PowerDVD Ultra (HD-DVD and Blu-Ray)

[rgathright]

How do I check to see what version I have? It seems like everytime I turn around PowerDVD is showing another upgrade is available.

[MKANET]

After I restarted PowerDVD, it is stuck in File mode. What's the trick to put it back in Disc mode? Changing it to the drive with the discs in it doesnt do it.

Edit: I couldnt figure out how force it to work correctly, so finally rebooted to fix the problem. I sure would love the developers of this app to use it for their personal use to get a taste of their own medicine.

[jeffreydeng]

How do I check to see what version I have? It seems like everytime I turn around PowerDVD is showing another upgrade is available.

Click the 'Cyberlink' icon on the left upper corner of PDVD GUI and then your name in 'This prduct is licensed to' field. You will be able to see something like 'PDVD Version: 7.3.3319a.0'.

[originalsnuffy]

Somebody kindly posted a workaround, where one installs the latest version of the PowerDVD product, and then you copy in some old files. It seems to work; but I seem to be showing the revision number from the old files and dll pieces that I added in. So I have no idea what version I am really running.

Unless of course I somehow mistakenly "updated" to the same old files I had before!

[deandob]

DD Plus 2.0 Just got it going. Thanks. Got me trying it again. It was difficult to make it stick in menu.

Stopping, pausing, or fast forward messes up the sound. Once I started I had to watch and listen to it again.

Davinleeds, do you use AnyDVD? I can't get DD+ to work either?

[Davinleeds]

I had to try quite a few times but ArcSoft works on all streams it's better than PDVD for me. No AnyDVD HD. I'm using the trial.
http://www.arcsoft.com/products/totalmediatheatre/
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12869323#post12869323
see my 680 post. Make sure your system is up to the requirements as all don't work. Good luck. PS For 2.0 I had to start from the very beginning and not touch anything.

[bennynihon]

I just purchased the LG GGC-H20L after having the XBox HD-DVD addon play pretty much all of my HD-DVDs in PowerDVD without issue.

So I wanted to test out some Bluray discs, Superbad and Good Luck Chuck, that I had rented. Despite Transformers HD-DVD working flawlessly on this new drive, the two Bluray discs have some really weird color problems.

It's most notable with red, where the color actually "jumps" or "shifts" in the pattern. The color that may fill a red balloon for instance might actually move outside the border of the balloon between frame to frame.

I'm using the latest 3561 PowerDVD, updated the drives firmware to 1.02, and updated my Nvidia drivers to the latest. Prior to updating the Nvidia drivers, the Bluray discs didn't even show the video, it was just a bunch of colored "boxes".

So I have suspicions that it may be the graphics driver. Or something to do with the codec used for these two Bluray discs.

Has anyone experienced this odd color problem? I searched this thread without luck. I appreciate any help. Thanks!

[Gerzom]

Is is possible to play BD+ discs like Fantastic 4 Rise Of The Silver Surfer with the lastest build of PowerDVD? every build after 3319a doesnt seem to work with this movie, not even in ISO mode?

[Saltboy]

I don't care to go through 5,500 replies, but I'm hoping somebody can help me.

The only way I can explain what's going on with my PowerDVD is by showing you. Things pick up at the two minute mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6J_HdDGqHc

This happens with both acceleration on and acceleration off

Specs:
Intel C2D E6400 (not overclokced)
nVidia 650i Motherboard
nVidia 7950gt Video
2 Gigs pc8500 ram
on board sound

Need anything else? Help! :)

[MKANET]

Wow, I have to say, with the amount of effort you went through dealing with your "rainbow artifacty mess", really hope you can get this fixed. I'm guessing you're already using the latest Nvidia drivers for your Nvidia 7950GT; I'm presuming you have already tried to cleanly upgrade your video driver to a newer one.

Do all standard DVD and HD-DVD play okay? I think I heard in your video that you have a dual format DVD player.

I don't care to go through 5,500 replies, but I'm hoping somebody can help me.

The only way I can explain what's going on with my PowerDVD is by showing you. Things pick up at the two minute mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6J_HdDGqHc

This happens with both acceleration on and acceleration off

Specs:
Intel C2D E6400 (not overclokced)
nVidia 650i Motherboard
nVidia 7950gt Video
2 Gigs pc8500 ram
on board sound

Need anything else? Help! :)

[bennynihon]

I don't care to go through 5,500 replies, but I'm hoping somebody can help me.

The only way I can explain what's going on with my PowerDVD is by showing you. Things pick up at the two minute mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6J_HdDGqHc

This happens with both acceleration on and acceleration off

Specs:
Intel C2D E6400 (not overclokced)
nVidia 650i Motherboard
nVidia 7950gt Video
2 Gigs pc8500 ram
on board sound

Need anything else? Help! :)

that's what i was experiencing before i updated the geforce nvidia drivers. but once i did, i start getting this other odd color problem. see my post above. update your drivers and see if this helps.

[rgathright]

Was watching an OTA-HD that was recorded using the MyHD card. When watching using PowerDVD there is a red stripe at the far left side. It is not there if I was using MyHD.

Any ideas?

[TokyoShoe]

I can't seem to get the Brightness or Contrast sliders to work anymore in my fresh reinstall of PowerDVD Ultra (3516). Same version, same video card and same drivers, just a fresh system format and install.

Anyone got any hints on why it won't work now? They did previously. Presets for Bright, Vivid, and Theater don't even function.

[Saltboy]

that's what i was experiencing before i updated the geforce nvidia drivers. but once i did, i start getting this other odd color problem. see my post above. update your drivers and see if this helps.
Oh geez. I had upgraded the drivers before, but not cleanly. So based on your advice, I decided to google "Uninstall nVidia Drivers", found a good link, and voila, it worked!!

And I don't even think I have the odd color problem. THANK YOU!! :)

Hope you get yours fixed. Maybe you should reinstall the drivers... ;)

[bennynihon]

Hope you get yours fixed. Maybe you should reinstall the drivers... ;)

That's actually not a bad idea. I should first remove them cleanly and reinstall. I'll try tonight.

[MKANET]

I guess you missed my post immediately after your question. Anyway, I'm glad you tried it :)

I'm presuming you have already tried to cleanly upgrade your video driver to a newer one.

Oh geez. I had upgraded the drivers before, but not cleanly. So based on your advice, I decided to google "Uninstall nVidia Drivers", found a good link, and voila, it worked!!

And I don't even think I have the odd color problem. THANK YOU!! :)

Hope you get yours fixed. Maybe you should reinstall the drivers... ;)

[bennynihon]

That's actually not a bad idea. I should first remove them cleanly and reinstall. I'll try tonight.

Nope, that didn't do it. I guess I'll have to start trying older versions of the drivers and see if any of them work, or older versions of PDVD.

[chicodobrazil]

I have the following setup:

WinXP sp2
ATI 2600XT with Catalyst 7.12
LG BR HD DVD drive
Power DVD ultra v7.3.3516
Audio Card: RME digi 96/8Pad.

The info from PDVD show as
Hardware Information:
Multispeaker Audio Device: DIGI96/8 PAD Out (7+8)(1) (not in use)
SPDIF Output Device: DIGI96/8 PAD Out (7+8)(1) (not in use)


Right now only 2 channel is out put on the RME card. I tried setting the audio option in PDVD to use s/pdif. But while playing back the BR movie, Pirate of C, when i went back to the audio option, it shows up as 2 chan and the s/pdif option is no longer there?

has anyone successfully set up PDVD audio in similar env? outboard audio card? my win xp audio hardware has the DIGI card selected as well.
I have the same behaviour with the 3319a non OEM version of PowerDVD : can't use SPDIF :(
If someone can help us :confused:

[AbMagFab]

fyi a post in the below referenced thread indicates that the Vista Service Pack Release Candiate has a fix for the black level problem with later Nvidia drivers.

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/234688.aspx

For anyone considering this, don't bother. I just wasted a lot of time installing SP1, and it made ZERO difference on the black crush. I'm running current NVidia drivers.

[Larry J]

For anyone considering this, don't bother. I just wasted a lot of time installing SP1, and it made ZERO difference on the black crush. I'm running current NVidia drivers.

Actually SP1 did fix for me what they are talking about there. I found that out back when I tried that first SP1 beta a few weeks ago. But, I cannot use the lastest driver for my 8600gts diamond card because it screws up the black level. So I went back to a older driver, 163.75 I think but that's from memory.

Using it though the black levels do work and stay the same, using the 444 colorspace. I'm finding Nvidia drivers to be a mess regarding pc/video levels.

[AbMagFab]

Actually SP1 did fix for me what they are talking about there. I found that out back when I tried that first SP1 beta a few weeks ago. But, I cannot use the lastest driver for my 8600gts diamond card because it screws up the black level. So I went back to a older driver, 163.75 I think but that's from memory.

Using it though the black levels do work and stay the same, using the 444 colorspace. I'm finding Nvidia drivers to be a mess regarding pc/video levels.

163.75 fixes the black level, not SP1. The person in this thread said "Vista Service Pack Release Candiate has a fix for the black level problem with later Nvidia drivers". Then you said "I cannot use the lastest driver for my 8600gts diamond card because it screws up the black level". Ergo, it has nothing to do with SP1, it's the later drivers.

This is simply a driver issue. Don't bother with SP1, just back down to an earlier driver version. A few working ones are posted here, and I can confirm 163.75 works (and restores the ability to set contrast, etc., in PDVD, and restores the resize desktop feature, if you use that).

[bbig119]

I can't seem to get PowerDVD to work with girder v4 and haven't found much by searching the net. Am I doing something wrong or is this just broken?

[Larry J]

163.75 fixes the black level, not SP1. The person in this thread said "Vista Service Pack Release Candiate has a fix for the black level problem with later Nvidia drivers". Then you said "I cannot use the lastest driver for my 8600gts diamond card because it screws up the black level". Ergo, it has nothing to do with SP1, it's the later drivers.

This is simply a driver issue. Don't bother with SP1, just back down to an earlier driver version. A few working ones are posted here, and I can confirm 163.75 works (and restores the ability to set contrast, etc., in PDVD, and restores the resize desktop feature, if you use that).

Well, I realize SP1 isn't the problem in my case with the lastest Nvidia drivers. But when I posted that I was only talking about what I had run into. When I was using 163.75 the video level reversed when I play a SD disc in either Powerdvd or MCE. That is a problem I was having and after SP1 it was ok.

