD ultra (newer than 3516) ?

[protovision]

does anyone have 3104 and spiderman 3 BD working from disk ( +/- anyDVD) ?

My setup gets stuck at the spider logo, I see it for a second, then black screen.

I did get it to work with 3319a, but I uninstalled it for Reclock-able 3104.

p.

[Tong Chia]

Tong Chia is it possible to deactivate HWA in PowerDVD with the 8800 GT?

It can be turned off if I play media files such as the mp4 files for Elecard's
site. With the thing off the playback is very smooth.

However I have not found a way to turn it off while playing a HD or BD movies
I tried the registry hacks mentioned on this thread but the Information
panel always reports DXVA and HWA is enabled

[Cap.T]

Thank you. Well that's sucks. There goes my main reason to throw out my 8800 GTS card for this on.

[Andy o]

does anyone have 3104 and spiderman 3 BD working from disk ( +/- anyDVD) ?

My setup gets stuck at the spider logo, I see it for a second, then black screen.

I did get it to work with 3319a, but I uninstalled it for Reclock-able 3104.

p.

I had to install 3319a, because nothing earlier worked with Spiderman 3. I guess it's not about HDCP, but the freaking blu-ray specs not being finalized. 3319a probably introduced an update for BD-J or something like that.

[Mastiff]

I guess it's not about HDCP, but the freaking blu-ray specs not being finalized.

Don't think so. It plays perfectly with any (hard drive playback enabled) version if it's ripped to a hard drive with AnyDVD ripper first.

[protovision]

Don't think so. It plays perfectly with any (hard drive playback enabled) version if it's ripped to a hard drive with AnyDVD ripper first.

Thanks Andy, Mastiff.

hmm, brings up another question, anyone know what is the highest version of PDVD that is Reclock-able, and has HDD access? anyone have reclock running on a ver of PDVD higher than 3104?

I tried 3319a(?), but when playing there was no audio and the 'audio' tab disappeared under config. Once I disabled Reclock from starting, PDVD worked fine.

p.

[blingo]

Reinstalled windows and same s**t still doesnt work. Normal DVD are playing fine in powerdvd. Just my Blu-ray and HD-DVD wont work.

Ahh fixed it but it was somthing so stupid. CCC was set to 50hz by default everytime i install CCC and normally when i do this it has massive black borders around the screen so i was guessing everything was ok because i was getting 1:1 pixel mapping and other media was playing fine. Wasted all that time reinstalling xp, ATi drivers and power dvd lol. Well good thing its working and now i got a nice clean install of the OS. To many install/reisntall of apps and drivers before.

[MKANET]

Whats the trick to playing the Transforms HD-DVD? This is the first title that just didnt work.

When I hit the Play button in the movie menus, I get the Rating of the motion picture... then the whole PowerDVD player exits... Nice app.

[S1DIMMER]

I dropped back to 3104a when they dropped hard drive playback. Now Heroes Season 1 Disc 2 does not play. I know there was an issue but not sure what the fix is. The other discs play fine. Disc 2 just gives me a blank screen.

[Al Sherwood]

I tried to playback a Joe Kane HD-DVD, DVE, I can get the menu to come up, I can even select the test material, but I can't get anything to play..

Anybody else tried this disc?

BTW, I am at PDVD 3516

PS, the more I play with PowerDVD, the more glad I kept my Toshiba HD player!

[MKANET]

This same thing happens to me with the Transformers HD-DVD. But, my PowerDVD Ultra 3516 will just close when its starts. This is the first time I've had a problem with any movies.

I tied to playback a Joe Kane HD-DVD, DVE, I can get the menu to come up, I can even select the test material, but I can't get anything to play..

Anybody else tried this disc?

BTW, I am at PDVD 3516

[skibum5000]

I see the same thing on my 8800GT, XP SP2 Athlon 4400+
on Transformers. I was going to try this on Vista but it appears
that it may be a waste of time.

I get severe blocking everytime there is MPEG4 AVC content. I am
beginning to think that AVC/H264 decoding is broken on the 8800GT
eg Ratatouille. A couple of the Elecard H264 clips also show the same
blocking problem

When I go back to my 7800 GTX the AVC blocking problem goes away
(I think it is using software for most of the decode, CPU load is about 70%)

The 8800GT HW AVC Acceleration is halfbaked.
I am going to return the 8800GT until Nvidia/Cyberlink get this thing right.

do you good frame rates on 28 weeks later or spiderman or other recent blurray avc movies? your setup is similar to mine but mine has CPU at like 93% and gets all choppy for lots of stuff. never for HD DVD so far and never for mpeg2 or vc1 blur-ray, but for recent bluray avc, most especially and perhaps only ones that use compressed lossless audio format.

while i am at it has anyone noticed that 3516 has better pic quality or am i crazy.

[KeithHurst]

I tried to playback a Joe Kane HD-DVD, DVE, I can get the menu to come up, I can even select the test material, but I can't get anything to play..

Anybody else tried this disc?

BTW, I am at PDVD 3516

PS, the more I play with PowerDVD, the more glad I kept my Toshiba HD player!

I believe this disc has issues if you run with AnyDVD-HD enabled and skip to the menu, like the HD-DVD of The Host if AnyDVD misses out the preliminary trailers the menu system doesn't function correctly.

If you do have AnyDVD-HD try disabling it, or removing the option to skip trailers ( can't remember the exact terminology, not at my HTPC ) and re try running DVE.

Worth a try.

KH

[Pino72]

Thanks Andy, Mastiff.

hmm, brings up another question, anyone know what is the highest version of PDVD that is Reclock-able, and has HDD access? anyone have reclock running on a ver of PDVD higher than 3104?

I tried 3319a(?), but when playing there was no audio and the 'audio' tab disappeared under config. Once I disabled Reclock from starting, PDVD worked fine.

p.

The latest to work with ReClock is the latest patch available, 3516 :) The latest before that was 3104a, between those none worked with ReClock.

[MickeyDora]

I dropped back to 3104a when they dropped hard drive playback. Now Heroes Season 1 Disc 2 does not play. I know there was an issue but not sure what the fix is. The other discs play fine. Disc 2 just gives me a blank screen.

Disc 2 (and Disc5 I think) have web content so PDVD chokes on it. Rip it and rename the larger XPL.

[protovision]

The latest to work with ReClock is the latest patch available, 3516 :) The latest before that was 3104a, between those none worked with ReClock.

thanks for the info!

p.

[edfowler]

Disc 2 (and Disc5 I think) have web content so PDVD chokes on it. Rip it and rename the larger XPL.

Will renaming the larger XPL on other java BDs allow PDVD to play them as well?

I cannot play Spidy 3, POTC, Speed, ROTSS and some others with 3104a.

[FordRacer888]

Hey guys, I've got a bit of a problem. It can be seen here: http://members.iinet.net.au/~hniven/error.jpg

Does anyone know what is going on here? It only occurs on SD DVDs, Blu Ray and HD DVD play fine, and the problem is not contained to PowerDVD. The exact same thing happens in WinDVD, but not in MPC or VLC. It used to play the movies fine, but after it crashed during playback one time, it now has that line through the center, almost as if it cannot line up the image fast enough (it looks fine when there is next to no movement).

Thanks,

[MickeyDora]

Will renaming the larger XPL on other java BDs allow PDVD to play them as well?

I cannot play Spidy 3, POTC, Speed, ROTSS and some others with 3104a.

Nope. The XPL renaming trick is only for web enabled content that messes up with PowerDVD. I don't have any problems playing any of the titles that you mentioned using 3319.a or any other title for that matter.

[Al Sherwood]

I believe this disc has issues if you run with AnyDVD-HD enabled and skip to the menu, like the HD-DVD of The Host if AnyDVD misses out the preliminary trailers the menu system doesn't function correctly.

If you do have AnyDVD-HD try disabling it, or removing the option to skip trailers ( can't remember the exact terminology, not at my HTPC ) and re try running DVE.

Worth a try.

KH

I'll check for those settings, I noticed that there quite a few to choose from, I have left all of them in the default setting, I wish there was a bit of a manual or FAQ on the settings required?

BTW, the other problem I have with AnyDVD is that if it is NOT running then no movie will play, what's up with that?

[Al Sherwood]

Hey guys, I've got a bit of a problem. It can be seen here: image removed by replying poster

Does anyone know what is going on here? It only occurs on SD DVDs, Blu Ray and HD DVD play fine, and the problem is not contained to PowerDVD. The exact same thing happens in WinDVD, but not in MPC or VLC. It used to play the movies fine, but after it crashed during playback one time, it now has that line through the center, almost as if it cannot line up the image fast enough (it looks fine when there is next to no movement).

Thanks,

I was having the same problem with PDVD and even Windows Media Center and Player, appeared to be the codec being used, After a reboot they all worked again, I don't know why...

[KeithHurst]

BTW, the other problem I have with AnyDVD is that if it is NOT running then no movie will play, what's up with that?

Could be something in your playback chain thats not HDCP compatible ?

I'll check the option when I return and get back to you in this thread.

KH

[Al Sherwood]

Could be something in your playback chain thats not HDCP compatible ?

I'll check the option when I return and get back to you in this thread.

KH

That could be true, I run a dual monitor setup, a VGA monitor and a HDCP compliant projector are both connected to the ATI Video card?

[skibum5000]

Disc 2 (and Disc5 I think) have web content so PDVD chokes on it. Rip it and rename the larger XPL.

you can also go to networking conrol panel and temporarily disable your network connection. that's the fastest, easiest way to make heroes s1 disc 2 work. (of disconnect if you use a modem and not highspeed)

as long as it sees no internet connection it doesn't try to load the stuff that hangs it.

