Well I posted this on Apple's Forums a few days ago, here goes it here. Maybe a more compassionate crowd will get some replies...

original thread @ Apple Discussions (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=893794&tstart=0)

Apple DVD Player and VERY poor quality (jaggies)

So I went to a friends home over the weekend and wegeeked out playing with my Mac Pro with the X1900 card in it. He's a engineer, does service on Mark Levinson, Proceed and a bunch of other high end AV gear (ie: knows exactly what he's doing). His HTPC (XP Pro) is hooked up via HD15 to his $100K+ Madrigal modified CRT projector. A really ultra high end setup.

Here's the test we ran:

HQV Teranex - Diagonal Filter "Jaggies" Test (think of a sweeping hand going around in a circle). Instead of a smooth scroll it was jerky and jaggies were very bad. The steps of the plaza next to the road and lake on the detail test were also bad as was the stands on the race track.

Also really bad on a Bang & Olufson test disc with large scrolling text.

We dual boot my Mac Pro so I rebooted over to the XP Pro side, cranked up PowerDVD 7 and turned on the Avivo™ hardware option and it was so markedly improved, I was embarrassed.

The issue we see is that with the MacPro on the OSX side Apple DVD Player has abysmally bad Picture Quality, especially jaggies. Are their alternative DVD players that have better access to the hardware options like Avivo™ on the Video Card (X1900)? I paid all this money for better quality, I'd like to see it when I have it hooked to my HD Projector (AE900 at my house).

Again, this is embarrassing.

And yes I had deinterlacing turned on, it's about the only option in ADP and we tried different resolutions.

My Config:
Panasonic AE900 HD projector
110" Screen
MacPro Xeon 2.66's, Mac OS X (10.4.9), X1900 Video Card, 2GB Ram, 4 500's, eyeTV hybrid.

It's bad. It's always has been bad and I imagine it always will be bad. If you want to improve the DVD experience on OSX you need to use VLC. Still not as good as the Windows alternatives, but an improvement over Apple's DVD player.

I'm not sure what kind of compassionate reply you are expecting, Driver, since this is, well, very very old news. You haven't heard by now that Apple dvd player app isn't very good?

Apple gave up on its development years ago. VLC shows marginal improvement, at best. So, if you paid "all this money" primarily for a standard definition dvd player, you'd have been better off spending MUCH less with a core duo mini and booting into Windows. Best to share your observations in the Windows/MCE FAQ pinned atop the forum--because there's no significantly better alternative in OS X, scant hope for improved video quality in Leopard, and no new ground to cover.

The better cost to performance indicator perhaps, since standard dvd is old technology and because you're also apparently recording high def with EyeTV500s, is how does that look on your system? Not a test pattern, real world HD. I'd expect it looks glorious with a Mac Pro, a coupla gigs of RAM and a X1900 XT. Can a Mac Pro handle all 5 tuners at once?

I disagree that we should stop complaining just because it is old news. Gapless playback not being supported in iTunes/iPod was old news, and me and many others kept complaining until one beautiful day Apple fixed it.

I see no reason why Apple can't fix their DVD player's picture quality.

Come on Apple -- get with it. I hope someone puts a bee in Steve Jobs' bonnet -- it'll get fixed in no time. If any of you should run into Steve -- don't forget to ask him to fix the DVD Player...

I disagree that we should stop complaining just because it is old news. Gapless playback not being supported in iTunes/iPod was old news, and me and many others kept complaining until one beautiful day Apple fixed it.

I see no reason why Apple can't fix their DVD player's picture quality.

Come on Apple -- get with it. I hope someone puts a bee in Steve Jobs' bonnet -- it'll get fixed in no time. If any of you should run into Steve -- don't forget to ask him to fix the DVD Player...

Yes, Ted, I agree with you completely. Since Steve is a marketing person, letting him know that his customers want something and may be quite willing to pay for it is a good way to get his attention.

I had many problems with my old G4 and complained to Apple many times. Finally, I sat down and wrote a letter to Steve. I got no reply, but I called his office and pretty soon someone from Apple.nl called me and now I have a G5 thanks to my complaints. In short: complaining does work!

I use a EyeTV Hybrid for recording HD. I have 4 500GB Drives in there. Sorry for any confusion there.