Now, I know weird things happens with drivers and combinations, but on mine the only thing I had changed was adding SP1. I later changed to other Nvidia drivers and as you say, they don't work right. So, if it wasn't SP1 that corrected it, then it was just one of those things I cannot explain.

[Andy o]

163.75 fixes the black level, not SP1. The person in this thread said "Vista Service Pack Release Candiate has a fix for the black level problem with later Nvidia drivers". Then you said "I cannot use the lastest driver for my 8600gts diamond card because it screws up the black level". Ergo, it has nothing to do with SP1, it's the later drivers.

This is simply a driver issue. Don't bother with SP1, just back down to an earlier driver version. A few working ones are posted here, and I can confirm 163.75 works (and restores the ability to set contrast, etc., in PDVD, and restores the resize desktop feature, if you use that).

Actually, my problem was with Media Center, which does its own expansion. The 169 drivers do their own expansion too (the 163 ones don't, as you say). So, I get double expansion only when using Media Center. I think it's probable that they fixed media center in SP1, and this has not much to do with nVidia drivers. This is my original post on my problem:

What is the "double expansion problem"? I have had trouble with this, but it's a bit different. I have a 8600GTS, and right now with 169.25 (final) in Vista 32. With 163 drivers there was no expansion with HD discs (bluray and HD-DVD), the same as with any other content (other HD/SD content and DVD). But I god a green line with HD discs about 1 pixel tall at the bottom of the picture in full-screen. It wasn't much of a problem, but it got a little annoying.

The 169 drivers got rid of the green line, and it started to give me expansion (not double though) for HD discs, but it didn't expand the other content. So now I have the "Use nVidia control panel" setting in the driver checked, so I can tweak the auto expansion done with HD discs, and then in PowerDVD I disable HW acceleration so I can tweak other content with PowerDVD's software color options. When I play HD discs, it automatically goes to HW accel on, so everything is OK, but the workaround is far from ideal.

I don't use Media Center, though, and I do have trouble with this. MC does its own auto expansion, and when you tweak the driver for good contrast, MC seems to expand on top of that. I haven't tested it very thoroughly though.

[Gary McCoy]

Hello, this is the thread owner checking back in after starting this thread in December 2006. I have not been following this thread much since I originally got PowerDVD to work satisfactorily back in Spring 2007. As you can imagine, I have quite a collection of video drivers, various patches to this and that, and numerous handwritten notes.

I am abandoning PowerDVD and all the tweeking that goes with it. The HD-DVD and Blu-Ray playback software is just too much of a pain. Even after you get it working, it's prone to balking at certain disks and it seems that every time you tweek something else like your HD-DVR application, PowerDVD breaks again.

So I hauled home a new Toshiba HD-A30 yesterday, after shelling out $199 for it. I figure the HTPC has cost me over $1300 in hardware and software over the last year, which works out to about $20/movie after estimating the number of HD disks that I have actually played or tried to play on it. Blu-Ray I now play on PS3. I paid $600 for both the PS3 and the HDTV player, plus another hundred in cabling and a PS-3 remote. Both the PS3 and the HD-A30 produce pristine 1080p24 video feeds for my Samsung 120Hz display, and without pain. They have simply played all the troublesome disks the HTPC choked on.

Incidentally, the HD-TiVo now subs for the MCE nonsense I used to endure to watch HDTV. The HTPC will remain in the Home Theater and drive the old VGA-interface XGA front projector from 2002. If the new ARCSoft HDM player looks good, I might try it someday.

So why not simplify your life, too?

I am gratified that you have all kept this thread alive. 5276 replies is a personal record for one of my threads.

[TokyoShoe]

If the new ARCSoft HDM player looks good, I might try it someday.

I have recently upgraded my HTPC and will continue to use it specifically because it fulfills functions that other machines (even the TivoHD that I too own) just cannot achieve. That's just my personal take, however.

I must say tho, I too am quite anxious for ArcSoft's Digital Theatre to be released. I really do think I will give it a try and see if it can compete with PowerDVD. At present the Demo for it looks ASTOUNDING. If ArcSoft is even remotely competent then they may just be the competition that Cyberlink needs to get their act together.

[vladd]

I must say tho, I too am quite anxious for ArcSoft's Digital Theatre to be released.It's already released.

[TokyoShoe]

It's already released.

lol Yeah I just found that thread. Apparently it snuck out over the last few days while I was away. I am awaiting the release of ArcSoft's software via Vidabox.com , as it appears they will be updated the software more often and providing more support for it.

[Davinleeds]

Note: VidaBox is licensing this software as an OEM. All support & updates is to be rendered by the installer of the software & Arcsoft, respectively. VidaBox does not provide support. Please visit Arcsoft's support site at: http://www.arcsoft.com/support/ for answers and solutions to common issues.

This is what I read;

http://www.vidabox.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=90

[TokyoShoe]

Note: VidaBox is licensing this software as an OEM. All support & updates is to be rendered by the installer of the software & Arcsoft, respectively. VidaBox does not provide support. Please visit Arcsoft's support site at: http://www.arcsoft.com/support/ for answers and solutions to common issues.

This is what I read;

http://www.vidabox.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=90

Yeah I read that.. but that kinda goes against what the user Vidabox has stated here prior. He stated that Vidabox would be releasing special patches for any HDM titles to work at an "accelerated pace" compared to ArcSoft. Wouldn't that imply some level of support? Further confusion.. the product released by Arcsoft is TotalMedia Theatre, not the title release I'm waiting on. I want Digital Theatre.

[gsr]

Yeah I read that.. but that kinda goes against what the user Vidabox has stated here prior. He stated that Vidabox would be releasing special patches for any HDM titles to work at an "accelerated pace" compared to ArcSoft. Wouldn't that imply some level of support? Further confusion..

What it implies to me is that the Vidabox version will be released with less testing done prior to release. I doubt that the codebase used for the ArcSoft version and the Vidabox version of the product will be ~that~ different. Granted if the Vidabox version doesn't include some of the extra features, the updates can be released without having to test those other features - perhaps that's how they'll accelerate the release process.

[Davinleeds]

Vida also said there would be no demo then later there would be a trial version?? I'm very happy with this trial, but I will give Cyberlink a plus because I've had customer support reply within 24 hrs.

[Sigurd]

I need some serious help :( i cant get my films to play, granted i only have 3 which is the spiderman trilogy but sureley i must be able to play these?

Ok so this is what happens, i put in the disc, poweredvd loads up and i click play and the screen goes black then powerdvd pops up saying that critical updates are required etc so i click yes and its a continous loop keeps saying the same thing.

I have powerdvd 3516 installed, when i run the advisor everything is green.

Specs:
Intel Core2Duo E6750
Nvidia 8600GS
2GB Ram
Vista Home Premium 32bit
LG GGC-H20N

anybody have any suggestions?

[Davinleeds]

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/patch/enu/already.jsp

Try this in Internet Explorer
Register with Cyberlink for a trouble ticket

[Sigurd]

Try this in Internet Explorer
Register with Cyberlink for a trouble ticket

I tried the website in IE and i got

Your program has already been the most updated Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD version.

No need to update now.

Ive also raised a query with cyberlink just waiting for a response, i dont see what the problem can be. If i install Anydvd and use it then i am able to play them all with no problems

[daredevil23]

Is there still any problems with PowerDVD and Vista x64?

Seems to install fine without any problems, plays back DVDs, but will not playback HD DVD and gives no rhyme or reason as to why. Only odd occurance is that the program keeps wanting me to register because it says "Your previous registration failed because of network errors. Click "Register Now" to try again."

[vladd]

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/patch/enu/already.jsp
Wrong address. That will ALWAYS say it's already up to date. Here's the proper address:

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/patch/enu/index.jsp

3516 is the latest build I believe though.

[Davinleeds]

I tried the website in IE and i got

Your program has already been the most updated Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD version.

No need to update now.

Ive also raised a query with cyberlink just waiting for a response, i dont see what the problem can be. If i install Anydvd and use it then i am able to play them all with no problems

Sorry Sigurd, missed my bookmark--vladd has it correct.
AnyDvd HD may help-they have a trial.
Make sure all your settings are correct-like sound card audio and PVDV audio setting match-PDVD is picky in many ways.

[spcav]

According to Cyberlink (official response to my question) the latest build of PowerDVD 7 Ultra is 3704.

Anyone got his hands on it yet?

[Rew452]

According to Cyberlink (official response to my question) the latest build of PowerDVD 7 Ultra is 3704.

Anyone got his hands on it yet?

I just ran update on version 3516 and came up Nil!!!

Cyberlink strikes again!!!!

Rew

[spcav]

U have to go through the tech support and ask for the update.

[jongig]

I need some serious help :( i cant get my films to play, granted i only have 3 which is the spiderman trilogy but sureley i must be able to play these?

Ok so this is what happens, i put in the disc, poweredvd loads up and i click play and the screen goes black then powerdvd pops up saying that critical updates are required etc so i click yes and its a continous loop keeps saying the same thing.

I have powerdvd 3516 installed, when i run the advisor everything is green.

Specs:
Intel Core2Duo E6750
Nvidia 8600GS
2GB Ram
Vista Home Premium 32bit
LG GGC-H20N

anybody have any suggestions?

Yes I do since I had the same problem last night and it got solved. I've been playing HDs but last night I played my first Bluray, the Spiderman trilogy and same as you the black screen. I looked into it a bit and believed it to be security related. I did a PDDVD update and and 10 minutes later it worked with no more problems. I also beleived I had the updated PDDVD but in the end after the program did the update it works fine.

John

[TokyoShoe]

According to Cyberlink (official response to my question) the latest build of PowerDVD 7 Ultra is 3704.

Anyone got his hands on it yet?

Do we know what this supposed new version does, yet? I don't do HDD playback so I am using 3516. It runs ok so far but I still cannot play some Blu-ray stuff off disc.

If someone can download it and get patch notes / update notes, I'd be curious to see them posted.

[jongig]

I am using XP and media center and a learnable remote the MX-700. I would like to program a macro into the MX-700 remote to run PDDVD and open the drive. On my other DVD I can program the TV to be on, change source to DVD, turn on pre/pro and set to DVD and turn on DVD/open drive. Click play and you're watching a DVD, easy. I'd like to do the same with the HTPC. Obviously if PDVD is open I can open drive and click play but I'd like a IR command to open the program.

Any Ideas?

Thanks,

John

[hlkc]

According to Cyberlink (official response to my question) the latest build of PowerDVD 7 Ultra is 3704.

Anyone got his hands on it yet?

