PowerDVD Ultra (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray) [Text View] - Page 20

IanD

12-25-07, 09:06 AM

Some people here have been complaining about nVidia video quality being bad on XP with PowerDVD Ultra. Others have claimed there is no difference.

I've had Blu-Ray playback for six months and haven't noticed anything wrong with the picture quality under XP.

I tried an HD DVD and I found that there is horrible aliasing (Transfomers HD-DVD) with the extras disc and some shimmering on the movie iteself at times. The "best" setting for video ( which is also only available for HD-DVD playback ) doesn't seem to fix it.

I think the people who've noticed poor nVidia image quality on XP are HD-DVD users.
There is no (or minimal) aliasing with PowerDVD in software decode mode as long as Best video quality is selected. Unfortunately this is difficult to achieve in the builds after 2911.

Even in hardware decode mode, aliasing can be minimised if all video settings (eg brightness, contrast, etc) are set to 0 in the PowerDVD advanced video tab. For some reason, any colourspace adjustment seems to activate or highlight aliasing.

For interlaced extras, even setting PowerDVD de-interlacing to None still seems to de-interlace in software decode mode. I'm not sure what happens in hardware acceleration mode if the different de-interlacing options are used.

I think PowerDVD does it's own thing in XP regardless of many of the user adjustable settings. For example, I think saturation control in PowerDVD is disabled under XP and can only be modified via the Nvidia Control Panel TV/Video adjustment section in software decode mode.

I can't speak for Bluray, but software decoding, if you can afford the CPU cycles, seems to give the best overall results under XP with PowerDVD in Best video quality mode (with de-interlacing set to None).

AbMagFab

12-25-07, 09:21 AM

This isn't video processing. There's a video quality tab while playing back HD-DVDs in PDVD. This can be set to auto, good, best and so on. Most people on this forum recommend setting it to best.

That *is* video processing. Normal/Original means it won't touch the image. Every other setting is messing with the original image on the disc.

That's, by definition, video processing.

sharangad

12-25-07, 09:26 AM

That *is* video processing. Normal/Original means it won't touch the image. Every other setting is messing with the original image on the disc.

That's, by definition, video processing.

There is no normal or original. This is the decoding quality. Auto/Good/best with best producing the best image quality and taking the most CPU cycles.

AbMagFab

12-25-07, 10:20 AM

There is no normal or original. This is the decoding quality. Auto/Good/best with best producing the best image quality and taking the most CPU cycles.

You're flat-out wrong. I'm looking at it right now - Auto, Best Quality, Good Quality, Normal Quality.

Anything other than Normal is, by defiinition, Video Processing. You'll also note this is under the "Video" tab, Advanced (not the HD DVD tab).

(You should really check things before posting incorrect info for all to see.)

Vern Dias

12-25-07, 11:01 AM

Al Sherwood

12-25-07, 11:21 AM

Has anybody got this title to work from the HDD with PDVD 3516?

If so what did you do?, I tried build and read methods with ImageBurn and neither will play, I get error code "80040216" from PDVD.

Hey BTW, Merry Christmas! :D

Thinker

12-25-07, 12:02 PM

Would someone mind summarizing the issues here with the stuttering / jitter? I have read through these posts, but with 160 pages, it's hard to follow.

I can dual boot my machine to XP or Vista. XP plays HD-DVD and Blueray fine with PDVD. So my hardware is fine. However, Vista can't play any titles from the hard drive without jitter. The CPU utilization is near 100%. What is this issue--what is the solution? Clearly this is a software / driver issue. I think I am running an nVidia 7900 series video card--but as I said, no issues on XP--so drivers might be the issue but not the card per se.

P.S.--where do I find the build # you all refer to. All I find is 7.3 but no build #.

AbMagFab

12-25-07, 12:15 PM

Nope, actually it's you who are wrong. ;) Best quality allows the full resolution of the source to pass through unmolested. Auto, basically allows the software to make the decision on which of the choices to run based on available CPU and GPU cycles.

Going from the "Best" to the "Good" setting clearly introduces more stairstepping and reduces the detail in the image. Comparing to a stand alone player, the "Best" setting is the only setting that delivers an identical image to that delivered by the stand alone player.

Of course, if you are not running a 1080 projector on a large screen, then you might not see the dramatic difference that the "Best" setting makes.

Vern

#1 - I'm right (not that it matters) about there being a "Normal"

#2 - I have a 110" screen with a Black Pearl. The changes with "Best" are absolutely noticable, in as much as the VP artifacts look horrible.

Just pop an HD DVD or BluRay into PDVD, and into a regular HDDVD/BD drive, and compare "Normal" with "Best". It's painfully obvious that PDVD is doing some major, and bad, video processing on everything but "Normal".

For what it's worth, I'm running NVidia and have the h/w acceleration on in PDVD. Not sure if that changes the behavior of this feature, but in this mode, Normal is the only setting that retains the video of the original disc, unmolested.

(And I barely see any CPU difference between Best and Normal, so not sure what that earlier comment was about.)

Andy o

12-25-07, 12:21 PM

Wow, this blu-ray fiasco is getting out of control. On Flight Plan, even when set to resume movie, instead of showing whenever I left it at, I still get:

1) The Studio logo (Touchstone).
2) The blu-ray movie ads.
3) The freaking stupid anti-piracy ad (you know, the "it's stealing" one).
4) A disclaimer about commentaries or something.
5) A copyright screen.
6) The FBI warning screen.

Just then the movie resumes.

So, even when you have already started seeing the movie, and want to resume, you need to press FF 4 times, and wait for the FBI warning to end, which is non-skippable. How annoying and stupid. Not one HD-DVD that I've tried has anything even remotely close to that, and that's counting the fact that HD-DVD doesn't let you resume. Restarting an HD-DVD seems much faster than resuming some blu-rays. (Other blu-rays are similar in that you still have to eat up a couple of warnings before resuming, but having to skip ads again? What the hell are they thinking. I wonder if AnyDVD will come up with PUO removal for blu-ray.

I wonder if this same behavior happens in standalone players? I'm not complaining about the format itself, but the amount of control the studios want to have is just infuriating.

AbMagFab

12-25-07, 12:54 PM

I'm not complaining about the format itself, but the amount of control the studios want to have is just infuriating.

I agree. What's disappointing is that BluRay seems to be a better format, visually (either everything I've seen just happens to be encoded better, or it's actually better in some way). But it sure is far worse in terms of "studio control" as you put it...

kylebisme

12-25-07, 01:09 PM

Thinker

12-25-07, 01:10 PM

Al,
I think one of the variables that is affecting hw accel. is the version of pdvd. I, like the other user seemed to be having hw accel. working with pdvd 2911 and my current version of pdvd 3104. Although with 3104 I can not seem to disable it! With 2911 I could enable and disable and the cpu reflected that it was indeed working. I have not tried any of the more recent versions of pdvd because I did not want to lose the ability to play from the hdd of be forced to mount as iso files. I am using the 2600xt on vista and have tried the 7.7, 7.10 and now the 7.11 with similar results.
jp

Why can we no longer uncheck hw acc? Concious decision by Cyberlink?

Why do we lose ability to payback from hd without iso'ing it? Concious decision by Cyberlink?

AbMagFab

12-25-07, 01:45 PM

Blu-ray can hold more data per-layer than HD-DVD, but many Blu-ray releases use the exact same video data as their respective HD-DVD releases. The two are just data storage formats, there is nothing inherently superior about the image quality obtainable on either. You can put video of just as high a quality on a standard CD, just not nearly as much of it.

Yeah, I get the theory.

However in practice, the BluRay discs look better than the HDDVD discs (to me). I'm not comparing apples-to-apples, in that I don't have the same movie in both formats. I'm comparing things I've purchased on BD to other things on HDDVD.

While theoretically and technically they are just storage mechanisms, perhaps the folks who are doing BD exclusively are compressing with different specs?

In any case, it's a clear difference with my limited sample size (about 10 discs each). The only one on BD that doesn't look that great is 300 (compared to the other BD discs I own).

AbMagFab

12-25-07, 01:46 PM

Why can we no longer uncheck hw acc? Concious decision by Cyberlink?

Why do we lose ability to payback from hd without iso'ing it? Concious decision by Cyberlink?

For #2, yes.

Not sure about #1, and not sure I care much. It works a lot better with HW acc.

jeffreydeng

12-25-07, 01:54 PM

kylebisme

12-25-07, 02:00 PM

Yeah, I get the theory.

No, not theory, I'm talking about facts. Again, many Blu-ray releases use the exact same video data as their respective HD-DVD releases; that is a fact.

talon95

12-25-07, 03:27 PM

Even in hardware decode mode, aliasing can be minimised if all video settings (eg brightness, contrast, etc) are set to 0 in the PowerDVD advanced video tab. For some reason, any colourspace adjustment seems to activate or highlight aliasing.

That's it! I've had that crappy aliasing in XP and not in Vista for a long time and was blaming the NVidia drivers, but the real difference was the fact that I had bumped the brightness up in the PowerDVD settings and it was causing the aliasing. It's not just more obvious, it's just not there with everything centered.

Now that just creates another problem though. Brightness is way too low with the slider centered and I'm not sure it can be fixed on the projector end since PDVD may be crushing blacks on it's end.

Thanks though. At least that clears up that problem. I'm still refusing to run Vista full time, so this is a step in the right direction. :)

Edit: In doing more testing, it appears the brightness adjustment within PDVD running in Vista is broken (slider has no effect) which explains why the aliasing does not show up in Vista.

sharangad

12-25-07, 03:35 PM

Maybe you should read what I posted before trying to trash me:

You're flat-out wrong. I'm looking at it right now - Auto, Best Quality, Good Quality, Normal Quality.

... .You'll also note this is under the "Video" tab, Advanced (not the HD DVD tab).

(You should really check things before posting incorrect info for all to see.)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12582825#post12582825

... .There's a video quality tab while playing back HD-DVDs in PDVD. ...

Al Sherwood

12-25-07, 03:46 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by jp2
Al,
I think one of the variables that is affecting hw accel. is the version of pdvd. I, like the other user seemed to be having hw accel. working with pdvd 2911 and my current version of pdvd 3104. Although with 3104 I can not seem to disable it! With 2911 I could enable and disable and the cpu reflected that it was indeed working. I have not tried any of the more recent versions of pdvd because I did not want to lose the ability to play from the hdd of be forced to mount as iso files. I am using the 2600xt on vista and have tried the 7.7, 7.10 and now the 7.11 with similar results.
jp [/QUOTE]

Why can we no longer uncheck hw acc? Concious decision by Cyberlink?

Why do we lose ability to payback from hd without iso'ing it? Concious decision by Cyberlink?

This was in reference to ATI cards, we can still uncheck the box for Avivo hardware acceleration... but as for your questions, I would have to say that the decisions to affect HD playback was a concious decision by Cyberlink.

Al Sherwood

12-25-07, 03:53 PM

Originally Posted by Al Sherwood
Has anybody got this title to work from the HDD with PDVD 3516?

If so what did you do?, I tried build and read methods with ImageBurn and neither will play, I get error code "80040216" from PDVD.

Hey BTW, Merry Christmas!

jeffreydeng: I can play 'Die Hard 4' using 3319a.

I was afraid somebody would say that! Well a least it plays back from the optical media!

I had some problems at 3319 that forced me to upgrade to 3516... dang! :mad:

Vern Dias

12-25-07, 06:02 PM

stryfetew

12-25-07, 06:13 PM

Anyway having a problem with playback of blu ray all together? My screen has purple and green lines in it. It plays fine but the picture is crap.. Sounds is great too. I have a 7900gto nvidia card and when I do a copy to my hard drive with AnyDVD it looks good but I can't understand the french very well.

Andy o

12-25-07, 08:35 PM

This is gonna be long, but bear with me... it took me so much longer to realize.

Even in hardware decode mode, aliasing can be minimised if all video settings (eg brightness, contrast, etc) are set to 0 in the PowerDVD advanced video tab. For some reason, any colourspace adjustment seems to activate or highlight aliasing.
That's it! I've had that crappy aliasing in XP and not in Vista for a long time and was blaming the NVidia drivers, but the real difference was the fact that I had bumped the brightness up in the PowerDVD settings and it was causing the aliasing. It's not just more obvious, it's just not there with everything centered.

Now that just creates another problem though. Brightness is way too low with the slider centered and I'm not sure it can be fixed on the projector end since PDVD may be crushing blacks on it's end.
Try setting the brightness like you want in PowerDVD, and when you get aliasing go to nVidia Control Panel and raise the Noise reduction or Edge Enhancement just one notch. It is unnoticeable, and probably will get rid of aliasing. It used to be that way always before, but then it only seems to work when you mess with PowerDVD sliders. This I tried in Vista, though.

Thanks though. At least that clears up that problem. I'm still refusing to run Vista full time, so this is a step in the right direction. :)

Edit: In doing more testing, it appears the brightness adjustment within PDVD running in Vista is broken (slider has no effect) which explains why the aliasing does not show up in Vista.

I have a 8600GTS in Vista 32. I have found some curious stuff about the behavior of nVidia (and ATI a bit) drivers regarding this situation. By the way, just some days ago the final 169.25 drivers were released (they seem to behave a little different than the 169.25 betas).

Up to the 163 drivers, the levels expansion, as I said before in this thread, was not done for anything, and I'm not sure if the sliders worked for HD-DVD and blu-ray ("HD disc"), but I just calibrated everything across the board (including DVD) in the nVidia Control Panel, and forgot about it. But with this driver, I was having a one pixel-tall green line at the bottom of the picture in full screen. It got a little annoying.

Assume the following is with HW accel. ON in PowerDVD:

So I tried the 169 betas (169.04, 169.11 and 169.25 beta) and they all get rid of the green line, but also they all do autoexpansion for only HD disc, but not for DVD or OTA HD (1080i, 720p). The 169.25 final drivers do the same, and for non-HD-disc (when autoexpansion is not done), it seems you can use the sliders in PowerDVD, if the "Use the NVIDIA Control Panel color settings" option in the "Adjust video color settings" section of the Control Panel is not ticked.

Now, when you do check that option, you cannot control anything with the PowerDVD sliders, but you can control everything in the Control Panel, including HD disc. But since HD disc is being auto expanded, whatever you change here will change everything, and still HD disc stuff and non-HD-disc stuff will be offset by the auto expansion. So, either you will get correct HD disc and low-contrast (native) non-HD-disc stuff, or overexpanded HD disc and correct (expanded/calibrated) non-HD-disc stuff. Hope it's not too confusing (yet).

So the easiest way to have it, and it's an OK solution if you're not too picky, is to leave that option ("Use the NVIDIA Control Panel color settings") unchecked, let the driver do its autoexpansion for HD disc, and calibrate manually in PowerDVD for everything else, since those sliders won't have an effect on HD disc. That means, though, that there is no calibration possible for HD disc (because you left the option unchecked)!

Unfortunately I have found the auto expansion a bit on the bright side, so it seems I'm getting just a bit of clipping in the whites (according to the HD calibration part of Ratatouille, but not the DVE-HD disc -- I think the Ratatouille disc is more correct). I could just calibrate a little bit so the whites don't clip in the driver, but that would mean to check the "Use the NVIDIA Control Panel color settings" option. And as I said before, whenever you check that, the PowerDVD sliders don't work. That is, unless you turn OFF HW accel. in PowerDVD.

