Xbox 360 HD DVD Addon -- Works on an HTPC!?

[rdewey]

Sapphire X1600 pro HDMI owners: Bad news, the Catalyst 7.1 drivers DID NOT DO THE TRICK for me... I am still dead in the water when using the HDMI connector to my HDCP compatible display. The exact same problem exists; the advisor shows all green, but when playing the HD DVD, the flashing snow occurs followed by error 103.

Geriatrics... you have this working, right? What am I doing wrong???

[spakins]

does anyone experience momentary freezing/glitching when the sliding semi-tranparant menu/title screens enter the left side of the screen? Mine do. I have an AMD X2 4400+ 939 w/2GB of Ram and x1950 PRO card. Is my processor not fast enough? During playback I don't seem to experience any glichiness issues. I even tried OC-ing my X2 4400 to 2.4 Ghz (up from stock at 2.2) and it still happens. Wonder if I am alone in having this problem.

[wynpalmer]

Originally Posted by rdewey

I'm with you on this. If I can get my sapphire to just work with HDCP material, the hardware accel is no big deal to me (I have a C2D 6600). Besides, I believe someone has posted that Cyberlink is aware of this problem and is committed to fix it. I am still amazed that this drive and software work at all with something so complex (HDCP material) so I guess to an extent, we should all be grateful...

This is not to say that I don't expect ATI, Cyberlink and Microsoft to work together to make the system much more robust for playing HD DVDs on our HTPCs. Most glaring is the lack of integration of PowerDVD ultra for HD DVDs within the MCE shell....

Cyberlink say the problem is with the ATI drivers- they don't support mpeg4 or VC1 playback. ATI are aware of this claim, but won't actually say whether the problem is with their drivers or not.

[wynpalmer]

Originally Posted by spakins

does anyone experience momentary freezing/glitching when the sliding semi-tranparant menu/title screens enter the left side of the screen? Mine do. I have an AMD X2 4400+ 939 w/2GB of Ram and x1950 PRO card. Is my processor not fast enough? During playback I don't seem to experience any glichiness issues. I even tried OC-ing my X2 4400 to 2.4 Ghz (up from stock at 2.2) and it still happens. Wonder if I am alone in having this problem.

I have this combo of CPU/ram/video card. I'm not experiencing this problem.

[JKohn]

Originally Posted by wynpalmer

Cyberlink say the problem is with the ATI drivers- they don't support mpeg4 or VC1 playback. ATI are aware of this claim, but won't actually say whether the problem is with their drivers or not.

This is BS, Anand and others have tested AVIVO HW acceleration with BluRay playback, if the problem was with the ATI drivers why would it only affect PowerDVD HD-DVD playback.

[Vern Dias]

Originally Posted by spakins
does anyone experience momentary freezing/glitching when the sliding semi-tranparant menu/title screens enter the left side of the screen? Mine do. I have an AMD X2 4400+ 939 w/2GB of Ram and x1950 PRO card. Is my processor not fast enough? During playback I don't seem to experience any glichiness issues. I even tried OC-ing my X2 4400 to 2.4 Ghz (up from stock at 2.2) and it still happens. Wonder if I am alone in having this problem.

No, you are not alone. It seems to be related to audio, however. If I turn off menu sounds, the issue goes away. I have an Asus P5B mobo.

Vern

[Geriatrix]

Originally Posted by rdewey

Sapphire X1600 pro HDMI owners: Bad news, the Catalyst 7.1 drivers DID NOT DO THE TRICK for me...
Geriatrics... you have this working, right? What am I doing wrong???

I am sorry to hear that rdewey. I don't know what to tell you. I got mine to work once I installed Cat 7.1. That was it... When I have time though, I am going to try connecting this htpc to my HDCP compliant dlp tv to see if different display has anything to do with this problem. I will keep you posted.

[Don_S]

I posted this in the PowerDVD Ultra thread also...Cyberlink has posted the user manual for the PowerDVD Ultra on their website. A word of caution.. although only 1.5 MB in size, the pdf takes a long time to download.

[uo7]

For people having the hdcp problems, why not just rip the .evo .map files to your harddrive ? You get full res without any of the hdcp nonsence.
If you have the harddrive space there are instructions over at the doom9 forums.

[Stereodude]

Originally Posted by uo7

For people having the hdcp problems, why not just rip the .evo .map files to your hard drive ? You get full res without any of the hdcp nonsense.

That depends on your player. Some still don't allow it even once the files are decrypted.

[galileo2000]

Originally Posted by Stereodude

That depends on your player. Some still don't allow it even once the files are decrypted.

Correct. Powerdvd 7.x might not play it. PowerDVD 6.5 HD version will.

[wynpalmer]

Originally Posted by JKohn

This is BS, Anand and others have tested AVIVO HW acceleration with BluRay playback, if the problem was with the ATI drivers why would it only affect PowerDVD HD-DVD playback.