Yes, I have 3704 from Cyberlink support few days ago. But it did not solve my problem. I can only play all the BD movies, but whenever I tried to play HD-DVD movies, PDVD will disappear/crash... I used to have a Sony BD player prior to my new LG combo player. I think there is something from my ex-player acting up prohibited me not to play HD-DVD...

[roninsrv]

Hi Folks,

Just installed my new LG combo drive with PowerDVD ultra. Bit of messing around needed though. My graphics card is a 7600gt and although the advisor says its HDCP I'm pretty sure that it aint so I got the eval copy of AnyDVD and eventually it worked. Couple of questions though ...

1. How can I be sure that it's output is 1080p? Call me paranoid but the whole HDCP downres things got me a bit uncertain. Unlike other players (Zoom etc) I can't find any way to verify the res that is being played back.

2. I installed the latest drivers from Nvidia. Meh. What the hell is wrong with the colours? Picture looks all washed out? Blacks look gray now for all video (media files, DVD and HD). Is this the black crush thang? Do I just fix it with the monitor settings or software or fiddle with driver versions?

3. Not all disks work. No really :). Not much needed to convince you of that huh. Spiderman 3 seems to be the worst and I cant get into the menu (I do get a flickering black spider momentarily then nothing). But I can play them from disk as media components. Unfortunately I get no audio. When you select media like this do you need to include the corresponding audio files and build up some kind of play list? Is there an easier way to do this? Or is there something wrong with my audio codec for this particular disk?

Anyway ... day 1 down with some success thanks in main to these forums. Thanks for all the hard work you guys are doing. Pointers appreciated.

[lsdavinci]

Has anyone visited the new Arcsoft Totalmedia Theater thread?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=981683

has anyone done any comparisons yet? I'm pretty happy with PowerDVD as of late but there's always room for improvement. And here are a few that I found on that thread:

1) Hard disk playback of Blu-Ray/ HD DVD
2) Full resolution audio ** This is a big one!
3) Windows Media Center integration
4) Proper display settings out-of-the-box. You don't have to go and adjust brightness/contrast separately

[hlkc]

Has anyone visited the new Arcsoft Totalmedia Theater thread?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=981683

has anyone done any comparisons yet? I'm pretty happy with PowerDVD as of late but there's always room for improvement. And here are a few that I found on that thread:

1) Hard disk playback of Blu-Ray/ HD DVD
2) Full resolution audio ** This is a big one!
3) Windows Media Center integration
4) Proper display settings out-of-the-box. You don't have to go and adjust brightness/contrast separately

I tried that 2 nights ago and my CPU usage goes up to the roof 95%+ all the time when I played HD-DVD and BD. According to them, the new patch will address all the current problems. Should be available before end of Jan.

1) Yes, you can do both not like the latest PDVD 3519a> grey out.
2) I can only tell before the movies started since when the movie started, I can't hear the audio because my CPU usage goes up to the roof and I can't hear a thing. But it sounds pretty good when it plays commercials.
3) Yes, I noticed that in my MCE, it changed the title to "Play HD/DVD Blu-ray"
and as soon as I hit played it will launch the application full screen and start playing. If you own My Movies, it likes the way if you pick a BD movies and launch PDVD to play.
4) Yup, not a whole lot to adjust.

XP/SP2 MCE, ATI HD2600 Pro

[jongig]

Hi Folks,

Just installed my new LG combo drive with PowerDVD ultra. Bit of messing around needed though. My graphics card is a 7600gt and although the advisor says its HDCP I'm pretty sure that it aint so I got the eval copy of AnyDVD and eventually it worked. Couple of questions though ...

1. How can I be sure that it's output is 1080p? Call me paranoid but the whole HDCP downres things got me a bit uncertain. Unlike other players (Zoom etc) I can't find any way to verify the res that is being played back.

2. I installed the latest drivers from Nvidia. Meh. What the hell is wrong with the colours? Picture looks all washed out? Blacks look gray now for all video (media files, DVD and HD). Is this the black crush thang? Do I just fix it with the monitor settings or software or fiddle with driver versions?

3. Not all disks work. No really :). Not much needed to convince you of that huh. Spiderman 3 seems to be the worst and I cant get into the menu (I do get a flickering black spider momentarily then nothing). But I can play them from disk as media components. Unfortunately I get no audio. When you select media like this do you need to include the corresponding audio files and build up some kind of play list? Is there an easier way to do this? Or is there something wrong with my audio codec for this particular disk?

Anyway ... day 1 down with some success thanks in main to these forums. Thanks for all the hard work you guys are doing. Pointers appreciated.


In the LG thread there was problems with the 7600GT card which I had also and because of the problems I sold my LG drive. It wasn't easy to replace the 7600GT card because it was a short card (hp z560). Someone else tackled the problem and found a MSI 8500GT card and so I tried the LG drive a second time and it has worked perfectly. Also the new drivers you're talking about from nvidea were a problem and it was like the gamma was off or something. I never got it right again until I changed the v-card.

The problem with the 7600GT card was that it did none of the video decoding and the CPU would stumble a little bit and things just didn't work. The 8500GT does all the decoding and the CPU on my machine is about 30%.

As for your 1080P question, can't you just hit info on your TV and see what the signal from the PC is?

john

[roninsrv]

Thanks John - TV says 1080p but that is the desktop - Im not sure exactly what the application is outputting :)

[ES_Revenge]

Thanks John - TV says 1080p but that is the desktop - Im not sure exactly what the application is outputting :)

When you go fullscreen with PDVD, see what the TV says then, it should still be 1080p.

[triplington]

I'm updating my system to blu-ray and I can't get any audio when I open PDVD on my second display. I've updated to a Liteon 401 and a 8600gts. Audio is from the SPDIF on the motherboard. I drive an LCD monitor as my primary display and a Electrohome with a moome card as the secondary. Using PDVD in the primary display, audio works fine, but if I open or slide PDVD onto the secondary display, in dualview mode, the audio stops. I have swapped the primary/seconday setting and I do get audio with the projector this way, but the projector is in other room and it makes the setup a pain to use. Is there a work around?

[Davinleeds]

PDVD for me works on only ONE display at a time. Use 401 also.

[googinb]

I got Cyberlink's PowerDVD OEM with the Philips BDP7000 BD player. It crashed at install the very first time. Next we had to go get an update from the webpage, crashed again. After I changed my audio settings in windows, it started to play Disney's Cars and crashed, telling me it was an unsupported format?!! HELLOOO!! Tried The Simpsons Movie and got the same error. I was hopng Nero would be included in the OEM and to my dismay it wasn't. Now I've uninstalled this buggy software from my PC for good.

Any rec'd god software for Blu Ray? Also, can anyone tell me why I was getting, "No Program Installed To Play Blu Ray in Media Center"? I'm running Vista 64 bit with Visiontek HD 3850. Is there software that will let you play BD in VMC?

Thanks

[JAHarris]

Hi,

Quick question. Will PDVD play any BD/BD+ or HD DVD from the disc? I am primarily concerned with new releases. WAF will go into free fall if the stuff from netflix will not play.

TIA

J

[SpHeRe31459]

Under Video/Advanced/perform hardware deinterlacing I now have a new option. a series of numbers. One was Weave and the other Bob (still there) but now in{}. Didn't have this recently, anyone else? Letter numeric with 32 characters and dashes. In non play mode.

So has anyone ever decoded these GUID's? They clearly relate to something in NVIDIA's drivers for various deinterlacing modes. I've tried switching among them and nothing really seemed to change much.

[arfster]

They refer to different modes of hardware deinterlacing. For ATI at least, the one beginning 3C is the most advanced: vector adaptive. Next one down is motion adaptive, then plain adaptive (auto-hops between bob and weave as it feels best).

If you run DXVA checker and look at the 2nd tab it'll give you some idea of what's supported with the various colour spaces.

[SpHeRe31459]

They refer to different modes of hardware deinterlacing. For ATI at least, the one beginning 3C is the most advanced: vector adaptive. Next one down is motion adaptive, then plain adaptive (auto-hops between bob and weave as it feels best).

If you run DXVA checker and look at the 2nd tab it'll give you some idea of what's supported with the various colour spaces.

yes the GUIDs are of course different for NVIDIA, but I did some testing the the HQV disc and two IDs work well and the other's don't. Thanks for the tip on the DXVA checker, I don't think anyone has done the research for NVIDIA cards, I know of the ID's for ATI cards thanks to the HD 2x00 thread and your tweak guide.

Well in case anyone is interested there appears to only be one good ID to use for NVIDIA cards and that is the top ID (which is selected by default). 6CB69578-7617-4637-91E5-1C02DB810285 is a Pixel Adaptive mode, which enables the PureVideo post-processing functions. All the others are a forced Bob, Weave, or an Unknown (which appears to be another BOB Vertical Stretch mode).

[ES_Revenge]

This may sound like a stupid question but how the heck do I disable PDVD from autoloading on any media disc? CD, DVD, BD, doesn't matter--whatever I put in stupid PDVD autoruns! :mad:

I disabled all the PDVD processes I could find but nothing. Did Cyberlink just do this by setting Vista's autorun options automatically without my knowledge? What the heck is Cyberlink's problem?!?! :mad: There's no options for this when you install it I don't think and there don't seem to be any options for it within the program. :(

[rgathright]

Was watching an OTA-HD that was recorded using the MyHD card. When watching using PowerDVD there is a red stripe at the far left side. It is not there if I was using MyHD.

Any ideas?


Bump with this question again.

[jimwhite]

how the heck do I disable PDVD from autoloading on any media disc?
run MSCONFIG.EXE and in the startup tab, disable the cyberlink server thingy... :)

:cool:

[Fum]

Or, to go one further, you can download Powertoys TweakUI and disable all auto loading on one or all of your drives. That's what I do.

[Fum]

Anyone have any luck getting 3:10 to Yuma to play off of the disk yet? Does 3704 get it working? This is the latest response I got from Cyberlink after bitching about how incompetant they are, in case anyone cares:

"Please note that we escalated this issue, to our R & D department and as of now we didn’t receive any response from them."

If Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre started supporting ATI HA I'd very gladly jump ship....

[mva5580]

The unfortunate thing at this point is that all of 3 of these programs have issues. I cannot believe that we are still at this point that there isn't a be-all-end-all HD-DVD/Blu-Ray solution for PC's.

Where in the hell is Microsoft on this? I think it's pretty sad that they are apparently tethered to Toshiba right now and that makes them unwilling to work on HD-DVD/Blu-Ray support for Windows. At this point there is absolutely ZERO reason for Windows Media Player to not have HD-DVD/Blu-Ray playback on it.