[skibum5000]

That could be true, I run a dual monitor setup, a VGA monitor and a HDCP compliant projector are both connected to the ATI Video card?

yeah, it's probably the HDCP thing getting you.

[mikeaymar]

I had a very similar problem, but with mine the BD and HDDVD movies had the split in the middle, and DVD's played fine. When I ran the system checker that comes with PDVD it said my video card and display weren't HDCP compatible (which was wrong). I then ran the Vista system capability checker and it gave me very low scores for my video. I can't remember what I did next, but somehow I got Vista to properly recognize my video card, giving me the expected high scores, and after that PDVD ran fine as well, and reported everything was HDCP compatible.
Sorry I can't be more help.
Mike

Hey guys, I've got a bit of a problem. It can be seen here:
Does anyone know what is going on here? It only occurs on SD DVDs, Blu Ray and HD DVD play fine, and the problem is not contained to PowerDVD. The exact same thing happens in WinDVD, but not in MPC or VLC. It used to play the movies fine, but after it crashed during playback one time, it now has that line through the center, almost as if it cannot line up the image fast enough (it looks fine when there is next to no movement).

Thanks,

[georgeorwell]

That could be true, I run a dual monitor setup, a VGA monitor and a HDCP compliant projector are both connected to the ATI Video card?

Try disabling dual view and switch to single view for the display you are using. See if that corrects the problem. I have a different card, but have noticed the same thing on a dual monitor set up.....only thing that would correct it was to only feed one display.

[Rew452]

I for one have have had one heck of a time with getting s/pdiff to output Dolby Digital. It always gave me 2 channel stereo!

Reported the problem to Cyberlink several time "canned message" acknowledged it but had no fix to offer.

Well after a number of PDVD version changes I finally decided to get a new PCI sound card turning off the on board ADI 1985 sound.

Bye the way TheaterTek had no problem outputting correctly trough the S/pdif.

Anyway, I got the Sondigo Inferno uninstalled SounMax drivers, turned off onboard sound, put in the card and loaded the new drivers.

WORKS GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have the:
Asus P4C800E- Deluxe
P4 @ 3.2Ghz overclocked by 10% t0 3.5Ghz
1gb Ram

Rew

[Al Sherwood]

I believe this disc has issues if you run with AnyDVD-HD enabled and skip to the menu, like the HD-DVD of The Host if AnyDVD misses out the preliminary trailers the menu system doesn't function correctly.

If you do have AnyDVD-HD try disabling it, or removing the option to skip trailers ( can't remember the exact terminology, not at my HTPC ) and re try running DVE.

Worth a try.

KH

Well, I checked the setting under HD DVD and found that "Remove first play title from HD DVD" was checked, so I removed the check and I could play the demostration material, but only the demonstration material, nothing else.

It didn't matter what I selected, the first thing that played was the demo, even when I pressed the 'back' button!?

BUT, if I use the keyboard to navigate the on screen menu's I can get things to work. (yes, I have the mouse control enabled in teh HD-DVD tab of configuration). Weird!?

BTW, playback is on a VGA connected monitor, so HDCP doesn't seem to be interferring.

[Al Sherwood]

Try disabling dual view and switch to single view for the display you are using. See if that corrects the problem. I have a different card, but have noticed the same thing on a dual monitor set up.....only thing that would correct it was to only feed one display.

Do you have a analog and a digital display connected?

I can run PDVD on the VGA monitor without a problem by itself, or with the projector turned on I can run PDVD back on either display when both are up and running.

Strange...

[Davinleeds]

Cyber FAQS say one monitor at a time and mouse control is title dependent

[Al Sherwood]

Cyber FAQS say one monitor at a time and mouse control is title dependent

As for the mouse, I can believe that, some work and some don't.

I just tried a 'Media Center' remote control and the arrow buttons worked great (a work around at least).

With regards to 'one monitor at a time', I should clarify that I have 2 monitors operating on the same video card, but PowerDVD is only playing back on one screen at any one time.

[blingo]

In the audio tab think its in advanced do you guys enable LFE? Or should i be leaving this disabled. I got a 5.1 setup. I got wharfdale 9.1 diamonds as the fronts.

[Al Sherwood]

In the audio tab think its in advanced do you guys enable LFE? Or should i be leaving this disabled. I got a 5.1 setup. I got wharfdale 9.1 diamonds as the fronts.

This program just kills me! I am at the latest version (3516), and the advanced tab is greyed out, so SPDIF mixing!?

IIRC, when I was at 3319f it was available and so was SPDIF mixing...

[Davinleeds]

I have two also, PJ and monitor, but PDVD displays on one or the other. From FAQS:Issue

Cannot see the video on the display and projector at the same time.



Cause

Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD specification only allows video output to one display device at a time.



Solution

Please switch the video to output only to either the projector or the display.

[MattM]

Whats the trick to playing the Transforms HD-DVD? This is the first title that just didnt work.

When I hit the Play button in the movie menus, I get the Rating of the motion picture... then the whole PowerDVD player exits... Nice app.

Transformers plays just fine for me. Tested it last night. I'm using the LG OEM version of PDVD. I did update, but not sure how to tell what version I'm running; it just says 7.3 in the About screen.

The issue I'm having is switching the Audio to SPDIF. I just hear popping and static. Switching back to 2-Speaker Stereo, I at least get Stereo that my Receiver then decodes into DPLII. But I can get DD5.1/DTS via SPDIF watching SD DVDs through Media Center. I'm using an Audigy 2/ZS. Any help is appreciated!

[blingo]

This program just kills me! I am at the latest version (3516), and the advanced tab is greyed out, so SPDIF mixing!?

IIRC, when I was at 3319f it was available and so was SPDIF mixing...

Thats strange am using 3516 and the button works fine. But am connected via analog.

[Andy o]

I also have never been able to do S/PDIF mixing in PowerDVD, not that I've ever needed to. My card can do Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect (essentially the same). I have tried all builds up to 3319f (never tried 3516), and none of them let me do it, either in XP or in Vista x86.

Another thing, in Vista, PowerDVD won't pass through S/PDIF unless I select the digital output as the default under the Vista playback devices control panel (so I have to switch to/from speaker from/to S/PDIF every time I need passthrough).

[blingo]

So am i meant to enable LFE or not?

[Rathbone]

PowerDVD 3516 doesn't play the Star Trek: TOS S1 Starfleet Access features. Only PiP works. :(

[saintsaints]

When I run two displays, the second one displays a windowed box instead of full screen. What if I get two video cards?

I have two also, PJ and monitor, but PDVD displays on one or the other. From FAQS:Issue

Cannot see the video on the display and projector at the same time.



Cause

Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD specification only allows video output to one display device at a time.



Solution

Please switch the video to output only to either the projector or the display.

[i2k]

Wonder if it works on V64

[skibum5000]

So am i meant to enable LFE or not?


not if you have a sub connected to the .1 channel.

[jatoghia]

I wrote Cyberlink technical support last week after purchasing a $59 upgrade to Ultra from 7 Deluxe, and they haven't contacted me yet.

I went to run the upgrade installer, and it tells me that it "will now uninstall PowerDVD", which I assume is the installer's way of telling me that it needs to uninstall my existing copy. Anyway, after doing that, the installer just quits, and never installs Ultra.

Any suggestions?

[one_2go]

I have AC3Filers installed for MPC playback but in PWDVD the only way to get S/PDIF to show up is to open the config portion of PWDVD without anything loaded, just Power Crap and you.

[ssaeed]

known issue in powerdvd ultra. The SPDIF setting in audio output doesn't seem to stick. You have to start the movie, then stop it then open the config panel and select SPDIF output then start the movie again. Hopefully this get's fixed in the next rev.

[Stormwind]

Hi all,

PowerDVD Ultra sometimes displays a green screen instead of the video when I play a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc. The only way I have found to fix the problem so far is to reboot the system.

Usually the disc intro videos and the buttons on the menus will display fine, but the disc's main video and menu background will just be a green screen. This makes me suspect copy protection and/or HDCP. Audio works fine when this happens.

I am using PowerDVD Ultra on a Velocity Micro CineMagix Grand Theater with a LG GGC-H20N drive and ATI Radeon HD 2600XT video card, with a HDMI connection to a Samsung HL-T6189S HDTV.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Thanks!

[ssaeed]

storm,

sounds more like a driver issue than copy protection. If it were copy protection you would see snow on the TV and no audio either. Try updating or reinstalling your video card drivers.

[Al Sherwood]

Thats strange am using 3516 and the button works fine. But am connected via analog.

When you say connected via analog, do you mean from the HTPC's sound card? If yes then I don't see why that should affect the SPDIF settings.

[Al Sherwood]

So am i meant to enable LFE or not?

As for your question about LFE, again if you are connected via the analog outputs on your sound card and it can provide a LFE connection then your choice to use it would depend on if you have sub available to connect to that line out. Otherwise if you leave it unchecked, and the speakers are set to large in your sound cards control panel the LFE will get mixed in the the front left and right speakers.

[Al Sherwood]

When I run two displays, the second one displays a windowed box instead of full screen. What if I get two video cards? It would be helpful to know the video card you are using...

I'm not sure what you mean "windowed box", but if you are running an ATI card then you need to make sure that both monitors are correctly configured in the Catalyst display manager as to their capabilities. Then you should use the 'extended desktop' feature which will essentually place the program you want to run in one display at a time.

It sounds to me that the displays are running in 'cloned mode' and thereby using the monitor attributes from the primary monitor for both displays, this would look like a 'windowed box' on a secondary display with a higher native resolution.

Sort of like running those small You-tube videos in the middle of you regular monitor. ;)

[Al Sherwood]

Hi all,

PowerDVD Ultra sometimes displays a green screen instead of the video when I play a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc. The only way I have found to fix the problem so far is to reboot the system.