I'm with Ted on what we can do. We need to just keep talking about it until we are loud enough for someone with the power to take notice and fix it. Sounds like a few letters are in order. especially as Apple is starting to take it's hardware to the tv, although that is a different product.

chefklc, I'm using the Mac Pro because I already have it. Why would I downgrade to a mini? The dual outputs from the X1900 gives me one for my main monitor and a second to run to my projector. That's all. Cost didn't come into this consideration when it came time to upgrade from my DP2.7 G5.

I agree: the squeaky wheel gets the oil:-)

Apple has a knack of ignoring problems, until the squeaking gets loud. Gapless playback was one example, Boot Camp was another.

Sending letters and emails will have an effect, if enough people do it.

On a related note, I really wish there would be more noise demanding OS X support from services like Netflix and Vongo (Vongo even had a message to Mac users on their site, calling for action to force Apple's cooperation....)

(I just sent an email asking for OS X support to Netflix (even though I am already enjoying it on my Vista Mini:-))

Vongo should be calling out Microsoft to port their DRM to OSX before calling out Apple.

I have no problem with renting and ordering NetFlix videos through Safari. As far as Vongo, they obviously are locked into a Windows Media player DRM technology... who cares?

with that said I don't know how in heck Vongo and netFlix has ANYTHING to do with the issues with Apple's DVD Player software. Was hoping other than VLC someone might be able to mention some other mac Specifc DVD playing software that does not use the same underlying DVD Player software. Anyone now if MediaCentral rolled their own?

Anyone now if MediaCentral rolled their own?

MediaCentral uses mplayer for their movies, not sure about DVD. I will say that I find MediaCentral to have the worst video quality in comparison to Apple and VLC.

If there was a solution someone would have mentioned it. And on the flipside, if there isn't a solution that too would be mentioned (and was).

The word on the rumor sites is that Apple has completely re-worked their DVD player for Leopard. We'll see in a month or two...

The word on the rumor sites is that Apple has completely re-worked their DVD player for Leopard. We'll see in a month or two...Ya, like adding chapter skipping. :rolleyes: Sorry, couldn't resist. I hope for the best too, though tempered with my recently growing skepticism (thanks to AVS).

Ya, like adding chapter skipping. :rolleyes: Sorry, couldn't resist. I hope for the best too, though tempered with my recently growing skepticism (thanks to AVS).

I share your skepticism. The current player is practically unusable. You can only go up from the bottom, eh? :rolleyes:

Vongo should be calling out Microsoft to port their DRM to OSX before calling out Apple.

Hm, MS has developed a DRM scheme, and so has Apple. MS makes it fairly easy for their DRM scheme to be licensed by third party content providers, Apple makes it much more difficult to do so. Also, Apple has not implemented a "rent only" feature in their DRM, which makes it impossible for companies like Netflix, Vongo or Bit Torrent to provide their services to OS X users, even if they were successful licensing Fair Play.

So, at the end it is up to Apple, and it is up to Apple's base to kick and scream to force Apple to play this game. That is, if the Apple base wants to have some choices in entertainment providers.

I have no problem with renting and ordering NetFlix videos through Safari....

Driver, you don't seem aware that Netflix allows Windows users to stream (virtually instantaneously) an ever-growing selection of DVD titles. It includes 18 hours of streamed content for "free" with a 3 DVD subscription. (I find myself using it more and more, and love it.) This service is, unfortunately, unavailable for Mac OS users, because of DRM issues.

If nobody complains about this, both to Apple and to Netflix, Mac OS users will continue to be excluded. (IMO, a Netflix (and others) streaming component in Apple TV would create some content competition for Apple, but will greatly increase the appeal and the potential sales of the device.)

P.S. I had posted earlier that the BBC is moving ahead with implementing streaming of their audio and video programming, using MS's DRM, which will then preclude Mac OS users from being able to access BBC content. The BBC had sent out a call soliciting Mac users' input, suggesting that if the interest from Mac users was great, their effort to provide Mac OS-compatible scheme would be accelerated. Unfortunately, the interest here appeared scant:-( But just in case someone feels like writing and email, here is a link to the thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=798764&highlight=bbc :-)

MS makes it fairly easy for their DRM scheme to be licensed by third party content providers, Apple makes it much more difficult to do so.This misses the point. Apple does not license Fairplay to any content providers--by choice. Let's not get into a DRM war here, which will inevitably devolve into a platform war. I say let Apple roll out the appleTV, Leopard, iPhone, and new Macs, then we can reevaluate. But mis-characterizing Apple's strategic plan for DRM and content delivery by saying it is "difficult" to license is kind of like saying it is difficult for Burger King to offer Quarter Pounders.

