Sony VGX-XL3 - Page 101

Looks like this would be good for podcasts. At the moment I keep them in a seperate Library, outside of Media Center, as they don't mix well with Music.

And while we're plugging other applications, I really like VideoReDo (http://www.videoredo.com/en/index.htm), which you can use to edit Recorded TV, without transcoding. It's quick and easy to top and tail recordings to the correct start and finish frame, and it can even detect commercial breaks and delete tham automatically!

I love mediabrowser... been using it since it's inception when it was just video browser... very cool app and active community..

I pretty much use MB for most all non-MC content (so don't use it for recorded shows/movies, music, etc...):
-Archived TV Shows
-Archived Movie Collection
-Podcasts
-Comedy Shows/Video
-Archived UFC Fights
-Adult Content (you can set a PIN/key on folders using parental setttings)

i use SMB shares so that my extenders can see play the content, here's the share/security settings needed to get this working
Notice the "ANONYMOUS LOGON" Permission and "Everyone" Permissions

Share Tab Settings



Permissions Tab Settings



For Video podcasts i typically go with the MP4 Streams:
EG:
url: http://revision3.com/diggnation/feed/MP4-hd30
files_to_retain: -1
download_policy: Stream

Let me know if you have any MB Q's; and i'll try to answer them...

Hey guys and gals,

I have been running my XL3 since I rebuilt it with Win 7 32 bit, 4GB of Ram and a Radeon HD5450 for a few months now. I am having a very slight video stutter issue on Blu-Ray playback that is not noticeable to my wife, but is blaring to me.

My question to you all is, is the OEM disc drive read speed too slow to handle HD video? Perhaps like maybe the bit rate transfer speed on these OEM's are too slow? I don't seem to have an issue with standard dvd's just the blu-rays. Does anybody else have this issue? If so, where you able to do anything about it?

Just for info, I have both WinDVD pro 2010 and Powerdvd 11 and they both do the same thing. Anybody know of a more modern slot loading blu-ray player that will work in our machines? Would upgrading my processor help?

Thanks,

Tony

hi again all...
Well i finally got my upgrade.
sapphire HD6570 2gb
ocz agility 120gig ssd
3x2tb hdd
intel 4695agn 300mbps wlan
and naturally win7 32bit
all seems great just now(only got it going 2hrs ago) except the issue with eject,i can only eject if i remove bluray and use that button,have heard i am not alone and there is a fix just cant find the right one,gone through this thread and tried installing the shared dll as one mentioned but says not compatable with win7 also I have lost my windvd due to full upgrade,I got arcsoft as i remember someone talking of this but they want $100 for upgrade from trial,is there any free alternative out there,suddenly its getting expensive:-( HELP!!!!


ok fixed the eject,hard wired it on bluray player.. works a treat just issue with the codec convertor... anyone any ideas

REPLY: Hi Paul, Here is the new Sony Support page for your system with all of the latest Windows 7 software and driver updates, and Vista utilities and drivers downloads (some of which resolve Windows 7 issues):
http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/pro...-XL302/updates

I'm surprised you weren't able to get the eject button to work without hard wiring it (since you installed 32-bit). The Vista "Event Services" file from the Sony Support original pre-installed utilities & drivers downloads page has worked for others?
http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/pro...Utilities_2765

Cheers!
Robert

PS. So then, Paul, with the perspective of a few days of usage of your new hardware and OS, are you ready to recommend the Sapphire HD6570 HDMI 2GB card with fan? And is the fan quiet enough to not be heard in a quiet room?

PPS. You might also try downloading and installing the Windows 7, WinDVD BD update from the Sony Support page, and see if it will still install on your updated system.
http://www.sony.co.uk/support/en/pro...000247214_5640

I purchased a copy of Corel WinDVD 2010, for $39 (US). I like this version because it will play hard disc copies of DVD and Blu-ray VOB files (they don't have to be mounted to a virtual clone drive) No messin' around with DVD and Blu-ray discs.

REPLY: Tony, if you have not already done so, I suggest you download and install the latest update "Catalyst Suite" drivers package for the Sapphire HD 5xxx series video graphics cards.