Usually the disc intro videos and the buttons on the menus will display fine, but the disc's main video and menu background will just be a green screen. This makes me suspect copy protection and/or HDCP. Audio works fine when this happens.

I am using PowerDVD Ultra on a Velocity Micro CineMagix Grand Theater with a LG GGC-H20N drive and ATI Radeon HD 2600XT video card, with a HDMI connection to a Samsung HL-T6189S HDTV.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Thanks!

I aggree with "ssaeed", it sounds like a video driver problem, in fact I had this with my HD2600Pro until I installed a later driver.

Originally I used the driver suite that came with the video card and I got a green screen display, upgrading to Cat 7.10 fixed that for me, I eventually went to Cat 7.7 because it was the only level that I could find that allowed me to enble ATI Avivo (hardware acceleration) within the configuration panel of PowerDVD.

[blingo]

As for your question about LFE, again if you are connected via the analog outputs on your sound card and it can provide a LFE connection then your choice to use it would depend on if you have sub available to connect to that line out. Otherwise if you leave it unchecked, and the speakers are set to large in your sound cards control panel the LFE will get mixed in the the front left and right speakers.

Thanks for the reply skibum5000 and Sherwood.

HTPC has a prelude 7.1 connected via 3 rca cables to my receiver. I have a sub and its been connected to my receiver.

If i leave it on would it ruin the effect on how it should sound? I just tested with it enabled and played back 300 and enabled TrueHD. I watched the starting bit with the warner logo and thunderstorm sound. I quite like the way it sounded, I need to test with LFE disabled.

[saintsaints]

I have a 8800gt running in extended display mode. Second display is windowed box, black border on all sides, but only with hd movies. Dvds are fine in their aspect ratio widescreen. This is with latest PD, but with older version before 3.319 it also ran fine, no windowed box.

It would be helpful to know the video card you are using...

I'm not sure what you mean "windowed box", but if you are running an ATI card then you need to make sure that both monitors are correctly configured in the Catalyst display manager as to their capabilities. Then you should use the 'extended desktop' feature which will essentually place the program you want to run in one display at a time.

It sounds to me that the displays are running in 'cloned mode' and thereby using the monitor attributes from the primary monitor for both displays, this would look like a 'windowed box' on a secondary display with a higher native resolution.

Sort of like running those small You-tube videos in the middle of you regular monitor. ;)

[Al Sherwood]

I have a 8800gt running in extended display mode. Second display is windowed box, black border on all sides, but only with hd movies. Dvds are fine in their aspect ratio widescreen. This is with latest PD, but with older version before 3.319 it also ran fine, no windowed box.


hmmmm, I have seen this before, in fact on one systems images that I have version 3319f installed, when I would drag the player over to the secondary display, the player filled the entire screen, but when I started the movie it reverted to a smaller image centered on a black background. I this what you see?

[Al Sherwood]

Thanks for the reply skibum5000 and Sherwood.

HTPC has a prelude 7.1 connected via 3 rca cables to my receiver. I have a sub and its been connected to my receiver.

If i leave it on would it ruin the effect on how it should sound? I just tested with it enabled and played back 300 and enabled TrueHD. I watched the starting bit with the warner logo and thunderstorm sound. I quite like the way it sounded, I need to test with LFE disabled.

blingo when you say "connected via 3 rca cables to my receiver", do you mean "3-pairs" or just "3 single cables"? You also mention TrueHD, this is an HDMI based sound stream, does your receiver support that?

If you intend on using analog outputs from your sound card, and assuming that the AV receiver has analog input jacks for multi channel sound, then you should either hook up 6 (5.1) or 8 (7.1) channels to your receiver, with the X.1 channel being the LFE channel.

With the sub connected to the receiver, I would suspect that the AV receiver has the appropriate bass management circuits to combine the LFE signal and any bass directed from the other speakers and pass it to the sub woofer. All of this control can be done by the receiver if it so equipped.

[Rathbone]

I wrote Cyberlink technical support last week after purchasing a $59 upgrade to Ultra from 7 Deluxe, and they haven't contacted me yet.

I went to run the upgrade installer, and it tells me that it "will now uninstall PowerDVD", which I assume is the installer's way of telling me that it needs to uninstall my existing copy. Anyway, after doing that, the installer just quits, and never installs Ultra.

Any suggestions?

I think the upgrade key also works with a completely new installation of PDVD Ultra but I am not certain. Try it!

Delete installation folders and registry entries manually, then install and run MS Install Cleanup.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/en-us

[saintsaints]

Yes, only happens with the new PD, but I need it to watch BD+ movies. If I use the second display as my primary and disable my first display, it will play full screen. So my question was what if you use two video cards, one for my primary display and one for the secondary display?

hmmmm, I have seen this before, in fact on one systems images that I have version 3319f installed, when I would drag the player over to the secondary display, the player filled the entire screen, but when I started the movie it reverted to a smaller image centered on a black background. I this what you see?

[Davinleeds]

As far as your question-you may be the first to try. I never saw this question, but the software does limit display function. For me, I just drag PDVD to the display I want to use, click fullscreen, and it is.

[MKANET]

Matt or anyone, could you please tell me what you have set in your options for HD-DVD? Maybe I changed a setting for HD-DVD which is causing it to mess up. I noticed PowerDVD created a folder off my C: drive called HD_DVD after I tried to play the file. It only had one file in there info.txt with a Deviceid=weird code.

Maybe I changed the default folder for HDVD-DVD file store? I dont even know what the default is to put it back.

Transformers plays just fine for me. Tested it last night. I'm using the LG OEM version of PDVD. I did update, but not sure how to tell what version I'm running; it just says 7.3 in the About screen.

The issue I'm having is switching the Audio to SPDIF. I just hear popping and static. Switching back to 2-Speaker Stereo, I at least get Stereo that my Receiver then decodes into DPLII. But I can get DD5.1/DTS via SPDIF watching SD DVDs through Media Center. I'm using an Audigy 2/ZS. Any help is appreciated!

[originalsnuffy]

With regard to watching transformers....I must admit that it was way easier to simply watch the disc on the Xbox 360. But by going into the menu commands, I definitely was able to get it to play with PowerDVD. I did cancel the web download before proceeding to the menu commands.

[jatoghia]

I think the upgrade key also works with a completely new installation of PDVD Ultra but I am not certain. Try it!

Delete installation folders and registry entries manually, then install and run MS Install Cleanup.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/en-us

I'm not sure what you mean. When I run the installer for the upgrade (that I downloaded directly from Cyberlink) it uninstalls the old version and then quits. If I try to rerun the installer, it gives me an error message that I must have an existing version of PowerDVD installed. It is at this point that I scream and yell at the computer, because I DID have a previous version of PowerDVD installed, before the Ultra installer uninstalled it.

Can someone PLEASE help me? Cyberlink once again has my money on an upgrade, and they refuse to answer my question so that I can get what I paid for.

[MKANET]

You and me both need to the full ..not upgrade.. version of the latest version. Does someone have the link to the latest full installer of Ultra? I know for a fact my retail key does work.

I'm not sure what you mean. When I run the installer for the upgrade (that I downloaded directly from Cyberlink) it uninstalls the old version and then quits. If I try to rerun the installer, it gives me an error message that I must have an existing version of PowerDVD installed. It is at this point that I scream and yell at the computer, because I DID have a previous version of PowerDVD installed, before the Ultra installer uninstalled it.

Can someone PLEASE help me? Cyberlink once again has my money on an upgrade, and they refuse to answer my question so that I can get what I paid for.

[jatoghia]

You and me both need to the full ..not upgrade.. version of the latest version. Does someone have the link to the latest full installer of Ultra? I know for a fact my retail key does work.

I just cannot believe Cyberlink would release an upgrade where the installer uninstalls the old version and then quits. This is totally absurd and a gross lack of quality assurance if they can't even get their most likely off-the-shelf installer to work. If anything, the software should attempt to install the new version and then and only then delete the old version, so that if something goes wrong, I can see what the problem is without going through the trouble of reinstalling Version 7.

This is my third time buying an upgrade version off the Cyberlink web site, and each and every time, I've had one issue or another, where the company has usually been forced to give me a full version of the program in order to resolve the problem. If the crippled upgrade installers work so poorly, why do they even bother offering them? I mean, they can see from my purchase history on their website that I have a long history of purchasing PowerDVD, so why won't they just let me download the regular installer for the upgrade price? ARGH! $#@% @#%$ #%$#!!!

[MKANET]

Okay, I just found out its not Transformers... its all my HD-DVD's.

I just emailed their tech support and asked them to send me the full retail installer for the latest version. I'm curious what the tech support hours are for India.

Anyway, I need to know after I uninstall the software what keys in the registry should I remove besides the HKLM/software/cyberlink and HKLU/software/cyberlink keys.


I just cannot believe Cyberlink would release an upgrade where the installer uninstalls the old version and then quits. This is totally absurd and a gross lack of quality assurance if they can't even get their most likely off-the-shelf installer to work. If anything, the software should attempt to install the new version and then and only then delete the old version, so that if something goes wrong, I can see what the problem is without going through the trouble of reinstalling Version 7.

This is my third time buying an upgrade version off the Cyberlink web site, and each and every time, I've had one issue or another, where the company has usually been forced to give me a full version of the program in order to resolve the problem. If the crippled upgrade installers work so poorly, why do they even bother offering them? I mean, they can see from my purchase history on their website that I have a long history of purchasing PowerDVD, so why won't they just let me download the regular installer for the upgrade price? ARGH! $#@% @#%$ #%$#!!!