I for one am glad that Apple doesn't want to burden the Mac environment by building in support for Microsoft DRM (hence the need for third party solutions like Fip4Mac). That third party content providers choose to kowtow to Big Content by using Microsoft's DRM instead of looking for or building alternatives (like the BBC's using MS DRM only until they can roll their own solution, which they have announced they will do) only solidifies my distaste for the technology.

But what any of this has to do with the OP's comments about DVD Player's PQ is beyond me.

The word on the rumor sites is that Apple has completely re-worked their DVD player for Leopard.

No, the words I read didn't include anything that actually pertained to improved video quality, things like hardware acceleration, additional upscaling or post-processing of the type available if you booted into Windows--that's the sticking point for many of us.

And please, adding gapless playback to iTunes because of a complaints has zero to do with Apple improving DVD player app--we had maybe one thread here in perhaps 3 years which a few users mentioned they really missed gapless and hated the work around--I'm guessing out my ass here, but maybe 5% of iTunes users knew what gapless playback was and wanted it--we hardly had a sustained refrain in hundreds of repetitive threads over 3 years like we did bemoaning the sad sack state of Apple dvd player app. The former, gapless, was adding a feature which probably should and could have been implemented much earlier, the latter, dvd player, would have required an exponentially greater re-write and/or complete overhaul. It's been obvious for many years this wasn't going to happen. Incremental Apple does well after user complaint, but exponential? Uh, no. But like wildrock already said, yes, we all do hope for the best. I suspect we'll only see a re-arranged interface and some cute control options, though.

with that said I don't know how in heck Vongo and netFlix has ANYTHING to do with the issues with Apple's DVD Player software.

certain users like to threadcrap, most of us are already tired of Ryan droning on about this. Any thread within this forum mentioning dvd, Apple, aTV is now an opportunity for some to mention how closed Apple is, how Apple will be left behind if it doesn't do this or that RIGHT AWAY, and of course to bring up Microsoft or MCE or Vista or Xbox et al. Now that Ryan's pet Mac home theater interest--the superiority of running Windows on a Mac--has been marginalized and confined by the Mods within one thread, it's natural he'd look for even greater opportunities to threadcrap. This is just another one of them.

I do have an interesting thought about the future of DVD Player though. Maybe Apple is just EOL'ing it, only to have something else take its place. Now that iTunes is turning into the digital hub, maybe Apple will try to integrate the way it handles DVD's to be more like the way it handles CD's. Give us a preference like with CD's, to decide what we want to do with it. And with DVD Player being nothing more than a minimal media handler for QuickTime, it would make sense for Apple to just chuck it for something that would work properly.

If I'm going to hope for something better, might as well make it a proper tool, instead of an incremental update to a player that is flawed from the get go.

....it's natural he'd look for even greater opportunities to threadcrap. This is just another one of them.

Did you somehow miss the discussion in the thread about "speaking out loud" about some problems which have been ignored by Apple for years? And did you somehow miss the point of my post?

The point was that if the Apple base is vocal about all things HT-related, including DVD Player and codecs improvements, as well as demanding the availability of services from providers like Netflix, maybe some of these things will happen.

Anyway, here is a direct link (the one above doesn't work anymore) to the BBC public consultation poll, on the importance of Mac-compatibility: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/open_consultations/ondemand_services.html

For those interested in "speaking out," there are 8 days left before the poll closes, and then the BBC Trust will reach its decision.

P.S. Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but I would imagine that at least some here are interested in being able to get BBC programming on their Macs.

P.S. Sorry if this is a bit off-topic, but I would imagine that at least some here are interested in being able to get BBC programming on their Macs.Way off topic. But if you are going to bring up the issue, i at least am going to clarify it.