Make sure you scroll through the report at the end of the installation, and get confirmation of "Success" for each driver and utility updated. Here's the link to the download:

http://sites.amd.com/us/game/downloa...n_win7-32.aspx

First create a system restore point, in case you need to back out of the update. Install the "Catalyst Software Suite" Version 11.11 (65.7 MB).

Let us know, after installaion, if the latest Catalyst Suite update helps with the video stutter issue.

Cheers!
Robert.


PS. If the stutter is especially noticeable while watching a Blu-ray copy of "The Kings Speech", it's not the video graphics drivers.

hi robert... good to see you again..
the graphics card origional 2gb also had a stutter..
I suggest TONY that the stutter under bluray is your settings on graphic card are to high...check the speeds on gpu and set at MINIMUM....
I down graded to the 1 gb graphic card and is better but really need to upgrade the cpu.
if you check the cpu frequency usuage on win 7,on mine now with 1 gb running bluray it is now down to 80-90% but with 2gb it was 95+..
It appears when checking it is more the speed of the cpu than how many cores that count,cpu usage is only 40% and ram is 20%... I am running 2.13 cpu but will be getting the e6700 2.63 cpu asap

P.s.
thanks for that link robert.... searched all over and couldn't find it..
Will try downloading windvd again shortly(hope it works!!)
But eject works a treat now :-)

REPLY: PS. So then, Paul, with the perspective of a few days of usage of your new hardware and OS, are you ready to recommend the Sapphire HD6570 HDMI 2GB card with fan? And is the fan quiet enough to not be heard in a quiet room?

Cheers!
Robert.

Hi robert..
The fan on the graphics card,even with the top off the case cannot be heard at all...
as for the 2gb one i would say no.
I had to downgrade to the 1gb card as it appears our processors aren't fast enough
I am in the process of getting a faster E6700 processor as with even just 1gb the frequency usuage is running 80-95%.
I did toy with idea of quad core to start but cpu usuage is low,40% max it is just speed that needs upgrading.I am not sure if you have upgraded your cpu yet though??
i have to also say that upgrading Hdd's to samsung for storage has made a huge difference to noise levels.. The old Hdd's was always so noisy yet now it is quieter than the Bluray player and the SSD as you advised has made start up nearly instant..very very impressed with both SSD and HDD's but wish now i had purchased the 64bit win7 really

REPLY: Thanks for reiterating your previous post, Paul. When I read your earlier message I was confused by the discussion of the Blu-ray stutter, and I thought you were probably replying to Tony ('tahoetony') with that message. Plus, your list of your recently completed upgrades included the Sapphire HD6570 2GB:

Your additional clarification helps; especially since I am using your system as my guinea pig. HA! I got just a bit lost when you mentioned downgrading to the 1GB card.

So, for my XL2A system it looks like either ....
the Sapphire HD6570 1GB (with fan):
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presenta...n=&lid=1&leg=0

or the Sapphire HD 6570 "Ultimate" 1GB (fanless with fin and tube cooling assembly) originally suggested by'relobe':
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presenta...n=&lid=1&leg=0

or possibly the newest Sapphire HD 6570 1GB DDR3 HM (with fan); and "Hyper Memory":
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presenta...n=&lid=1&leg=0

At least these first two should work; and it appears the new "Hyper Memory" design uses surplus sytem RAM to support video.

I am curious about your comment regarding the processor speed being more important than the number of cores. I have a Dual Core Pentium D with "VIIV" in my system, much lower overall performance than the Core 2 Duo processors in your UK spec XL301 & 302 systems (and the American spec XL3), but my processor speed is rated at 2.8GHz. I wonder if I might have better luck than you did with the Sapphire HD6570 2GB video/graphics card, with my system's 2.8GHz processor speed?

Then again, I don't do any gaming. I'm just looking for the best quality DVD & Blu-ray movies and recorded HDTV experience I can get with this VGX-XL2A system; and possibly eventually support some 3-D as well?

In answer to your question, Paul, I have tried two forum-thread-member recommended upgrades of the OEM processor, but to no avail. Both simply gave me a "microcode error", and the system promptly shut down. I have subsequently been informed by others on this thread that no upgrade processor will work on the XL2A machine because the BIOS is locked for the Pentium D Dual Core 2.8GHz processor. The only way to fix that is a BIOS update; which as we all know is not available.