So now, if you turn OFF HW accel. in PowerDVD, you can keep the "Use the NVIDIA Control Panel color settings" option checked in the driver, to fine-tune HD disc, and the PowerDVD sliders will work for non-HD-disc stuff. The problem is (and isn't there always one) that now the sliders don't behave the same as with HWA on. For instance, "contrast" with HWA on behaves just like most "contrast" sliders in consumer devices, namely highlight control, and "brightness", black levels. But with HWA off, "contrast" behaves as actual contrast, so it will lower the black levels at the same time raising the highlights. It will do expansion on its own. Brightness will behave similarly, affecting both black levels and highlights.

So now, if I wanna be able to fine-tune HD disc and calibrate non-HD-disc material as well, I have to keep HWA OFF, use only the contrast slider to expand/calibrate, and "Use the NVIDIA Control Panel color settings" ticked.

Hope this info helps. If you think I got anything wrong, let me know.

PS: On a side note, ATI in their later drivers also seemed to be having autoexpansion only for HD material, but not for SD. I wonder if this is somehow connected. Could it be that the studios don't even want us to have control of HD calibration? (Kidding, of course, but the fact that they disabled the HW accel. option makes you wonder.)

Tulli

12-25-07, 10:40 PM

Up to the 163 drivers, the levels expansion, as I said before in this thread, was not done for anything, ...

Thanks a lot for that info. Went back to 158.18 (Vista x64/8600gts) and no more levels expansion.

Andy o

12-26-07, 02:10 AM

Thanks a lot for that info. Went back to 158.18 (Vista x64/8600gts) and no more levels expansion.

Hmm, why did you go that far back? Did you get the green line by any chance, with 163? I got it with as far back as 162, if I remember correctly. I don't have Vista 64, but I think previous drivers from 162 had also some problems. I can't remember what right now, though.

I got this thing satisfactorily resolved, for what it's worth. I got "use nVidia Control panel..." checked, and I calibrate PowerDVD with HWA off for non-HD-disc stuff. Works OK, it seems. God, can't wait for this Christmas or whatever thing to get over, I just want my discs 5 and 6 of Prison Break blu-ray in the mail! Had to watch Flight Plan earlier today. Meh.

nesNYC

12-26-07, 03:16 AM

The newer builds of PowerDVD are incompatible with the latest version of some nVidia drivers. The work around I did to get PowerDVD to work with the latest nVida drivers was to make my HDTV screen 1 and my desktop screen 2. Somehow, PowerDVD only seems to want to play on the first screen and igonrs nVidia's extended overlay (extended desktop) and switching them around worked for me.

I have an nVidia 7600GT and the latest drivers for Vista Ultimate.

But what I have been observing from Cyberlink is that they eventually debug the software to catch up to the nVidia builds and then the kinks get ironed out. However by that time, new nVidia drivers come out and if you upgrade, chances are PowerDVD won't work in them.

What I have done is stop upgrading PowerDVD at build 3310a (i'll have to double check that) so I don't loose the ability to play from my hard drive. Also, that was the last build that worked properly with my video drivers.

Anyway having a problem with playback of blu ray all together? My screen has purple and green lines in it. It plays fine but the picture is crap.. Sounds is great too. I have a 7900gto nvidia card and when I do a copy to my hard drive with AnyDVD it looks good but I can't understand the french very well.

Tulli

12-26-07, 07:11 AM

Hmm, why did you go that far back? Did you get the green line by any chance, with 163? I got it with as far back as 162, if I remember correctly. I don't have Vista 64, but I think previous drivers from 162 had also some problems. I can't remember what right now, though.

Vista x64 163.75 whql worked fine. Thanks again, Andy o. And no green line for me.

The_Manual

12-26-07, 07:48 AM

I am having problems with PowerDVD (7.3 Ultra build 3516) and HD DVD's, and was hoping anyone could offer some assistance. I thought this thread would be the best place to ask this question. I have looked through the thread and found people with these problems, but no definite answer.

There is no problem with actually playing HD DVD's, they work perfectly. However the issue I am having is that the film only fills approximately half the screen (vertically).

The system I am using is 1080i/p compatible:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX (169.21 Drivers)
Auzentech X-Fi Prelude
Samsung SyncMaster 245B (DVI with HDCP @1920x1200)
Windows XP Professional (SP3 RC1)

The width of the film is correct, however the height is not correct. At 1080i/p I am assuming the film's height should match 1080 pixels Vertical, judging by it's position I am assuming it is only doing 720i/p, perhaps PowerDVD is shrinking it to approximately half vertical screen size?

The system resolution is 1920x1200, which should easily accommodate the 1080 specification. Even switching the Display Mode to 1080p HDTV resolution in the NVIDIA Control Panel (Drivers support PureVideo HD and equivalent) does not resize the film to maximum size. The film used for testing is Transformers HD DVD.

I am not sure if the system is outputting 1080i/p or not, or if it is simply doing 720i/p. I do not know how to obtain an answer for that question. PowerDVD does resize some normal DVD's to half screen also (when they are configured for 16:9). WMP HD played in Windows Media Player are the correct size.
Any assistance would be grateful.

Thanks,
Greg.

charlesj123

12-26-07, 07:49 AM

Sorry guys to answer you this question, it might look obvious for you but I'm looking to find inside PDVD how to change the rendering mode to make sure I have VRM9 intead of overlay.

Anyone knows were I can find this setting?

Thanks

Charles

neomagic

12-26-07, 10:22 AM

pg_ice

12-26-07, 03:54 PM

laguna_b

12-26-07, 04:03 PM

so whats this all about?
when i play a Blu Ray disc in powerDVD i dont get full resolution and the picture is screwed up at the bottom of the picture.

protection **** right :)
HDCP ?

how do i solve this?
thanks

Not HDCP. HDCP would not let clear text pass and you would either have snow or nothing at all. Which movie and which version of PDVD?

pg_ice

12-26-07, 04:11 PM

Not HDCP. HDCP would not let clear text pass and you would either have snow or nothing at all. Which movie and which version of PDVD?

it dosent matter what BD movies
all BD movies that i play from my harddrive (i have made some backups) only shows at low res with screwed up picture at the bottom when im running in fullscreen mode.

HD-DVDs are no problem

power dvd: 7.3 Ultra
graphics card: 8800 Ultra
Win XP Pro

laguna_b

12-26-07, 04:17 PM

it dosent matter what BD movies
all BD movies that i play from my harddrive (i have made some backups) only shows at low res with screwed up picture at the bottom when im running in fullscreen mode.

HD-DVDs are no problem

power dvd: 7.3 Ultra
graphics card: 8800 Ultra
Win XP Pro

I will have to defer to BD experts since I only have HD-DVD but you are aware that if you upgrade beyond version 3319(no letter) you loose the ability to play from the hard drive unless you mount the movies as isos....I now there were changes made in one rev allegedly to fix BD playback but someone with BD is a better source. I just know it is NOT HDCP.

hamish b

12-26-07, 04:22 PM

With PowerDVD 3319a I got this kind of image when watching VC1 HD-DVDs. Blu-ray discs play fine. Graphics adapter is ATI HD 2400 with different driver versions. Anyone experienced this before?

http://aycu08.webshots.com/image/36127/2004215520081866320_rs.jpg

Thanks!

i had similair problems when i first go my 2600xt
what i did was update the bios of the graphics card from the manufacturers site. Fixed it no troubles

pg_ice

12-26-07, 04:29 PM

you are aware that if you upgrade beyond version 3319(no letter) you loose the ability to play from the hard

sure
i have made a ISO file of the BD movie.
no difference

laguna_b

12-26-07, 04:47 PM

sure
i have made a ISO file of the BD movie.
no difference

You said you had 7.3 but did not list the actual 4 digit version number. You might check for updates but keep your old install files for the reason previously stated.

nesNYC

12-26-07, 05:01 PM

If you're watching a movie that is not truly 16:9 then you'll have bars on the top and the bottom. Most films are 2.4:1 or theatricall widescreen and won't fill up to the top and bottom. If you're seeing that the width is correct then everything is good. Some films crop the sides and give you the full 16:9 screen but those are very few.

I am having problems with PowerDVD (7.3 Ultra build 3516) and HD DVD's, and was hoping anyone could offer some assistance. I thought this thread would be the best place to ask this question. I have looked through the thread and found people with these problems, but no definite answer.

There is no problem with actually playing HD DVD's, they work perfectly. However the issue I am having is that the film only fills approximately half the screen (vertically).

The system I am using is 1080i/p compatible:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
nVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX (169.21 Drivers)
Auzentech X-Fi Prelude
Samsung SyncMaster 245B (DVI with HDCP @1920x1200)
Windows XP Professional (SP3 RC1)

The width of the film is correct, however the height is not correct. At 1080i/p I am assuming the film's height should match 1080 pixels Vertical, judging by it's position I am assuming it is only doing 720i/p, perhaps PowerDVD is shrinking it to approximately half vertical screen size?

The system resolution is 1920x1200, which should easily accommodate the 1080 specification. Even switching the Display Mode to 1080p HDTV resolution in the NVIDIA Control Panel (Drivers support PureVideo HD and equivalent) does not resize the film to maximum size. The film used for testing is Transformers HD DVD.

I am not sure if the system is outputting 1080i/p or not, or if it is simply doing 720i/p. I do not know how to obtain an answer for that question. PowerDVD does resize some normal DVD's to half screen also (when they are configured for 16:9). WMP HD played in Windows Media Player are the correct size.
Any assistance would be grateful.

Thanks,
Greg.

pg_ice

12-26-07, 05:29 PM

You said you had 7.3 but did not list the actual 4 digit version number. You might check for updates but keep your old install files for the reason previously stated.

Problem solved
phew :)

i did a cleanup of the graphics drivers and installed the newest
so it was a driver issue.

thanks anyway folks

laguna_b

12-26-07, 05:36 PM

Problem solved
phew :)

i did a cleanup of the graphics drivers and installed the newest
so it was a driver issue.

thanks anyway folks

CHEEEEEEERSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!! :)

MKANET

12-26-07, 09:14 PM

Evan Almighty... does the same thing Transformers and Knocked Up do. Basically all new HD-DVD titles are not having this weird judder. None of the older HD-DVD titles do this, neither do any of the Blu-ray DVD's.

EDIT: I had to disable the extra 2 CPU cores again and it got rid of 95% of the problem.

kylebisme

12-26-07, 10:36 PM

I just updated to Nvidia's 169.25 drivers and now The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy running smooth. And with that one nagging issue fixed I bought a key for the full version from Newegg for $72, glad to finally have TrueHD surround sound as well as DD+ out my anologs in PDVD.

Patrick.

12-27-07, 12:47 AM

kylebisme

12-27-07, 01:37 AM

Movies that only fill about half the screen on his 16:10 monitor won't come anywhere close to filling a 16:9 TV either.

jimwhite

12-27-07, 09:26 AM

if you want to use all your screen you will need to buy an LCD TV for your computer instead of a monitor
Most of the <23" LCD TV's are actually 16:10 also !! :eek:

:cool:

laguna_b

12-27-07, 12:48 PM

I was afraid somebody would say that! Well a least it plays back from the optical media!

I had some problems at 3319 that forced me to upgrade to 3516... dang! :mad:

Al,

Make sure it was not your ripper that was the problem. I use both DVDfab and AnyDVD and sometimes one works where the other doesn't. One poster had been successful with dual launch icons for pre/post 3319. If I run into problems I might try that myself.

Barry

Davinleeds

12-27-07, 03:45 PM

My Acer AL2223W 16x10 fills fine with PDVD. Knock on wood, I've never had PDVD fill just half the screen. Watched Bourne last night and had bars top and bottom-but that's the movie aspect.

kylebisme

12-27-07, 03:53 PM

Watched Bourne last night and had bars top and bottom-but that's the movie aspect.
That is what the complaints are about. Many people don't understand that movies often have aspect ratios wider than their displays.

muterobert

12-27-07, 04:03 PM

First off, to head off a flame war, I have been an Nvidia fan for years. However the broken VMR9 that required renderless full screen mode to avoid tearing and other issues with HDCP and driver quality have driven me away from NVidia for any of my multimedia systems.

I have to say that the new ATI HD 3870 video card has met or exceeded all my expectations.

Since we are seeing such different results, maybe its the video card / drivers, although "Best" contributed absolutely no artifacts or other problems with my 8800GTX either.

Don't know what else to say, except that each reader should try the different options and decide for themselves what works best in their environment.

Vern
I was literally just about to post similar thoughts. I've been struggling (a polite term) with nVidia's broken drivers for generations now, I couldn't quite believe that switching 'sides' would have been so revalatory in terms of the HD movie watching experience.

Movies are wonderfully smooth, with minimal posterisation/banding and absolutely zero judder or jitter. ATI/AMD have done absolute wonders with video out on this series of cards. The drivers have actually been carefully thought about for those of us on dial displays too. Everything just works as it's supposed too, no brow furrowing, no hair pulling or screaming like a banshee it just works! There are also loads of little touches for Dual-Viewers too like opening the drivers page on the diaply you are clicking on *GASP*! :)

What's more, it's a stunner in 3D gaming too, with a healthy overclock meaning I could run the wonderous Crysis in ery High from beginning to end. And all this for just £150!!

If anyone here is utterly sick of wasting their precious time on nVidia's completely broken Vista drivers - I cannot recommend this card highly enough. Go get one (or a cheaper 3850) now!

Al Sherwood

12-27-07, 04:10 PM

Al,

Make sure it was not your ripper that was the problem. I use both DVDfab and AnyDVD and sometimes one works where the other doesn't. One poster had been successful with dual launch icons for pre/post 3319. If I run into problems I might try that myself.

Barry

Good point Barry, I have never tried DVDfab so that may be worth a go. Being able to play titles off of the HD is slick, it still amazes me how may 'different' problems have been reported, and just as many who report they have no problems!

I would like to have two versions of PowerDVD available, but then again it sure would be nice if it just worked with the most up-to-date version of PowerDVD!

TokyoShoe

12-27-07, 06:35 PM

MKANET

12-27-07, 06:53 PM

I think youre talking about the same bug I am. What kind of CPU do you have?

Bourne Ultimatum is jumping and stuttering like crazy under PowerDVD Ultra Build 3516. Anyone having this same issue? I can get the DVD side to play just fine, but the HD-DVD side is super jittery.

Double checked the disc surface, and it is spotless and pristine on both sides.
I am not running AnyDVD HD as I had to uninstall it, it was fouling up too the playback of too many of my HD-DVD's.

kylebisme

12-27-07, 08:45 PM

Bourne Ultimatum is jumping and stuttering like crazy under PowerDVD Ultra Build 3516. Anyone having this same issue?
I don't have the disk, but what codec does it use, and at what bitrates are you seeing frame drops? Also, what videocard are you using? I had awful frame drops on one MPEG4 disk with bitrates over 28Mbps, but updating to the latest drivers for my 8800gt solved that.

wbart4

12-27-07, 08:57 PM

I,m very new to PowerDVD. Are PowerDVD 7.3 and Ultra the same?