These companies seriously need to pick up the pace and do what needs to be done. If companies like Cyberlink are going to charge upwards of 100 dollars for this software, it's 100% unacceptable for people to be having all the issues they're having. It could even be said that this is not even "complete" software at this point, considering the fact that it STILL does not 100% accurately play the high-def audio streams. And it's pretty obvious they're of the opinion that many people won't care about this because the perception is that HD-DVD/Blu-Ray = Better Picture Quality and nothing else.

I do not support pirating in any way, not at all. People who use the excuse "Well it sucks, so that's why I pirated it" just piss me off even more because it's obviously good enough for you to use, so you should pay for it. But having said that there is absolutely no way in HELL that these products are worth the price they're pushing off on consumers.

[AbMagFab]

So, does ArcSoft have a product yet in the US that can play HDDVD/BD?

[ellisr63]

Anyone have any luck getting 3:10 to Yuma to play off of the disk yet? Does 3704 get it working? This is the latest response I got from Cyberlink after bitching about how incompetant they are, in case anyone cares:

"Please note that we escalated this issue, to our R & D department and as of now we didn’t receive any response from them."

If Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre started supporting ATI HA I'd very gladly jump ship....

I think I ripped it to the hdd last night... I will try to play it this weekend.

[Tinker]

Anyone have any luck getting 3:10 to Yuma to play off of the disk yet? Does 3704 get it working? This is the latest response I got from Cyberlink after bitching about how incompetant they are, in case anyone cares:

"Please note that we escalated this issue, to our R & D department and as of now we didn’t receive any response from them."

If Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre started supporting ATI HA I'd very gladly jump ship....

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=11974&page=2
1st post on page (Mangoat). Thats how I got 3:10 to work

[hlkc]

So, does ArcSoft have a product yet in the US that can play HDDVD/BD?

Yes and it is available and you can download here (http://www.arcsoft.com/support/downloads/downloadnow.asp?downloadid=384).

But I have to warn you that it is very buggy and I have XP SP2 MCE and ATI HD2600 Pro and it will play BD but my CPU usage went up to the roof, 95%+, therefore I removed it last night. According to someone contacted them, thy are suppose to release the new version before end of Jan. I will recommend you to wait for that one.

[Sigurd]

Argh, i still cant play my spiderman trilogy, not even the special features disk, the response i got from cyberlink told me to send them a screenshot of bd advisor and dxdiag info, so i did all that, they gave me a link to update my oem version to 3516 and i still cant play anything. :mad:

[ttol]

I just got my "HTPC" together, most movies play through PowerDVD without problems. I also tried Nero Showtime but it crashed pretty much with every Blu-ray/HD-DVD disc.

One problem though, Sunshine crashes/freezes roughly 4-5 minutes into the movie, if I skip past that the movie plays for another 4-5 and then freezes PowerDVD.. anyone with similar issues? Perhaps BD+ related issue?

[Tinker]

One problem though, Sunshine crashes/freezes roughly 4-5 minutes into the movie, if I skip past that the movie plays for another 4-5 and then freezes PowerDVD.. anyone with similar issues? Perhaps BD+ related issue?

Sunshine is a probm BD disc. I have the same probms. A lot of other have probms also even with standalone players. It seems to be a mastering/authoring issue with the disc's.

[Ted White]

They just told me to upload 3516 also. They use the term 2CH in the description... That doesn't stand for 2 channel, does it :confused:

[Ted White]

downloaded the 3516 build as requested. Finally told me that I had an older version that had to be removed... so I did.

Downloaded 3516 again and was then told that I needed an original version before i could upgrade. Of course I just deleted it.

this is like a bad movie, only not on BRD... since I can unfortunately watch this pathetic story.

went to cyberlink site and tried to download 3516. same story. filed another tech report. i guess no movies this weekend.

any opinions as to what I"m doing wrong?

thanks

[SugoE]

Don't know if it is of any help for you,
here are my findings:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12939134#post12939134
BTW: PDVD OEM plays DolbyDigtal and DTS and 2CH PCM flawless.

[Ted White]

Was able to reload my player. Still stuck on 3516 build. I asked them for 3704

[Scott Burns]

Is anyone getting discrete 8 channel audio with powerdvd? I rented pans Labyrinth and Mr. Woodcock. Both movies were supposed to have 7.1 soundtracks. When I selected 8 speaker option (using the analog outputs from my motherboard) and no effect, I hear nothing from the back channels. If I enable dolby PLII, then I do hear sound from the back channel. When I look at the page where it says "licensed to" I see version 3516 and it says audio output 8 and audio decoder 6. The information panel in the upper right corner says DTS-HD 5.1 when the movie itself says 7.1.

I am very confused. Please help.

Thanks

[PeZzy]

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=11974&page=2
1st post on page (Mangoat). Thats how I got 3:10 to work

I think he, like me, wants to play it directly off the disc.

[ES_Revenge]

run MSCONFIG.EXE and in the startup tab, disable the cyberlink server thingy... :)

:cool:
Hey, yeah I had all the Cyberlink services disabled when I posted that and it was still doing it. It was pretty simple to solve, I just went into AutoPlay settings and changed everything from running PDVD on insertion, to "do nothing" instead; except Blu-ray which I left on PDVD.

It was more annoying that PDVD automatically changed this when you install it than ask you if you want it to, and for what disc types, than anything.

What's weird is I don't remember it doing that on the older installers (3319f and earlier) though it may have. Definitely did on 3516 though.

Or, to go one further, you can download Powertoys TweakUI and disable all auto loading on one or all of your drives. That's what I do.
Nah TweakUI is for XP, not Vista. Plus Vista makes autoplay settings a lot easier to set and more straightforward--different settings for every disc type ;)

[Vic Y]

PDVD is very choppy with HD-dvd and even with normal dvd. Never has this problem with older version of pdvd, any suggestion?

2G ram, AMD 4600x2, 7500gt

[Andy o]

Is anyone getting discrete 8 channel audio with powerdvd? I rented pans Labyrinth and Mr. Woodcock. Both movies were supposed to have 7.1 soundtracks. When I selected 8 speaker option (using the analog outputs from my motherboard) and no effect, I hear nothing from the back channels. If I enable dolby PLII, then I do hear sound from the back channel. When I look at the page where it says "licensed to" I see version 3516 and it says audio output 8 and audio decoder 6. The information panel in the upper right corner says DTS-HD 5.1 when the movie itself says 7.1.

I am very confused. Please help.

Thanks

The Pan's Labyrinth thing is because the audio is in DTS-HD-MA, which PowerDVD doesn't support fully right now. What you are hearing is the DTS 5.1 "core" that is embedded in the DTS-HD-MA soundtrack. Just from a quick look on the internets Mr. Woodcock seems to have also a 7.1 DTS-HD-MA track. Have you tried with any other formats, like regular DTS-HD 7.1 or Dolby Digital plus or TrueHD 7.1?

[Scott Burns]

not sure Andy. Can you recommend a good 7.1 test movie that you know works in PowerDVD?

Scott

[roninsrv]

Pretty bad vibe on this last page. My heart goes out to you folks having difficulties. Just wanted to ask some advice on my setup. Finally got my whole collection (3) HD and BD titles working (including Spidey 3). System info before the big questions :)

1. CD e6300 o/c to 2.8
2. Win XP SP3
3. 7600GT (non HDLC) - 169.21 forceware
4. AnyDVDHD
5. LG Combo drive
6. 1080p LCD (Samy)

Questions time ...

1. Even at 2.8 I'm getting stutter. CPU runs at low 60% on both cores. I know that something is being off-loaded to the GPU because with no acceleration and playing back streams from Zoom the stutters is epic. Do I need to up the CPU? Or the video card? Or (-sigh-) both?

2. New forceware drivers have made the picture far too bright and a new calibration is needed. Are these drivers pucker or bust? Dont want to calibrate if they are duff and I should go back to another set of drivers. Also, calibrate in nvidia panel or in PDVD or in monitor?

3. Picture is very grainy. No doubt that the detail is in there but I'm not happy with the quality of the video. 1st Bourne film especially, the grain is really bad on some scenes. Anyone else getting this? Bad codecs in PDVD or am I just tooooo picky?

Help appreciate. In a year or so we will all laugh about this tedium (cause we'll be onto the next horror).

[Ted White]

What is entirely annoying about cyberlink is the fact that they KNOW 3615 isn't solving the latest round of problems, yet they ask you to download it.

And they require that you fill out that entire form again to submit a reply..

I guess all of this buys them another couple of days to hear what the programmers come back with.

[scribe5]

Just developed a strange problem. PowerDVD in full screen 1080p, the top half of the picture looks fine, the bottom half looks stretched or smeared vertically--however, in minimized size, it looks fine until I drag and stretch up to a certain size and then the bottom half begins to distort. First noticed this two days ago in "Eastern Promises" HDDVD version. I went back to old King Kong HDDVD and it happened there where before no problem. Except for the sound and peculiar bugs and DRM issues everyone has had, I never had a problem with PowerDVD. So, I reinstalled newest Nvidia Driver for WinXP for 8600 GT card. That didn't help. Patched Power DVD from 3319 to 3516--still didn't work. I haven't installed any other software. This occurs when running straight from the HDDVD (on all HDCP compliant hardware) and from ripped ISOs. Also occurs on Blu-Ray disks. Searched forums but can't find solution/cause. Any help/suggestions appreciated. TIA.

[Davinleeds]

If it's like this post 1152, usually a driver.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12703522#post12703522

[scribe5]

Thanks Davinleeds--that's exactly like it--I'll mess with the Nvidia driver and see if I can clear it up--really appreciate!

[Andy o]

not sure Andy. Can you recommend a good 7.1 test movie that you know works in PowerDVD?

Scott

Heh, I was asking if you tried 7.1 in other formats because I was interested too. I don't know of any DD+, TrueHD or DTS-HD (non-MA) 7.1 movies out there, but it's not like I have been looking hard. I don't even have a 7.1 setup. I do know that DTS-HD-MA streams like the movies you mentioned aren't decoded by PowerDVD, only their "core" 5.1 DTS stream.

[roninsrv]

Any chance with some help on post 5332? I'm wondering what the optimal (and future proof) CPU & GPU combo is or do I have enough grunt but a bad config? Thanks in advance.