[MKANET]

Have any of you tried actually changing default HD_DVD folder location? I think it's possible thats why mine broke. This is the first disc I've played thats used the Web enabled updater for HD-DVD movies. The original location was under the Cyberlink directory under program files. The new location I put was on Z:\PowerDVD\HD_DVD

[skibum5000]

Thanks for the reply skibum5000 and Sherwood.

HTPC has a prelude 7.1 connected via 3 rca cables to my receiver. I have a sub and its been connected to my receiver.

If i leave it on would it ruin the effect on how it should sound? I just tested with it enabled and played back 300 and enabled TrueHD. I watched the starting bit with the warner logo and thunderstorm sound. I quite like the way it sounded, I need to test with LFE disabled.

you should leave it off otherwise you are doubling up on the low-frequency stuff (and also pushing your mains more, which unless they are full-range and superb, will straing more and have reduced quality due to more distortion).

better to adjust your sub higher if that is what you really want (and perhaps it is even set below refernece as is, it can be tricky to adjust the sub properly)

[skibum5000]

blingo when you say "connected via 3 rca cables to my receiver", do you mean "3-pairs" or just "3 single cables"? You also mention TrueHD, this is an HDMI based sound stream, does your receiver support that?

If you intend on using analog outputs from your sound card, and assuming that the AV receiver has analog input jacks for multi channel sound, then you should either hook up 6 (5.1) or 8 (7.1) channels to your receiver, with the X.1 channel being the LFE channel.

With the sub connected to the receiver, I would suspect that the AV receiver has the appropriate bass management circuits to combine the LFE signal and any bass directed from the other speakers and pass it to the sub woofer. All of this control can be done by the receiver if it so equipped.

TrueHD has nothing to do with HDMI. you need HDMI if you want to send it out in digital mode but the format can just as easily be sent over analog out the format TrueHD itself has nothing to do with how you send it out.

the way these sound cards work is they only take three cables, one drives FR,FL another drivers SL,SR, another drives C,Sub they split into two RCA connectors on the far end. in his case actually if he has 7.1 he might want a 4th cable to get the RL,RR.

most receivers don't do bass management over analog inputs (although certainly some do) and even if it does it might end up getting full LFE sent to sub plus re-mixing in the same LFE from the mains (as well as any lower main stuff that it also wants to send over) but it depends.


i'd suggest turning off LFE, going to the auzentech control panel (Actually the prelude might be different than the x-meridian since it think creative has to write the code for them now but if it happens to be same as for x-merid) and set bass management to also have it route some of the lower bass that is not LFE channel stuff also to your sub (if your receiver does not automatically do this itself and it might be cleaner in this analog case to let the computer do it) say maybe around 70-95Hz depending. quite a few setups work best with the mains and all relieved of low frequency stuff. make sure to adjust the subwoofer to match the rest of the system.

[skibum5000]

I just cannot believe Cyberlink would release an upgrade where the installer uninstalls the old version and then quits. This is totally absurd and a gross lack of quality assurance if they can't even get their most likely off-the-shelf installer to work. If anything, the software should attempt to install the new version and then and only then delete the old version, so that if something goes wrong, I can see what the problem is without going through the trouble of reinstalling Version 7.

This is my third time buying an upgrade version off the Cyberlink web site, and each and every time, I've had one issue or another, where the company has usually been forced to give me a full version of the program in order to resolve the problem. If the crippled upgrade installers work so poorly, why do they even bother offering them? I mean, they can see from my purchase history on their website that I have a long history of purchasing PowerDVD, so why won't they just let me download the regular installer for the upgrade price? ARGH! $#@% @#%$ #%$#!!!

it's not as bad as the installed for a version a few months ago that also unisntalled media center for you as well as many icons from the start menu, pretty much any default microsoft program link plus others. :eek:
that was the worst disaster i have ever experienced froma ny professional companies installer. ever.

[Tong Chia]

do you good frame rates on 28 weeks later or spiderman or other recent blurray avc movies? your setup is similar to mine but mine has CPU at like 93% and gets all choppy for lots of stuff. never for HD DVD so far and never for mpeg2 or vc1 blur-ray, but for recent bluray avc, most especially and perhaps only ones that use compressed lossless audio format.

while i am at it has anyone noticed that 3516 has better pic quality or am i crazy.

I am not getting any judder with Spiderman. Is there a frame rate display
on PDVD?.

The 7800 GTX is actually pretty good except for the the high CPU usage
on MPEG4 AVC (70% is peak it is usually closer to 65% avg). The card
is sitting on a PCIe X16 slot with 16lanes assigned to it.

[skibum5000]

I am not getting any judder with Spiderman. Is there a frame rate display
on PDVD?.

The 7800 GTX is actually pretty good except for the the high CPU usage
on MPEG4 AVC (70% is peak it is usually closer to 65% avg). The card
is sitting on a PCIe X16 slot with 16lanes assigned to it.

hmm i am at 93-100% with spiderman using vista, 8800gts, amd xs 4400+
and it is NOT smooth

[skibum5000]

ack! i could swear whatever calibration profile i chose before worked with powerdvd ultra for all movies now with 3516, while it seems better otherwise, switching to my spidervision calibrated profile does nothing! i'm stuck with my monitor's default too red display! it still works for SD DVD but not for either hi-def format! no matter what i do i can't seem to get it to react to my profile :(
if this is how future version will be too i'm sunk:( :mad:

unless it is some new way the new nvidioa 169 beta driver is working?
but that seems much better in many ways so i hope they didn't break ability to color balance hidef video?

[Rathbone]

I'm not sure what you mean. When I run the installer for the upgrade (that I downloaded directly from Cyberlink) it uninstalls the old version and then quits. If I try to rerun the installer, it gives me an error message that I must have an existing version of PowerDVD installed. It is at this point that I scream and yell at the computer, because I DID have a previous version of PowerDVD installed, before the Ultra installer uninstalled it.

Can someone PLEASE help me? Cyberlink once again has my money on an upgrade, and they refuse to answer my question so that I can get what I paid for.


OK, I have to be clearer. Download the full installer from the web somewhere (there are tools with which you can find the full installer on cyberlink's website) and try if your serial works. I wouldn't bother with Cyberlink support.

[nm88]

ack! i could swear whatever calibration profile i chose before worked with powerdvd ultra for all moviesIt never has.

[blingo]

blingo when you say "connected via 3 rca cables to my receiver", do you mean "3-pairs" or just "3 single cables"? You also mention TrueHD, this is an HDMI based sound stream, does your receiver support that?

If you intend on using analog outputs from your sound card, and assuming that the AV receiver has analog input jacks for multi channel sound, then you should either hook up 6 (5.1) or 8 (7.1) channels to your receiver, with the X.1 channel being the LFE channel.

With the sub connected to the receiver, I would suspect that the AV receiver has the appropriate bass management circuits to combine the LFE signal and any bass directed from the other speakers and pass it to the sub woofer. All of this control can be done by the receiver if it so equipped.'

Each cable has 2 connectors. Its a 3.5mm to 2 rca (red/white) this is done 3 times. So one cable to 2 for front channel. One cable to 2 for rears and one cable to 2 for centre and subwoofer then all 6 cables go into my Sony 1200ES receiver into the multi channel in.

The new formats can be done by analog out.

[jatoghia]

OK, one last problem (sorry everyone). I have my HTPC hooked up to my Samy 1080p DLP TV via DVI -> HDMI, and my video card is a GeForce 8400GS (with HDCP support) set to 1920x1080. With most applications, I'm not having any display issues or overscan problems, but some applications, like Beyond TV and PowerDVD Ultra like to change my display resolution, stretching the image beyond the edges of my screen. Once I quit the application, my display resolution goes back to normal (i.e. my task bar which was stretched "below" the TV set reappears). So far, only some video applications do this. I also know that it is software related, as PowerDVD 7 did not exhibit this behavior, but Ultra does. I have tried disabling video hardware acceleration to see if the problem is related to PureVideo HD (the video stretching occurs regardless of the hardware acceleration settings). I will also point out that the stretching does not occur when I use analog VGA, although with this video card, the analog output produces a very snowy picture. Any thoughts on how to fix this?

[saintsaints]

I got it working with a reinstall OS, don't know what but its full screen on secondary display now.

As far as your question-you may be the first to try. I never saw this question, but the software does limit display function. For me, I just drag PDVD to the display I want to use, click fullscreen, and it is.

[arfster]

I just cannot believe Cyberlink would release an upgrade where the installer uninstalls the old version and then quits.

To be fair, that's a significant improvement on their previous attempts (which trashed your setup so much you couldn't even install any version of PDVD).

[mikemav]

hmm i am at 93-100% with spiderman using vista, 8800gts, amd xs 4400+
and it is NOT smooth
AFAIK, the 8800GTS, which a great gaming card, isn't great for BR/HD-DVD since it doesn't offoad the HD decoding on the hardware. No PureVideoHD with that card was my understandin, so your CPU is doing all the decoding. The newer cards have it (8800GT, not GTS), and many lower end cards as well, like my 8600GT, but they are not as good for gaming of course.

[MKANET]

Could someone please be kind enough to PM me with how to find it? I still havent received a reply back from Cyberlink's support.

OK, I have to be clearer. Download the full installer from the web somewhere (there are tools with which you can find the full installer on cyberlink's website) and try if your serial works. I wouldn't bother with Cyberlink support.

[Al Sherwood]

'

Each cable has 2 connectors. Its a 3.5mm to 2 rca (red/white) this is done 3 times. So one cable to 2 for front channel. One cable to 2 for rears and one cable to 2 for centre and subwoofer then all 6 cables go into my Sony 1200ES receiver into the multi channel in.

The new formats can be done by analog out.

Ahhh, that is what I thought but you didn't say (many people are so quick to type a message but not many re-read to be sure they are giving the complete picture).