MKANET

12-27-07, 09:00 PM

Not a performance related issue... not frame drops... at least not for me.

I don't have the disk, but what codec does it use, and at what bitrates are you seeing frame drops? Also, what videocard are you using? I had awful frame drops on one MPEG4 disk with bitrates over 28Mbps, but updating to the latest drivers for my 8800gt solved that.

kylebisme

12-27-07, 09:22 PM

Then can you describe the issue you are seeing? He mentioned jumping, which I take to mean frame dropping.

MKANET

12-27-07, 09:32 PM

Andy o

12-27-07, 09:43 PM

I was literally just about to post similar thoughts. I've been struggling (a polite term) with nVidia's broken drivers for generations now, I couldn't quite believe that switching 'sides' would have been so revalatory in terms of the HD movie watching experience.

Movies are wonderfully smooth, with minimal posterisation/banding and absolutely zero judder or jitter. ATI/AMD have done absolute wonders with video out on this series of cards. The drivers have actually been carefully thought about for those of us on dial displays too. Everything just works as it's supposed too, no brow furrowing, no hair pulling or screaming like a banshee it just works! There are also loads of little touches for Dual-Viewers too like opening the drivers page on the diaply you are clicking on *GASP*! :)

What's more, it's a stunner in 3D gaming too, with a healthy overclock meaning I could run the wonderous Crysis in ery High from beginning to end. And all this for just £150!!

If anyone here is utterly sick of wasting their precious time on nVidia's completely broken Vista drivers - I cannot recommend this card highly enough. Go get one (or a cheaper 3850) now!

I personally have had MUCH better luck with nVidia, both with a 8500GT and my current 8600GTS. Sure, a few problems, but my ATI experience with 2400pro and 2600pro was horribe. Couldn't even get HDCP to work with my monitor for the first two or three driver generations that supported HDCP. Only then they fixed it, and it was the driver's fault, but the nVidia was already on its way. And that's counting the fact that I had to do myriad registry tweaks, and people still have to, I reckon. Check out the ATI 2x00 series thread.

So what you're saying is that the 3800 series is at least two steps better than the 2000 series? And the drivers is what is good about it? Hmm, that's a bold statement, since I've never ever had any good ATI software. Not being facetious here, but I've always liked ATI hardware, only that I was waiting for the day they would pick up their game on the software. I'll surely give these new cards a try if I get the chance.

Andy o

12-27-07, 09:48 PM

I,m very new to PowerDVD. Are PowerDVD 7.3 and Ultra the same?

There is PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra, and PowerDVD 7 (I don't know which version they're at right now). Basically, Ultra is the same as PowerDVD, but with high-definition disc capabilities (HD-DVD, blu-ray).

TokyoShoe

12-27-07, 09:51 PM

Hmmm... its hard to describe... maybe it is skipping frames, but definitely not related to not having enough performance. It's kind of random... the video will jump back a few frames, then jump ahead to realtime. If I disabled two of the 4 cores on my CPU, the problem seems to be about 90% gone; and the movie is watchable once again. I dont have this issue with any time of blu-ray, or old HD-DVDs. It looks like the problem (at least my problem) is related to PowerDVD 's HD-DVD playback and how process threads are handled by CPU's with more than 2 cores.

EDIT: I just re-read his original comment. My HD-DVDs dont stutter like crazy... it just happens once every couple of minutes or so.

It is VC-1 Encoded. I didn't have bit rates display turned on I'll have to go back and test that. I was playing this on a 3.4 Ghz Pentium (Straight single core, I know a bit on the low side) that never peaked out above 75% usage during playback. Video card is an Nvidia 8500GT , great card but I had a hellish time finding a good set of drivers that liked my TV.

It's not specifically a frame drop per say, but the audio sounds fine and the video.. while jittery, does actually keep in pace with its' audio marks. So now that I think about it, I guess it's conceivable it is dropping frames.

I don't think it is any coincidence that the only HD-DVD's I have had playback issues with were VC-1 Encoded Universal Releases. (Sneakers, for instance. EXACT same playback issue, until a patch to PowerDVD corrected the issue. Now it plays back just fine.)

uolsona

12-27-07, 10:10 PM

I'm having the exact same problem with Bourne Ultimatum. I just installed the LG drive this weekend. I have tried two other Blu-Rays and they ran fine. Bourne Ultimatum is the only HD-DVD that I have tied.

I posted the below in the LG drive thread and then reposted in the 2600XT thread trying to get some ideas on how to fix. Didn't get much feedback. :cool:

I posted the below in the LG dual format drive thread but nobody else seems to be having this problem. In addition to the below I updated the driver and CCC to the 7.12 revision. But I'm still getting stuttering wiht Bourne Ultimatum. I bought Casino Royale today and it seems to run just fine.

I have a feeling it is the way I have CCC set up, but I have no idea what it would be specifically. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Originally Posted by uolsona
Hey guys,

I need some advice from some knowledgeable folks. I have been following this [LG drive] thread fairly consistently since it was started but the idea of going back through it to see if anyone else has had a similar problem isn't to appealing. Would appreciate some help.

I just got this drive yesterday and installed if today. Everything went smoothly. I installed the bundled version of PDVD and then upgraded to version 7.3 when it asked me to.

I'm trying to play my first HD-DVD (Bourne Ultimatum). It started playing fine but I'm getting some very light, to at times severe, stuttering. I think my PC has plenty of power to handle this drive smoothly (specs pasted below). I have tried to make sure that as much of the acceleration is offloaded from the CPU as possible. CPU utilization is running 15-45% but the GPU is only running at 7-9%.

I don't know if I should be looking in CCC for the solution or in the PDVD configuration menu . . . . or somewhere else?

Here are the pasted specs from my VM HTPC. Haven't had any other problems like this.

Motherboard 2919 Genuine Intel® P35 ATX Motherboard with DDR2, PCI Express, 1333MHz FSB, RAID DP35DP

Processor 3007 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6750, dual 2.66GHz cores, 1333MHz FSB, 4MB L2 Cache

CPU Cooling 2044 Arctic Cooling® Freezer 7 Pro Heatsink, Ultra Quiet Fan, Copper Heat Pipes, plus Arctic Silver™ 5 Thermal Compound

DDR2 Memory 2960 2048MB Corsair™ DDR2 PC6400 DDR2-800 (2x1024)

PCX Video 2866 256MB AMD ATI® Radeon™ HD 2600XT, 2 x DVI HDMI+Audio HDCP GDDR4

TV Tuner 2779 ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner - Internal* (HDCP Video Card Required)

Second TV Tuner 2779 ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner - Internal* (HDCP Video Card Required)

This disc stutters like crazy for me also. So far it's the only disc that I've tried that does, so I think it's a problem with this specific drive/disc combination. On another PC with the Xbox 360 drive Bourne plays fine. If I get ambitious I'm going to move the LG to the other PC and test there, but right now I'm sick of messing with this.

kylebisme

12-27-07, 11:04 PM

It's not specifically a frame drop per say, but the audio sounds fine and the video.. while jittery, does actually keep in pace with its' audio marks. So now that I think about it, I guess it's conceivable it is dropping frames.

Yeah, that is frame dropping, the movie is 24 frames per second but frames are skipped when the decodeing can't keep up. I'm curious to hear what the bitrates are when you are seeing the problem as well as what revision of video drivers you are using.

MKANET

12-27-07, 11:49 PM

I guess mine is a different issue..

Yeah, that is frame dropping, the movie is 24 frames per second but frames are skipped when the decodeing can't keep up. I'm curious to hear what the bitrates are when you are seeing the problem as well as what revision of video drivers you are using.

Irish_Comer

12-28-07, 06:12 AM

I had a similar problem with The Bourne Ultimatum and micro-stutter. My problem was being caused by reclock. Reclock thought the disk was encoded at 29.70 fps and so could not play it smoothly at either 60Hz or 48Hz refresh rate. The solution for me was to go into Configure Reclock and under the Video Settings Tab, remove he ticks from the three methods to determine frame rate. Perhaps sme others are using reclock and might find this useful.

Socio

12-28-07, 09:58 AM

Bourne Ultimatum is jumping and stuttering like crazy under PowerDVD Ultra Build 3516. Anyone having this same issue? I can get the DVD side to play just fine, but the HD-DVD side is super jittery.

Double checked the disc surface, and it is spotless and pristine on both sides.
I am not running AnyDVD HD as I had to uninstall it, it was fouling up too the playback of too many of my HD-DVD's.

Try turning off U-Control, you might need to start the disc, when it gets to the play screen, right click and jump to any chapter then jump back to the main menu then turn it off to get U-Control to shut off properly, even then don't hit play just jump to chapter one. I have had to do this with most HD DVDs that have U-Control due to it causing the stuttering problems.

rdewey

12-28-07, 01:38 PM

I put in a brand-new copy of Bourne Ultimatum HD DVD into my LG combo drive connected to a Vista home premium computer and got the notoritous message about needing to update Power DVD ultra to play the title; of course, regardless of what I clicked (yes or no) the disk wouldn't play.

Then I moved my LG drive to another system running Windows XP media center and in that computer, PowerDVD kept giving me a "disk drive door is open" message indicating that it couldn't read the disk.

On a lark, because of a suggestion by Netflix when you get a HD DVD you can't read, I took my brand new disk (which was visually spotless) to the sink and washed it with soap and warm water, dried it, and put it back into the LG drive connected to my XP computer and to my AMAZEMENT, the disk played flawlessly. Not to be outdone, I took my drive back to my Vista computer, and again, it played fine.

Moral of this story: for ANY problem with HD DVD playback on a HTPC, try washing the disk first, then let us know if you still have a problem. I have learned that invisible films on a disk (even a brand-new store-bought disk) can prevent successful playback of a HD DVD title...

jtscribe

12-28-07, 02:37 PM

laguna_b

12-28-07, 02:41 PM

Andy o

12-28-07, 03:24 PM

Does Ultra still down-rez VGA to 540P? I'm not seeing a huge quality difference (may be the movies I'm using - SpiderMan 3, 300, Transformers) between HD disks and upscaled SD DVD's. I'm not seeing anywhere in the Power DVD control panel to tell me what resolution video is being output in.

I don't think it's ever meant to not downscale the image through analog output, due to AACS restrictions. You could probably get around it using AnyDVD HD.

Believe me, if you have a 1080p-capable monitor, you WILL see the difference, especially in movies like those you just mentioned. Or are you using a smallish CRT monitor (or a less than capable LCD)?

By the way, if you wanna compare the potential of 1080p video, just get Ratatouille or Corpse Bride, and compare those. These are the sharpest I've seen so far, due to their being "filmed" in the digital domain, with sources much higher in resolution than 1080p. So essentially, 1080p is a downscale for these movies. Most other computer-generated movies should be the same, but I haven't seen others.

laguna_b

12-28-07, 03:33 PM

Mark_A_W

12-28-07, 04:37 PM

PWNKAKE

12-28-07, 04:46 PM

Well, i'm so impressed with the drive and the current setup i have, i'm going for the full version of PDVD. Would you guys be so kind to advise me here on this matter?

Is this version of POWERDVD from Newegg the same as the version on the Cyberlink website?
NEWEGG: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681565108SF

CYBERLINK Website: http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_112_ENU.html

If so, why is the version at Newegg so much cheaper.. AND will i be able to make an ISO of the downloadable version for future use should i loose a drive?

Thanks. :)

Davinleeds

12-28-07, 04:56 PM

Is Bourne Ultimatum MPEG4-AVC?

VC1

kylebisme

12-28-07, 05:20 PM

If so, why is the version at Newegg so much cheaper..
Because, unlike Cyberlink, Newegg sells it for less than the MSRP.

AND will i be able to make an ISO of the downloadable version for future use should i loose a drive?
You can copy the download to an optical disk or a flash drive or wherever you like, or just download another copy from Newegg or elsewhere and use the activation code Newegg sold you.

PWNKAKE

12-28-07, 05:31 PM

Thanks. :)

laguna_b

12-28-07, 05:39 PM

Because, unlike Cyberlink, Newegg sells it for less than the MSRP.

You can copy the download to an optical disk or a flash drive or wherever you like, or just download another copy from Newegg or elsewhere and use the activation code Newegg sold you.

Better yet, get an HP HD-DVD drive or LG dual drive and get the OEM version FREE!

kylebisme

12-28-07, 05:45 PM

I did that first, but I wanted surround sound in situations where the OEM version limits audio playback to 2 channels, so I had to spend another $72 on the full version.

laguna_b

12-28-07, 06:04 PM

I did that first, but I wanted surround sound in situations where the OEM version limits audio playback to 2 channels, so I had to spend another $72 on the full version.

I get 5.1 through SPDIF on my system using the OEM version. I don't have analog output from the iMac for more than 2 and I never tried it on the PC I set up for HTPC. But my Denon receiver sees 5.1 (other options work as well I suspect)

I went through a whole series of downloads from Cyberlink to get my system running so I am not absolutely sure one of them didn't enable it, but I doubt it.

Just choose SPDIF in the audio setup.

One more thing...that extra money went for a later version of the SW that won't play from an HDD unless you convert to iso. :(

Socio

12-28-07, 06:18 PM

On the Borne Ultimatum stutter problem; perhaps it is an audio problem I know on my HD DVD import version of Ghost Rider that playing it using DTS 2.0 works fine but playing it back with DTS HD 5.1 enabled will make the video stutter.

nm88

12-28-07, 06:28 PM

Davinleeds

12-28-07, 06:41 PM

Through spdif no jerkyness, info shows Audio MLP 5.1 1872kbps varies bitrate 24.9 varies receiver lights up digital, currently playing.
I have it at DDPlus 5.1 384Kbps now, stutters when I do web page changes on primary monitor.

ditcho

12-28-07, 07:29 PM

Does Ultra still down-rez VGA to 540P? I'm not seeing a huge quality difference (may be the movies I'm using - SpiderMan 3, 300, Transformers) between HD disks and upscaled SD DVD's. I'm not seeing anywhere in the Power DVD control panel to tell me what resolution video is being output in.

This is one of the most persistant untrue rumours I've been reading on the net. It never has down-rezzed VGA to 540p, with or without HDCP. There aren't any discs in North America that have that flag set yet. I don't know how this rumour has started (perhaps a hearsay). It can very easily be checked using the DVE high definition HD DVD - a quick look on the resolution pattern shows full 1280x720 perfect pixel mapping on my 1280x720 native resolution screen through VGA. And there is HDCP on the disc.
I'm sure this won't kill the downrez legend, but I decided to throw my 2 cents, in case anyone cares about the facts.

kylebisme

12-28-07, 08:07 PM

I get 5.1 through SPDIF on my system using the OEM version.
Same here, for most stuff. Try a TrueHD 5.1 track though, it decodes as 2 channel with the OEM version.

Davinleeds

12-28-07, 08:36 PM

Same here, for most stuff. Try a TrueHD 5.1 track though, it decodes as 2 channel with the OEM version.

Where would we see that?

ausvette

12-28-07, 09:26 PM

Where would we see that?