[JKohn]

If you didn't get any sound at all from rear channels on Pan's Labyrinth there may be something wrong with your configuration. Even though the core DTS stream gets played in PowerDVD, there should be rear-channel sound in some of the scenes (although that particular movie doesn't make heavy use of the surrounds throughout).

I've also tested 5th Element Remastered on my 6.1 system and it's definitely outputting all the channels.

[Andy o]

If you didn't get any sound at all from rear channels on Pan's Labyrinth there may be something wrong with your configuration. Even though the core DTS stream gets played in PowerDVD, there should be rear-channel sound in some of the scenes (although that particular movie doesn't make heavy use of the surrounds throughout).

I've also tested 5th Element Remastered on my 6.1 system and it's definitely outputting all the channels.

The DTS core seems to be only 5.1 even for 7.1 channel DTS.HD-MA streams, so the 2 rear channels shouldn't work. I guess the core DTS needs to be able to go through S/PDIF for backward compatibility (which is the reason there is a "core" in the first place). It was already pushing the limits with DTS-ES at 6.1, so maybe that's the best they could do.

By the way, Fifth Element Remastered is still 5.1 (http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/fifthelement_remastered.html). How are you getting 6.1?

[JKohn]

My bad, didn't catch the distinction between center-back and surround channels, I got the impression the original poster wasn't getting any surround channels at all.

[IanD]

Questions time ...

1. Even at 2.8 I'm getting stutter. CPU runs at low 60% on both cores. I know that something is being off-loaded to the GPU because with no acceleration and playing back streams from Zoom the stutters is epic. Do I need to up the CPU? Or the video card? Or (-sigh-) both?

2. New forceware drivers have made the picture far too bright and a new calibration is needed. Are these drivers pucker or bust? Dont want to calibrate if they are duff and I should go back to another set of drivers. Also, calibrate in nvidia panel or in PDVD or in monitor?
PowerDVD seems to be written more for Vista and the directx10 8x00/2x00 graphics cards, so anything else will probably be suboptimal.

I currently run 8600GT under XP and it is acceptable, although I get better results with software decoding and a C2D 2.2GHz than with hardware acceleration.

I did use an Nvidia 7600 in the past, but found that with PowerDVD there was a sort of frame drop issue that resulted in everything running at what looked like 20fps or even 16fps. This effect seemed to get worse with each new driver revision until I just quit using it. Maybe the latest drivers have fixed that. It did seem to have a better PQ than the 8600 for some reason, but with other issues.

In terms of the brightness change, what PDVD video settings do you normally use?

I find with the 8600, hardware acceleration enabled brightens the image compared to acceleration disabled: I need to change the brightness setting within PDVD by about 8 whenever I switch between decoding methods. So, I'm wondering whether in your situation the new drivers suddenly enable acceleration whereas previously it didn't.

When considering calibrating, check whether the drivers affect other applications as it may just be PDVD modifying things. If other applications are affected, then you would probably need to adjust settings globally in the Nvidia Control Panel.

The G98-8400GS reviewed in an earlier thread looks promising, but again it's running Vista directx10 and may not be an improvement for XP.

I really should test my 7600 with the newer drivers to see if it makes a difference.

[rhysevans]

Is there a list somewhere of titles PowerDVD does and does not play? Or in theory should it play all discs?

i.e. Assuming I will be using a supported PC/GFX card etc, and playing from the Disc, not HDD, and not using AnyDVD.

[Bicster]

How do I disable hardware acceleration? PowerDVD has the option selected and it's greyed out with no way to deselect it. I am running the latest public build of PowerDVD and the nVidia drivers, with MCE 2005 and an 8600GT.

[bk1987]

How do I disable hardware acceleration? PowerDVD has the option selected and it's greyed out with no way to deselect it. I am running the latest public build of PowerDVD and the nVidia drivers, with MCE 2005 and an 8600GT.

you need to use an older version of drivers and pwr dvd you cant disable hw acc with the new builds, i use driver 162.18, they work for me with win XP,http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=10

[Ted White]

Build 3704 isn't allowing me to play the latest Pirates. Just like with build 3615.

I can get to the main menu, but cannot select "play movie", can't advance or access any sub menus.

I thought that 3704 was OK with BRD, but still had issues with HDDVD. That's not what I'm seeing.

Any hints, tips or ancient chants are welcomed.

[roninsrv]

PowerDVD seems to be written more for Vista and the directx10 8x00/2x00 graphics cards, so anything else will probably be suboptimal.

I currently run 8600GT under XP and it is acceptable, although I get better results with software decoding and a C2D 2.2GHz than with hardware acceleration.

I did use an Nvidia 7600 in the past, but found that with PowerDVD there was a sort of frame drop issue that resulted in everything running at what looked like 20fps or even 16fps. This effect seemed to get worse with each new driver revision until I just quit using it. Maybe the latest drivers have fixed that. It did seem to have a better PQ than the 8600 for some reason, but with other issues.

In terms of the brightness change, what PDVD video settings do you normally use?

I find with the 8600, hardware acceleration enabled brightens the image compared to acceleration disabled: I need to change the brightness setting within PDVD by about 8 whenever I switch between decoding methods. So, I'm wondering whether in your situation the new drivers suddenly enable acceleration whereas previously it didn't.

When considering calibrating, check whether the drivers affect other applications as it may just be PDVD modifying things. If other applications are affected, then you would probably need to adjust settings globally in the Nvidia Control Panel.

The G98-8400GS reviewed in an earlier thread looks promising, but again it's running Vista directx10 and may not be an improvement for XP.

I really should test my 7600 with the newer drivers to see if it makes a difference.

Ian - thanks for the response. I backed out the latest set of nvidia drivers and put back an older set (169.21) and this fixed the serious contrast issue I had. Picture looks nice and crisp now, but a little darker than when I calibrated the 7600 initially. The new driver also seems to have helped with the stutter. Pans are a lot smoother now and I can actually watch a film without a silent Grrrr going off in my head. Probably need to go up a video card to get perfect but it will do for just now. Poxy drivers cost me 2 days of messing around and probably the price of a new CPU if not for your intervention.

I can't switch off the HW acceleration but it looks from this thread as though this is down to driver/PDVD combinations. I'm gonna stop messing around and watch some movies for just now. Thanks again :)

[KeyMix]

Quick ? for any of you out there...

I have a LG GGC-H20L Blue Ray /HD DVD combo player & a VisionTek HD 2600 PRO 512 MB AGP Video Card. I am using the PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 recently upgraded from the OEM version that came w/ my player thinking this would be a good think :confused:

Reading the "readme" and installation online instructions. It urged me to update the video drivers for my video card before continuing... So I logged onto ATI's website and downloaded the latest drivers 8.1 dated 01/16/08. When I performed those updates and upgraded to 7.3.. I no longer could play HD DVD or Blue Ray without the video being very sluggish or freezing the continuing... I removed both.. Reinstalled my originally OEM version of Power DVD Ultra and my original video drivers that came w/ my card and have no issue.. What gives?? I tried to compare options, but....not sure I really captured the variable between both software.. Is this just me??:cool:

Thanks in advance for any feedback


KeyMix

[Rudy81]

This message applies to PDVD ultra OEM that comes with the LG internal drive. I just wanted to post a success story rathen than just the usual questions. I just watched Saw IV Blue Ray and it was just perfect. Picture was outstanding and the sound options with PDVD OEM were DD EX and DTS both in 5.1. I got DTS by selecting Master DTS 7.1 and what was sent to my processor was nice, clear 5.1 DTS. The DD EX 5.1 track was perfect as well.

I am using the LG internal HD-DVD + Blue Ray drive, Win XP Pro, Gigabyte 8600GT card with latest nVidia drivers.

I wish it was always this easy.

[mva5580]

Hard to say, sometimes drivers are just fishy like that.

The HTPC mantra is this: If it works, don't change it. Too many variables in HTPC's :)

[KeyMix]

So basically...New drivers and upgrade don't equal better performance, correct? Right now as Rudy81 got... I get pretty good results with the default OEM PWRDVD player that comes with the LG Combo Player and my original drivers that came w/ my card... It works...so stick with it??.. Sounds good to me...

[IanD]

Ian - thanks for the response. I backed out the latest set of nvidia drivers and put back an older set (169.21) and this fixed the serious contrast issue I had. Picture looks nice and crisp now, but a little darker than when I calibrated the 7600 initially. The new driver also seems to have helped with the stutter. Pans are a lot smoother now and I can actually watch a film without a silent Grrrr going off in my head. Probably need to go up a video card to get perfect but it will do for just now. Poxy drivers cost me 2 days of messing around and probably the price of a new CPU if not for your intervention.

I can't switch off the HW acceleration but it looks from this thread as though this is down to driver/PDVD combinations. I'm gonna stop messing around and watch some movies for just now.
Your experience has saved me hours of fooling about with driver versions when I test the 7600 again: I now know just to use 169.21. :)

If you don't want to go back even further with drivers, in order to disable hardware acceleration, as suggested earlier in this thread; consider installing PowerDVD 7.3.2911: AFAIK it is the last version that permits toggling hardware acceleration on or off and having it honoured.

If you copy your existing PowerDVD folder to another folder and rename it to PowerDVD???? then install PowerDVD 7.3.2911 and copy the new PowerDVD folder to PowerDVD2911, it's possible to delete the PowerDVD folder, copy
either PowerDVD???? or PowerDVD2911 and rename the copy as PowerDVD: thus permitting switching between v2911 and v???? at will.

This might work better if you start off with v2911 and a clean slate, copy it and then upgrade to a newer version and copy that. I'm not sure whether PowerDVD takes kindly to attempting to downgrade.

The other thing you need to know when deleting, copying or renaming PowerDVD folders is to ensure PowerDVD is not running and then terminate the Richvideo and other PowerDVD processes that continue to run. If you don't do this, the affected files remain locked and won't be touched, possibly giving rise to strange results.

It is useful to switch between 2 versions as some titles may not play well or at all on v2911, so for the recalcitrant ones you can switch to the latest PowerDVD version and accept the limitations.

I have found that v2911 will work for many HD-DVD titles. For those titles that have issues, it is possible to modify the .XPL to strip any navigation stuff and get it to play (with some functionality restrictions).

I've only played a few Bluray titles, but they have worked just fine in v2911.

Editing the .XPL permits the main feature and desired audio track to be played immediately, followed by any extras that you see fit. Unfortunately, in this brute force approach everything is played in sequence and I'm not sure if one can jump to specific titles in PowerDVD as there are no menus.

I'm of the opinion that it is only navigation changes in recent titles that create problems between HD-DVD and v2911, but this can be worked around by removing the navigation from the .XPL if one is prepared to forego menus.

