Semi-Official BD and HD DVD on an HTPC Configuration/Playback FAQ - Page 5

HP Pavillions can now be configured with an HD-DVD ROM for an additional $99.99.
See www.hpshopping.com and configure a d4650y.

These drives must be getting close to be sold stand-alone...

/Anders

no, I just tested it, unless there is another version out there for showtime, the current version simply says the dvd structure is not supported....

Bah. Thanks for checking though.

Please fix the first post, the xbox drive was meant to be an OEM pc drive. that's why it has a mini atapi connection. had it been a wierd connection you could have said that.

I'm looking to use HTPC to scale HD-DVD or BR discs to 1920 x 1080p72 to a CRT. briefly looking at this great thread (many thanks to Madpeot and the other contributors), it seems that the solution isn't ready for prime time yet. PowerDVD is brought up a lot, but I gather that's not working at some level? Like two channel audio only available?

I would also like to know if custom resolutions are going to be supported? thanks jeff

Does your 7600 GO, share memory with processor or is it dedicated video memory?

I wish Cyberlink would do public release for sale of PowerDVD HD-DVD and Intervideo would do the same for WinDVD 8 HD-DVD without the silly downrez. We're basically there now except for the playback software. But it's been proven to work fine with OEM PowerDVD HD-DVD and WinDVD 8 Plat (JPN) if you have it available.

The Cyberlink looks better as it does look like it's 1080P but I think it could look better during some scenes.

I agree. We should all write them, maybe they'll wake up.

the software is definetly the weak link here. Both apps are instable, and don't do full decoding (I mean at least 5.1) of DD+, DD true-hd and DTS HD.
I'm really starting to wonder if these features will ever be available for XP or if it will only activated with vista 64 bits ? Time will tell

This from Cyberlink:

"The 5.1 channel sound output is fully supported by PowerDVD 7.0. However, you must also have supporting hardware to support this feature."

Cyberlink indicates they do everything with BR, yet it seems they don't?

OK - figured it out. For some really annoying reason, IF you are using COMPONENT video out, some BD's (I imagine based on some Copy Protection flag) will not play back using either powerdvd or windvd.

When I switch the same system to VGA out, all is fine. This is daft! Fortunately, I have a VGA to Component transcoder and so I'm back in business --- BUT somewhere between nvidia, cyberlink and intervideo this is a major bug that needs to be resolved.

If anyone has any ideas -- love to hear them.

s.

skavan, AACS has a different set of limitations for component and VGA. That might have something to do with it.

What I don't get is that component and VGA are essentially identical - even electrically it's a transcode operation to move from one to the other - not a conversion - to treat them differently makes no sense!

Yup, I know. It makes no sense at all, but apparently 1080p via VGA is OK while component gets downrezzed to 960x540.

Well - on the disks which DO wok over component, I *do* get full 1080i.
On the disks that don't -- well I get nothing - just the errors referred to before.

Fortunately, for $100 one can buy pretty good transcoders (Key Digital) so I send a VGA signal to the transcoder and pick up component from there.

Not ideal, as one doesn;t get to play with the overscan/underscan settings in this mode and I can't quite find the exact 1080i frequency settings - so some TV's in the house work, and some don't (I have the component signal entering and extron switcher which then pumps the signal via a matrix to any one of my HDTV's around the house via Cat5).

s.

Yeah, downrezzing takes place only when ICT is enabled. But that won't happen anytime soon, luckily.

Yea, that may be true. I've seen times where I could upconvert DVD's on VGA, but not on component from an HTPC. So they made that distinction then also.

It's only a BD phenomena - with an XBOX 360 and HD DVD via Component at 1080i -- everything works perfectly on all sampled titles.

s.

It's not a BD only phenomenon. Both HD DVD and BD have the same AACS/HDCP/ICT restrictions. Current situation is made more confusing by playback software which doesn't adhere to rules. Also, both versions of PowerDVD are still in beta stage which accounts for some odd behaviour.

I tried KK in PowerDVD HD and got full rez and quite watchable. But my 1.8 C2D in laptop is maxed out. Can anybody comment if all HD-DVD titles are as taxing on CPU and whether WinDVD takes less CPU power for playback?

You need one heck of a powerful CPU to view VC1/AVC encoded content, if your system gets no help from the GPU. That's the "Hardware acceleration" tick box in PowerDVD and WinDVD. If you can enable that, CPU utilization goes down by 40-50% or so. Depending on the GPU, of course. The problem is that not all versions of WinDVD and PDVD offer that option; some have it greyed out.

My system can play h264 1080 interlaced very easily. Something else here takes lot of CPU power. Maybe AACS processing or not as efficient codecs.
Also somebody mentioned in another thread that DD+ track is much more taxing on his system than DD. Can somebody else confirm last statement?

mmmh interesting...so do you think this is the way it will be...or that these are teething issues that will get sorted out over the next few weeks/months.

By "this", I mean the component vs vga thing.

Teething. Expect solutions in the February timeframe which are closer to, say, WinDVD/PowerDVD 4 level: some idiosyncracies, but mostly full functionality.

Kindly let me know what sort of a system you're running? I've got a Athlon X2 4200+, 2GB of RAM and an ATI X1950XT, and it drops frames on AVC encoded 1080 content when viewed with PowerDVD 7 Deluxe with hardware acceleration enabled.

I got laptop with C2D 1.8, onboard intel video, 2 gb memory and 1920x1200 monitor. The key for h264 playback is to use proper software. CoreAVS pro + haali splitter are must unless you have a higher end system. I use them in media player classic. I use for some files PowerDVD filters. PowerDVD as player is too slow and I use it only for retail HD-DVDs

I've tried CoreAVS Pro & Haali with MPC as well. It won't play all H264 encoded files, and drops frames also. It doesn't have hooks for ATI hardware acceleration, afaik.

Yeah, those that are not playable by above combination are usually playable for me by WMP10 using PowerDVD filters. Sometimes VLC can play them too. No dropped frames for me. I don't have any hardware acceleration now and when I had one I avoided it because it is easier to have CPU only plaback errorfree. C2D 1.8 is very decent processor