Well I've only been able to get stereo PCM off the Blu-Ray version of Fifth Element Remastered which has Dolby TrueHd over spdif. This is with Powerdvd Ultra all versions I've tried (including latest).

Anyone had more luck with this movie - only one I've had this sort of problem with ?

kylebisme

12-28-07, 09:34 PM

Where would we see that?
Are you asking where you would see at a TrueHD 5.1 track? Lots of Blu-ray and HD DVDs use the codec. Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You in Time is the one disk I own that uses TrueHD for 5.1 while the DD track is only 2.0, leaving no way to get surround sound off the disk with the OEM version of PDVDU.

kylebisme

12-28-07, 09:42 PM

Well I've only been able to get stereo PCM off the Blu-Ray version of Fifth Element Remastered which has Dolby TrueHd over spdif. This is with Powerdvd Ultra all versions I've tried (including latest).

Anyone had more luck with this movie - only one I've had this sort of problem with ?
I'm not sure what you are asking, Dobly TrueHD won't fit over S/PDIF. The remastered version of the The Fifth Element has two English tracks, one 5.1 PCM and the other 5.1 TrueHD. I don't have that disk, but I have others using the same audio formats, and PCM will work with S/PDIF mixing enabled in both versions, while only the retail version supports surround sound for TrueHD.

jtscribe

12-28-07, 09:45 PM

I don't think it's ever meant to not downscale the image through analog output, due to AACS restrictions. You could probably get around it using AnyDVD HD.

Believe me, if you have a 1080p-capable monitor, you WILL see the difference, especially in movies like those you just mentioned. Or are you using a smallish CRT monitor (or a less than capable LCD)?

By the way, if you wanna compare the potential of 1080p video, just get Ratatouille or Corpse Bride, and compare those. These are the sharpest I've seen so far, due to their being "filmed" in the digital domain, with sources much higher in resolution than 1080p. So essentially, 1080p is a downscale for these movies. Most other computer-generated movies should be the same, but I haven't seen others.

Bummer. My TV's native res, 1366x768, is only available through VGA. I went ahead and hooked it up, DVI-HDMI, at 720P, and after getting the colors set up right, there is a definite quality difference. I suppose I'm losing a little bit of screen real estate, but the panel seems to be scaling the input signal pretty decently.

Everything I've read indicates that unless you're using a fairly large screen, there isn't much of a noticeable difference between 720p and 1080p. I've currently got a 37", and I don't think I could talk the wife into a 40"+ 1080p screen right after dropping 300 bones on a HD disk drive. ;)

Davinleeds

12-28-07, 09:47 PM

Are you asking where you would see at a TrueHD 5.1 track? Lots of Blu-ray and HD DVDs use the codec. Nine Inch Nails Live: Beside You in Time is the one disk I own that uses TrueHD for 5.1 while the DD track is only 2.0, leaving no way to get surround sound off the disk with the OEM version of PDVDU.
I've plenty of HDDVD with HD sound tracks. Where does it show on your Ultra or other wise that you are getting 5.1 audio verses the OEM version. As far as I've read no PDVD version does the HD audio. You stated you upgraded from OEM to Ultra to get 5.1. Where does Ultra show this?

Andy o

12-28-07, 10:10 PM

Bummer. My TV's native res, 1366x768, is only available through VGA. I went ahead and hooked it up, DVI-HDMI, at 720P, and after getting the colors set up right, there is a definite quality difference. I suppose I'm losing a little bit of screen real estate, but the panel seems to be scaling the input signal pretty decently.

Everything I've read indicates that unless you're using a fairly large screen, there isn't much of a noticeable difference between 720p and 1080p. I've currently got a 37", and I don't think I could talk the wife into a 40"+ 1080p screen right after dropping 300 bones on a HD disk drive. ;)

I still don't have a big-screen TV, but I do have a pretty good NEC 25.5" LCD that provides 1920x1200 resolution. It is my first and probably will be my only LCD ever, because I didn't wanna have that nonsense of 1680x1050 or less resolution if I knew 1080p content was gonna be out soon.

So it is small, but I sit close to the monitor like with any PC. You're right, you can't probably see the difference between 720p and 1080p with a 37" TV from TV viewing distance, but no one can say there's no significant difference between them because of that. There IS a difference, and with a good 1080p monitor or TV and good enough viewing distance, AND with a good source (like Ratatouille and Corpse Bride, etc,) you will see a difference.

I remember not very long ago, might have been just more than a year, there were MANY naysayers about all the 1080p-capable TVs that were coming out. Their main point was that there's no reason to buy one because "there's no 1080p content available". What a dumb argument. But they also said that there's not much difference between 720p and 1080p. I doubt that. I can't see much difference in 1080i and 720p content from broadcast HDTV, but with the right source like those movies, you can see the full potential of 1080p. Because 1080p is already very high resolution, the source has very big shoes to fill, in order to get the full potential. Many movies just don't have a high enough-resolution to begin with at the source (the master), so at 720p they might look pretty much the same.

kylebisme

12-28-07, 10:11 PM

I've plenty of HDDVD with HD sound tracks. Where does it show on your Ultra or other wise that you are getting 5.1 audio verses the OEM version. As far as I've read no PDVD version does the HD audio. You stated you upgraded from OEM to Ultra to get 5.1. Where does Ultra show this?

Both the crippled OEM version and the retail full version are called PowerDVD Ultra, and show what it is decoding on the "Show Information" overlay which can be toggled from the right-click menu while playing a movie. The OEM version says TrueHD 5.1 tracks are 2.0, and it outputs only stereo sound when playing them. The full version shows the track being decoded as 5.1, and it outputs sound for all 5.1 channels.

kylebisme

12-28-07, 10:32 PM

Ah, I overlooked this part of the discussion:

Bummer. My TV's native res, 1366x768, is only available through VGA. I went ahead and hooked it up, DVI-HDMI, at 720P, and after getting the colors set up right, there is a definite quality difference. I suppose I'm losing a little bit of screen real estate, but the panel seems to be scaling the input signal pretty decently.
You are downsampling 1920x1080 video to 1280x720 on your PC, and then upsampling that to 1366x768. All else being equal, you are loosing sharpness there which you would otherwise have if you used VGA to run a higher resolution to your display. Granted, HDMI might look better in other respects to make it the preferable option, but only if your videocard and/or display doesn't handle VGA well.

I don't think it's ever meant to not downscale the image through analog output, due to AACS restrictions.
It doesn't downsample the analog output, and there is no AACS restriction requireing it to. There is only an Image Constraint Token specified by the AACS that can be implemented to require downsampling video prior to analog output, but that is not used on any currently released disks and likely won't be used at all for at least another year.

I remember not very long ago, might have been just more than a year, there were MANY naysayers about all the 1080p-capable TVs that were coming out. Their main point was that there's no reason to buy one because "there's no 1080p content available". What a dumb argument.
That was a dumb argument even then. 1080i content is actually from 1080p source material and is only interlaced to conform to trasmision standards. A progressive scan display deinterlaces that content and recovers the 1080p source images, so there was plenty of 1080p content even back when the vast majority of the HD content avalable was that which is brodcast at 1080i.

Because 1080p is already very high resolution, the source has very big shoes to fill, in order to get the full potential. Many movies just don't have a high enough-resolution to begin with at the source (the master), so at 720p they might look pretty much the same.
The vast majorty of Hollywood movies are shot of flim that has an effective resolution far greater than 1080p.

laguna_b

12-28-07, 10:43 PM

Both the crippled OEM version and the retail full version are called PowerDVD Ultra, and show what it is decoding on the "Show Information" overlay which can be toggled from the right-click menu while playing a movie. The OEM version says TrueHD 5.1 tracks are 2.0, and it outputs only stereo sound when playing them. The full version shows the track being decoded as 5.1, and it outputs sound for all 5.1 channels.

Seems like a lot to pay $99 for....and then have HDD playback hobbled. Do you feel the audio difference is worth it? Are there a lot of titles where you get an advantage vs. regular 5.1?

kapone

12-28-07, 10:49 PM

"The vast majorty of Hollywood movies are shot of flim that has an effective resolution far greater than 1080p."

In excess of 4000p.

Davinleeds

12-28-07, 10:50 PM

"Both the crippled OEM version and the retail full version are called PowerDVD Ultra"
Can you provide a version#? Also a screen shot? Thanks. Since PDVD can't output HD Audio it should output it as 2.0 I'm interested in PDVD outputing True HD 5.1 as 5.1 as you state.

kylebisme

12-29-07, 12:35 AM

Seems like a lot to pay $99 for....and then have HDD playback hobbled. Do you feel the audio difference is worth it? Are there a lot of titles where you get an advantage vs. regular 5.1?
I paid $72 though Newegg, and couldn't care less about playing ripped content. As for the difference, that depends on your setup, the content you run on it, and what you'd like to get out of that. Personally, I have no regrets with the purchase.

"Both the crippled OEM version and the retail full version are called PowerDVD Ultra"
Can you provide a version#? Also a screen shot? Thanks. Since PDVD can't output HD Audio it should output it as 2.0 I'm interested in PDVD outputing True HD 5.1 as 5.1 as you state.

I am using the latest version, 7.3.3319f. As for a screenshot, at least on my setup PDVDU disables Windows's print screen function, but I used Vista's Snipping Tool to grab the image I attached. The video overlay is comes out blank, but the Show Information overlay was is captured fine and shows it decoding TrueHD 5.1.

Anyway, you seem to be confused as to the ablities of the software as well as what constitutes HD audio. Even the OEM version outputs 5.1 PCM over analog just fine, and that is HD audio. The OEM version also supports TrueHD too, just as 2.0 max. That TrueHD 2.0 is still HD audio all the same, it just isn't surround sound like you can get with the full version of PowerDVD. I'm not sure how DTS-MA support works as I don't have any disks with such tracks, but I'm guessing it is restricted to 2.0 on the OEM version but the full version allows surround sound just like TrueHD.

Note on my screenshot, down near the bottom right corner, it says "Deluxe Version" where as the OEM says "2CH" instead. That "2CH" on the OEM version alludes to it's crippled sound support.

PWNKAKE

12-29-07, 01:17 AM

Well i got Power DVD ultra installed after purchasing it from Newegg... and i can report back that it does indeed sound better.. however. I'm very upset i can't get the DTS mixing working without the "Tinny" sound.. kinda like a feedback loop within the audio. The feature sounds better as far as seperation and "punch" and i can't leave it on because of the feedback whine involved. I've used lots of words to describe it hoping some of you guys have also heard it and found a workaround. I read back quite a few pages and found evidence of this same issue reported by a few users. Anyone got it working correctly??? And on what hardware.. or is it simply just a broken feature? (appears to be in the past posts, but i was hoping someone might have found a work around since there has been no mention of it in a few posts).

Thanks!!

bondisdead

12-29-07, 02:03 AM

I paid $72 though Newegg, and couldn't care less about playing ripped content. As for the difference, that depends on your setup, the content you run on it, and what you'd like to get out of that. Personally, I have no regrets with the purchase.

I am using the latest version, 7.3.3319f. As for a screenshot, at least on my setup PDVDU disables Windows's print screen function, but I used Vista's Snipping Tool to grab the image I attached. The video overlay is comes out blank, but the Show Information overlay was is captured fine and shows it decoding TrueHD 5.1.

Anyway, you seem to be confused as to the ablities of the software as well as what constitutes HD audio. Even the OEM version outputs 5.1 PCM over analog just fine, and that is HD audio. The OEM version also supports TrueHD too, just as 2.0 max. That TrueHD 2.0 is still HD audio all the same, it just isn't surround sound like you can get with the full version of PowerDVD. I'm not sure how DTS-MA support works as I don't have any disks with such tracks, but I'm guessing it is restricted to 2.0 on the OEM version but the full version allows surround sound just like TrueHD.

Note on my screenshot, down near the bottom right corner, it says "Deluxe Version" where as the OEM says "2CH" instead. That "2CH" on the OEM version alludes to it's crippled sound support.

I also have PowerDVD Ultra Deluxe (retail version), and have no issues with playing from my hard-drive. Let me look at which version I have, as that is a concern if I do an update at some point!!

I am curious about how you are getting the TrueHD 5.1 out of your computer and into your receiver/amplifier? I have tried both 8-channel analog out from the Realtek audio on my Asus MB, and also the SPDIF. I can get 5.1 via the SPDIF (though probably downmixed, and not TrueHD), but I cannot seem to get my receiver ot play the TrueHD 5.1. I have an Onkyo SR805, which has this capability. I would think it would display this info. Anyways, just hoping you could share your setup, as it might help me fix mine! :-)

kylebisme

12-29-07, 03:25 AM

Andy o

12-29-07, 03:38 AM

It doesn't downsample the analog output, and there is no AACS restriction requireing it to. There is only an Image Constraint Token specified by the AACS that can be implemented to require downsampling video prior to analog output, but that is not used on any currently released disks and likely won't be used at all for at least another year.

OK, noted. I didn't realize that no one was implementing the ICT. Hey, if people say that their image is being downscaled to 540p, I have no reason not to believe them. I would assume they can tell the difference clearly between that and 1080 resolution or how to test it.

The vast majorty of Hollywood movies are shot of flim that has an effective resolution far greater than 1080p.

That may be so ideally, (or not, in some cases), but the master from which the 1080p video is taken from many times (I would say most) is not up to par with the potential of 1080p, be it from age degradation, or just plain cost-cutting mishandling of the process. Also, dark scenes shot with high-sensitivity film or digital cameras should lose a lot of resolution, you can even see this in very new HD movies like Ocean's 13. Sometimes I have seen lens aberrations in the movies that limit the resolution to lower than what 1080p can resolve too, but on DVD or maybe even 720p they aren't very noticeable, or at all. That's the fault of the source equipment, admittedly not the film itself, but you know, the weakest link dictates resolution here.

Anyway, if all or even most movies coming out in 1080p had a higher resolution source, we wouldn't be seeing such huge differences between the 1080p final HD discs. Most movies I've seen in HD don't even come close to Ratatouille and Corpse Bride (and presumably other digital source material). Corpse bride admittedly has an analog capture (the sensor on the Canon 1D II is still analog, before A/D), but the sensor being much bigger and higher resolution than most HD digital cameras compensates for that.

Andy o

12-29-07, 03:44 AM

"The vast majorty of Hollywood movies are shot of flim that has an effective resolution far greater than 1080p."

In excess of 4000p.

That does seem like too much. Can you point me to some sources? Even photo 35mm film doesn't resolve 2000 line pairs/picture height easily, or at all. I reckon 35mm movie film is even smaller. You're not talking about 70mm stock are you?

tsb

12-29-07, 07:29 AM

That does seem like too much. Can you point me to some sources? Even photo 35mm film doesn't resolve 2000 line pairs/picture height easily, or at all. I reckon 35mm movie film is even smaller. You're not talking about 70mm stock are you?

I think it's the lenses that hold back perceived detail. Even the best lenses can't fully utilize the formats.

I've also seen lots of sources claim we'd need at least 25MP to match 35mm resolution, so 1080p is far off.