I'm not attempting to defend Cyberlink, but most BluRay disks are mpeg-2, and although anandtech did compare various videocards with acceleration on h.264 playback it was using powerdvd 6.6 rather than ultra and when they tried to use powerdvd 6.5, the HD DVD version, to play back VC1 or mpeg-4 encoded HD DVD disks they could not get the acceleration to be enabled.
Perhaps ATI has only enabled acceleration for mpeg-2, mpeg-4 part10 (h.264) and not VC1.
It does seem unlikely, but it is ATI drivers that we are talking about here.
It's also not impossible that Cyberlink shares the blame by not enabling hardware acceleration on HD DVD and avivo because of the lack of VC1 support from ATI.
I really wish that ATI or Cyberlink would just give straight answers to straight questions about their compatibility with the new compression standards.

[wynpalmer]

Originally Posted by Don_S

I posted this in the PowerDVD Ultra thread also...Cyberlink has posted the user manual for the PowerDVD Ultra on their website. A word of caution.. although only 1.5 MB in size, the pdf takes a long time to download.

It's barely better than nothing. It doesn't mention settings like "video quality" for HD DVD and the section on hardware acceleration and deinterlacing is pitiful.

[Stereodude]

Originally Posted by galileo2000

Correct. Powerdvd 7.x might not play it. PowerDVD 6.5 HD version will.

I tried it here. 7.1 (Ultra) appears to play ripped files fine without engaging HDCP. It's hard for me to say completely since my system is HDCP compliant, however it behaves different with ripped files than with a real HD-DVD disc.

[Tinker]

Originally Posted by Stereodude

I tried it here. 7.1 (Ultra) appears to play ripped files fine without engaging HDCP. It's hard for me to say completely since my system is HDCP compliant, however it behaves different with ripped files than with a real HD-DVD disc.

I get a black screen with PDVD 7.1

[galileo2000]

If you guys are serious about this, I suggest you check this thread : http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=120842

Stereodude, HDCP-compliant system should work with both.

Tinker, follow the advices from the thread on IME from doom9.

Report your success.

[uo7]

Originally Posted by Stereodude

That depends on your player. Some still don't allow it even once the files are decrypted.

You have to edit the VPLST000.XPL file shown in the link galileo2000 linked to.

[vluuv]

Originally Posted by Tinker

I get a black screen with PDVD 7.1

Has anyone tried with ver 7.2?

I am waiting on my Sapphire x1600 hdmi from newegg. Will post results once the system is in place. The set-up that worked for me so far -- over VGA only -- HDCP was not supported through the DVI port of my graphics card:

E6300 w/ 2GB RAM, AGP motherboard
PDVD 7.2
ATI Radeon x1600pro AGP w/ 512MB RAM -- 1/10/07 Catalyst drivers from ATI
Vizio 47" LCD

Unfortunately, because of limitations with my display, max VGA resolution was 1280x720. Wanted to try an HDCP compliant digital output because the Vizio is a compliant 1080P over HDMI.

The card should arrive by the weekend.

[galileo2000]

vluuv,

7.2 is for Blu Ray. 7.1 is for HD DVD.

[Tristanets]

Hi, I have everything working in a first install after carefully reading posts in this forum. Thanks a lot!
Briefly:

1. I got XBOX 360 HD-DVD player from Walmart.
2. Connected it to my PC with XFX 7950GT 512MB HDCP compliant card (passive cooling). CPU - E6400 @ 3.2GHz, 1 Gb RAM.
3. Installed latest drivers.
3. Installed PowerDVD Ultra. It will install HD-DVD version only if it detects HD-DVD player, so make sure your player is attached to a PC.
4. Tried to play King Kong on my desktop Acer 19" LCD. It did not. I knew it wouldn't, because monitor was not HDCP-compliant, so no worries here.
5. So, I hooked PC to HDCP-compliant 37" Olevia HDTV. Tried VGA cable first (my HDTV does not have DVI input, only HDMI and VGA), used same VGA to DVI connector on a VGA cable I used with my old monitor. Movie played great.
6. Next, I went back to Walmart and got DVI to HDMI cable, to check if system would work better with unaltered uncompressed digital signal (no signal conversion from DVI to VGA). It worked well, too.
With PureVideo hardware accelerator turned on, stress on CPU drops from 100% to like 25-40%. But I like to turn it off and let CPU do smart de-interlacing (pixel preferred). Quality is better, I think, despite of 100% load and overheat.

So I must point out that DVI to HDMI cable works, thus no need to buy HDMI video cards with driver/compatibility issues. NVIDIA forever!!!

[tahustvedt]

"Smart" deinterlacing isn't performed with HD-DVD playback (unless something very odd is happening). That's for DVD playback.

[Tristanets]

Originally Posted by tahustvedt

"Smart" deinterlacing isn't performed with HD-DVD playback (unless something very odd is happening). That's for DVD playback.