Any further thoughts about my video/graphics card upgrade choices, Paul, or anyone?

Cheers!
Robert

PS. Your observation about the Samsung SpinPoint HDD's parallels my own. I have run a Samsung SpinPoint 2TB 5900rpm, and a Seagate "Barracuda LP 2TB 5900rpm side-by-side in external USB vertical orientation hot-swap docks. The SpinPoint drive was so quiet I could barely hear it even with my ear close to the drive, and it was cool to the touch after more than 24-hours running continuously. The Seagate Barracuda LP on the other hand was loud and quite warm (almost hot). I tried another matching Seagate Barracuda with the same loud, hot-running result. I don't want anything but quiet, cool-running drives in my ultra quiet HT-PC.

I would imagine it is these technological differences that Seagate really wanted when they purchased Samsungs Hard Drive division. I just hope that once the Asian production cranks up again the new Seagate lines of HDD's will be Samsung SpinPoint technologies, at a competitive price point?

i was extremely lucky,purchased 3 2tb samsumg 2 month old,to a very respectable price and extremely happy with them,as you say run quiet and cool,can actually only hear the Bluray spinning now.. great improvement.
I actually think you and the 2.8ghz cpu will do fine with the 1gb upgrade,actually I am purchasing the"good old" 4550 graphic card now to compare with stutter,after starting with the 2gb and stutter being longer pause between but more noticable to the 1 gb where more often but hardly noticable i decided i needed to play to learn here...
I(hopefully) have also a new cpu coming as discussed before.e6700.. so lots to play with and learn from,however it deffinatly sounds like it is the cpu speed rather than core quantity that matters when wanting to watch 3d or normal bluray
i would also highly recomend that if you haven't yet then upgrade the mini pci'e wireless to an N... i have also done this and works great both as sharing network and download speed
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1904419543...84.m1497.l2649

I know that the X6800 is compatable with our MOBO but is anyone aware if the QX6800 is also compatable with the XL302???
i see from rafcoppa he got 1 to work(page78) but says it did have microcode errors but he got past it with F1... was that a 1 time thing or would it be everytime you booted up??

REPLY: Paul, are you sure the Blu-ray video 'stutter' is hardware related (video/graphics card) and not software related (your video player application and encoder)? Based on what you (and Tony) have described, it sounds like what I encountered when I replaced my OEM DVD optical drive with the UJ-225 Blu-ray optical drive. I got Blu-ray video stutter with all of the various players then on my system (Windows Media Player, VLC Player, WinDVD BD for VAIO, NERO Showtime).

When I installed Corel WinDVD PRO 2010, that was the end of the Blu-ray 'stutter' on my particular system. I picked up my copy for about $40 (US), was $100. I play DVD files directly from the movie folders stored on the HDD's. If you want to see if it fixes your 'stutter' issue, you can download it for a free trial from the Corel website; and there's also a 30-day money back guarantee if you purchase and decide you don't like it. If interested, here's the link:

http://www.corel.com/corel/product/i...anguageCode=en

So, for my particular system I attributed the video 'stutter' to a DVD/Blu-ray video player software/encoder issue (since I had not made any other hardware changes. Just food for thought?

Video/Graphics cards:
I spent some time last evening on the Sapphire website, and there is a new HD6600 series card, the HD6670 1GB HDMI single-slot "Low Profile" card with the new GDDR5 memory; it's been available less than a month.

The performance data is impressive, compared to the HD6500 series cards. 800MHz core clock (vs. 600 MHz and 650MHz for the HD6500 series cards) and 1000MHz (4Gbps effective) memory speed!

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presenta...352&psn=000101

http://www.sapphiretech.com/presenta...articleID=3832


Thoughts, anyone, about trying this new Sapphire card in my VGX-XL2A system?

Cheers!
Robert.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post21227599

Get your credit card out!