I've seen those Chemei medical LCDs with a really high resolution (1500p?) that completely blew away any 1080p material I've ever seen. They were showing some bees working around their hive in the demo I saw. I'm not sure what the source was though.

politby

12-29-07, 11:38 AM

-->kylebisme:
I also have an X-Fi. Can you share how you have PDVD and other decoding s/w (including the Creative driver) set up to get the hd soundtrack output over analog?

thanks
politby

sarah99

12-29-07, 11:53 AM

That does seem like too much. Can you point me to some sources? Even photo 35mm film doesn't resolve 2000 line pairs/picture height easily, or at all. I reckon 35mm movie film is even smaller. You're not talking about 70mm stock are you?

"• The resolution of the movies shown in theaters

And now to answer your last question, “What is the resolution of the movies shown in theaters?” This one isn’t as easy to answer because well, there is no fixed answer. Film stock isn’t bound by the same rules that make up the pixels in a frame of video. Most of the data I’ll cite from here on out comes from a great study done by the International Telecommunications Union, specifically sub-group 6 new window which deals with large screen digital imagery. Their study titled ‘Image resolution of 35mm film used in theatrical presentation’ is as close to the definitive word as I’ve found on the subject.

One thing to keep in mind is that analog film has no ‘lines of resolution’ as we know them in the video world, but it is possible to arrive at a comparative resolution by using a resolution-chart in the frame that equates to fixed video resolutions.

The study indicated a 35mm negative has a resolution in excess of 2400 lines by picture height but obviously we don’t watch negatives, the film has to be processed into a stock reel. Those tested stock reels were found to have a maximum comparative line resolution of 1400 lines P/H, still considerably more resolution than 1080p’s vertical integer. (Note: the P/H formula is used because film has the same vertical and horizontal resolution, where video does not.)

Luckily the study new window also included real-world data collected at a sampling of movie houses. I say luckily because no matter how good the film stock, the theater’s equipment plays just as much into how the projected image looks as the film itself.
This part of the study only reinforces my anticipation for high definition DVD as the numbers indicated what we’re seeing at the theater in many cases falls short of 1080p. The study indicated a comparative, average line resolution of between 685 lines and 875 lines P/H. But again don’t let these numbers alarm you as the film stock itself is more than capable of bettering HDTV, it seems it’s the movie houses that have been letting us down."

Andy o

12-29-07, 12:10 PM

"• The resolution of the movies shown in theaters

And now to answer your last question, “What is the resolution of the movies shown in theaters?” This one isn’t as easy to answer because well, there is no fixed answer. Film stock isn’t bound by the same rules that make up the pixels in a frame of video. Most of the data I’ll cite from here on out comes from a great study done by the International Telecommunications Union, specifically sub-group 6 new window which deals with large screen digital imagery. Their study titled ‘Image resolution of 35mm film used in theatrical presentation’ is as close to the definitive word as I’ve found on the subject.

One thing to keep in mind is that analog film has no ‘lines of resolution’ as we know them in the video world, but it is possible to arrive at a comparative resolution by using a resolution-chart in the frame that equates to fixed video resolutions.

The study indicated a 35mm negative has a resolution in excess of 2400 lines by picture height but obviously we don’t watch negatives, the film has to be processed into a stock reel. Those tested stock reels were found to have a maximum comparative line resolution of 1400 lines P/H, still considerably more resolution than 1080p’s vertical integer. (Note: the P/H formula is used because film has the same vertical and horizontal resolution, where video does not.)

Luckily the study new window also included real-world data collected at a sampling of movie houses. I say luckily because no matter how good the film stock, the theater’s equipment plays just as much into how the projected image looks as the film itself.
This part of the study only reinforces my anticipation for high definition DVD as the numbers indicated what we’re seeing at the theater in many cases falls short of 1080p. The study indicated a comparative, average line resolution of between 685 lines and 875 lines P/H. But again don’t let these numbers alarm you as the film stock itself is more than capable of bettering HDTV, it seems it’s the movie houses that have been letting us down."

Where's that taken from?

Anyway, it seems to back up my assumptions, if that's what you meant. I was talking about a resolution of 2000 line pairs/picture height (what the other poster's claim of "4000p" theoretically implies), so these numbers quoted are even less than that. 800 lines per picture height, from the context of the quote, is just 400 line pairs/PH. That's just below the theoretical 540 line pairs/PH of 1080p video, and probably close to the actual 1080p resolution in practice for most movies. That seems to agree with the observation that many, if not most, 1080p movies are already resolution-limited at the source.

jatoghia

12-29-07, 12:10 PM

By the way, it took over two week of b%#&@ing at Cyberlink and dealing with their incredibly incompetent technical support staff that never got a grasp of the problem I was seeing (until I created a web page showing what I should be seeing and what I am seeing) for them to contact their product validation team and confirm there is a bug in PowerDVD Ultra that causes their software to disable nVidia's HDTV overscan compensation during playback of HD-DVD and Blu-ray sources.

nVidia figured out the problem immediately when they said that 3rd party software can use a default profile instead of the custom profile that is created under the nVidia control panel, thereby causing your perfectly sized screen that you so painstakingly adjusted to fit a Samsung DLP television to revert to its default setting, which in my case stretches the screen beyond the edges of my TV and consequently cuts off about 5-10% of the image in each dimension.

Cyberlink told me that they are now working on a fix. Stay tuned.

sarah99

12-29-07, 12:19 PM

Where's that taken from?

taken from here
http://www.hometheaterblog.com/hometheater/2006/04/mailbag_hd_movi.html

similar one here
http://www.filmschoolonline.com/sample_lessons/sample_lesson_HD_vs_35mm.htm

The prints were projected in six movie theaters in various countries, and a panel of experts made the assessments of the projected images using a well defined formula. The results are as follows: 35mm RESOLUTION Measurement

Perceived lines actually viewable
Answer Print MTF 1400
Release Print MTF 1000
Theater Highest Assessment 875
Theater Average Assessment 750

Conclusion
surprisingly they say 1080p looks just as good/better than they can see in the cinema

(but I can't find what they were comparing, a 1080p picture showing a 2.35:1 movie only has a resolution of 800 lines of picture
so if they were counting from top to bottom of the picture in the theatre ..... the MTF of 1400 would be almost 4x the resolution of 1080p)

marbanno

12-29-07, 12:22 PM

Good work! I've been having the same problem and had to revert to a 4:3 aspect ratio to pull everything in. Hopefullly Cyberlink will come out with a solution

laguna_b

12-29-07, 12:53 PM

I use analog connections from a Creative X-Fi to to a Denon 2805. Nothing supports TrueHD over S/PDIF, the connection simply doesn't have the bandwidth handle such high bitrate formats. But what trouble are you having with analog output?

I am not sure what the limits of the spec are but the media can support an EASY 50mb/s. I worked with POF (plastic optical fiber) at well over 100mb/s and as i recall I went either 50 or 100 feet.

laguna_b

12-29-07, 01:01 PM

Conclusion
surprisingly 1080p looks just as good/better than you will see in the cinema

You must go to really good theaters....I gave up theaters which seemed to have teh resolving power of a weak DVD on my Barco 1209. Film certainly CAN be a lot better but only if you go to a really good theater. Personally I get disappointed at the softness of the image now. (not to mention the other disadvantages)

AbMagFab

12-29-07, 01:32 PM

You must go to really good theaters....I gave up theaters which seemed to have teh resolving power of a weak DVD on my Barco 1209. Film certainly CAN be a lot better but only if you go to a really good theater. Personally I get disappointed at the softness of the image now. (not to mention the other disadvantages)

- Soft Image
- Dull images
- Sticky floors
- Noisy teenagers
- Lousy sound (many seem to be front-only nowadays)
- Underlit (like 10fl or something bad)
- Uncomfortable seats
- Stale popcorn-from-a-plastic-bag
- $10+ per person per ticket

Rew452

12-29-07, 01:42 PM

rdgrimes

12-29-07, 01:58 PM

I got this with the new LG GGC-H20L drive. Uninstalled an older OEM version of PDVD and installed this one. The program does not show up in my programs list, or in the "HD manager" thingy that Cyberlink installs. However, it does show up in "Add-Remove Programs", and all the program files are present. If I try to launch the program from the EXE program file, I get a message window telling me that my trial period has expired and asking for a license code.

I'll be damned if I'll go buy the retail version if I can't get this one to work first. Cyberlink pretty much refuses to support it because it's OEM. Obviously I'll get nowhere with LG "support".

Any thoughts on this? I've done registry cleaning, re-installs and about everything I can think of to get a clean install. There's no help files or instruction anywhere on the CD.
CDan is online now Report Post Reply With Quote

SDplus

12-29-07, 02:09 PM

I just downloaded and installed Catalyst 7.12 for my HD2600XT cards... Somethings really fishy now.
On Catalyst 7.11 and one of the threads favourite versions of PDVDU (2911 I think, havn't found a link to any newer favourite) I had no problems playing back file-backups of HD-DVD from the server, and It tried it best with Blu-Ray backups, but that hardware support has been bad since Catalyst 7.7 or something. Anyway, now with Catalyst 7.12 PDVD wont even try playing any Server or hard-drive based HD-DVD or Blu-Ray at all.

Are the industry attacking this from all angles? btw, the Catalyst 8.x that came with a friends HD3850 showed no such symptoms... This is on Vista 32-bit btw.

Maybe all this will solve itself in a week when I move back to XP pro for HTPC use...?

Anyway, I just wanted to hear if anyone else have this problem (and also if anyone have a link to the famous 3319a, which I as a paying customer to Cyberlink have no access to for some reason)?

Best Regards
Bo Eriksson

laguna_b

12-29-07, 02:16 PM

tsb

12-29-07, 02:17 PM

7.12, 2600XT, Vista 64, 3319a, no problems here except with BD+ backups. I still get garbled video with BD+ disks after the Fox intro

try rapidshare or tehparadox

laguna_b

12-29-07, 02:24 PM

kylebisme

12-29-07, 02:50 PM

-->kylebisme:
I also have an X-Fi. Can you share how you have PDVD and other decoding s/w (including the Creative driver) set up to get the hd soundtrack output over analog?

thanks
politby
I've got my Windows sound properties set to "Speakers" configured for 5.1 and PDVDU set for 6 channel output. There is nothing more to it than that aside from selecting the HD audio track on the movie itself, either though it's setup menu or though the right-click menu of PDVDU. PDVDUs software does the decoding, Sound device drivers aren't aloud to do decoding in Vista, but even if they were Creative's drivers only support standard DD and DTS decoding, not the HD codecs. So yeah, getting it working should be rather staightforward, perhaps if you explain your own setup I might be able to point out where the problem is.

vddobrev

12-29-07, 02:53 PM

I'm not sure what you are asking, Dobly TrueHD won't fit over S/PDIF. The remastered version of the The Fifth Element has two English tracks, one 5.1 PCM and the other 5.1 TrueHD. I don't have that disk, but I have others using the same audio formats, and both both work with S/PDIF mixing enabled in the retail version of PDVDU. Neither provide surround sound over S/PDIF with the OEM version though, regardless of what updates you apply to it.

This is not true, I have the OEM version, and I get DTS 5.1 over SPDIF. Select the uncompressed PCM track, then when the movie starts playing, open setup and check SPDIF mixing in the Audio setup.

kylebisme

12-29-07, 03:03 PM

Ah, yeah, my bad. I suppose I should go back and edit that.

bondisdead

12-29-07, 04:02 PM

I use analog connections from a Creative X-Fi to to a Denon 2805. Nothing supports TrueHD over S/PDIF, the connection simply doesn't have the bandwidth handle such high bitrate formats. But what trouble are you having with analog output?

CyberLink advertises TrueHD on the splash screen for the player, so how do we get that? Guess the only way is via HDMI, so I guess I'm waiting for an audio card that supports mixing audio/video.

Your Denon 2805 takes in the analog multi-channel 5.1 and recognizes it as TrueHD? I just have problems going back and forth between analog and digital connections, as I can get analog thru cyberlink, but no sound when using mediacenter. It's starting to look like a standalone player might have been a better investment!

kapone

12-29-07, 04:08 PM

"as I can get analog thru cyberlink, but no sound when using mediacenter"

huh? That doesn't make sense. If your audio system is setup for analog outs (i.e. it is doing the decoding), Media Center, PowerDVD (or any other program for that matter) should have no issues sending the audio out over analog.

Try going under Media Center setup, and setup MC to use your analog outs.

kylebisme

12-29-07, 04:30 PM

CyberLink advertises TrueHD on the splash screen for the player, so how do we get that? Guess the only way is via HDMI, so I guess I'm waiting for an audio card that supports mixing audio/video.

Your Denon 2805 takes in the analog multi-channel 5.1 and recognizes it as TrueHD?
No, my Denon recognizes it as what it is at that point, 6 channels of analog audio. TrueHD is a digital bitstream format, PDVDU decodes that bitstream to PCM and that is what CyberLink is advertising on the splash screen. That PCM can be output over HDMI by sound devices that support multichannel PCM over HDMI; or, as I do, the sound device can that convet that PCM to the analog audio and output that.

stud

12-29-07, 04:30 PM

Hi all,

I yesterday received my LG GGC-H20L over here in the uk, i bought cyberlink powerdvd 7.3 ultra.

I have been having some teething problems though, I got three HD movies with the LG drive, Robocop, Die Hard 4.0 on Bluray and Transformers on HD-DVD.

First i had a problem with the bluray films, they just start to play and no menu comes up, after a while i figured out that if i press control-p the popup menu comes up and i can change scenes and get special features. However when i do go into special features for example, the popup menu then doesnt come back up and i am stuck in whatever special feature i am watching until it finishes.

Is this right ?

Is there a way to get to the title menu in Bluray films?,as that options is totally greyed out, both die hard 4 and robocop are smart menu films but as i say the film just starts. Another thing that happens in robocop is around half way through i always get a slight pause, is there a layer break in these films or is there something wrong with the disc, if it does this on the same bit of film every time. Do bluray films have layer breaks ?

Lastly on transformers if you watch the HUD special feature there is no sound when the PIP parts are on ? Has anyone else had this.

Sorry for being a noob i just dont know about this stuff.

rdgrimes

12-29-07, 04:43 PM

This is a tough one. Are you running in XP or Vista? I have some experience running in XP though nothing like this. They do ahve paid phone support for $29 that is marginally better than zero but they will email you links to other versions of the SW, not Ultra though.

XP-SP2. Only other thing I can think of is to download a trial version of Ultra and try that.

laguna_b

12-29-07, 04:50 PM

XP-SP2. Only other thing I can think of is to download a trial version of Ultra and try that.

That would show you if there was a program install icon and I think it would play DVDs but not HD or BR. But it would give you some info anyway.

I too am running XP SP2 and never seen a problem like you have. If it is a new installation it might be worthwhile to clean the drive and start from scratch. YOu did all the right things like cleaning the registry, but if you can go back to an older point using system restore (usually does not work) that would be more sure you have a clean setup. The other possibility is that your OEM SW disk is bad and the install was never completed. If you can get it replaced that might be worth while. YOu might be able to get a downloaded version through email CS.

Socio

12-29-07, 05:01 PM

surprisingly 1080p looks just as good/better than you will see in the cinema

Here is a Article from April that has some real good information on the subject like HDMI 1.3 is capable of 1440P and 4K Home theatres are around the corner.