[spcav]

Well, I checked 3704 under Windows Vista with Catalyst 8.1 (ATI 3870) and the results are rather disappointing.

3:10 Yuma still doesn’t play (cannot click anything in the menus).

DTS-HD MA 7.1 is still limited to 5.1 (and I am not referring only to the actual output but also how PDVD recognizes the signal – clicking ‘info’ you see ‘DTS HD 5.1’).

Pan’s Labyrinth (US Version) HD DVD menus are still not working properly.

The only thing which seems fixed is the Eastern Promises HD DVD playback (now menus are available).

One more thing:

4 new buttons (next to the already existing one (play etc)) are now available in this build:

In BR playback the 4 buttons have 4 colors (red, green, yellow, blue) and in HD DVD playback 4 letters (A, B, C, D).

In the limited time of my tests (mainly in the above-mentioned movies) I didn’t understand their usage.

[Andy o]

Well, I checked 3704 under Windows Vista with Catalyst 8.1 (ATI 3870) and the results are rather disappointing.

3:10 Yuma still doesn’t play (cannot click anything in the menus).

DTS-HD MA 7.1 is still limited to 5.1 (and I am not referring only to the actual output but also how PDVD recognizes the signal – clicking ‘info’ you see ‘DTS HD 5.1’).

Pan’s Labyrinth (US Version) HD DVD menus are still not working properly.

The only thing which seems fixed is the Eastern Promises HD DVD playback (now menus are available).


DTS-HD MA is not supported by PowerDVD (yet, I guess), so you're actually not getting it even if it was 5.1. What you're getting is the "core" DTS stream that is embedded in the DTS-HD MA stream for backward compatibility. This means that this DTS core is limited to 5.1 as well, or maybe at the most 6.1, so it can go through S/PDIF.

I haven't found any problems with Pan's Labyrinth with 3516. With 3319a, the audio doesn't work. It seems 3319a has trouble extracting the DTS core of that movie, or possibly all HD-DVD's with 7.1 DTS-HD MA (I have tried a blu-ray with DTS-HD MA 7.1 and 3319a did extract the core without problem). About Eastern Promises, I have briefly tested it on 3319a, and didn't find any problems, but I'll check again later.

[spcav]

DTS-HD MA is not supported by PowerDVD (yet, I guess), so you're actually not getting it even if it was 5.1. What you're getting is the "core" DTS stream that is embedded in the DTS-HD MA stream for backward compatibility. This means that this DTS core is limited to 5.1 as well, or maybe at the most 6.1, so it can go through S/PDIF.

6.1 output is working (I remember it because I tested it with X-3 DTS-HD 6.1).

Are you sure about the DTS Core thing in DTS-HD MA?

The reason I am asking is that PDVD ‘recognizes’ the MA track (as you can see from the bitrate which you check ‘online’ using the ‘Show Information’ option) and that I haven’t read about this limitation before.

PS Of course I am referring to analog audio output (as of course SPDIF is not capable going over DTS/DD).

[AngelEyes]

Are you sure about the DTS Core thing in DTS-HD MA?

Yes :)

[Ted White]

:(

3704 had a hiccup in the middle of a HD-DVD last night. Still no access to BRD menu (can't select menu options, but you can see them).

Cyberlink replied that I should update disc drive and DirectX drivers, and disable hardware acceleration. Delete the PDVD build, remove a few hidden files, then re-install... then more tasks.

I'm OK with doing what is necesary to get the system running, but I also get the slight feeling this is busy work to stall for time.

Does anyone have 3704 working properly?

[Andy o]

6.1 output is working (I remember it because I tested it with X-3 DTS-HD 6.1).

Are you sure about the DTS Core thing in DTS-HD MA?

The reason I am asking is that PDVD ‘recognizes’ the MA track (as you can see from the bitrate which you check ‘online’ using the ‘Show Information’ option) and that I haven’t read about this limitation before.

PS Of course I am referring to analog audio output (as of course SPDIF is not capable going over DTS/DD).

The "core" is part of the spec of DTS-HD (and I guess MA too) for backward compatibility. DD+ also has something similar. I don't know about TrueHD though. Another thing to note is that PowerDVD is supposed to decode DTS-HD, just not the lossless MA.

One question. The X-Men 3 audio is supposed to be 6.1 DTS-HD MA. From your post I guess the "core" is also 6.1. Did you by any chance stream it through S/PDIF? I am curious to see if when you do that your decoder reads "DTS-ES" or just regular DTS. My decoder makes a distinction between both.

[spcav]

I know about the core thing but I didn’t know that pdvd only ‘gets’ this one and not the HD audio track.

Re. X3: I tried with analog connection. But I can try also with SPDIF and revert.

[NaTT]

yeah if it only gets the core, that would be a really cheaky claim to say that it "handles" DTS MA.
that and downsampling of what it does process and the blurb is real smoke and mirrors....

I think they should be saying what elements of these formats it can process and how it can pass these processed audio components to the souncard. Yeah!

[AngelEyes]

yeah if it only gets the core, that would be a really cheaky claim to say that it "handles" DTS MA.
that and downsampling of what it does process and the blurb is real smoke and mirrors....

I think they should be saying what elements of these formats it can process and how it can pass these processed audio components to the souncard. Yeah!

AFAIK Cyberlink have never claimed to support DTS HD MA anyway, only "5.1 DTS". They do support DTS HD as well but have not publicised it for some reason, perhaps to remove some confusion, who knows.

[TokyoShoe]

Do we have an official list of fixes for the 3704 patch yet? Do we even know what it changes?

[NaTT]

http://www.cyberlink.com/english/products/powerdvd/ultra/audio.jsp

Experience the best DTS and Dolby surround sound that home theater audio can deliver....

that's not so if it downsamples or picks the core track.
Home theater audio can be better delivered by most standalone players.

[ES_Revenge]

Questions time ...

1. Even at 2.8 I'm getting stutter. CPU runs at low 60% on both cores. I know that something is being off-loaded to the GPU because with no acceleration and playing back streams from Zoom the stutters is epic. Do I need to up the CPU? Or the video card? Or (-sigh-) both?
If the CPU isn't at 100% on both cores, the CPU isn't the problem for stuttering--it's something else. Could be the videocard/drivers not handling HA properly, or something else. Unfortunately PDVD doesn't let you disable HA it seems, it just does it automatically if it's available and greys out the setting once playback starts :( Unless you can uncheck that and have it specifically not use DXVA, it's a little tough to be sure it's the videocard and/or drivers. But as far as the CPU goes, even if you bump the clock on it higher, the only thing you're going to see is even less CPU utilisation and continued stuttering.

3. Picture is very grainy. No doubt that the detail is in there but I'm not happy with the quality of the video. 1st Bourne film especially, the grain is really bad on some scenes. Anyone else getting this? Bad codecs in PDVD or am I just tooooo picky?
You may be seeing the film grain--that is the actual quality of the film/mastering is being seen when viewed at an HD res. You would think that more modern movies would not have those flaws, but it's a possibility. If it's only on some movies, I doubt it's codecs or drivers or anything like that--it's probably just the way it is on the disc to begin with. Unless, of course, it happens on all movies of a certain encoding (e.g. all movies in AVC or all movies in VC-1 or something like that). Then it might be a problem on the decoding side somewhere.

Help appreciate. In a year or so we will all laugh about this tedium (cause we'll be onto the next horror).
Well I would really hope so. However with the generally shoddy program Cyberlink has here, and their slow updating/fixing, the only way to be laughing about this might be with programs other than PDVD...

[Andy o]

AFAIK Cyberlink have never claimed to support DTS HD MA anyway, only "5.1 DTS". They do support DTS HD as well but have not publicised it for some reason, perhaps to remove some confusion, who knows.

They also quote 6.1 DTS-ES, but that's old news. The mention of DTS-HD can be seen in the versions comparison page, though I agree, it can't be really be called "publicized".

[ES_Revenge]

Do we have an official list of fixes for the 3704 patch yet? Do we even know what it changes?

I'd like to know as well... Does 3704 have Profile 1.1 yet? (For ppl that have 3704 you can tell this if the interface has the four coloured buttons now--red, green, blue, and yellow. If it doesn't have those it STILL doesn't have 1.1 :mad: )

[JDLIVE]

I'd like to know as well... Does 3704 have Profile 1.1 yet? (For ppl that have 3704 you can tell this if the interface has the four coloured buttons now--red, green, blue, and yellow. If it doesn't have those it STILL doesn't have 1.1 :mad: )

Post 5353 would seem to suggest it has the buttons at least...

[BrianCurran]

.

[ES_Revenge]

Post 5353 would seem to suggest it has the buttons at least...

Ah yeah I missed that, so I guess it does have 1.1 support, finally :) Anyone tested this with a 1.1 movie like RE3? Now of course we still have to wait for them to post this on the site :rolleyes:

[Ted White]

3704 is not working on BRD Pirares of C3 if that tell you anything

[chillspace]

I'd like to know as well... Does 3704 have Profile 1.1 yet? (For ppl that have 3704 you can tell this if the interface has the four coloured buttons now--red, green, blue, and yellow. If it doesn't have those it STILL doesn't have 1.1 :mad: )

Well, the latest version (3704) does have the buttons but that doesn't mean that it has support for Profile 1.1. It just means that the interface is more closely matched to hardware remotes that ship with standalone players. They have added the 'A, B, C and D' buttons for when an HDDVD disc is playing.

Full support for BD Profile 1.1 is surely not there because '3:10 to Yuma' still does not play (still gets stuck at the menu with unclickable buttons).

If anyone has had better luck, please let us know.

Eric

[Ted White]

Eric is right on.

[Vic Y]

I thought I fixed it last night. Troy and couple other HD-DVDs looked great and smooth. Pop in Pitch Black and U2 a hour later and it just stop working again, PDVD just hung or shut itseld down. I am running OEM version, AMD 4600X2, 2 Gif of ram, 8500GT. I am thinking purchase the retail version, maybe it will do the trick. Should I?

[Prokyon]

Getting those HD-DVD/DVD combo-discs to play is a real pain... Neither the XBox360-drive nor the GCC-H20L seem to be able to handle those flawlessly. I had to interrupt watching The Kingdom for 5 times, several times the drive didn't even recognise the disc after the spin-up. Same trouble with Bourne Ultimatum.

Changing between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD-playback is also a problem. Sometimes I get messages about unknown disc-types... and then there are those discs like "3:10 to Yuma"... "War" on the other hand works without a problem although the menu looks almost identical to the one from "Yuma".

