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PowerDVD 8 or Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre?

post #1 of 16
10/4/08 at 5:31am
Thread Starter 
I need to buy Blu Ray playback software. I don't want any solutions that I need to hack to work. So I've narrowed it down to either PowerDVD 8 or Arcsoft's TotalMedia Theatre. I plan to stream Blu Ray ISO's from my media server to my HTPC, so ISO playback is a must. Which one would you guys choose and why? Thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 16
10/4/08 at 6:35am
I have both PowerDVD 8 Ultra and the latest TMT. I use MyMovies in vista media center to play Iso's for both HD-DVD and Blu-Rays from my Unraid server.

TMT works better for me, it integrates better into MyMovies and there was less experimentation time to tweak everything right. PowerDVD would sometimes lock up or crash on me too.

I'm sure others will have a different opinion, just depends on your setup.
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post #3 of 16
10/4/08 at 6:44am
I have found TMT to be more responsive to fixing problems, and they actually post in their own user forums.

They also support HD-DVD. PowerDVD decided all the HD-DVDs disintegrated when they lost the format war, so they yanked support. In the future, what support will they decide you no longer want and take it away from you?

I say TMT as well. It also automatically has a 10' gui plugin for VMC and MCE2005.
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post #4 of 16
10/4/08 at 7:13am
Thread Starter 
I too am using Vista Media Center with MyMovies. I'm going to download the trial of TMT and see how I like it. I have used PowerDVD 7 and 8 but have had problems with it. Also don't like that they dropped HD DVD support in 8 suggesting that you use both 7 and 8 to cover both HD formats.
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post #5 of 16
10/4/08 at 7:22am
Thread Starter 
Anyone know what the update policy is with TMT. Is it free lifetime updates like AnyDVD pay as you go? Thanks all.
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post #6 of 16
10/4/08 at 10:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by S1DIMMER View Post

Anyone know what the update policy is with TMT. Is it free lifetime updates like AnyDVD pay as you go? Thanks all.

Yes, at least for now It has no version number like 7,8.
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post #7 of 16
10/4/08 at 1:24pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by S1DIMMER View Post

Anyone know what the update policy is with TMT. Is it free lifetime updates like AnyDVD pay as you go? Thanks all.

I am sure they will eventually do a new full version number, which will be a pay to get item. But right now, they give updates for free.

And really, I cannot see much that they could add to make anyone buy a new version - at least in the short term.
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post #8 of 16
10/4/08 at 1:50pm
For HD, TMT no question, on my system. Others will differ,a trial of TMT will tell. Some report BSOD or close to that with TMT. Be sure you meet minimum requirements. AND restart after download without starting TMT.
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post #9 of 16
10/4/08 at 3:57pm
Btw,
to my experience;
while reading from HDD,
both applications don't show subtitles,
both applications don't show media information.
But on the other hand TMT plays audio while PDVD doesn't.
(Better is to make an ISO UDF 2.50 with ImageBurn and play it with Virtual Clone Drive.)
For a while if you forget all the negatives of PDVD against TMT,
to my experience TMT is better for nVidia and PDVD is better for Ati.
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post #10 of 16
10/4/08 at 7:12pm
Thread Starter 
I've had a hell of a day. I've been installing and uninstalling playback software all day. I tried TMT and the trial wouldn't work on my system. I couldn't get it to play a Blu Ray or an HD DVD. Same for my questionable copy of PowerDVD 8 Ultra. With PowerDVD it would work then all of a sudden not work. It was driving me crazy. I was testing on two systems.

Gaming Rig:
E8400 3 GHz @ 3.8 GHz
4GB of RAM
ASUS P45 MOBO
8800GTS 640MB
LG Combo Blu ray HD DVD drive
VISTA ULTIMATE 32bit
ANYDVD HD
Virtual Clone Drive
POWERDVD 8 ULTRA

HTPC:
E6600 2.4 GHz
2GB of RAM
Intel P35 MOBO
ATI 4850 512MB
LG Combo Blu ray HD DVD drive
VISTA ULTIMATE 32bit
ANYDVD HD
Virtual Clone Drive
POWERDVD 8 ULTRA

On my HTPC PowerDVD 8 would just show a black screen. I let it sit a while and still just a black screen. So after a full day of trying to get something to work I finally just grabbed my OEM copy of PowerDVD 7.3 that came with my LG drive. Bingo that did it. It's working fine now although I do not have full audio. The upgrade to a full copy of 8 ultra is $80. I might go for it since TMT was a train wreck for me. Good news is I got my 4850 to pass some audio over HDMI, not perfect yet but I'm still working on it. I also setup MyNetflix and that seems to be working great. Watch it now content is working nicely. Thanks for all the input guys. I'm crossing my fingers in hopes that PowerDVD 8 Ultra will work.
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post #11 of 16
10/4/08 at 8:04pm
Thread Starter 
So far 1830 doesn't work with Iron Man, next is 2021a. I have a feeling that none of these are going to work. Makes you want to buy a PS3 and be done with it.
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post #12 of 16
10/4/08 at 8:16pm
IM worked great for me. You restarted B4 opening TMT. If neither work??? Leave Any off with TMT.
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post #13 of 16
10/4/08 at 8:46pm
Thread Starter 
2021a is a no go as well. At least for ISO playback. I haven't tried my Iron Man Blu Ray disc yet. I have the blue labeled disc which I read is supposed to be the corrected version. I hear 2021 from 8/25 works so I'm going to try that. It's pretty ridiculous the amount of hoops you have to jump through to get software that works.
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post #14 of 16
10/4/08 at 9:06pm
Thread Starter 
2021 from 8/25 is working fine. I am only getting 2 channel audio via HDMI from my 4850. I've tried all the obvious settings nothing seems to work. My receiver is a Yamaha RX-V2600.
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post #15 of 16
10/4/08 at 9:48pm
Thread Starter 
I'm happy to report that all is now well. Downgrading to patch 2021 from 8/25 fixed the PowerDVD playback problem with Iron Man ISO. Audio is now fixed as well. I hadn't installed the Realtek HDMI audio driver for my ATI 4850 card. Who knew?? Everything is now working. Of course it being late I can't fully crank it up so I'll do a listening test tomorrow. Thanks all for the replies.
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post #16 of 16
11/6/08 at 3:42pm
Just tested PDVD 8 and TMT on Top Gun (TrueHD) and Step into the Liquid (DTS-HD). In both cases, the sound was noticeably better with PDVD than TMT. Music was brighter, more localized in space, and nuanced.

That said, PDVD has a major problem in that it doesn't play BDs from hard disc as it does with normal DVDs. So without this, TMT is the second best option--because it works from HD.

Hopefully PowerDVD will fix this limitation in PDVD 8 to allow it to play from HD. Who wants to screw around putting BDs in players? Are you reading Cyberlink?
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