Hi all...
Yes robert I am 90% sure the stutter is hardware related,as mentioned..
1.. when I purchased the 2gb 6570 then the stutter was much more prominent but longer pauses between and the cpu frequency was minimum running 90%,often was sitting on max..
2.. I have downloaded VLC player and so downloaded some HD material onto hard disk to check that the BD player wasn't at fault and same experiance.Now I have the 1gb the stutter is reduced alot if i run the GPU speeds at minimum but still the CPU frequency is running on max at times,admittedly not all the time but yes at times maxed out..
I have found a QX6800 CPU here for about $180 which i am contenplating purchasing to try,however as said earlier I am unsure if this microcode error appears everytime you start pc or if rafcoppa managed to fix issue and if he did then quite how he fixed it :-/
But if i can get that badboy up and running in pc then we can be 100% sure if it is cpu speed/capability or not..I am of the mind that these faster more powerful graphic cards are running faster and pull more data than the CPU can cope with but only my asumptions

Paul...

REPLY: Yep, you read my mind Darran. Somehow I missed reading your post about this card in November? Newegg currently has the

card for $89.99 (US) and free shipping. I filled out a "price alert" request for whenever Sapphire puts a rebate on this one, or the Newegg sale price drops to $79.99 or less. It won't take long. I LOVE Newegg!!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102958

Cheers!
Robert.

Judging by the looks of the posts by rafcoppa (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post19145656), it would seem that every time the system boots up, you will need to press F1 to continue from the microcode error...

The E6700 I can vouch for having no such issues and considerably cheaper than a QX6800!

thank you for the reply..
I have been looking for a E6700 for a reasonable price but seems they are in demand and usually about £65 with the postage to denmark,those that will post here,seems alot for a relatively small upgrade when for the extra £25 i can get the quad core here...
However i really don't fancy having to F1 everytime i boot pc when other than in sleep mode
really not sure now what to do..Ideally i suppose i should try waiting for a cheap 6700 or a x6800 to come up over here

REPLY: Good point Darran. Paul, from my reading of this forum thread you might also want to note that some of our fellows have successfully installed the 'Core2 Extreme X6800' (well, in the American spec XL3 models anyway).

It runs at 2.93 GHz. vs. 2.66GHz for the Duo E6700. It uses more power than the Duo's (maximum TDP is 75 W vs. 65 W, according to the Intel specs. It also has 4MB cache.

You had indicated before that processor speed was your concern, in addressing the Blu-ray 'stutter' issue. 2.93GHz vs. 2.66GHz is not insignificant. You might also want to look at the Intel benchmark comparison charts for the two processors. I also noted it appears that some have successfully installed some of the 'Q' series quad-cores (Q6600, Q6700)?

So, contradictory or alternative processor thoughts, anyone? I don't want to lead Paul astray, since a hardware purchase is involved. If I read his question correctly, he's trying to determine which processor has been proven to work in the UK spec XL302 machine which provides the fastest speed and performance, before he does his shopping. Is that correct, Paul?

Cheers!
Robert.

Cheers!
Robert.

REPLY: YIKES! That's a lot! You folks on that side of the pond sure pay a whole-helluva lot more for electronics than we do in the states!

The Ebay (US) listings begin around $65 (41.6 pounds) for the E6700 and about $99 (63.4 pounds) for the X6800. Maybe you could contact the US "Buy It Now" listing sellers as these processors come up for sale at good prices, to ask if any would post to Denmark for a bit more shipping (since international mail is required to Denmark anyway). Do you folks have to pay import duty on electronics from the US?

Considering how many processors I have bought in attempts to upgrade my ol' XL2A -- which I can't use and are currently being used as 'paperweights' -- maybe that's how you could describe your purchase on the customs/duty form; "Paperweight".

Cheers!
Robert.

hi again..
well been in touch with a cpl selling x6800 in the states asking if they will ship to denmark lets hope hey..
yes we do need to pay importation taxes when purchasing from the states,25%,so if more than $100 then work out close to the cost here with shipping etc..
I know the upgrade from 6700 to 6800 sounds little but actually it is nearly the same as from the 6400 to 6700 so if i am going to spend might as well get the best i can..
well i just checked system performance,my cpu and ram are running at 5.4 but graphics card is running 7.0 and SSD is 7.7
does appear to me that the bottle neck with my unit now is the cpu so lets hope i can get an upgrade and see if it sorts the stutter problem out.
I actually earlier tried playing a 3d movie through the htpc put stutter was significantly worse and cpu frequecy was maxed out nearly constantly..