Explaining Video "Number Soup"
(http://www.modernhometheater.com/howto/number_soup_explained/index.html)

I have been told that the next set of chips and the HDMI 1.3 standard are working, so that we can have 1440p video, which is a pretty significant improvement in terms of resolution

A move from 1080p to 4k is like trading in your E-Class Mercedes for an F1 race car. It is more performance on every level and it won’t be realistic for any consumers to buy for at least three to five years, but it is important to know it’s coming some day.

laguna_b

12-29-07, 05:29 PM

Here is a Article from April that has some real good information on the subject like HDMI 1.3 is capable of 1440P and 4K Home theatres are around the corner.

Explaining Video "Number Soup"
(http://www.modernhometheater.com/howto/number_soup_explained/index.html)

Interesting article...though I would need to be convinced that there will be any distinguishable difference between 1080p and 1440p, I defer to one who has seen it.

The author was very generous in his characterization of HDCP. HDCP is PURELY a disabler technology that serves no positive purpose, only detracts from connectivity. No one is going to try to capture the uncompressed video streaming down an HDCP connection only to have to recompress it when they can easily rip the original fully formatted as files! The war is over, studios lost, now they only have their customers to inconvenience.

High speed digital connection are noise sensitive enough that adding extra variable just makes it even more difficult to use them. With HDMI 1.3 it will only get worse. Time to drop HDCP....

Andy o

12-29-07, 10:30 PM

- Soft Image
- Dull images
- Sticky floors
- Noisy teenagers
- Lousy sound (many seem to be front-only nowadays)
- Underlit (like 10fl or something bad)
- Uncomfortable seats
- Stale popcorn-from-a-plastic-bag
- $10+ per person per ticket

Agree, except for the noisy "teenagers". Here in the U.S. (I'm in LA) people of all ages are noisy and freaking annoying. Grown adults clap at the movie in cheesy "Erin Brockovich" type scenes when the bad guys get it! Isn't that the stupidest thing to do in a movie theater. Grown adults yell at the movie, at the characters! Grown ups, for crying out loud!

Me, I love the movie theater, but if the price is right, and if it's empty. I used to go very early back in the day, like in the afternoon on weekdays. That's OK.

1080p is the best thing to happen to home theater. I really don't care as much about sound. DTS or something similar is OK with me. Woody Allen's movies are all in mono anyway.

Andy o

12-29-07, 10:53 PM

This is not true, I have the OEM version, and I get DTS 5.1 over SPDIF. Select the uncompressed PCM track, then when the movie starts playing, open setup and check SPDIF mixing in the Audio setup.

Some people reported a high-frequency ringing when you did S/PDIF mixing in DTS with PowerDVD, and I also had it when I tried, so you might get it too. The best solution is probably to get a cheap Dolby Digital Live or DTS Interactive card, or route S/PDIF through FFDshow, which lets you do something similar, though I haven't tried it.

I have the Sondigo Callisto (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829272001&Tpk=sondigo%2bcallisto) and it works great, but I'm planning on getting the Asus Xonar U1 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=asus+xonar+u1&x=0&y=0), which has all that, with the added feature of Dolby Headphone, which is indispensable to me (and works great too).

MKANET

12-29-07, 11:12 PM

Some theaters are worse than others. There's a theater complex near me where the people who usually attend the movies seem to think it's their own personal livingroom.. doing their own commentaries, opening their phones up with bright LCDs to text message people, etc. I rather just put up with the minor problems with PowerDVD that I've been having lately.

Agree, except for the noisy "teenagers". Here in the U.S. (I'm in LA) people of all ages are noisy and freaking annoying. Grown adults clap at the movie in cheesy "Erin Brockovich" type scenes when the bad guys get it! Isn't that the stupidest thing to do in a movie theater. Grown adults yell at the movie, at the characters! Grown ups, for crying out loud!

Me, I love the movie theater, but if the price is right, and if it's empty. I used to go very early back in the day, like in the afternoon on weekdays. That's OK.

1080p is the best thing to happen to home theater. I really don't care as much about sound. DTS or something similar is OK with me. Woody Allen's movies are all in mono anyway.

rdewey

12-30-07, 12:29 AM

Moral of this story: for ANY problem with HD DVD playback on a HTPC, try washing the disk first, then let us know if you still have a problem. I have learned that invisible films on a disk (even a brand-new store-bought disk) can prevent successful playback of a HD DVD title...

Update on my Bourne Ultimatum problem... After getting the disk to play I had to stop it so my son could go to bed. The next night I put it back in to play the rest and NO GOOD... the disk did not play; same error as before. After reinstalling PowerDVD ultra several times, washing the disk again, and still no joy, I finally returned the disk to BB and exchanged it for a new one.

The new disk plays fine, even without washing!

New moral of the story: not all problems with HD DVD playback are actually Cyberlink's fault (yes, this surprised me too). There is such a thing as a bad disk. I suggest you wash it first, then if it still doesn't play (and your other disks do play) then don't bother reinstalling PDVD, instead, just exchange your disk at the store (or with Netflix). I've never had a bad DVD before, but now I have had two bad HD DVDs out of about 40 that I either own or rented from Netflix. I wonder why they are having such trouble making a solid product?

daMaster

12-30-07, 02:02 AM

Update on my Bourne Ultimatum problem... After getting the disk to play I had to stop it so my son could go to bed. The next night I put it back in to play the rest and NO GOOD... the disk did not play; same error as before. After reinstalling PowerDVD ultra several times, washing the disk again, and still no joy, I finally returned the disk to BB and exchanged it for a new one.

The new disk plays fine, even without washing!

New moral of the story: not all problems with HD DVD playback are actually Cyberlink's fault (yes, this surprised me too). There is such a thing as a bad disk. I suggest you wash it first, then if it still doesn't play (and your other disks do play) then don't bother reinstalling PDVD, instead, just exchange your disk at the store (or with Netflix). I've never had a bad DVD before, but now I have had two bad HD DVDs out of about 40 that I either own or rented from Netflix. I wonder why they are having such trouble making a solid product?
Wash? Like with water and soap? Crazy!

Andy o

12-30-07, 03:12 AM

Wash? Like with water and soap? Crazy!

Not really, there are some stains that won't come out easily with just a soft cloth, and you could end up damaging the disc even more if you rub it too hard. Water and soap has worked for me with DVDs. It's not like you put them in the washing machine or anything.

stud

12-30-07, 06:37 AM

tetsuo55

12-30-07, 06:52 AM

- Soft Image
- Dull images
- Sticky floors
- Noisy teenagers
- Lousy sound (many seem to be front-only nowadays)
- Underlit (like 10fl or something bad)
- Uncomfortable seats
- Stale popcorn-from-a-plastic-bag
- $10+ per person per ticket

Actually unless they are THX and/or IMAX licensed all of them will be using "dolby surround", 4 channels, 2 in front, 2 around the side and the back

THX/IMAX will have 5.1 all around in either digital or analogue format

I must say that a THX certification helps a lot, but still doesnt fix the other issues (Sound and Image are superb though)

Faceless Rebel

12-30-07, 06:58 AM

I'll briefly report my experiences with PowerDVD and LG GGC-H20L BD/HD DVD combo drive. Popped it a self-built system, C2D E6600, Asus P5B Deluxe, Geforce 8800GTX (this box is mainly for gaming), Audigy 2, Dell 2405FPW (not HDCP compliant), XP Pro, PowerDVD Ultra Deluxe 3516 (I did not install the stupid OEM version included with the drive).

Over the DVI, I needed AnyDVD HD 6.3.0.3 (latest public release) to playback HP Order of the Phoenix Blu-Ray, but it worked perfectly. Also tested Prisoner of Azkaban, Casino Royale, and Black Hawk Down on Blu-Ray. Tested Pitch Black on HD DVD. All movies played flawlessly.

As a simple test for when my Pirates BDs arrive, since AnyDVD HD doesn't yet crack BD+, I plugged the second output from 8800GTX using a DVI->VGA adapter to the VGA input of my 2405FPW and killed AnyDVD HD and tested playback of OotP and it worked fine. So for movies which are BD+ I'll just use the analog VGA instead of the DVI for playback on my non-HDCP compliant monitor.

The drive also makes my HDD LED flash when the movies are playing.

I'm very happy with my drive as it has worked with every movie I've thrown at it. Surprisingly, PowerDVD has given me no grief at all, considering the many problems which are reported with it in this thread and the other ones. I had to set the COLORSPACE setting in the registry to 1 to make it not "double-enhance" the blacks but that is because Nvidia has started forcing video expansion in newest Forceware drivers (I always use the newest beta Forcewares as this is a gaming box) and so does PowerDVD so you crush all your blacks into oblivion. How much more black can it get? None more black. :)

talon95

12-30-07, 07:22 AM

FYI, neither the Pirates movies or Order of the Phoenix have BD+. To date, I believe only Fox releases have BD+.

Socio

12-30-07, 09:16 AM

Not really, there are some stains that won't come out easily with just a soft cloth, and you could end up damaging the disc even more if you rub it too hard. Water and soap has worked for me with DVDs. It's not like you put them in the washing machine or anything.

I use a plastic cleaning spray called Plexus and a soft cloth on my discs works great.

Vern Dias

12-30-07, 09:59 AM

Actually unless they are THX and/or IMAX licensed all of them will be using "dolby surround", 4 channels, 2 in front, 2 around the side and the back
Not true on several counts.

First, Dolby Stereo which was the original SVA Dolby delivery system first used back in 70's on optical 35mm prints has always been 4 channels, 3 in front and a mono surround channel.

Dolby Digital and DTS are configured exactly the same in front. 3 channels, LCR but with stereo surrounds and a subwoofer channel. The sole exception to this is Sony SDDS which can have up to 8 channels, 5 in front, plus stereo surrounds and subwoofer.

THX has absolutely nothing to do with the audio configuration, it only means that the theater meets or exceeds some rather stringent criteria. One example would be audio bleed through from adjacent auditoriums. Another would be minimum field of vision that someone sitting in the back row would experience looking at the screen.

IMAX audio systems are a totally different animal.

Vern

stryfetew

12-30-07, 11:33 AM

Where is the SPDIF passthrough on pdvdultra? I do not see it.

bondisdead

12-30-07, 11:40 AM

No, my Denon recognizes it as what it is at that point, 6 channels of analog audio. TrueHD is a digital bitstream format, PDVDU decodes that bitstream to PCM and that is what CyberLink is advertising on the splash screen. That PCM can be output over HDMI by sound devices that support multichannel PCM over HDMI; or, as I do, the sound device can that convet that PCM to the analog audio and output that.

So if I figure out my analog problem in media center, and pass over everything in analog, will I be getting the best possible sound? Or am I compromising it a bit? If it's the former, there is really no reason to buy an A/V receiver with TrueHD support, as long as you plan on using analog outputs. Is this correct?

Thanks for all your help! I am learning so much these last couple of days. ;-)

tetsuo55

12-30-07, 11:51 AM

Not true on several counts.

First, Dolby Stereo which was the original SVA Dolby delivery system first used back in 70's on optical 35mm prints has always been 4 channels, 3 in front and a mono surround channel.

Dolby Digital and DTS are configured exactly the same in front. 3 channels, LCR but with stereo surrounds and a subwoofer channel. The sole exception to this is Sony SDDS which can have up to 8 channels, 5 in front, plus stereo surrounds and subwoofer.

THX has absolutely nothing to do with the audio configuration, it only means that the theater meets or exceeds some rather stringent criteria. One example would be audio bleed through from adjacent auditoriums. Another would be minimum field of vision that someone sitting in the back row would experience looking at the screen.

IMAX audio systems are a totally different animal.

Vern

Well from what i understood, to get THX you also need to provide the best audio, must have misread that, at least over here in NL what i said is the case.

Our theaters don't even support DD and DTS most of the time (still the same dolby stereo crap)

kylebisme

12-30-07, 02:17 PM

So if I figure out my analog problem in media center, and pass over everything in analog, will I be getting the best possible sound? Or am I compromising it a bit? If it's the former, there is really no reason to buy an A/V receiver with TrueHD support, as long as you plan on using analog outputs. Is this correct?

First off, PDVDU downsamples anything above 48 kHz/16 bits-per-sample to those rates prior to sending it out to the sound device, so the best posssible sound you can get off a disk can be greater than the best possible sound you can get out of the software. Second, there is currently no HDMI 1.3 hardware for the PC to pass a TrueHD bitsstream out the PC for a receiver to decode anyway, even if PDVDU had the option, so buying a reciver with TrueHD support won't get you anything.

That leaves us with 3 options, PCM over HDMI, PCM converted to analog, or PCM downmixed to DTS or DD to fit over S/PDIF. The downmixing for S/PDIF output is obviously a compromise. With the analog option, there could be some quality loss if your hardware isn't up to the task of the coversion, but otherwise it is the same quality as using HDMI directly outputing the PCM over HDMI.

Rew452

12-30-07, 02:49 PM

First off, PDVDU downsamples anything above 48 kHz/16 bits-per-sample to those rates prior to sending it out to the sound device, so the best posssible sound you can get off a disk can be greater than the best possible sound you can get out of the software. Second, there is currently no HDMI 1.3 hardware for the PC to pass a TrueHD bitsstream out the PC for a receiver to decode anyway, even if PDVDU had the option, so buying a reciver with TrueHD support won't get you anything.

That leaves us with 3 options, PCM over HDMI, PCM converted to analog, or PCM downmixed to DTS or DD to fit over S/PDIF. The downmixing for S/PDIF output is obviously a compromise. With the analog option, there could be some quality loss if your hardware isn't up to the task of the coversion, but otherwise it is the same quality as using HDMI directly outputing the PCM over HDMI.

Forgive me, this still escapes me; Are you saying PCM over HDMI and PCM converted to analog in the sound card and outputted via cards signal outs are the highest bit rate and quality? And spdif outs are actually of less quality?

Thanks
Rew

kylebisme

12-30-07, 02:56 PM

Right, unless of couse what you are listining to is just a standard DD or DTS track to begin with, in which case S/PDIF is just as good as analog and HDMI.

tkole

12-30-07, 04:06 PM

is there anyway to get pcm over hdmi from the pc? I don't know of any video cards that can do this.

AngelEyes

12-30-07, 04:30 PM

is there anyway to get pcm over hdmi from the pc? I don't know of any video cards that can do this.

Yes, some P35 motherboards allow it. Asus P5E-V and P5E-VM both do this for instance. I don't believe there are any soundcard or gfx card options that allow this yet. Only the forthcoming Auzentech daughterboard will offer this (via a DVI video input I believe) but spec and release date is not available yet.

Adam

Scott Burns

12-30-07, 04:53 PM

What is the lastest build number, and how do I find out what version I am running?

Thanks,

Scott

AngelEyes

12-30-07, 05:57 PM

What is the lastest build number, and how do I find out what version I am running?

Thanks,

Scott

Click on 'about' and then your name for the version.

mpgxsvcd

12-30-07, 06:26 PM

I installed PowerDVD and played a few DVDs. However, I do not see an option to output over optical. I only saw options for 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 over analog. is there something I am missing? Could someone post a screen shot of where you configure the optical output in PowerDVD? I could not find it.