As for True HD and the possiblilty of using analog outputs, that is not in dispute, it is just that most people are expecting that all players can output TrueHD and that all receivers can accept it, definitely not true.

The connection scheme you use will work fine, the information on the LFE channel is unique depending on how the player and receiver handle bass management (skibum mentioned doubling up on the bass with LFE on, not true).

Since your receiver takes descrete connection for all 6 channels then you should enable LFE within the player, the receiver will handle the rest. The purpose of the LFE channels is to put the extreme bass on a channel that can easily be directed to a subwoofer that can handle it. With some receivers you can even roll off other low frequencies (low pass filters) from the other channels to the sub especially if your main speakers are smaller and cannot handle the low bass.

[Al Sherwood]

Yes, only happens with the new PD, but I need it to watch BD+ movies. If I use the second display as my primary and disable my first display, it will play full screen. So my question was what if you use two video cards, one for my primary display and one for the secondary display?

I don't know about 2 separate video cards, but unless I miss my guess the set-up you have should do the job.

I have had various problems with displays and playback with PowerDVD, it is working fine for me on a dual headed video card at PDVD 3516 so I don't see why it wouldn't work for you.

Remember I had your problem at 3319, but it now works at 3516, hmmmm, the culprit is likely PDVD!

I just saw your latest post: I got it working with a reinstall OS, don't know what but its full screen on secondary display now.

The re-install probably fixed it by cleaning up PDVD problems!, with so many reports of installs and upgrades going bad it would seem that the more you play with this software the more likely something will break!

[blingo]

Ahhh, that is what I thought but you didn't say (many people are so quick to type a message but not many re-read to be sure they are giving the complete picture).

As for True HD and the possiblilty of using analog outputs, that is not in dispute, it is just that most people are expecting that all players can output TrueHD and that all receivers can accept it, definitely not true.

The connection scheme you use will work fine, the information on the LFE channel is unique depending on how the player and receiver handle bass management (skibum mentioned doubling up on the bass with LFE on, not true).

Since your receiver takes descrete connection for all 6 channels then you should enable LFE within the player, the receiver will handle the rest. The purpose of the LFE channels is to put the extreme bass on a channel that can easily be directed to a subwoofer that can handle it. With some receivers you can even roll off other low frequencies (low pass filters) from the other channels to the sub especially if your main speakers are smaller and cannot handle the low bass.

Thanks for the help Sherwood and sorry about the confusion. I should have been more clear. If i show you the fronts am using and the spec would you be able to work out if i should leave it enabled or disabled. I think it should be on the speakers are good but properly not that great at bass.

This is the fronts am using. Specs are also on that page
http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/2197

[MKANET]

Software companies wonder why people download from newgroups/torrent to get their apps... geez... I can't believe I'm having to resort to getting the full installer this way... for a legitimate purpose.

[Tinker]

Software companies wonder why people download from newgroups/torrent to get their apps... geez... I can't believe I'm having to resort to getting the full installer this way... for a legitimate purpose.

I just ask Cyberlink tech support for a complete download version. I had to provide some info and they sent me a link to the newest version in a couple of days. This was done using threir online trouble reporting setup. Just stated that I lost the initial setup files and I needed a new set. But this is with the full retail version, not upgrades. Done this twice and never had an issue so far. All the prev (older) version upgrades will just delete the current (newest) ver and install. Thats how I am still running 3319a on most of my systems.

[blingo]

Is there any other customizing i could do to improve audio/video quailty? Already got rid of HA and set it to Best Quailty. Seen things like Smart Video De-interlacing. Was wondering if its good to turn things like this off. Any registry tweaks. I read on here someone saying vmr9 is not possible in pdvd but in the registry i seen things to do with vmr9 in the powerdvd directory, not a clue what it does.

[skibum5000]

Ahhh, that is what I thought but you didn't say (many people are so quick to type a message but not many re-read to be sure they are giving the complete picture).

As for True HD and the possiblilty of using analog outputs, that is not in dispute, it is just that most people are expecting that all players can output TrueHD and that all receivers can accept it, definitely not true.

The connection scheme you use will work fine, the information on the LFE channel is unique depending on how the player and receiver handle bass management (skibum mentioned doubling up on the bass with LFE on, not true).

Since your receiver takes descrete connection for all 6 channels then you should enable LFE within the player, the receiver will handle the rest. The purpose of the LFE channels is to put the extreme bass on a channel that can easily be directed to a subwoofer that can handle it. With some receivers you can even roll off other low frequencies (low pass filters) from the other channels to the sub especially if your main speakers are smaller and cannot handle the low bass.

i believe you are misinterpreting the powerdvd LFE setting. having it checked means it mixes in the LFE channel with the front left and right (and I think still sends it out the subwoofer out, but not 100% sure) and leaving it unchecked does not turn it off it simply leaves it all going to the sub out channel and does not mix it into the fronts.

the LFE button on powerdvd does not toggle the LFE on and off overall, it just toggles it on or off to be mixed into the front channels. now if your receiver does actually handle bass management over analog in (and many don't) and that is how you have your system setup, then you do want it checked. i suspect that it still sends it over the sub channel either way, i don't think it plays with that even if it also mixes it into the fronts, but i haven't checked, so i think you could potential get a doubling up depending upon how your levels are adjusted and all, but maybe it does shut off the sub input. and if you use software for analog bass management i'm also afraid that it would still be getting the sub channel input and then mixing in the same lfe already going to that from the mains as well, althoguh again this last point i haven't tested yet.

anyway my receiver only does bass management for digital inputs so when i use analog out to it i set the x-meridian to drive my fronts,sides,center as small and then have it cross stuff rolled off starting at 94Hz to my sub and i leave. i leave LFE off because i don't see the point of having it have to mix into the main fronts and then have x-meridian send it back to the sub anyway and moreso because i am afraid that it still sends lfe to the sub channel anyway and then i will get the sub lfe stuff plus xmeridian mixing the fronts lfe stuff into the sub on top of that.

for what it is worth pwoerdvd even suggest to only set lfe on for good headphoen and speaker system that lack a subwoofer connection (i.e. 2.0 and 4.0 etc. type setups), although there are situations you might want to try it anyway.

[Al Sherwood]

Thanks for the help Sherwood and sorry about the confusion. I should have been more clear. If i show you the fronts am using and the spec would you be able to work out if i should leave it enabled or disabled. I think it should be on the speakers are good but properly not that great at bass.

This is the fronts am using. Specs are also on that page
http://www.superfi.co.uk/index.cfm/page/moreinfo.cfm/Product_ID/2197

First off, my recommendation: Within the PowerDVD player, do not check the 'enable' box for LFE found inside of the Configuration/Audio/Advanced/Miscellaneous

Definitely nice speakers, but with a 130mm mid/bass driver for the low end it is not going to handle low bass or LFE information, the 50Hz spec tells that story.

To compliment these speakers you really need a separate powered subwoofer, do you have a subwoofer connected to the receiver?

If you don't have a subwoofer and have the speaker size set to large then the LFE will be re-directed to the front main speakers (see pg. 63 in your manual), and you will likely overdrive the speakers.

Pages 55 and 56 in the Sony manual have excellant descriptions of the speaker size setting choices, the WHARFEDALE's should be set to 'small'.

Bass redirection in this receiver are described on pages 63 and 64, basically controlled by the size set for the speakers and whether you have a sub connected and enabled in the speaker setting menu.

If you do have a subwoofer connected then set the speaker size to small, enable the subwoofer in the menu and you should be golden!

BTW, these settings for the speakers and bass redirection within your receiver will apply to all sources.

I hope this helps...

[Al Sherwood]

i believe you are misinterpreting the powerdvd LFE setting. having it checked means it mixes in the LFE channel with the front left and right (and I think still sends it out the subwoofer out, but not 100% sure) and leaving it unchecked does not turn it off it simply leaves it all going to the sub out channel and does not mix it into the fronts.

the LFE button on powerdvd does not toggle the LFE on and off overall, it just toggles it on or off to be mixed into the front channels. now if your receiver does actually handle bass management over analog in (and many don't) and that is how you have your system setup, then you do want it checked. i suspect that it still sends it over the sub channel either way, i don't think it plays with that even if it also mixes it into the fronts, but i haven't checked, so i think you could potential get a doubling up depending upon how your levels are adjusted and all, but maybe it does shut off the sub input. and if you use software for analog bass management i'm also afraid that it would still be getting the sub channel input and then mixing in the same lfe already going to that from the mains as well, althoguh again this last point i haven't tested yet.

anyway my receiver only does bass management for digital inputs so when i use analog out to it i set the x-meridian to drive my fronts,sides,center as small and then have it cross stuff rolled off starting at 94Hz to my sub and i leave. i leave LFE off because i don't see the point of having it have to mix into the main fronts and then have x-meridian send it back to the sub anyway and moreso because i am afraid that it still sends lfe to the sub channel anyway and then i will get the sub lfe stuff plus xmeridian mixing the fronts lfe stuff into the sub on top of that.

for what it is worth pwoerdvd even suggest to only set lfe on for good headphoen and speaker system that lack a subwoofer connection (i.e. 2.0 and 4.0 etc. type setups), although there are situations you might want to try it anyway.

Hmmmm, from page 86 in the PowerDVD manual, I read the process you describe, "PowerDVD is mixing the LFE channel into the front main speakers". Thanks for pointing out this setting box! I hope that as you have suggested, the checking of this box does not put LFE into both the front channels and the LFE channel at the same time as this would be entirely incorrect!

This process should be left to the AV receiver, it has the ability to do this independent of the sound sources and that way it is best tailored for all sound types, movies or music. It would also appear that both the Sony receiver and my Denon apply bass management to all sound sources not just 'digital' ones, which I would think was preferable considering the speakers connected to the receiver determine these settings more then anything else.