Press release (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/31_01_2007.html) from the BC Trust, January 31,2007:

"Platform-agnostic approach: As proposed, the TV catch-up service on the internet relies on Microsoft technology for the digital rights management (DRM) framework. The Trust will require the BBC Executive to adopt a platform-agnostic approach within a reasonable timeframe. "This requires the BBC to develop an alternative DRM framework to enable users of other technology, for example, Apple and Linux, to access the on-demand services.""

The BBC already is required to adopt an alternative, platform-agnostic DRM for the Mac and Linux. Some have suggested that the BBC is going to ditch Microsoft's DRM for another system, possibly newly developed. I'll be interested to see what they design.

...i at least am going to clarify it....

You are missing the purpose of the poll, as it relates to the Mac community: It is to determine how much demand there is for Mac OS support, which in turn will determine how much urgency the BBC will give to providing such support.

This is a quote from MacWorld: "The poll takes five minutes to complete and could make the difference as to when Mac support will be introduced at the BBC."

Anyway, let's get back to topic, or in other words, let's wait for Leopard and hope that QT (and by extension whatever DVD Player Apple brings us,) make the title of this topic a thing of the past.

No, the words I read didn't include anything that actually pertained to improved video quality, things like hardware acceleration, additional upscaling or post-processing of the type available if you booted into Windows--that's the sticking point for many of us.

And please, adding gapless playback to iTunes because of a complaints has zero to do with Apple improving DVD player app--we had maybe one thread here in perhaps 3 years which a few users mentioned they really missed gapless and hated the work around--I'm guessing out my ass here, but maybe 5% of iTunes users knew what gapless playback was and wanted it--we hardly had a sustained refrain in hundreds of repetitive threads over 3 years like we did bemoaning the sad sack state of Apple dvd player app. ...

What exactly is "additional upscaling"? I thought that the Apple DVD Player would upscale to whatever resolution the monitor is in full screen mode, which is quite a bit higher than 1080P on 30" ACD. Am I misinformed?

As for gapless playback complaining, you are right about this forum, but elsewhere, all over the internet, it was the #1 complaint about iPod/iTunes, and a much bigger deal for a lot more people than the Apple DVD Player. 5% of iTunes users (to use you figure) is 5 million people. I seriously doubt that even a tiny fraction of those have issues with DVD PQ.

Stop it with the BBC and DRM issues. Please. Go hijack some other thread. I asked about DVD Player and you went off on the other stuff, which is old news. So can we stay ON TOPIC please (even if it's old news as well)?

Fingers crossed on Leopard, not holding my breath but can hope... Guess we'll find out in about a month..

Stop it with the BBC and DRM issues. Please. Go hijack some other thread. I asked about DVD Player and you went off on the other stuff, which is old news. So can we stay ON TOPIC please (even if it's old news as well)?


I agree.


Fingers crossed on Leopard, not holding my breath but can hope... Guess we'll find out in about a month..

There are, to my knowledge 3.5 DVD players available for OS X. The three are Apple's, VLC and MPlayer. The 0.5 is NicePlayer, which can play DVDs (I don't have a HDTV, so I can't speak about quality), but cannot (yet) output 5.1 DTS or Dolby.

We have seen, particularly over the past year or so, that Windows software companies are taking a look at the Mac (SageTV, for example). As the Mac becomes more popular, (and that is definitely happening) more companies/programmers will start to look at it and our choice of software will improve.

BTW, I have no idea which software player it uses, but there is also MythTV, which runs native on OS X. Perhaps someone here who is using it can say more about it.

Don't forget http://chromaplayer.com/compare/ It is QT-based, but it offers additional features like overlay and "smart-stretch." Some claim that it works better than QT or VLC on slower, older Macs. It will still have "jaggies" though, and still no 5/7.1.

I would think at minimum the requirements would be that it MUST play commercial DVD's and output all Dolby and DTS channels (at least the features of DVD Player). Going to 2 channel sound just for a little better PQ is a non-starter in my book.

Maybe the folks at CyberLink will do a port of PowerDVD for OSX. Think I'll go email them...

What exactly is "additional upscaling"? I thought that the Apple DVD Player would upscale to whatever resolution the monitor is in full screen mode, which is quite a bit higher than 1080P on 30" ACD. Am I misinformed?