Playback of most other discs is smooth. I'm using an Intel E6400, 4 GB RAM, 8600GT with Windows Vista and Windows XP. I prefer Vista for its built-in sound options.

[charliemotts]

So, I see I'm not alone in my issues with the GGC-H20L Drive and PowerDVD. I've got all the compatible H/W and updates but I still get movies that are either jittery or they just freeze. Sunshine and MI3 have both given me problems.

Am I reading into all these posts that people, in general, are having better luck playing BDHD disks on Vista than on XP?

I've got AMD 4600+ and the ASUS version of Nvidia's 8600GTS. I've noticed that the degradation in watching these high def movies starts when both CPU cores approach 100% utilization.

From what I've read on the Nvidia site, if you're application (PowerDVD in this case) supports their PureVideo HD technology, then PC-CPU off-loading is supposed to happen, with the GPU on the 8600GTS performing some of the work. The problem is, in my PowerDVD Ultra Deluxe edition software, I see the "Hardware Acceleration: PureVideo HD" parameter enabled when I'm not watching a movie. However, when I start a movie, it seems to get disabled, the check-mark disappears, and the whole thing is greyed-out.

I've been in contact with Cyberlink support, but so far, I've got no resolution to this issue (Hardware Acceleration getting disabled when a movie is playing).

If Vista is giving better results to the HTPC area, I'd like to know.

Thanks.

[ttol]

I haven't had any problems with combo discs so far, Bourne Ultimatum and Hot Fuzz have always played nicely (GGC-H20L, PowerDVD, 8800GT & Vista64).

Apparently there are some known problems with Sunshine that are supposedly fixed in the next PowerDVD update.

[chillspace]

So, I see I'm not alone in my issues with the GGC-H20L Drive and PowerDVD. I've got all the compatible H/W and updates but I still get movies that are either jittery or they just freeze. Sunshine and MI3 have both given me problems.

I really doubt it is a problem with the drive itself or as you suggest the combination of the GGC-H20L and PDVD. The problem is the software. The LG drive is just that, a mechanism to read data. This is different from the available hardware players (which have their own problems with playback of all of the same titles we're complaining about). I would liken PDVD as our "firmware" for proper playback.

I have had zero issues with HDDVD playback. I did find that if I left PDVD Ultra with default deinterlacing settings (smart deinterlacing) HDDVD playback was brutally choppy. After forcing deinterlacing to pixel adaptive I have experienced zero issues for both BD and HDDVD w/ hardware acceleration.

But I digress...Software is the issue.

Eric

[druid01]

well i can confirm with PDVD 3704, which was sent to me after complaining of severe stutters and periodic 100% loads during playback of RE3 that
while using vista 32bit, 8500GT, 2 Gig and a 4400 dual core it still stutters horribly and the cores are red-lining.
This was after a full reinstall of vista and drivers and no other software installed.

Its a bugger as i watched the first 2 movie's in a row and hadn't yet seen RE3 :(

[tsb]

^^rip to HDD and try Nero showtime with the main stream

[monsieurgadget]

Well, the latest version (3704) does have the buttons but that doesn't mean that it has support for Profile 1.1. It just means that the interface is more closely matched to hardware remotes that ship with standalone players. They have added the 'A, B, C and D' buttons for when an HDDVD disc is playing.

Full support for BD Profile 1.1 is surely not there because '3:10 to Yuma' still does not play (still gets stuck at the menu with unclickable buttons).

If anyone has had better luck, please let us know.

Eric

I thought that Build 3516 was the latest PowerDVD release - at least according to the official Cyberlink site (http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/download/updates_112_ENU.html)?

Where do you get 3704?

I am having problems with hardware acceleration on my PowerDVD installation and would love to try a newer release.

[Vic Y]

I don't know what have changed but I have been working on this for a week and almost throw in the white flag a few times. But finally everythings work last night (don't have BR yet), I even manage to rip it into my harddrive iso file and using Daemon Tool to mount the image and play it from the harddrive. My tips is make sure your drivers is upto date, uninstalling powerdvd, drive is your needed to. Make sure everythings are removed, reboot and reinstall everythings from scratch.

Combo drive, PDVD 3704, Anydvdhd, 8500gt, 4600X2 (939), 2 g of ram, dvi out.

[Ted White]

Is it desirable to have hardware acceleration ON or OFF?

Cyberlink tech want me to turn it off

[mpgxsvcd]

What sound settings does everyone use in PowerDVD?

Here are the options I have tried. Currently I am using option 1 because my onboard analog outputs are not that good. However, that will change today when I get my Auzentech Prelude.

1. Set PowerDVD to output 7.1 channels with the quiet room setting(Full dynamic range). Set my on board audio to use Dolby Digital live to encode the 7.1 audio to 5.1 channel DD at 640 Kbps. Then output to my receiver over optical. This enables me to hear everything in DD at twice the rate of Standard DVDs(448 Kbps DD). This is by no means lossless but it really sounds quite good and it is about as good as you can get over optical.
2. Set PowerDVD to output 7.1 channels with the quiet room setting(Full dynamic range). Set my on board audio to output the downconverted(16 Bit 48 Khz) audio over the analog outputs to my receiver. This is as close to Lossless as I think you will currently get with a non HDMI receiver. However, it is not true lossless because of the powerDVD downconversion.
3. Set PowerDVD to output over optical. This setting has problems with DTS and LPCM tracks. You have to enable the DTS encoding option in PowerDVD to get any sound for those codecs. That introduces some pretty horrendous noise. I also was not able to get 5.1 Channel audio for some DD True-HD tracks.

There is one more option I have not tried.
4. Set PowerDVD to output over HDMI from a computer that has on board HDMI ouput. Theoretically, this should allow lossless audio. However, I have not seen anyone confirm that they could get "TRUE" 5.1 or 7.1 Channel lossless audio with the onboard HDMI. Has anyone made this work?

[VINJE76]

I have the OEM version of PDVD that came with the LG combo drive and for the last two weeks I haven't been able to play the bluray movie WAR. Then two nights ago PDVD popped up with an update. So I downloaded and installed then tried playing WAR and still did not play properly. So I restarted my computer and then it worked fine. So it must have updated it to the 1.1 bluray profile.

[blingo]

I have the OEM version of PDVD that came with the LG combo drive and for the last two weeks I haven't been able to play the bluray movie WAR. Then two nights ago PDVD popped up with an update. So I downloaded and installed then tried playing WAR and still did not play properly. So I restarted my computer and then it worked fine. So it must have updated it to the 1.1 bluray profile.

Cant be because the update from Cyberlink would have been version 3516. It sounds like it updated the AACS code so powerdvd plays the movie.

[blingo]

Is it desirable to have hardware acceleration ON or OFF?

Cyberlink tech want me to turn it off

I have read it looks better with it off. I think it looks better aswell but is hard to tell.

[blingo]

I thought that Build 3516 was the latest PowerDVD release - at least according to the official Cyberlink site (http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/download/updates_112_ENU.html)?

Where do you get 3704?

I am having problems with hardware acceleration on my PowerDVD installation and would love to try a newer release.

You have to contact Customer Support for Cyberlink they will email you with a link to get the latest download might take a day or two.

[arfster]

Is it desirable to have hardware acceleration ON or OFF?

Cyberlink tech want me to turn it off

Sheesh. For several versions now, PDVD ignores you if you turn it off, and just turns it right back on again.

Guess I shouldn't be surprised Cyberlink support doesn't know this.

[Ted White]

Shutting acceleration off is part of a looong series of tasks they want me to perform after receiving 3704 and it not solving the problems.

Seems like they gave me busy work to buy time is all...

[TokyoShoe]

I've got 3516 installed and running fine, I really am starting to wonder if I even WANT to upgrade to 3704.. based upon reports others are making.
(Granted at present I do not own any titles like "Sunshine", "War", or other apparent problematics. Should I bother?)

[Ted White]

I don't think so... isn't that sad?

[ES_Revenge]

Shutting acceleration off is part of a looong series of tasks they want me to perform after receiving 3704 and it not solving the problems.

Seems like they gave me busy work to buy time is all...

LOL yeah, that or making you the "beta tester" for their craptastic application :( And really I think this software should still be a beta, given how bad it is.

[Ted White]

I feel like a tester, only I don't get my $2 when I'm done with the experiment...

[Copperfield]

Does the newest patch - 3704 allow to play discs images stored on Hdd, or is there any way to do that with this?

[mva5580]

I highly, highly doubt a new patch will ever restore the ability to play images on the hard drive. It was in there from the beginning, and then it was taken out. And I would wager it was taken out deliberately. I don't remember exactly how, but I'm pretty sure there is a way to restore that functionality through a modification to some files.

[hamish b]

I highly, highly doubt a new patch will ever restore the ability to play images on the hard drive. It was in there from the beginning, and then it was taken out. And I would wager it was taken out deliberately. I don't remember exactly how, but I'm pretty sure there is a way to restore that functionality through a modification to some files.



In the case of version 3516, the files that need to be copied from an earlier version are,

Navfilter\CLBDROMNav.ax
Navfilter\HDDVDNav.ax
PowerDVD.exe
*.imp (10 files)

tried it, works like a charm. just make sure the navfilter ones go into the navfilter folder of 3516
i used the above files from 3319a

[Tinker]

tried it, works like a charm. just make sure the navfilter ones go into the navfilter folder of 3516
i used the above files from 3319a

Unfortunely that work around does not work for 3704, the newest beta...:(

[clau]

Help with ImageBurn?

I have PowerDVD Ultra 3319f, and it plays HD-DVD fine from the XBox360 Add-on. However, it will not play ISO's created by ImageBurn from files ripped via AnyDVD. Can you guys tell me what are the options to use in ImageBurn? I picked UDP, and I selected recursive directories and so on. I use the Virtual CloneDrve routine from Slysoft to mount the iso.

When I play the iso using PowerDVD Ultra, I do not get any error message, but nothing shows on the screen. I still get the PowerDVD splash screen. I can see the various files (the .evo's etc.), but none of those plays. I have a C2D 6550 and a Nvidia 8300GS card, if that makes any difference.

[ES_Revenge]

Unfortunely that work around does not work for 3704, the newest beta...:(

Doesn't replacing those files remove disc navigation features that might have been updated in newer versions anyway? I mean say you could change those files in the 3704 build, wouldn't you lose the R/G/B/Y and A/B/C/D buttons for newer profiles?

