Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre - Page 4

They can't. But since they're a business partner they can submit bugs that they find, and have access to test the fixes a bit before the normal consumer.

8:13, I'm experiencing what is perhaps #21 problem:

21 - Has anyone been able to play regular (non-HD) rips from a disk. DVD's play fine from disk but not from folders.

Here's a more detailed explanation. Please add or replace on your list.

21 - Get black screen (audio ok) when playing any ripped HD-DVD using "Open movie folder from hard disk". However, playing any .EVO file from within the same folder using "Open media file", the video plays normally. The Japanese version worked fine. I'm using a 945GM chipset.

Not sure I understand fully, and people saying disk when they mean disc is a bit confusing.

But that said, I can play HDDVD, BluRay, and normal DVD's via the "Open movie folder from hard disk" method with perfect picture and sound (minus hardware acceleration cpu usage problem).

So, other than the price, what will be the difference between VidBox and ArcSoft's version of TMT?

8:13, please add to your list for completeness. I'm sure Arcsoft is aware of it.

Invoking Arcsoft TMT on Vista 32 invokes UAC Allow/Cancel dialog box.

VidaBox (the forum user) stated that the company Vidabox will be issuing fixes for computability issues regarding released HDM Titles at a faster pace than ArcSoft would normally be releasing them.

I personally have been rather suspicious of this statement because this would insinuate that ArcSoft is going out of their way to give a better product to a BUSINESS PARTNER... and not improve their own product at the same pace? The only way they could do this and keep both products on the same version track would be to delay patches for regular ArcSoft purchasers.. which just makes no sense in my mind. That seems rather.. backwards. Normal business models would have the owning / originating business have the superior patch version, and all the other business partners have a product with a delayed patch track. This encourages the customers to go directly to the source and buy from there primarily, instead of the other way around. This is one of the main reasons why companies like Cyberlink include OEM Copies or "Cripple-Ware" with drives or computers sold through other channels. Giving an equal or better product than your own purchasable one would dissuade customers from buying the master product from the owning company.

While I personally do hope the VidaBox version does indeed have this supposed "increased pace of patching", I personally find such a business model dubious.

8:13, please add to your list:

Infrequent BSODs on shutdown since installing Arcsoft TMT. Does this happen to anyone else?

It sounds like Vidabox is beta testing and selling TMT in exchange for fixes.

It would be nice if someone from ArcSoft had some input on this forum.

Agreed. So far we have heard zilch from ArcSoft. Really wish they would pipe in.

How can you tell if a BD is BD +? I have two BDs: Cars and Ratatouille, both from Disney. Cars plays fine but Ratatouille only plays the menu. Both work well in PowerDVD.

Hehe. Didn't realize that was the case. I have a really old 2001 DVD that does not start that way, it goes into the first monkey scene.

But is it standard behavior to skip menus?

I would not hold out much hope for that.

Most companies are very reluctant for their employees to be involved in message boards such at these because things they say can be construed as "official" company positions.

The version of the Arcsoft software that VidaBox will be selling is different from the retail version in the following ways:

• Our version is stripped down and will only have the player. No burning software, editing software, etc. This makes the software more stable as there are no extra (probably unwanted) features to compromise the system stability. We have been told that our version has a more stable core and our testing with regards to stability is very good.
• There might be features implement in the VidaBox version that might not be available in the retail version. For example, in our version, the UAC pop-up that many of you see in the retail version is disabled. I don't think they plan on disabling this pop-up in the retail version.
• The retail version will have a 2 to 3 week update schedule. The VidaBox version gets updates when VidaBox decides to make the updates available. We will make updated version available as bug fixes are implemented.
• Our build is independent of the retail version so we are not tied to the retail version update schedule

Arcsoft is not going to be holding back updates in their retail version simply so VidaBox can have a faster track for updates. That will not be the case. In some cases, it may be that updates may come at the same time for both versions.

It is my belief that you will be purchasing a more stable product with minor extra features that make sense for HTPC use with the VidaBox version. Also, the more we sell of our version, the more weight we will carry with Arcsoft to have them fix bugs and implement new features. They are more likely to listen to one of our bug reports than an email from someone in this forum. We will do our best to report bugs that are brought to our attention to Arcsoft but we will only be doing that for users of our version of the software.

I will be creating a new thread of our version of the software once it is released so that there is no confusion between the two and our users may post their experience and issues.

I will continue to answers question where I can in this thread so please ask your questions.

This all sounds like a recipe for disaster... we now have three versions of the software "core" involved, and who knows who is programming what

1. The Japanese demo appears to have the least problems if you get past the language barrier... and it was the first one to appear

2. The current English demo which seems to be a regression from the Japanese version... did the programmer from the Japanese core switch jobs to join Nero?

3. The as yet unseen Vidabox version which will have a "more stable core" and is getting all of the programming attention, if you believe what you read on the internet

What a mess... I'm confused

Vidabox - I really appreciate your participation and straightforwardness in this forum.