Hello all,

I found this web-page today which provides for entering choices of processors for comparison, and seeing a chart of their compared benchmarks and specifications.
For example I compared the ....

*Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz, 1066 FSB, 65nm ....with the
*Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.39GHz, 1066 FSB, 65nm

The comparative benchmarks are informative.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to own XL models which can have the processors upgraded (not XL2 owners like me ...sigh ) you might find this little utility very useful.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/charts/cpu.php


Cheers!
Robert.

Too interesting not to share ...

Forget 3D, here comes the QD TV (Quantum Dots)

Television screens that can be rolled up and carried in a pocket are to become a reality using technology developed by British scientists.


"(British) Researchers have developed a new form of light-emitting crystals, known as quantum dots, which can be used to produce ultra-thin televisions.
The tiny crystals, which are 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, can be printed onto flexible plastic sheets to produce a paper-thin display that can be easily carried around, or even onto wallpaper to create giant room-size screens.
The scientists hope the first quantum dot televisions - like current flat-screen TVs, but with improved colour and thinner displays - will be available in shops by the end of next year."

Read the complete article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...the-QD-TV.html

Exciting stuff. Kuddos to the geniuses on the other side of the pond!

Cheers!
Robert.

what can i say robert...
genius's the lot of us :-)
would be cool though hey a whole w

Alright you guys..It's time to get back to basics!

I'm wondering if anyone here is using the HD Homerun cable card tuners.

I'm runnining into this annoying little problem and that is that the HD tuners are showing up in Windows Media Player and in all of my DLNA Music Players.

While it not a problem for me, It's a Problem for the Wife. She gets all confused if she see these things in the list of devices on any of the DLNA music devices.

Does anyone know how to exclude the HD Tuners from these devices?

>Side Note:

>Where in the world is rjeffb????

Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. Then Moses disappeared into the cloud as he climbed higher up the mountain.

- Exodus 24:18

---------------

I heard God calling. And God said

"JEFF, THOU SHALT INSTALLEST WINDOWS SEVEN. AND THOU SHALL NOT RETURNEST TO AVS FORUM, NOR SHALT THOU CONVENE WITH ANOTHER XL3 OWNER, UNTIL THOU HAST DONE MY BIDDING. ALSO, TRY THE ONION RINGS, THEY'RE REALLY GOOD."

I stand [sit] before you humbled by the mighty Windows 7. Well, "exhausted" is probably a more appropriate adjective.

The G/F's son's XBox's DVD died, so I launched on an adventure to try to fix it. Let's just say that you have to have the exact same model of DVD but that's not enough, it's also tied to the mini board on the DVD so that has to be unsoldered and transferred. But it didn't work, and examination of the "new" drive showed that it was full of dust and hair and all they did was take a broken old drive and slap a counterfeit label on it, and the "customer service" person with a thick Russian accent explaining "that happens sometimes," and meanwhile the son is complaining he can't play games. So I agree to give him my extender - oh, I mean my XBox - for Christmas.

The timing was fortuitous, because the prices on extremely long HDMI and Toslink cables have come down and it's technically feasible to just run the gym monitor and surround sound straight from the XL3 and skip the whole XBox extender nonsense. Plus that will mean I can stream Google Angry Birds while on the stationary bike. But Vista does not like that idea one bit; I can hook up the gym through the XL3's DVI port but Media Center then refuses to play any show with protected content (i.e. most of them). I can physically change cables but we know I'm not going to really do that every day. I bought a little HDMI splitter to run both the living room and the gym off the single HDMI output, and it worked - sometimes. But when it didn't, I had to troubleshoot that just to go exercise.

"Hmm," thinks my brain, "that Windows+P feature in Windows 7 sure would be convenient here to switch between monitors." Or maybe it was the Voice of God, I get them mixed up.