Davinleeds

12-30-07, 07:26 PM

Where did you see 5.1 etc.? Configuration, Audio, Speaker Environment, use SPDIF - before you start the movie.

Noobified

12-30-07, 08:51 PM

MKANET

12-30-07, 09:14 PM

Is there a way to disable PowerDVD's ability to disable Vista Aero special effects?

yamahaSHO

12-30-07, 10:56 PM

I'm using PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 with an ASUS Xonar sound card connected with analog multichannel to an Onkyo TX-SR805. Blu-Ray movies have perfect audio across all the channels, but I am only getting 2 channel playback in all my HD-DVD titles. There is 5.1 playback in the menu, but once the main movie starts, it's only 2 Channel. Any ideas/suggestions?
Have you tried the sound setup within the movie title? On the main menu of the movie, they generally have a sound setup which is probably defaulting to Dolby TrueHD. When I had a similar problem, that was it.... Or is this what you are talking about?

Is there a way to disable PowerDVD's ability to disable Vista Aero special effects?
I was wondering the same thing... I know a way to stop Limewire from doing it which requires a version of JAVA. I have the file saved to my HDD, so I may give it a try.

Wapkaplet

12-31-07, 05:15 AM

Rathbone

12-31-07, 07:00 AM

I am having trouble with Resident Evil: Extinction Bluray in PowerDVD 7.3.3516. Connected to my CRT via anlog PDVD says incompatible graphics driver, it works tough on my HDCP compliant LCD-TV. Have they set the ICT-Flag???

EDIT: OK, forget it. I had Showtime running and it crashed. The process did not terminate correctly. After terminating it manually PDVD and RE3 work like a charm.

bobby1234

12-31-07, 08:11 AM

Where is the SPDIF passthrough on pdvdultra? I do not see it.

I'm having the same issue. Only after I reinstall it will be available and working as an option. But after some time it's gone and I have to reinstall PowerDVD again. :(

kevin_y

12-31-07, 11:56 AM

I just upgraded to Vista 32 and I'm not getting full audio dynamic range in PowerDVD Ultra. Anyone has this problem?

I have a Creative X-Fi Fatality sound card running with PowerDVD Ultra. On XP, I was able to get full dynamic range when I chose "quiet" mode in PowerDVD. Yesterday, I upgraded to Vista 32 and installed the latest X-Fi drivers. Now, when I watch HD DVD, Blu-ray, or DVD, the audio dynamic range isn't as full as before -- it sounds very much compressed. All the loud sounds become very underwhelming. Choosing quiet, normal, or noisy mode in PowerDVD doesn't make a difference, whereas previously in XP, it did. Also, on both my XP and Vista setups, I have PowerDVD doing the audio decoding (Dolby Digital, DTS, TrueHD, etc.). On the X-Fi end, I disabled EAX, SVM, EQ, etc., so X-Fi doesn't tamper with the audio at all. All audio processing is done in PowerDVD. So what is the problem here?

Andy o

12-31-07, 12:21 PM

kevin_y

12-31-07, 12:44 PM

The dynamic range control only works for Dolby Digital, and I think DD+. It doesn't work for DTS at all, and I'm not sure about TrueHD. Doesn't work for S/PDIF either. So, are you sure all your tests are with Dolby Digital tracks?
You're right about the dynamric range control in PowerDVD; it shouldn't matter in anything other than DD. But in Vista 32, I am not getting the same dynamic range in EVERYTHING as I did in XP. Everything sounds compressed. At the beginning of Blade Runner (Blu-ray), when Leon shoots Holden, it was a BLAST when I played it on XP, but it sounds much softer on Vista. I've tried Phantom of the Opera (HD DVD) and Memento (BR) and experienced the same thing.

nesNYC

12-31-07, 12:58 PM

Is the PowerDVD version the same? Maybe try to roll back to the version you usued in Vista?

kevin_y

12-31-07, 01:16 PM

Is the PowerDVD version the same? Maybe try to roll back to the version you usued in Vista?

Everything is the same except the Windows version and the X-Fi drivers.

Is Vista doing something to cripple my audio? Is there any audio downsampling shenanigans going on in PowerDVD as mentioned in another thread??

And I have no problem with video under Vista; in fact, it's better. De-interlacing now works for 480i video on HD/BR discs.

Wapkaplet

12-31-07, 01:32 PM

Hey everyone,

I don't know if this question has been asked before. I went back through the thread but didn't find anything.

I'm running the latest version of PowerDVD, and can't get IME features to play properly using it. Essentially, there's no sound on the PiP commentary window. I've seen this in The Matrix, Mission: Impossible III and King Kong.

Additionally I've noticed video discoloration on just the PiP window on M:I III. The red tone on this window is shifted down from everything else. The color on the main video is still fine however.

Are these known issues with PowerDVD?

Thanks!

So after playing around a bit I've figured out the audio issue. If I turn off SPDIF output I can get the Picture in Picture audio. However, I'm still having this issue with color in the PiP window.

On any HD-DVD that has PiP functionality, the colors are all out of whack. The top two thirds of the PiP window are black and white, and the color overlays extend below the screen.

I've tried reinstalling PowerDVD. I've tried uninstalling it completely and blowing away all the registry info. Still, every time I install it I've got this weird behavior on the PiP window color.

Anyone else experience this?

liversedge

12-31-07, 01:37 PM

Thought I'd share a success story, on a shoestring budget.

I've been lurking here for months picking up tips and stuff and decided to go for it and build my htpc this holiday as a project to keep me out of trouble with the kids.

My spec;
OS: Vista home premium
Blu ray: Pioneer BDC 202 (sata) £90
HDDVD: Xbox 360 HDDVD (usb) £100 (can't remember it was over a year ago)
mobo: Asus M2N-E SLI £50
cpu: AthlonX2 6000 £80
sound: Mobo onboard CM6150 (connect onboard co-ax spdif to receiver) £0
gpu: BFG Geforce 8400gs 512mb at 1900x1080 £50
media store: 2xWD400GB IDE (they are very old but work a treat)
tv: SONY Bravia 46s2000 (1080i) on HDMI £1000 (can't actually remember it was last year)

It all works great. I know the audio is downsampled but I can live with that since my receiver can handle what it gets (its a Denon 3803).

I had to:
1. update the bios for my mobo (and ignored the asus update verify fail at 86% cause this is a known problem)
2. Hunt around for chipset drivers for the defunct nforce 500 chipset (got them from nvidia in the end)
3. Hunt around for the latest drivers for the "allegedly" dodgy cm6150 usb sound (got them from asus website).
4. Turn off de-interlacing in PDVD as blu-ray playback was jerky with it enabled.

My TV is overscanning but the image is crisp and Vista MCE doesn't need the screen estate I've lost. I have installed anydvdhd but haven't needed it yet for any playback.

I have watched the following with no errors, smooth and solid picture quality and either DD or DTS 5.1 sound which sounds ok to my trained ear:
David Gilmour remember that night BD
PotC at world's end BD
Casino Royale BD
Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer BD
Full Metal Jacket BD
Harry Potter Goblet of Fire HD
Mission Impossible III HD
Batman Returns HD

Running PDVD Ultra 7.3 3516 with no Hidef harddisk playback (they're too darn big for me anyway) but do playback SDs from Harddisk (got a lot of those and ehey work just fine)

All the components were selected because they represent good value rather than bleeding edge.

Hope this helps someone contemplating a budget setup ........

salacious

12-31-07, 01:41 PM

I'm running the latest version of PowerDVD, and can't get IME features to play properly using it. Essentially, there's no sound on the PiP commentary window. I've seen this in The Matrix, Mission: Impossible III and King Kong.

The audio commentary for The Matrix and MI:3 work fine for me. What happens is that they mix the audio from the commentary and the soundtrack together. My system is setup for 5.1 analog output rather than SPDIF, how is yours configured? I running Vista Home Premium, PowerDVD 7.3 build 3516, NVidia 8500GT with the 163.75 drivers and onboard Realtek soundcard running MS drivers

Wapkaplet

12-31-07, 02:57 PM

The audio commentary for The Matrix and MI:3 work fine for me. What happens is that they mix the audio from the commentary and the soundtrack together. My system is setup for 5.1 analog output rather than SPDIF, how is yours configured? I running Vista Home Premium, PowerDVD 7.3 build 3516, NVidia 8500GT with the 163.75 drivers and onboard Realtek soundcard running MS drivers

Hey Salacious,

Thanks for the response! Putting PowerDVD into analog audio did restore the sound on the PiP commentaries. Guess I'll just have to remember to switch when I want to use that feature.

As for the video color problems on the PiP window, it appears to have been some sort of DirectShow filter issue. I unregisted stuff left over from uninstalled players and now it works properly.

Cheers!

tkole

12-31-07, 03:13 PM

bk1987

12-31-07, 04:36 PM

Is anyone able to play transformers with anydvd running? It gets stuck on the loading screen for me. If I close anydvd it works fine. I tried creating an iso of the movie with imgburn and mounting it with virtual clone drive but I get the pdvd "internal error" message when I try to play it. Any suggestions?

try daemon tools i dont think vcd supports hdm oh btw transformers works fine for me with any dvd running, pwr dvd 3319a
the only problem i have had recently is with THE KINGDOM the movie starts and then crashes pwr dvd in a few sec.

Rudy81

12-31-07, 04:48 PM

I have PDVD Ultra OEM that came with the dual LG drive. I was working on changing the video refresh rate on my Sharp Z1200 projector and decided to see if there was any differance in CPU usage. I threw in a standard DVD and saw that my CPU usage was around 50%, which is quite a bit more than it used to run with JRMedia Center (which I previously used for standard DVD). I ran the same DVD with JRMC and the CPU usage is 4-6% with a standard DVD. Why does PDVD use so much processor time? I do have the nVidia hardware acceleration selected, but it makes no differance to PDVD, it is as if it is not using hardware acceleration.

I don't have a HD movie available to try and see if I can run it on JRMC using the PDVD player to see if there is a differance. Can anyone tell my why PDVD Ultra uses so much CPU? I know that with HD movies it gets up around 70%.

Rathbone

12-31-07, 05:09 PM

I just watched Resident Evil 3 and had severe problems with PDVD. There were occasional freezes (approx. once in ten minutes) about one sec but the movie continued to play after that. But at 32:20 after the camera pans down from the surface to the Umbrella lab (CGI sequence) PDVD freezes completely. It's not random, since I tried it several times with and without AnyDVD HD. I had to terminate the process and jump to 32:25 to continue.

Normally I would say it's a defective disc but when I played the disc in ArcSoft DT2 it played smooth without any freezes.

Anybody experienced the same?

pritch55

12-31-07, 05:55 PM

I was wondering if anyone could assist with the problem I have, here is my current HTPC setup.

Intel 2 Duo Processor E6550
3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
128MB ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive
Windows XP home edition
LG GGC-H20L

I can successfully play Blu-rays backed up on my hard drive in ISO format but when I try a HD-dvd it will hang up on the loading screen and it will loop itself.

I can play both formats fine when using the original disc in the drive.

I currently have PDVD Ultra 7.3 3516 because when I would use anything earlier it would tile HD-dvd's on the screen. It would do this with the disc in the drive and also with an ISO on the hard drive.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-Brandon

vddobrev

12-31-07, 06:06 PM

I'm having the same issue. Only after I reinstall it will be available and working as an option. But after some time it's gone and I have to reinstall PowerDVD again. :(

No need to reinstall. Just start PDVD without disc in the drive, and select SPDIF.

WilliamG

12-31-07, 07:22 PM

Jim HTPC

12-31-07, 07:28 PM

Just tried Transformers on the latest PowerDVD with AnyDVD HD. I get the "loading screen" and then it goes black. No picture, no sound - nothing. Hot Fuzz works perfectly, as does Pride and Prejudice etc.

Any ideas what to do here? Thanks in advance!

Use AnyDVD HD to create a backup first. Then convert it to an ISO file, then mount it. Now play it back as a DVD drive letter and it will work.

I also stop PowerDVD from accessing the internet. The first time I tried to play the original disk it sat there trying to get web content. When you disable the web access it quickly leaves that screen then continues to play.

Davinleeds

12-31-07, 08:00 PM

I hit enter when PDVD tries to access internet-stops it.

I've been looking but can't find the posts about having separate PDVD installs for HD and BD.

Thanks

TokyoShoe

12-31-07, 11:05 PM

Use AnyDVD HD to create a backup first. Then convert it to an ISO file, then mount it. Now play it back as a DVD drive letter and it will work.

I also stop PowerDVD from accessing the internet. The first time I tried to play the original disk it sat there trying to get web content. When you disable the web access it quickly leaves that screen then continues to play.

Crazy suggestion.. try it in PowerDVD withOUT AnyDVD-HD loaded. Lately I've had to stop using it because it was fouling up various titles.

WilliamG

01-01-08, 03:41 AM

Crazy suggestion.. try it in PowerDVD withOUT AnyDVD-HD loaded. Lately I've had to stop using it because it was fouling up various titles.

Not an option for me since my video card isn't HDCP compliant. I hit enter straight away on the "Internet Enabled" page thing, and the movie works, but it runs very badly on my system, for some reason:

X2 4200+
2GB DDR2 800
Geforce 7600GS

Other movies run just fine. I thought, many months later, PDVD would work properly. At least my card no longer runs in overlay mode, but it's still not running 100% smoothly. Maybe it's time to try a standalone player again...

Scott Burns

01-01-08, 12:50 PM

So, is 3516 the latest build?

Tinker

01-01-08, 12:59 PM

Seems that PDVD has probms with seemless branching like it has with the layer changes (ie: Transformer) on some discs. Both from HDD and disc. Blade Runner the Int ver has a issue with some of its branching with PDVD (ver 3319a) that causes a stutter and dropped frames(part just before where Batty puts nail thru hand and a few seconds later when he is talking with his head thru the wall). I thought it was bad rip or a bad disc and tried another disc that I still had and it has the same probm at the same spot. Ran the both discs in my Venturer HD DVD player, no probm at those spots (same as no disc change issues with Transformers either).

Cap.T

01-01-08, 01:32 PM

Just a quick question: I got the Blade Runner Blu Ray release a few days ago. Is is normal, that the latest version of PDVD crashes every 7 or 8 minutes and takes the whole PC down with it? Is that an known issue or could it be a bad disc?

pospower

01-01-08, 02:52 PM

almostinsane

01-01-08, 04:57 PM

What are your PC specs? Sounds like you are missing the right audio drivers.

pospower

01-01-08, 05:34 PM

What are your PC specs? Sounds like you are missing the right audio drivers.

I have a AMD Dual Core 4600 with B-Enspire Sound card with optical out.

I re enstalled Vista drivers for sound and got the spdif to show but as soon as I play a DVD it goes away and all I can get is 2 4 5678 channel sound.

Jim HTPC

01-01-08, 06:49 PM

Crazy suggestion.. try it in PowerDVD withOUT AnyDVD-HD loaded. Lately I've had to stop using it because it was fouling up various titles.

I never run AnyDVD HD while watching a movie. I always make a backup, then stop AnyDVD HD. I don't have a HDCP monitor and it does not affect my playback so far.