From Dolby's own specification on x.1 sound, LFE information is not included in the front main speakers mix, it is for effects such as explosions, earthquakes and other high-energy, low-frequency special effects. In fact multi channel music productions may not include any LFE information at all.

In any case for blingo and his setup, his receiver when set correctly will handle to LFE and front speakers independent of what is set in PowerDVD.

[blingo]

Thanks a million sherwood i will change some settings around. I got a KEF sub connected. I got the fronts set to LARGE right now and will change them to small and see how that goes :)
Thanks again mate

[XxDeadlyxX]

Ok I have a 8800GTX, Q6600 and 4GB Ram and Transformers has a wierd stutter every 30 seconds or so. CPU usage is only 20-25%. I have over 50 other titles and all play flawlessly. Using build 3516.

Anyone else get this?

[XxDeadlyxX]

Ok I have a 8800GTX, Q6600 and 4GB Ram and Transformers has a wierd stutter every 30 seconds or so. CPU usage is only 20-25%. I have over 50 other titles and all play flawlessly. Using build 3516.

Anyone else get this?

Ok I was trying random things to fix it and found a solution... seems to be the movie doesn't like quad cores... set the affinity in task manager for PowerDVD to only 2 cores and it is either greatly reduced or gone completely.

[blingo]

Ok I was trying random things to fix it and found a solution... seems to be the movie doesn't like quad cores... set the affinity in task manager for PowerDVD to only 2 cores and it is either greatly reduced or gone completely.

Very strange that only one movie would be effected from this. I would have though it was down to the player supporting x number of cores.

[MKANET]

I have the same exact configuration (except I have a 8500GT, 4GB RAM, Quad core Q6600 3516)... and the same intermittent suttering. It was very brief 1 second gittters in the video once every 30 second; but pretty annoying. Not necessarily on the fast action scenes... just randon. This is also the first movie that Ive ran into with this problem.

At least this is reproducible.

PS: BTW: I was able to finally play my HD-DVD movies after a clean install of the full version of PDVD Ultra.

Ok I have a 8800GTX, Q6600 and 4GB Ram and Transformers has a wierd stutter every 30 seconds or so. CPU usage is only 20-25%. I have over 50 other titles and all play flawlessly. Using build 3516.

Anyone else get this?

[lpg]

I have an amd 4600 x2, Nvidia 7800 with 256mb & 2gb Ram. On the LG I have been able to play every Blu-ray no problem. Machine operates at between 48 to 60% utilization on both cores.

I have struggled tremendously with the Transformers HD DVD Blu-ray. Origionally it would just stutter alot and finally freeze. Then it would freeze and the computer would reboot.

I bought the PDVD upgrade (the uncompressed sound is great) and began testing again. Blu-Rays still worked great.

Transformers was running well until half way through the movie freeze then reboot. I began checking all of my programs that have automatic update. I found my antivirus updated right at the time of the crash.

Does any know if HD-DVD is mucking with the internet while the movie is playing? I could see an update causing the movie to skip but freeze and reboot makes me think something else is going on.

[Thuppu]

I have struggled tremendously with the Transformers HD DVD Blu-ray.

Maybe the format is defective? :p

[NV5655]

Does anyone know if there is a SINGLE file somwhere of Power DVD Ultra 7.3 (latest November Build) that does not require me to install it three times if I need to reformat my computer again?

I have a file for PDVD 7.2, the HDDVD/Blu-Ray fix 7.3, and the Vista fix for 7.3(F?)

[Thuppu]

Does anyone know if there is a SINGLE file somwhere of Power DVD Ultra 7.3 (latest November Build) that does not require me to install it three times if I need to reformat my computer again?

I have a file for PDVD 7.2, the HDDVD/Blu-Ray fix 7.3, and the Vista fix for 7.3(F?)

So, dosn't the latest patch 3516 include all fixes you need..? http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/download/updates_112_ENU.html

[Al Sherwood]

Does anyone know if there is a SINGLE file somwhere of Power DVD Ultra 7.3 (latest November Build) that does not require me to install it three times if I need to reformat my computer again?

I have a file for PDVD 7.2, the HDDVD/Blu-Ray fix 7.3, and the Vista fix for 7.3(F?)

Not that I have tried it this way but, isn't the 100MB 3516 download that you are able to link to within the PowerDVD program a complete standalone install?

I thought that the process asked you to deinstall the previous program before running this one?

I have 3516 installed right now, but I got to it through 3 upgrade steps, if I want to re-install the OS to get a clean install I would rather not go through 2 other versions to get there!

Otherwise, I am with you.

[Thuppu]

Not that I have tried it this way but, isn't the 100MB 3516 download that you are able to link to within the PowerDVD program a complete standalone install?

Haven't tried either, but I also think it is. At least you need to re-enter your serialcode...

[MKANET]

You know, I thought this same thing last night... 2 Possibilities came to mind:

1) Mucking with the internet somehow during the movie.
2) Quad-core multithreading not handled correctly for hardware acceleration.

Something is definitively different about this movie than the rest of them.


Does any know if HD-DVD is mucking with the internet while the movie is playing? I could see an update causing the movie to skip but freeze and reboot makes me think something else is going on.

[MKANET]

Yeah, thats the whole problem... the one that's linked to download is an "update" although, it has all the files necessary to do a full install, it is different than the full install and will only install if there's a previous version. I'm sure there might be a hack to fix this. But, its just easier to find the full installer somewhere on the internet.

You do not need to upgrade 3 times... only once after you install the full version... to the latest one. But, if you can find the latest full version, thats ideal.

Not that I have tried it this way but, isn't the 100MB 3516 download that you are able to link to within the PowerDVD program a complete standalone install?

I thought that the process asked you to deinstall the previous program before running this one?

I have 3516 installed right now, but I got to it through 3 upgrade steps, if I want to re-install the OS to get a clean install I would rather not go through 2 other versions to get there!

Otherwise, I am with you.

[lpg]

You know, I thought this same thing last night... 2 Possibilities came to mind:

1) Mucking with the internet somehow during the movie.
2) Quad-core multithreading not handled correctly for hardware acceleration.

Something is definitively different about this movie than the rest of them.

Have you had any other problems with other HD DVD titles?

[MKANET]

Zero. I've only played about 20 or so from Netflix.. I honestly didn't ever think Id be one of the people on this thread complaining about having a problem playing back a movie until this one. I've also never had problems playing back >50 blu-ray movies.

Have you had any other problems with other HD DVD titles?

[Al Sherwood]

Ok I was trying random things to fix it and found a solution... seems to be the movie doesn't like quad cores... set the affinity in task manager for PowerDVD to only 2 cores and it is either greatly reduced or gone completely.

So by this inference, are you saying that PowerDVD has been written to recognize dual core processors and take advantage of this?

Also you mentioned, "set the affinity in task manager for PowerDVD to only 2 cores"

I didn't know that was possible?

[MKANET]

If this is true... it would be a problem with the Nvidia driver. What throws me off is it never happens on any other HD-DVD titles or Blu-ray. Something is definitely different about this particular HD-DVD title.

So by this inference, are you saying that PowerDVD has been written to recognize dual core processors and take advantage of this?

Also you mentioned, "set the affinity in task manager for PowerDVD to only 2 cores"

I didn't know that was possible?

[sensui]

I don't have any constant stuttering as you guys described, but thought I'd share my experience to perhaps help someone. I run the 8800gt, e6850 core2duo, 4 gigs of dd2r-6400 memory....I did have an issue where the whole movie seems to play fine but random little hiccups would occur...I know it's random because if I rewind, the problem cannot be reproduced at will. I was always suspicious something is wrong because under the Windows Experience Index in Vista, it rated my card as a 3.7 for Aero environment and 4.0 for gaming....which I thought was suspiciously low. I installed many different versions of the drivers but then read on other forums that nvidia drivers don't get completely cleaned out if you don't follow certain steps. So what you do is you remove the device and software completely under device manager. Then proceed to use an app from guru3d called drivesweeper to remove any leftover nvidia files. And then install the driver....I went from 169.12 to 167.35 and scored a 5.9/5.9 for both the graphics category. I then got suspicious and removed the entire driver again and installed 169.12 and the score stayed....somehow through all the mucking around ont he drivers, it left the system with drivers that weren't optimized. Now everything plays and works like a charm, BD and HD-DVD. Hope this helps someone.

[jatoghia]

Hey, has anyone given any thought to my problem? I just read on the nVidia site that their drivers have an underscan feature that is specifically designed to compensate for TV overscan, and during my normal use of the PC, when I am not watching high-def movies, it seems to be working fine. Now, when a video starts playing, and my screen instantly goes into an overscan mode, does that mean the software is somehow defeating it? I also read that overscan compensation does not work with HDCP on Windows XP (I'm running Windows Vista), but perhaps it is possible that the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD titles are enabling HDCP, which in turn disables overscan compensation??? That still doesn't explain why DVD Shrink and BeyondTV exhibit the same behavior and disable overscan compensation, but Windows Media Player does not, and PowerDVD only does it for high-def content. I'm totally confused.

OK, one last problem (sorry everyone). I have my HTPC hooked up to my Samy 1080p DLP TV via DVI -> HDMI, and my video card is a GeForce 8400GS (with HDCP support) set to 1920x1080. With most applications, I'm not having any display issues or overscan problems, but some applications, like Beyond TV and PowerDVD Ultra like to change my display resolution, stretching the image beyond the edges of my screen. Once I quit the application, my display resolution goes back to normal (i.e. my task bar which was stretched "below" the TV set reappears). So far, only some video applications do this. I also know that it is software related, as PowerDVD 7 did not exhibit this behavior, but Ultra does. I have tried disabling video hardware acceleration to see if the problem is related to PureVideo HD (the video stretching occurs regardless of the hardware acceleration settings). I will also point out that the stretching does not occur when I use analog VGA, although with this video card, the analog output produces a very snowy picture. Any thoughts on how to fix this?