I took the opportunity to install a larger SSD (90GB Corsair GT, right now 90-100 GB is the price/performance sweet spot, up from 40-64 GB a year ago) and bought Windows 7 Home Professional 64 bit (!!!) from Newegg. I paid $79...but I had a Shellshocker to buy it for $39...but my G/F swore she could buy it through her company for $10 so I waited...and then she told me "Oh, that was for Office 2007, I always get those confused."

Install was painless enough, and I was pleased that it recognized the ATI DCT fine. But it would not recognize my LaCie eSATA card and I found that their "Windows 7" drivers were a crock - Windows 7 not mentioned in the readme, but it did give the helpful advice that I copy the files to a floppy drive. I spent most of a day trying to troubleshoot this, even re-installing Win7 and trying to access the .oem driver file during installation. I wound up buying a Rosewill RC-210 adapter which, while contrary to the manufacturer was NOT recognized natively by Windows 7, at least has working 64-bit drivers available.

Getting the 4550 and CCC up and running was painless, and 7MC was able to recognize and play with no problem. But: most (but not all??????) recorded TV tagged as "copy protected" will not play. With some regret (this was always my main reason for not upgrading) I wound up deleting over 100 movies; but since nearly all of them were off Turner Classic Movies, most if not all will come around again I am sure. Oddly, I also had a movie off Universal and another off TBS that would not play; and AMC continues to not be able to record or even play. I suspect there's no actual rhyme or reason to when copy protection is assigned by cable companies, FCC rules notwithstanding.

Total Media Theater 2 would not start at all. I went to upgrade it to a 64-bit version and was told I could get $20 off as a current user, then when I tried to use the coupon code I was informed the code was invalid. Whatever; I Googled "arcsoft coupon codes" and found one that got me $35 off.

I'll save my review of TMT 5 for another time (other than to say it's really annoying that it defaults to "simulated 3-D" every damned time it runs), but: Windows 7, Media Player, Media Center, and Arcsoft all want to set the rules for audio and getting SPDIF to play 5.1 was a headache, and getting SPDIF to *STAY* 5.1 was impossible. Supposedly Soundblaster X-Fi is supported natively in Win7 but Win7 provides no ability to change settings specific to that hardware. And since Win7 supposedly natively supports it, there are reportedly no Creative 64-bit drivers for it...but I found a package on a Turkish Creative site that worked and then updated to the latest version. This at least gives me a "reset to default" button in a control panel I can use when TMT or MC or WMP screw things up. Meanwhile, I have a new USB sound box on order that has much better reviews. We'll see.

But my biggest headache, hands down, has been with JFSA. Now, JFSA should be foolproof. You remember the episode of the original Star Trek when they're in a recreation of the OK Corral, and Bones and Spock are explaining to the captain about their sleep gas "it HAS to work"? I mean, all JFSA does is merge one of two tiny registry files to change the drive to which the 7MC recorder points. IT HAS TO WORK. And yet it would not!

First, I had to silence 7MC from popping up warnings when I run a .reg file. OK, found out how to do that with a different registry setting. Now I could click on "t.reg" and sure enough, 7MC points to my T drive. But when I run JFSA, every thing LOOKS like it works, but it doesn't; set to the drive with the most used space, run JFSA, executes with no error, but check 7MC settings and the drive hasn't changed. I edited in some messages to make sure JFSA was executing correctly; it was. I figured maybe Win7 didn't like a program making changes to the registry by itself (hint: I was on the right track). I wrote a DOS batch file, which executed the registry file merge and which was itself called by JFSA. Nope - I gotta give Win7 credit to look not only at the program executing but the program that called that program, but it sure was frustrating. What I wound up doing was - get this - I had JFSA physically send the individual keystrokes to open the Start menu, crank up a Run command, and execute a command line. Here's the changed code from the original jfsa.wbt:

:Normal
; everything above this line is optional error checking
t = diskfree("t")
v = diskfree("v")
if t < v then goto vbigger
sendkey("^{esc}c:\\windows\ .reg{enter}")
exit
:vbigger
sendkey("^{esc}c:\\windows\\v.reg{enter}")
exit

When's the last time you remembered the keyboard shortcut for executing a Run command? I was half-expecting Win7 to think "hey, that's not a human typing those keys!" but it seemed to work. And setting up JFSA to execute on a schedule was a breeze, the Task Scheduler in Windows 7 is much simpler than Vista, really a throwback to Windows 95.