Hmm... I played with the software a bit, and it is surely HD-DVD playback. I tried King Kong and Training day HD-DVDs. Do you need screenshots? I mean, is it something new - "smart" de-interlacing with HD-DVD playback?
My HDTV does support maximum 1080i only.

[klillevo]

Originally Posted by Streamer

Hi community

I need some help on HD DVD playback . . .

When i try playback a HD DVD like KK or CSI:NY on my HTPC i get a scrappy image on the screen

Audio output via SPDIF is perfekt, playback is running smooth, only a scrappy image on the screen . . .
It looks like a scrambled image

Playback of SD DVDs is running without any problems

If your image looks like this:
http://support.ati.com/ics/tt/getFil...DACBE208CB3923
you have the exact same problem I have. The above image is from my ATI bug report.
I have tried both 9800 Pro and X800 Pro. Same problem on both. I read someone else had the same problem, and he had to buy an X1K card to resolve it.

[tahustvedt]

Originally Posted by Tristanets

Hmm... I played with the software a bit, and it is surely HD-DVD playback. I tried King Kong and Training day HD-DVDs. Do you need screenshots? I mean, is it something new - "smart" de-interlacing with HD-DVD playback?

HD-DVD's aren't interlaced, so I don't see how any kind of de-interlacing setting should make a difference in the picture.

[Tristanets]

Originally Posted by tahustvedt

HD-DVD's aren't interlaced, so I don't see how any kind of de-interlacing setting should make a difference in the picture.

lmao Stupid me
But the difference in quality is definite. And CPU gets loaded from 25-40% to 100%. Let's think... My HDTV can support only up to 1080i. But it can support progressive scan too (720p). So maybe 1080p signal from HD-DVD is displayed as 1080i, but when I turn on deinterlacing, PC "forces" it to 1080p? I mean, for hardware it doesn't matter, what resolution (480i or 1080i) to de-interlace? Am I watching 1080p movies? WOW!

[archibael]

HD DVD content is not stored as "interlaced", per se, but it is stored with tags telling the player how to do 3:2 pulldown and interlacing. While the seemingly-obvious way to handle this is just to ignore the tags and send out at 24p, it's possible that the software is reading the tags and sending a 1080i60 signal to the video card and depending on it to do the deinterlacing. That's how the Samsung BD player does things, essentially: internal to the player, the content is 1080i60, and there's a deinterlacing chip for 1080p60 output.

[Tristanets]

Originally Posted by archibael

HD DVD content is not stored as "interlaced", per se, but it is stored with tags telling the player how to do 3:2 pulldown and interlacing. While the seemingly-obvious way to handle this is just to ignore the tags and send out at 24p, it's possible that the software is reading the tags and sending a 1080i60 signal to the video card and depending on it to do the deinterlacing. That's how the Samsung BD player does things, essentially: internal to the player, the content is 1080i60, and there's a deinterlacing chip for 1080p60 output.

Cool! So PC hardware can substitute that "deinterlacing chip" ?
However, I mentioned that in PowerDVD, with PureVideo hardware acceleration turned on, deinterlacing option is disabled. Only when I uncheck hardware acceleration I can turn the deinterlacing option on. So I guess that software is sending 1080i60 signal to CPU, not videocard...
Hmm... Is there any way to check what kind of signal (1080i or 1080p) is on display? I could not find it on PowerDVD. It gives only bitrates in Mb/s or something...

[archibael]

Sorry, I was confused: thought you were using hardware deinterlacing. Moo moo.* Doing it in software does generally result in better quality at the expense of CPU cycles. Even, in some cases, better than expensive external scalers: it's one major reason HTPCs became popular to begin with.


* "My bad." -- South Park

[vluuv]

Originally Posted by galileo2000

vluuv,

7.2 is for Blu Ray. 7.1 is for HD DVD.

Yes, my mistake. Double-checked my version and it is indeed 7.1

[lrbh]

Originally Posted by wynpalmer

I'm not attempting to defend Cyberlink, but most BluRay disks are mpeg-2, and although anandtech did compare various videocards with acceleration on h.264 playback it was using powerdvd 6.6 rather than ultra and when they tried to use powerdvd 6.5, the HD DVD version, to play back VC1 or mpeg-4 encoded HD DVD disks they could not get the acceleration to be enabled.
Perhaps ATI has only enabled acceleration for mpeg-2, mpeg-4 part10 (h.264) and not VC1.
It does seem unlikely, but it is ATI drivers that we are talking about here.
It's also not impossible that Cyberlink shares the blame by not enabling hardware acceleration on HD DVD and avivo because of the lack of VC1 support from ATI.
I really wish that ATI or Cyberlink would just give straight answers to straight questions about their compatibility with the new compression standards.

It's definitely something to do with VC-1. Just watched Lucky Number Slevin HD DVD, which is encoded in MPEG-4 AVC and hardware acceleration works with my X1600PRO. Saved the cpu about 20% and playback was smooth on my X2 4600+.