[lpg]

I have an amd 4600 x2, Nvidia 7800 with 256mb & 2gb Ram. On the LG I have been able to play every Blu-ray no problem. Machine operates at between 48 to 60% utilization on both cores.

I have struggled tremendously with the Transformers HD DVD Blu-ray. Origionally it would just stutter alot and finally freeze. Then it would freeze and the computer would reboot.

I bought the PDVD upgrade (the uncompressed sound is great) and began testing again. Blu-Rays still worked great.

Transformers was running well until half way through the movie freeze then reboot. I began checking all of my programs that have automatic update. I found my antivirus updated right at the time of the crash.

Does any know if HD-DVD is mucking with the internet while the movie is playing? I could see an update causing the movie to skip but freeze and reboot makes me think something else is going on.

Ok here is one for the books. I disconnected the internet and played Transformers. There were two spots where the screen froze but the movie recovered and played through. What the heck is Dreamworks thinking? I want to watch the movie without tinker toys playing in the background. It would be interesting if there was a way to tell what was happening in the background.

A post a few above this one mentioned cleaning all of the old nvidia drivers off and doing a clean install. I will try this to see if it gets rid of the freeze frame.

[lpg]

Hey, has anyone given any thought to my problem? I just read on the nVidia site that their drivers have an underscan feature that is specifically designed to compensate for TV overscan, and during my normal use of the PC, when I am not watching high-def movies, it seems to be working fine. Now, when a video starts playing, and my screen instantly goes into an overscan mode, does that mean the software is somehow defeating it? I also read that overscan compensation does not work with HDCP on Windows XP (I'm running Windows Vista), but perhaps it is possible that the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD titles are enabling HDCP, which in turn disables overscan compensation??? That still doesn't explain why DVD Shrink and BeyondTV exhibit the same behavior and disable overscan compensation, but Windows Media Player does not, and PowerDVD only does it for high-def content. I'm totally confused.

Have you tried changing the picture size and placement through the tv's UI. I was able to do the on my Sammy DLP.

[lpg]

Zero. I've only played about 20 or so from Netflix.. I honestly didn't ever think Id be one of the people on this thread complaining about having a problem playing back a movie until this one. I've also never had problems playing back >50 blu-ray movies.

Thanks, I am glad to hear that it seems to be an isolated event. I am interested to see how Shrek III plays since it is also from Dreamworks.

[jatoghia]

Have you tried changing the picture size and placement through the tv's UI. I was able to do the on my Sammy DLP.

The picture size adjustment is only available with the PC input. The problem I am seeing only occurs when using the DVI -> HDMI interface.

[sensui]

Thanks, I am glad to hear that it seems to be an isolated event. I am interested to see how Shrek III plays since it is also from Dreamworks.

I can say though I have played both transformers and Shrek 3 without a hitch......transformers just has a layer break at the end of chapter 12/beginning of chapter 13 where Sam's parents are talking about grounding him and powerdvd to my knowledge handles it horribly so it makes a nice skip.....but Shrek 3 I did not see this issue.....did see it with some other movies though like pride & prejudice/inside man/king kong. Good luck to you guys resolving the issue.

[sensui]

Hey, has anyone given any thought to my problem? I just read on the nVidia site that their drivers have an underscan feature that is specifically designed to compensate for TV overscan, and during my normal use of the PC, when I am not watching high-def movies, it seems to be working fine. Now, when a video starts playing, and my screen instantly goes into an overscan mode, does that mean the software is somehow defeating it? I also read that overscan compensation does not work with HDCP on Windows XP (I'm running Windows Vista), but perhaps it is possible that the Blu-Ray and HD-DVD titles are enabling HDCP, which in turn disables overscan compensation??? That still doesn't explain why DVD Shrink and BeyondTV exhibit the same behavior and disable overscan compensation, but Windows Media Player does not, and PowerDVD only does it for high-def content. I'm totally confused.

This really sounds like something on the computer side instead of the TV side...because obviously the input (computer) is able to give a signal properly scaled by your TV.....Have you tried resizing the view space manually under nvidia's control panel? I didn't have to do that and just let the thing automatically adjust but everything has been perfect so far. Good luck.

[one_2go]

So by this inference, are you saying that PowerDVD has been written to recognize dual core processors and take advantage of this?

Also you mentioned, "set the affinity in task manager for PowerDVD to only 2 cores"

I didn't know that was possible?
I just right click on th process and then from set affinity untick the cores.

[skibum5000]

that's weird. i have a 4400 which is not that much slower and an 8800gts and the highbitrate bluray avc plus compressed lossless audio are not smooth for me. i wonder if something is going weird with my stup.


I have an amd 4600 x2, Nvidia 7800 with 256mb & 2gb Ram. On the LG I have been able to play every Blu-ray no problem. Machine operates at between 48 to 60% utilization on both cores.

I have struggled tremendously with the Transformers HD DVD Blu-ray. Origionally it would just stutter alot and finally freeze. Then it would freeze and the computer would reboot.

I bought the PDVD upgrade (the uncompressed sound is great) and began testing again. Blu-Rays still worked great.

Transformers was running well until half way through the movie freeze then reboot. I began checking all of my programs that have automatic update. I found my antivirus updated right at the time of the crash.

Does any know if HD-DVD is mucking with the internet while the movie is playing? I could see an update causing the movie to skip but freeze and reboot makes me think something else is going on.

[MKANET]

You're describing the same symptom me and XxDeadlyxX mentioned above.. neither of us experienced constant stuttering... only "random little hiccups would occur" as you mentioned once every so often... sometimes as frequently as once every 30 seconds... but usually as seldom as once every 3-5 minutes. I already have the 169.09 installed on a clean OS.. so nothing to clean and upgrade. I cant reproduce this in any other movies.... only Transformers.

I don't have any constant stuttering as you guys described, but thought I'd share my experience to perhaps help someone. I run the 8800gt, e6850 core2duo, 4 gigs of dd2r-6400 memory....I did have an issue where the whole movie seems to play fine but random little hiccups would occur...I know it's random because if I rewind, the problem cannot be reproduced at will. I was always suspicious something is wrong because under the Windows Experience Index in Vista, it rated my card as a 3.7 for Aero environment and 4.0 for gaming....which I thought was suspiciously low. I installed many different versions of the drivers but then read on other forums that nvidia drivers don't get completely cleaned out if you don't follow certain steps. So what you do is you remove the device and software completely under device manager. Then proceed to use an app from guru3d called drivesweeper to remove any leftover nvidia files. And then install the driver....I went from 169.12 to 167.35 and scored a 5.9/5.9 for both the graphics category. I then got suspicious and removed the entire driver again and installed 169.12 and the score stayed....somehow through all the mucking around ont he drivers, it left the system with drivers that weren't optimized. Now everything plays and works like a charm, BD and HD-DVD. Hope this helps someone.

[ssaeed]

ditto

[bsmack]

For those of you with the transformers issue....have you guys tried turning OFF hardware acceleration? Your processor usage will go way up, but at least you'll be able to see if it's related to the nvidia card most of you guys are running or not. I'm very curious to see the results with hardware accel off.

[ssaeed]

im running a ati radeon 3850...

[bsmack]

im running a ati radeon 3850...

Maybe it's a general HW acceleration issue? I would test this myself but I don't own transformers.

[jatoghia]

This really sounds like something on the computer side instead of the TV side...because obviously the input (computer) is able to give a signal properly scaled by your TV.....Have you tried resizing the view space manually under nvidia's control panel? I didn't have to do that and just let the thing automatically adjust but everything has been perfect so far. Good luck.

If you are referring to that screen that comes up with the green arrows in each of the four corners, yes, I tried adjusting the screen. Obviously, I have to do it once the DVD software is up and running, because that is the only time I have the overscan problem. What happens next is that the video window starts flashing between the movie and a black screen, the whole thing stops, and then PowerDVD tells me that I don't have HDCP support. Apparently, either the Purevideo HD decoder gets messed up if you try to adjust the picture size during playback, or once again, it is a problem that overscan compensation does not work with HDCP enabled.

[MKANET]

Sounds like a decoder issue... Good news is that it's popular enough of a title (and issue is reproducible).

Maybe it's a general HW acceleration issue? I would test this myself but I don't own transformers.

[XxDeadlyxX]

Does my fix work for everyone with Quads? I've tested it again and before I change the affinity it definitely has the random stuttering every time, then after closing and restarting PowerDVD and setting the affinity, it plays fine. I wonder what is causing it... probably the Web features... although it also happened on build 3319f when Web features didn't even work.

Also I would turn of HW acceleration, but 3516 doesn't let you and unless there is a registry tweak for Nvidia (I know there is for ATI), doesn't seem there is a way to turn it off.

[MKANET]

Ill test this tonight and reply back...

Does my fix work for everyone with Quads? I've tested it again and before I change the affinity it definitely has the random stuttering every time, then after closing and restarting PowerDVD and setting the affinity, it plays fine. I wonder what is causing it... probably the Web features... although it also happened on build 3319f when Web features didn't even work.

Also I would turn of HW acceleration, but 3516 doesn't let you and unless there is a registry tweak for Nvidia (I know there is for ATI), doesn't seem there is a way to turn it off.