Speaking of which: the next morning, the recording drive STILL had not changed but I did have a message that Winbatch had stopped working. WTF now? I thought: 64-bit compatibility (my WinBatch came on a single floppy drive and it's 16-bit). Assigning compatibility to jfsa.wbt did nothing, but when I realized that it's not the batch file but the interpreter that matters, I found the winbatch.exe executable, designated that as Windows 95-compatible, and now that at least appears to be working. Whew!

I gotta say, if I knew there were going to be this many hiccups on what was touted as so simple, I think I would have stuck with Vista even if it meant keeping an XBox downstairs (and angering the almighty). I'm not even going to try to fix the disk eject situation, I'm too tired...

Happy New Year!

P.S. Yes, I still have that spare brand-new ATI 4550 if anyone wants it.

Welcome back, Happy New Year to you too, Jeff, and ....

Cheers!
Robert.

For Goodness sake!! The Prodigal Son of this forum finally returns!! And with that one heck of a story about his journey over to the "other side". (Win_7)

I was just thinking about our old comrade and I must admit I was beginning
to wonder if he was a goner or just M.I.A.

But....Much to my delight. He's Back!! Now I have something to look forward too in 2012!

Welcome Back Jeff!

And to all A Happy New Year!

Thanks folks, nice to be back just in time for New Years.

I must say, Windows 7 64 just plain sucks when it comes to surround sound, a huge step backwards. I installed a Sewell USB 7.1 card and had even more problems. It's damned frustrating to troubleshoot, too, because surround sound behavior is so counterintuitive. For example:

Go into the "SPDIF" properties under Sound, click on Dolby or DTS, click Test, and everything works. Go into Media center setup and everything works. Go into Speaker under sound and choose Configure and everything seems to work except the rear speakers are coming out of the front speakers (although playing the different pitch associated with rear speakers). Go into TMT and select SPDIF and everything works (TMT has separate selections for SPDIF and digital audio, the ONLY place I have found that distinguishes between the two, that distinction does not show up in Sound, volume control output, Media Center, or the Creative or Sewell applications). Go back into Sound, SPDIF, click on Dolby or DTS, test, and everything works.

Now, go into Media Center and there's no sound whatsoever. Go into Sound, Speaker, Configure and only the front left and right speakers produce sound - even though each speaker shows the little picture of sound coming out and the volume indicator shows a sound level being produced "somewhere." Go into Creative or Sewell and it shows 2.1; resetting it to 5.1 makes no difference. Sound, SPDIF, properties, test and everything still works.

At this point I can find no combination of settings that will get things back. However, with the Creative application I can hit "Default" and it's back temporarily (provided that I have deactivated that horrible "give applications exclusive control" option). The Sewell application has no such option available.

GREMLINS!!!

I've tried this with and without the onboard sound controller deactivated in BIOS (that stopped producing any sound the moment I installed the ATI card over a year ago, although oddly enough the SPDIF port still glows red) and with and without the HDMI sound (which under Vista I had the option of not installing as part of the ATI driver but no such choice anymore), and with and without the HDMI assigned as the default communications device (I don't remember ever seeing that, I believe that's if you receive a phone call while playing surround sound) to keep that out of my surround sound's hair.

I believe what is happening is this: there really are no OEM sound drivers for 64-bit Windows, Windows has its own basic driver and it's fundamentally broken. Installing Creative or Sewell or TurtleBeach simply adds a mini-driver in much the same way as Windows has defined the main functionality of video drivers since Windows ME. (This idea is supported by the fact that both the Creative and Sewell showed up as installed and working right after plugging them in, even though they weren't yet really usable until the OEM driver was installed.) I do understand that there's a difference between pure SPDIF passthru and Dolby sent through an optical connection and all the rest, but it is nonsense that the user is impacted by this; surround sound should simply work consistently and reliably. Because I have not read all the XL3 owners abandoning Win7 I presume that this is not a major problem with the built-in onboard sound chip but boy, reading reviews of various add-on cards I see almost nothing but complaints under 64 bit Windows 7.