Jim HTPC

01-01-08, 06:52 PM

I have a AMD Dual Core 4600 with B-Enspire Sound card with optical out.

I re enstalled Vista drivers for sound and got the spdif to show but as soon as I play a DVD it goes away and all I can get is 2 4 5678 channel sound.

It definitely sounds like a driver issue.

I would un-install PowerDVD. Uninstall your sound drivers. Reboot. Install your sound drivers. Then install PowerDVD.

Jim HTPC

01-01-08, 06:53 PM

No SPDIF Option. Ok I had xp pro and it was working perfectly with 3319a. Now I have now SPDIF option and can't get proper 5.1 sound out of my movies. Help please. I have already reinstalled twice as I saw suggested earlier anyone figure out a fix for this. This is a deal breaker for me. Back to XP if not fixable.

OH I AM NOW USING VISTA HOME PREMIUM

Make sure you have the latest VISTA drivers for your sound card. I tried Vista and dumped it quickly due to PDVD issues with SPDIF. Xp works just fine.

Rathbone

01-01-08, 07:14 PM

laguna_b

01-01-08, 11:35 PM

Make sure you have the latest VISTA drivers for your sound card. I tried Vista and dumped it quickly due to PDVD issues with SPDIF. Xp works just fine.

I actually had SPDIF option disappear and re-appear for me. If I recall correctly, it required either a reboot or restart of the program. (PDVD)

K7MDL

01-01-08, 11:51 PM

Make sure the SPDIF device is Windows default audio device (or the HDMI device in my case with HDMI/integrated graphics - GA-73UM-S2H motherboard or in another computer the Realtek Digital Output playback device). While not playing a movie, you should see the "Use SPDIF" show up in the tools audio tab on PowerDVD Ultra (3516). If there is a movie in progress or selected it seems to hide the SPDIF option if it was not selected before. Once you get the right setup I exit and restart the application to make sure it sticks. Seems like I tried more than a few times to get it to stick, likely because I had a movie selected or in progress. Once you get it to stick, it will display in any mode of operation, just do not try to change it while watching a movie :-).

Like you, the option seems to come and go, but the sequence of operation seemed to be the key.

originalsnuffy

01-02-08, 12:06 AM

What is considered to be the most stable version of PowerDVD that still easily plays folders from the hard drive?

AbMagFab

01-02-08, 12:14 AM

3319a

AbMagFab

01-02-08, 12:40 AM

Sounds like similar problems I experienced with RE3: Extinction BD. PDVD even crahses at 32:20 Mins, where ArcSoft DT2 plays flawless. RE3 has also some of this fancy IME stuff onboard.

Where can one in the US get ArcSoft DT2? Doesn't seem to be available yet in any form, that I could find.

SmX

01-02-08, 02:46 AM

Hey Folks,

I am having a video problem. I was previously using windows vista with Power DVD 3319 and everything was great. I recently had to switch back to XP due to some other HT software issues with Vista.

I am now getting a grey washed out contrast or haze over my HD & SD video in PDVD. Plus it is looking grainy and has rainbow artifacts in dark scenes. It was all previously pristine in Vista. I tried using older video drivers, newer video drivers and it is the same story.

I even tried switching to the latest PDVD and it fixed the problem on the first launch and then once I closed it and re-opened it it was back. I have an 8800GTS 320 and tried the latest video drivers from EVGA. I also tried changed some of the preferences in PDVD. CPU is a Core2 Duo 2.3.

I am also having the same problem with the SD video in TheaterTek too with XP so it tells me it is a video card (software?) issue. I have all my settings in the NVidia control panel set correctly as far as I can tell.

Projector is a Infocus SP777 3chip DLP 720p

Has any had this issue or have a solution?

Thanks in advance!

Ruben

blingo

01-02-08, 03:03 AM

So, is 3516 the latest build?

Yep its the latest build.

Wapkaplet

01-02-08, 04:02 AM

Where can one in the US get ArcSoft DT2? Doesn't seem to be available yet in any form, that I could find.

Yeah, according to their website it's not out yet. Is that somehow incorrect? Is it available now?

Rathbone

01-02-08, 05:47 AM

Yeah, according to their website it's not out yet. Is that somehow incorrect? Is it available now?

That's right. It's not out yet. I use the japanese trial.

maxleung

01-02-08, 06:17 AM

SandmanX, have you tried the latest 169.21 NVIDIA drivers?

Dodgexander

01-02-08, 06:44 AM

I am having a video problem. I was previously using windows vista with Power DVD 3319 and everything was great. I recently had to switch back to XP due to some other HT software issues with Vista.

I am now getting a grey washed out contrast or haze over my HD & SD video in PDVD. Plus it is looking grainy and has rainbow artifacts in dark scenes. It was all previously pristine in Vista. I tried using older video drivers, newer video drivers and it is the same story.

This is most probably because you havent set up overlay correctly in the nvidia control panel.

Play a video in power dvd, then open nvidia control panel.Change your video picture colour/saturation/contrast and you will notice a change in powerdvd realtime.(make sure you select video not desktop)

This should help you get a nice picture.

tsb

01-02-08, 08:50 AM

Can someone help me get my Die Hard 4.0 backup to play. I have it ripped to a folder, but I get garbled video after the Fox intro with 3319a. It doesn't play at all through a mounted ISO with 3516. I also get garbled video with Arcsoft.

anyone have a solution?

maxleung

01-02-08, 09:14 AM

Die Hard 4 uses BD+. Maybe the ripping process didn't work? Also make sure AnyDVD HD is disabled.

It is unlikely ArcSoft will allow playback of a mounted ISO of a BD+ encrypted disc (even after AACS is removed).

SmX

01-02-08, 12:09 PM

SandmanX, have you tried the latest 169.21 NVIDIA drivers?

I was, but it looks like they came out with a new driver update today
(01/01/08) vers. 169.28 I will give that a try later on.

Thanks
Ruben

SmX

01-02-08, 12:16 PM

This is most probably because you havent set up overlay correctly in the nvidia control panel.

Play a video in power dvd, then open nvidia control panel.Change your video picture colour/saturation/contrast and you will notice a change in powerdvd realtime.(make sure you select video not desktop)

This should help you get a nice picture.

I tried this but it did not improve it. It looks as if there is a grey transparent film over the video playback. Sometimes it goes away for a second and then comes back.

Thanks
Ruben

sensui

01-02-08, 12:55 PM

Rathbone

01-02-08, 01:18 PM

Has anyone had issues playing Resident Evil Apocalypse BD? using 3319a and ran into some issues where the disc froze temporarily and continues, but if I rewind to the same parts they play ok....also, at the end of the movie where Alice saves the little girl in the helicopter, no matter what powerdvd will not play past the track switch....just keeps playing a black screen with the time ticking until I stop the movie. This acts like a bad disc but when I played it in my ps3, I didn't have an issue. Thanks.

It is the 3rd time I post this: Yes, I have problems too with version 3516. I can play the disc to the end with occasional freezes for about a sec. Only at 32:20 PowerDVD crashes completely and I have to jump a couple of secs forward to continue. ArcSoft DT2 plays that scene fine tough.

jmb295

01-02-08, 02:44 PM

I have the following installed on a new installation of xp professional. I switched to vista back to xp due to the graphic card compatibility with my projector while running vista. When I attempt to play an HD-DVD I am able to hear sound, and see the menus, but I only get a black screen for video.

I've tried installing different video drivers, and even reinstalled xp a second time to be sure. Is there a codec I'm missing somewhere? The Arcsoft trial player had the same problem. Both my video card and projector are HDCP compliant, and with AnyDVD running that shouldn't come into play so I don't believe its that.

XP Pro SP2
3319a PDVD
Latest AnyDVD
169.21 NVidia Drivers (8500GT)

AbMagFab

01-02-08, 04:21 PM

I was, but it looks like they came out with a new driver update today
(01/01/08) vers. 169.28 I will give that a try later on.

Thanks
Ruben

So... where do you see that? I only see 12/21 169.25 drivers.

jamiee

01-02-08, 04:43 PM

So... where do you see that? I only see 12/21 169.25 drivers.

Try here: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=247872
First post has the download links.

Davinleeds

01-02-08, 04:45 PM

I had this issue back in OCT 07, PDVD wouldn't play Alexander so I asked Cyber support why PDVD wouldn't update if this disk contained new encryption. (It played the second disk) They said update driver-it caused black screen. Reverted to earlier driver - screen worked but no Alexander. Cyber told me to uninstall PDVD and reinstall from FTP. That wouldn't work as their password didn't- twice- another ftp. Uninstalled PDVD and Nvidia drivers. Installed latest driver, then install PDVD from previous installation folder - (when ftp worked a few months before). All installed, then put in disk, Alexander, PDVD asks to update-do it. So far so good. Version 3319 If this happens again, I would uninstall PDVD and video drivers, then install latest, then install PDVD. I think alot depends on sequence with PDVD.

sensui

01-02-08, 04:54 PM

It is the 3rd time I post this: Yes, I have problems too with version 3516. I can play the disc to the end with occasional freezes for about a sec. Only at 32:20 PowerDVD crashes completely and I have to jump a couple of secs forward to continue. ArcSoft DT2 plays that scene fine tough.

Hey Rathbone;
I think we're talking about 2 seperate films, Apocalypse (the one I'm speaking of) = Resident Evil 2. Extinction (the one you're speaking of) is the 3rd one. I can play back extinction without a hitch....wasn't brave enough to play with the 1.1 BD features but the movie played perfectly all the way through.

Davinleeds

01-02-08, 06:15 PM

Haven't seen a mention of it, but has anyone tried the DTS 5.1 Digital Surround Pack?
http://www.cyberlink.com/english/products/powerdvd/7/packs.jsp

XxDeadlyxX

01-02-08, 06:27 PM

Haven't seen a mention of it, but has anyone tried the DTS 5.1 Digital Surround Pack?
http://www.cyberlink.com/english/products/powerdvd/7/packs.jsp

Isn't that for regular PDVD?

Rathbone

01-02-08, 07:13 PM

Hey Rathbone;
I think we're talking about 2 seperate films, Apocalypse (the one I'm speaking of) = Resident Evil 2. Extinction (the one you're speaking of) is the 3rd one. I can play back extinction without a hitch....wasn't brave enough to play with the 1.1 BD features but the movie played perfectly all the way through.

Oops, sorry!!! :)

Beefcake

01-02-08, 07:58 PM

Does anyone know if I can playback DD tracks out my SPDIF to my receiver with the OEM version that comes with the LG combo drive? I am looking to get 5.1 Dolby Digital out of the PC. Thanks.

OR - am I better off using analog outputs from my motherboard with the retail version and run that to my 6 channel input Denon receiver (old, but great) which only supports Dolby Digital decoding?

Thanks.

I guess overall, I'm looking for the best sounds I can get with what I have (older Denon with only SPDIF input to decide DD 5.1). It also has the 6 channel inputs for an analog connection.

-Brian

laguna_b

01-02-08, 08:24 PM

XxDeadlyxX

01-02-08, 08:26 PM

What do people think the chance of Cyberlink announcing a new version of PowerDVD which supports Profile 1.1 and maybe something new like DTS-HD Master Audio decoding at this year's CES?

stryfetew

01-02-08, 08:35 PM

Where did you see 5.1 etc.? Configuration, Audio, Speaker Environment, use SPDIF - before you start the movie.

That worked for me, thanks alot! Now I can enjoy my bluray in DTS :P

Allin4greeN

01-02-08, 10:12 PM

What do people think the chance of Cyberlink announcing a new version of PowerDVD which supports Profile 1.1 and maybe something new like DTS-HD Master Audio decoding at this year's CES?Looks like Profile 1.1 is a go... http://www.pr-inside.com/cyberlink-powerdvd-ultra-receives-bd-video-r367794.htm

AbMagFab

01-02-08, 11:02 PM

Looks like Profile 1.1 is a go... http://www.pr-inside.com/cyberlink-powerdvd-ultra-receives-bd-video-r367794.htm

So it implies DTS-HD is already in PDVD Ultra, yet I can't get it in mine (non-OEM). Has this actually been released yet, or is this pre-release?

Andy o

01-02-08, 11:28 PM

So it implies DTS-HD is already in PDVD Ultra, yet I can't get it in mine (non-OEM). Has this actually been released yet, or is this pre-release?

I have been able to get DTS-HD 5.1. I don't think PowerDVD makes a distinction in the info overlay about using DTS-HD and DTS-HD-MA. Anyone knows how to distinguish them? Maybe looking at the bitrates, but I don't have a clue as to what it should be, and they are mostly variable.

I am using 3319a, by the way. Pan's Labyrinth is in DTS-HD-MA 7.1 (DTS-HD 8.0 as per the PowerDVD info overlay) and I can't get the audio for the movie to work. The menu sounds OK, which is "DTS-HD 5.1" as per the info. I don't know if the reason the menu's audio plays is because it is not MA (I don't know if it is or isn't) or because it is not 7.1.

By the way, I thought a DD+ track was mandatory for HD-DVD. Pan's Labyrinth doesn't have it. What's up with that? Format regularity was one thing I liked about HD-DVD over blu-ray.

XxDeadlyxX

01-02-08, 11:39 PM

I have been able to get DTS-HD 5.1. I don't think PowerDVD makes a distinction in the info overlay about using DTS-HD and DTS-HD-MA. Anyone knows how to distinguish them? Maybe looking at the bitrates, but I don't have a clue as to what it should be, and they are mostly variable.

I am using 3319a, by the way. Pan's Labyrinth is in DTS-HD-MA 7.1 (DTS-HD 8.0 as per the PowerDVD info overlay) and I can't get the audio for the movie to work. The menu sounds OK, which is "DTS-HD 5.1" as per the info. I don't know if the reason the menu's audio plays is because it is not MA (I don't know if it is or isn't) or because it is not 7.1.

By the way, I thought a DD+ track was mandatory for HD-DVD. Pan's Labyrinth doesn't have it. What's up with that? Format regularity was one thing I liked about HD-DVD over blu-ray.

Yeah for DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 tracks, PowerDVD does show the proper lossless variable bitrate (usually between 3mbps-6mbps... I guess it's much higher than TrueHD because all of Fox's releases are 24-bit I think, most TrueHD tracks I've seen usually hover between 1mbps-2mbps - they are Warner's 16-bit TrueHD... plus DTS-HD uses a slightly higher bitrate anyway for whatever reason).

The question is whether it is actually decoding what it says... or if it is just reading the lossless extension but only outputting the core DTS 1.5MB track.

Earlier in the thread someone who had a Samsung BDP-1400 said that he compared it to PowerDVD and found that PowerDVD only outputs the DTS core.

Arcsoft trial player information only shows 1.5MB in information, not the lossless bitrate like PowerDVD does. There again it only shows 192kbps for TrueHD on the Spiderman films from what I remember, so you can't really trust that. Plus Arcsoft had problems with mixing the rear channels up on some movies, so I uninstalled it.

The good thing is that the DTS-HD tracks sound spectacular from what I can tell, MUCH better than any DVD DTS 768kbps tracks. So if what I'm hearing is only the core 1.5MB, I wonder how much better it would sound with the full MA extension.