[sensui]

I installed the system from scratch when I built it, and the first set of drivers I installed was 169.02 since it's WHQL from nvidia's website. I had no problem with playback except when playing transformers, I just get a green screen and I can hear the sounds an see the menus....but not the movie. Since then upgrading to 169.12 has resolved this but came up the little hiccups (all movies randomly, not just transformers)....I did the driver clean up with the guru3d tool and reinstalled 163.75 and fixed everything.....then I uninstalled this and installed 169.12 back again and everything has been fine. It would be weird the issue only exists on Transformers.....nothing special about the movie...VC1 is VC1. I'd be curious to see people's results with the affinity fix posted earlier.

[sensui]

If you are referring to that screen that comes up with the green arrows in each of the four corners, yes, I tried adjusting the screen. Obviously, I have to do it once the DVD software is up and running, because that is the only time I have the overscan problem. What happens next is that the video window starts flashing between the movie and a black screen, the whole thing stops, and then PowerDVD tells me that I don't have HDCP support. Apparently, either the Purevideo HD decoder gets messed up if you try to adjust the picture size during playback, or once again, it is a problem that overscan compensation does not work with HDCP enabled.

Try to deselect the automatic checkbox and select manual, adjust your desktop normally and then run the movie....see if changing it to manual keeps the settings locked. I've seen some weird behavior on this option as well since sometimes when I select automaticallly resize, it resizes my desktop perfectly but other times when I do it, it doesn't do it right the first time but does it correctly the 2nd time.....this happens while I was installing and uninstalling drivers back and forth. Good luck.

[jatoghia]

Try to deselect the automatic checkbox and select manual, adjust your desktop normally and then run the movie....see if changing it to manual keeps the settings locked. I've seen some weird behavior on this option as well since sometimes when I select automaticallly resize, it resizes my desktop perfectly but other times when I do it, it doesn't do it right the first time but does it correctly the 2nd time.....this happens while I was installing and uninstalling drivers back and forth. Good luck.

Which automatic checkbox are you referring to? Can you tell me what menu it is under? I had some sliders that allowed me to adjust how much of the screen area appears on my display (again, it's a blue screen with green arrows in the four corners and a horizontal and vertical slide bar). I can adjust it before I play the movie, but it still changes back to the overscan mode when I start playing the movie. If I try to adjust it AFTER the movie has started playing, it gives me the flashing problem and then quits.

[MKANET]

XxDeadlyxX, on the first try, I wasn't successful in eliminating the video judder by disabling two of my CPU cores for PDVD only.

The second try, I disabled two of my CPU cores for:
1) PDVD
2) RichVideo
3) PowerDVD server

This fix the problem dead in its tracks. So, long as we know its related to multicore processing greater than 2.. thats all we should be concerned with. It's up to Cyberlink to fix this bug.

I did discover one more bug in this version... If I enable virtual dolby or Cyberlink Virtual audio, it breaks HD-DVD playback when the actual movie starts... and PowerDVD just exits memory without any errors.

It seems that Cyberlink introduced significant bugs when reducing functionality of disk playback.... Something they did broke it.

Does my fix work for everyone with Quads? I've tested it again and before I change the affinity it definitely has the random stuttering every time, then after closing and restarting PowerDVD and setting the affinity, it plays fine. I wonder what is causing it... probably the Web features... although it also happened on build 3319f when Web features didn't even work.

Also I would turn of HW acceleration, but 3516 doesn't let you and unless there is a registry tweak for Nvidia (I know there is for ATI), doesn't seem there is a way to turn it off.

[Andy o]

I always completely disable richvideo.exe and pdvdserv.exe after installing updates. It pisses me off to no end when programs put unnecessary crap in my startup, even the big names like Adobe and others are doing it, when they should know better. It's even worse when they do it sneakily. You should kill altogether those two from your startups via msconfig, and you shouldn't have to worry about them.

[MKANET]

There are something things I do that on.. I stopped doing things like that though on software where I question the competency of the software company's R&D team and engineers (ie, Logitech webcam stuff and PowerDVD). I wouldnt be surprised if Cyberlink didnt bother testing their product without richvideo.exe and pdvdserv.exe... and somewhere in their programming they presume you have them in memory.. not having them in memory breaks something indirectly...

Shoot.. I just changed the default directory of the HD-DVD folder and the HD-DVD webupdate already thinks there was something wrong and created a C:\HD-DVD folder with a file in it and another file C:\diagnostics.... I'm afraid to do anything with the software other than the default install. They've traumatized me LOL!


I always completely disable richvideo.exe and pdvdserv.exe after installing updates. It pisses me off to no end when programs put unnecessary crap in my startup, even the big names like Adobe and others are doing it, when they should know better. It's even worse when they do it sneakily. You should kill altogether those two from your startups via msconfig, and you shouldn't have to worry about them.

[PWNKAKE]

QUESTION:

My HTPC is configured in 720p because 1080p is WAY too small.

So far, i have not found a way to make my PDDVD play HD Movies in 1080p WITHOUT moving my desktop res to 1080p.

Is this a limitation of the software or have any of you guys found a "workaround"?

Thanks. :)

OH... and i got the PDVD remote problem figured out.. i mapped the program through the IMON reciever on the front of my GDMX01 case. Almost there. :)

[MKANET]

You can use PowerStrip (search for it on the web) to launch PowerDVD at 1080p and when you exit I think it will take you back to 720p.

QUESTION:

My HTPC is configured in 720p because 1080p is WAY too small.

So far, i have not found a way to make my PDDVD play HD Movies in 1080p WITHOUT moving my desktop res to 1080p.

Is this a limitation of the software or have any of you guys found a "workaround"?

Thanks. :)

OH... and i got the PDVD remote problem figured out.. i mapped the program through the IMON reciever on the front of my GDMX01 case. Almost there. :)

[PWNKAKE]

Ahh.. Powerstripe... know it well, but i haven't used it since i bought my trusty ole Gefore 2 lmao. I was thinking Powerstripe was an ATI only thing back then though.. i had a Radeon 64ddr in a rig too lol! Lan stuff.. for Quake 2, 3 and UT99.

I'll look it up, thanks for responding!

[skibum5000]

that's weird. i have a 4400 which is not that much slower and an 8800gts and the highbitrate bluray avc plus compressed lossless audio are not smooth for me. i wonder if something is going weird with my stup.

well the new anydvdhd 6.3.0.0 runs in the background with powerdvdultra and interesting simply doing that and now my spiderman is suddenly all but jitter free! either anydvd means no realtime AACS is needed (and thus AACS uses too much CPU time and sucks) or it decodes it more efficiently than powerdvd can (in which case powerdvd and AACS suck :D )

[DiGiTY]

i installed PowerDVD Ultra Deluxe 7.3.3516 and I can't get surround sound to work anymore. it was just working fine with 7.2 before I removed it for 7.3.3516 (i removed 7.2 because of weird artifacts in the video playback). i do get 2 channel sound, but when i select SPDIF i get no sound. and no, it's not a trial version, it's activated

surround sound still works fine in other av apps (like vista media center), so i know it's something up with PowerDVD.

any ideas?

p.s. - the sound card is chaintech av-710 with latest envy24 drivers

[ssaeed]

guys, just installed vista x86 and running a radeon 3850 pdvd 3516. I have hardware acc turned on and deinterlace option turned on in AVIVO as well. I am seeing some interlacing artifacts in the video. I dont recall seeing them in windows XP...anyone else experience this?

[sensui]

Which automatic checkbox are you referring to? Can you tell me what menu it is under? I had some sliders that allowed me to adjust how much of the screen area appears on my display (again, it's a blue screen with green arrows in the four corners and a horizontal and vertical slide bar). I can adjust it before I play the movie, but it still changes back to the overscan mode when I start playing the movie. If I try to adjust it AFTER the movie has started playing, it gives me the flashing problem and then quits.

I would #1) make sure your tv display settings is set to display the native HD resolution signal from the connection (in my case, the samsung lcds call it "just scan.")

#2) right click on desktop and enter nvidia control panel, then hit the tab under "video/television" for resizing. Then you will see 2 options, do not resize or resize, if it's already checked on resize since you resized it....hit the do not resize and then resize again and you'll notice you can apply the changes....if you apply the changes....the computer will automatically try to resize accordingly to what it thinks it sees on the screen. If this does not work still....I said to resize manually using the screen you're speaking of and making sure it locks this. Try a quick reset and then see if powerdvd is still doing this.....if not....I would either 1) change drivers (either upgrade or rollback to another version to see if it helps after completely removing it via my posts before) 2) try reinstalling powerdvd.

Good luck.

[ls1115]

Anyone knows any way to remove the red splash screen with the girl's picture? Nothing against her personally, but she looks **way too much** like a former employee whom I rather not see every time I play a BD or HD disc! The downloadable skins provide a different background, but this comes with a smaller on screen control which I find cumbersome.

Thanks!!

[<><]

i just use the all black skin found here: http://www.nathanm.com/cyberlink-powerdvd-all-black-skin/

extract it into the skins folder under your powerdvd install directory and change the skin under powerdvd's options

just do a google search for powerdvd skins

[ls1115]

i just use the all black skin found here: http://www.nathanm.com/cyberlink-powerdvd-all-black-skin/

extract it into the skins folder under your powerdvd install directory and change the skin under powerdvd's options

just do a google search for powerdvd skins

Thanks!! Just what I was looking for!!

[bone_fide]

I am currently using powerDVD for HD DVD files on my computer, but I would like to add an internal Bru-Ray drive to view and store Blu-Ray as well. Will I be able to use PowerDVD to watch the Blu-Ray on the same system as HD DVD? I'm sure this has been addressed, but if anyone wouldn't mind saving me from combing the threads I would sure appreciate it.

[MickeyDora]

I am currently using powerDVD for HD DVD files on my computer, but I would like to add an internal Bru-Ray drive to view and store Blu-Ray as well. Will I be able to use PowerDVD to watch the Blu-Ray on the same syste