[Faceless Rebel]

Cyberlink needs to stop wasting their time doing stupid crap like removing workarounds for restoring playback from HDD function and actually spend time making their player not suck.

Why is there no real competiton in the PC DVD software player market anymore?

[IanD]

Help with ImageBurn?

I have PowerDVD Ultra 3319f, and it plays HD-DVD fine from the XBox360 Add-on. However, it will not play ISO's created by ImageBurn from files ripped via AnyDVD. Can you guys tell me what are the options to use in ImageBurn? I picked UDP, and I selected recursive directories and so on. I use the Virtual CloneDrve routine from Slysoft to mount the iso.

When I play the iso using PowerDVD Ultra, I do not get any error message, but nothing shows on the screen. I still get the PowerDVD splash screen. I can see the various files (the .evo's etc.), but none of those plays. I have a C2D 6550 and a Nvidia 8300GS card, if that makes any difference.
It's best if you create an ISO directly from the source disc, with AnyDVD HD running, via Imgburn's "read" facility: the ISO will be created in the source's original format (generally UDF 2.5 for HD-DVD and Bluray).

If you rip files to HDD and then attempt to create an ISO from those files with Imgburn's "build" facility, unfortunately Imgburn can't yet support UDF 2.5 in this mode, so you will get something lower.

It's possible that PowerDVD doesn't like a mounted ISO with anything less than UDF 2.5, since it is expecting a genuine HD disc.

Did you use AnyDVD HD whilst playing back directly from original disc?

Can you play the ripped files with PowerDVD, using the "open movie file on hard disc drive" option? If you can't even play these, then any ISO created from them will also not function.

It is becoming difficult troubleshooting playback issues because there are now at least the following playback processes and most of them are potentially different, each with scope to introduce gremlins:

1. Playback from original disc without AnyDVD HD.
2. Playback from original disc with AnyDVD HD and default settings.
3. Playback from original disc with various combinations of AnyDVD HD settings.
4. Rip to files with AnyDVD HD and default settings.
5. Rip to files with various combinations of AnyDVD HD settings.
6. Build ripped files to ISO (UDF issues?).
7. Rip to ISO without AnyDVD HD.
8. Rip to ISO with AnyDVD default settings.
9. Rip to ISO with various combinations of AnyDVD HD settings.
10. Various versions of PowerDVD.

Points 6. to 9. have additional variations if you use AnyDVD HD for playback of the ISO with various combinations of AnyDVD HD settings.

Another layer of complexity is if you use AnyDVD's "magic file replacement" facility at any point to modify the .XPL files for HD-DVD.

Let's not even mention other software players in the mix apart from PowerDVD.

So, when raising a playback issue, it is important to identify the playback method (including player version) and any AnyDVD HD settings used.

It would even be useful to identify the title giving issues as some studios need certain AnyDVD HD settings to operate properly (eg remove menus for Studio Canal titles, or rename highest .XPL for Universal titles).

Then of course there are titles that are just problematic.

[drsmithdtv]

While editing XPL's has generally worked well for playback with PowerDVD, one issue is getting the english subtitles to play in a movie only where there are short segments of non english dailog in an otherwise english speaking movie.

Is there an XPL editing solution to this ?

[AngelEyes]

tried it, works like a charm. just make sure the navfilter ones go into the navfilter folder of 3516
i used the above files from 3319a

Can you confirm this works on BD+ titles from HDD, I tried it or a similiar workaround and it didn't... not sure what the benefit of the new versions over 3319a are anyway?

[monsieurgadget]

PowerDVD build 3730 is now up on the Cyberlink site. (http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/download/updates_112_ENU.html) Can't seem to find a release note or release history, though.

[XxDeadlyxX]

PowerDVD build 3730 is now up on the Cyberlink site. (http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/download/updates_112_ENU.html) Can't seem to find a release note or release history, though.

List of Updates:

Support BD-Video Profile 1.1.
Improves BD-Java compatibility to enhance interactivity with some BD-ROMs.

[Cap.T]

List of Updates:

Support BD-Video Profile 1.1.
Improves BD-Java compatibility to enhance interactivity with some BD-ROMs.

Do you happen to know if it is possible again to turn off Hardware Accerlation with that version when using NVidia 8800 cards? I'm not even going to bother downloading this otherwise. Thanks!

[Rathbone]

Do you happen to know if it is possible again to turn off Hardware Accerlation with that version when using NVidia 8800 cards? I'm not even going to bother downloading this otherwise. Thanks!

still not possible. 3:10 to Yuma works now.

[sarah99]

You can turn off Hardware Accel by changing screen resolution with PDVD already running.
It works for me anyway!

[darth1]

Tried to update from 3516 retail to 3730 and get following error.
Either your P-DVD version is outdated or your system does not have a previous version of P-DVD installed.Patch instalation will abort.Any ideas please.

[mpgxsvcd]

What sound settings does everyone use in PowerDVD?

Here are the options I have tried. Currently I am using option 1 because my onboard analog outputs are not that good. However, that will change today when I get my Auzentech Prelude.

1. Set PowerDVD to output 7.1 channels with the quiet room setting(Full dynamic range). Set my on board audio to use Dolby Digital live to encode the 7.1 audio to 5.1 channel DD at 640 Kbps. Then output to my receiver over optical. This enables me to hear everything in DD at twice the rate of Standard DVDs(448 Kbps DD). This is by no means lossless but it really sounds quite good and it is about as good as you can get over optical.
2. Set PowerDVD to output 7.1 channels with the quiet room setting(Full dynamic range). Set my on board audio to output the downconverted(16 Bit 48 Khz) audio over the analog outputs to my receiver. This is as close to Lossless as I think you will currently get with a non HDMI receiver. However, it is not true lossless because of the powerDVD downconversion.
3. Set PowerDVD to output over optical. This setting has problems with DTS and LPCM tracks. You have to enable the DTS encoding option in PowerDVD to get any sound for those codecs. That introduces some pretty horrendous noise. I also was not able to get 5.1 Channel audio for some DD True-HD tracks.

There is one more option I have not tried.
4. Set PowerDVD to output over HDMI from a computer that has on board HDMI ouput. Theoretically, this should allow lossless audio. However, I have not seen anyone confirm that they could get "TRUE" 5.1 or 7.1 Channel lossless audio with the onboard HDMI. Has anyone made this work?

I got my Prelude card last night and I still went with option 1(DD Live with output over optical). However, the 5.1 Channel analog output is much better with the Prelude card instead of my onboard audio. There wasn’t that much difference between the 5.1 Channel analog and the DD live though. Can’t wait till the HDMI daughter card comes out.

How does everyone else hook up their audio with PowerDVD?

Another cool feature of the Prelude is that it will allow me to do both 5.1 Channel analog output and Optical output at the same time. I don’t have to change any settings on the computer to switch between the two. I just change the inputs on the receiver.

[TokyoShoe]

List of Updates:

Support BD-Video Profile 1.1.
Improves BD-Java compatibility to enhance interactivity with some BD-ROMs.

I guess this is the mythical patch that Cyberlink was talking about @ CES 2008? (They mentioned having a patch in the pipeline that would add BD Profile 1.1 support, and modify BD-J compatibility.) I'll have to update to this patch tonight and run some tests.

[ES_Revenge]

PowerDVD build 3730 is now up on the Cyberlink site. (http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/download/updates_112_ENU.html) Can't seem to find a release note or release history, though.

List of Updates:

Support BD-Video Profile 1.1.
Improves BD-Java compatibility to enhance interactivity with some BD-ROMs.

Hooray! Finally... Now I guess I have to install it and see how RE3 goes. What do I want to bet though that moving my MS Bluetooth mouse will sill make chapters randomly skip forward? I mean I'm hoping it won't but I'm not holding my breath. Also I'm sure the added "ring effect" will still be there with DTS transcoding. We'll see...

[tsb]

Tried to update from 3516 retail to 3730 and get following error.
Either your P-DVD version is outdated or your system does not have a previous version of P-DVD installed.Patch instalation will abort.Any ideas please.

Installed fine over my 3319a

Just download the retail version from a sharing site and install th eupgrade over it.

I don't play BD on my HTPC since I have a PS3 in every HD capable room, so it was just a test to see if it would install. I may try the file replacement to see if it still works.

[ES_Revenge]

I just installed the 3730 patch as well, over 3516, and it installed fine for me.

Initial report, playing RE3: Extinction...

I'm still getting random chapter skips with mouse movement. This now my absolute number one annoyance with this program!!! :mad: I would really like to know what is causing this.

To actual playback, movie still shows hardware acceleration checked/enabled and greyed out, DXVA "in use"... It's arguable that I'm not getting any AVC acceleration on my X1950pro in the first place, but still it shows in use (it doesn't on VC-1 content). However, unlike before (particularly during the "birds" scene in the movie) where I was getting both cores at 100% at ~3Hz, it's now more around 80% on both cores in that scene. Still high, but not overloading the cores as it was before. Also before I was getting perhaps 80%+ average, it seems like now I'm more around 60-70%. I'm thinking this is as good as it will get for me personally (unless I figure out why acceleration is "in use" but not actually doing anything) because other AVC movies are around 50-60% on both cores (again despite stated DXVA in use) but they are LPCM movies, RE3 is TrueHD.

-I'm not seeing the four coloured buttons on my interface though, where are they supposed to be?

-RE3 seems to still give me random freeze issues if I'm "doing things" like right clicking, adjusting things in the Configuration, or having the chapters randomly skip a few times in succession because of the stupid mouse issue. Since other movies do not randomly freeze like this, I can't help but think it's a PDVD issue.

-However RE3 is no longer freezing up at that magic point of 32mins and whatever seconds where it goes down to the "new Hive" or whatever that underground Umbrella joint is called in this one. So that problem is fixed.

-PIP is working now. Selecting that special feature the box pops up when it's supposed to and it looks and sounds fine. So I guess Profile 1.1 has to be working then :)

I guess it's getting a little better... I would really like for them to fix the issue of me moving my mouse and it skipping chapters randomly. I mean really.

[mva5580]

I'll have to check this out tonight and see if it helps out any.

I have a question about Blu-Ray playback though, and maybe it's something that will be fixed with this patch. But aren't Blu-Rays supposed to have the same functionality as HD-DVD's in that you can load the menu while you're watching the movie, and not have playback stopped? Because whenever I hit the "menu" key in PowerDVD when I'm watching a Blu-Ray, it always takes me back to the initial menu, and not one for in-movie. I've always been a bit puzzled by this, as I