Ted, when it comes to playing back a dvd, something that's 480i and already compressed, on large digital displays and HDTVs, the issue is a little more complicated than your computer merely matching the native res of that display. Two different but inter-related concepts, there's your desktop resolution (and whatever scaler might be inside your display or HDTV) and what happens to the information on a dvd before you see the image sent and displayed on your desktop. The software player (and hardware) still have to work together (somehow) to fill up all that additional space with info--in this context, that's what people mean by upconversion and scaling--and if that's not done carefully, you will see different types of artifacts, like combing, the "jaggies" that Driver mentioned, frames and fields incorrectly combined, etc.

This is an old post, but it gets the whole tone right about dvd upscaling, which had burst upon the mainstream scene in 2004:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=477740

This FAQ has a great section on all the various picture quality issues related to dvd:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7809555&&#post7809555

That's what Driver was getting at in his original post, what ALL of us have been complaining about for years, and what Windows software can do that we can't presently do anything about within OS X: given the same hardware, by booting into Windows you can tweak, employ different decoding and scaling options, apply additional filtering effects, there are more opportunities to sharpen and resize that 480i content before leaving the computer. All of this may or may not improve the image--it depends on the dvd and your skill in tweaking--but that's where things like FFdshow, TheaterTek, ZoomPlayer et al come in on the HTPC side.

Apple has never supported hardware-assisted DVD decoding, once this was an issue we complained about, but a case could be made that once core duos went into every Mac that was no longer needed for dvd--we could play back high def with one core AND multitask with the other without any performance hit. The larger issue, if you're watching dvds on something like a 30" LCD or a CRT, is you'll still be limited by the software players--the OS X options of which don't possess the tricky algorithms and don't have the decoding/deinterlacing capabilities in place to do a better job. And once you step up to a different display technology, or something larger in diameter, that limitation is usually more apparent, and more frustrating.

As for gapless playback complaining, you are right about this forum, but elsewhere, all over the internet, it was the #1 complaint about iPod/iTunes, and a much bigger deal for a lot more people than the Apple DVD Player. 5% of iTunes users (to use your figure) is 5 million people. I seriously doubt that even a tiny fraction of those have issues with DVD PQ

Right, I was being generous with that 5% figure, Ted, but you're actually making my larger point for me--Apple has known all along that so few of its users actually are in a position to complain about DVD player app picture quality, it's why they stopped developing it and improving it, they know we're never going to boot into Windows and mess with that software, that isn't the Apple experience, and it's why they've gone in a completely different direction than MPEG2, why aTV doesn't support it, etc. They have a different model in mind for us, and the sooner we're groomed off dvds the better.

Another option is to lobby third party developers for Mac OS support. With Apple's growing market share, and no competition, this could be a good opportunity. I would like to see a TheaterTek for Mac OS.

I have been a bit surprised Apple didn't take advantage of their cool "Core Video" capabilities for high quality playback.

That said, I have to say that I am in the minority and I don't find the Mac OS DVD Player app to be that bad for most movies. The few examples of really bad looking playback I have seen were video based sources (i.e. recorded with interlaced video cameras rather than film sourced movies encoded as progressive). But, I would still buy a better quality DVD player app (I own TheaterTek for Windows already).

...the sooner we're groomed off dvds the better.Amen.

Apple has never supported hardware-assisted DVD decoding, once this was an issue we complained about, but a case could be made that once core duos went into every Mac that was no longer needed for dvd--we could play back high def with one core AND multitask with the other without any performance hit.

Minor correction.. DVD Player.app is the only place Apple actually has supported hardware assist. It can use the MPEG2 acceleration available in most GPUs. This dates back to when the old processors actually had a hard time keeping up with DVD playback.

The "Accelent" project is an attempt to reverse engineer the acceleration interfaces so it can be used by other applications. Even with the current fast CPUs, MPEG2 acceleration would be a nice benefit for decoding 1080i video.

The "Accelent" project is an attempt to reverse engineer the acceleration interfaces so it can be used by other applications. Even with the current fast CPUs, MPEG2 acceleration would be a nice benefit for decoding 1080i video.
This is something I don't get -- is there some political reason that Apple refuses to document the APIs for the benefit of 3rd party developers? You'd think they'd want the best apps possible to sell more Macs & OS X.
That's what Driver was getting at in his original post, what ALL of us have been complaining about for years, and what Windows software can do that we can't presently do anything about within OS X: given the same hardware, by booting into Windows you can tweak, employ different decoding and scaling options, apply additional filtering effects, there are more opportunities to sharpen and resize that 480i content before leaving the computer. All of this may or may not improve the image--it depends on the dvd and your skill in tweaking--but that's where things like FFdshow, TheaterTek, ZoomPlayer et al come in on the HTPC side.
Steve, yes I was aware that the upscaling under Windows was of better quality, though my understanding is that it is less noticeable with good 480P transfers, which is what I mostly care about.

But your description leads to another question -- is there one Windows product that will work well in its default settings or do you require major tweaking and multiple programs? If that is the case, then surely it is simpler to take the DVD out of the case and stick in an upscaling stand alone DVD Player? I mean sure, I'm not averse to some basic settings, certainly the incremental zoom with detachable X/Y coordinates in Apple's DVD Player are super useful, and manual override for film vs. video & p vs. i for misauthored discs would be great, but I have no interest in spending 15 minutes doing manual adjustments to watch a 2 hour movie. And I wouldn't be angry at Apple for not coming out with a DVDPlayer that requires such manual adjustments to produce decent PQ.

... But your description leads to another question -- is there one Windows product that will work well in its default settings or do you require major tweaking and multiple programs? If that is the case, then surely it is simpler to take the DVD out of the case and stick in an upscaling stand alone DVD Player?....


Different people, different tweaks, Ted. I personally stopped using FFdshow or any other tweaks. I don't use a standalone player, but just install the codecs (my preference is NVIDIA,) set VMR9 and keep all software settings zeroed out (default.) Then you calibrate the monitor, and you are done. The picture quality I get from this set up is better than what I used to get from my Panasonic RP-91 (the last stand-alone DVD player I had.)

... Right, I was being generous with that 5% figure, Ted, but you're actually making my larger point for me--Apple has known all along that so few of its users actually are in a position to complain about DVD player app picture quality, it's why they stopped developing it and improving it....

Right, no interest at all... That's why a gazillion stand-alone players have been SOLD to those few interested souls: WinDVD alone claims that it has 180 million software players installed worldwide:-)

Actually, the more I think about the state of software DVD players, the more I think I may just invest in a single superior hardware stand alone player. I'd been thinking of just waiting until a good combo HD/DVD upscaling player came along that would do everything, and do it well, or the holy grail of Minis showed up. But at heart i am really a modular component guy. I like having my home theatre consist of high quality components that integrate together well, and do what they do properly with little or no hassle, once set up. Get the HD display, swap out the old non-progressive DVD player for a new one that scales, de-interlaces, and whatever properly. Something that will last 5-10 years. Don't have to worry about legacy formats. It can sit next to my VCR, dual cassette, and LP player, and slink into obscurity over the years.

Then I don't have to worry about the state of Apple's (or any other software manu) development or marketing process. I can just use my Mac htpc to bring additional value, features and functions (like iTunes and iLife, web applications like Google Earth, studio/educational opportunities, and others as they are developed) to a system that already plays DVD's (and soon high def disks), receives and records TV (via my cableco provided pvr), adding new components that work with my AV setup, not necessarily my computer. Sometimes I really think the notion of the htpc as a convergent device (games, DVD/HD, pvr, DRM conduit) really misses the mark, and drives away potential adopters. And DVD Player is emblematic of these problems.

And I could care less about Microsoft solutions because my basic premise, that a fully featured quality component AV system (sans computer) can outperform a convergent computer system (and don't try to convince me otherwise--I get the need for NAS, archives and format interoperability), will lead me to find simpler solutions than trying to replicate a component system in software.

I believe the htpc is an addendum to a quality component home theatre, not a replacement.

Thing with a home PC is that almost everyone has one, and of those people I'd say a higher percentage have HD devices within reach. Particularly Apple's customers which tend to be higher income. Add in all the different formats of video and the HTPC is inevitable. Divx, Falsh, mp4, mpeg2, vob files, etc... Given unlimited resources and a large house and I'd be a huge component person as well, but I can see and understand both sides of the coin. Throw in limited space, like a college student, smaller homes and other places and it sure is nice to be able to eliminate extra hardware.

Today I emailed and called CyberLink, wouldn't hurt if others made similar contacts.