On the VidaBox website it states only ArcSoft will offer tech support on the software. Is this in light of any mods made by VidaBox?

I'm not so sure that it makes the software more "stable", because they are not extra or unwanted features. They are "additional" functionality. Even if you remove them, it should have little to no impact on stability the core of the software.

In addition, if that's the case, I certainly hope your versions costs much less than the retail version, if it doesn't have thos extra features.


I would not call that a feature, I'd call it a "configuration". I can almost promise you that, that type of functionality is controlled by a flag/registry setting and they are only turning it on and off. They will certainly not have a customized code base for partners. Can you imagine the coding horror they would be facing with code branching and merging, if they had to maintain different versions for different partners? (I'm assuming you are not the only partner, I'm sure Arcsoft is looking to have as many partners as possible).


I'm sorry, I call BS on this. Vidabox certainly does not have access to the source code, so how will they make any updates THEMSELVES?? The updates will need to be made by Arcsoft, not Vidabox, and if they make the updates, I'm sure they will want to release them to everyone, not just their partner(s).


Really? So, Arcsoft is actually dedicating resources, process support, code versioning and management, for a partner? That would be impressive if that is in fact the case.


That makes more sense.


How so? And what are these "extra" features you talk of (besides disabling the UAC pop up)? In fact you just said that you won't have a lot of the authoring features of the retail version.


But, Vidabox is not in the business of selling software. It is in the business of selling Media Centers. I can promise you that Arcsoft will sell more retail copies than Vidabox because you guys will be bundling it with your Media Centers while anybody can go and buy the retail version, without buying any hardware. Media Centers are still a hobbyist market segment, and within that limited market you are competing against the DIY crowd as well. The DIY crowd will be buying whatever is the most "feature rich" version.

All that being said, I'm still very happy to see progress being made in bringing HD media into Media centers and I applaud your efforts.

I am with Kapone on this, I am confused. Most of this business model being presented by the user Vidabox, regarding the company Vidabox.Com, just does not make sense.

The VidaBox version of TMT will just be the player software, with all the other extra "functions" being stripped out... and it is actually going to be $10 MORE than the ArcSoft version of TMT. However we are being told that there will be "other features" rolled into the VidaBox version of TMT that are SEPARATE from the actually features being removed from the ArcSoft version of TMT to strip it down to just the player.

This means that VidaBox is selling the player from TMT..plus a bunch of other "non-ArcSoft stuff" tacked onto it. This really does NOT sound that much more stable than the stock software build. And so far we still do not have an answer regarding the "Support Disclaimer" on the bottom of ArcSoft TMT page on Vidabox.com.

I really do want the VidaBox route to be better, honestly. But the more I think about it, the less sense it makes.

vidabox,


reclock audio renderer will show you sampling frequency, bitdepth and number of channels. It should answer that question immediately. You will have to test it on a Win XP machine, though.
However, many people are convinced, serious HD playback is only possible under XP using reclock anyway, so testing that will be appreciated for sure.

Well, I am willing to take Vidabox at their word for now and see how things turn out. I should be a good thing to have them 'on our side' in getting support from Arcsoft on an expedited basis. Assuming you have a HW config like theirs (which I do), we should get much more mindshare with Vidabox on our side than we are now getting directly from either PDVD or Arcsoft individually. If they are effective it is worth $10, don't you think?
Mike

Well ArcSoft's player has just been released and so far, based upon features, I see it (personally) as well ahead of PowerDVD in terms of my liking it. My primary point of confusion is where I want to "buy it from".

Go ahead and get it from ArcSoft? Or buy it from VidaBox and hope they provide some backing for me getting support by ArcSoft?

It really concerns me that Vidabox has a nice big disclaimer across the bottom of their product page for ArcSoft TMT stating that they do NOT support this product... support is provided by ArcSoft. That does not comfort my decision at all.

Regarding availability of versions to partners vs. general public.
It's a fact that every code change in sofware development introduces the risk of creating new bug's or issues.
By shipping the newest versions to partners the partners may work as a selection group of early adaptors that have special interest in getting the newest versions.
This may then again work as a natural filter group to be able to ship versions that you belive to hold bug fixes and to be stable, but that have yet to be confirmed by a broader public. As a software version grows more mature it is normally not nessesarly nor benefitial for the general customers to update versions ofte.

From this angle it should be quite natural that vidabox will receive new versions before the general public. But I will assume that those versions should be more considered release candidates than actual public versions.

That's at least how it's quite normal to handle this, but in the actual case of videobox I am of course just guessing. Just had to mention it as I do not agree with some of the statment earlier in this thread.

When I first installed everything worked fine but now all im getting is a black screen and a second or two of audio before it stops which I think could be a HDCP issue PDVD still plays like it used to my graphics card is HDCP compatable and never had issues with PDVD and the japaneese trial or this one for the first few days until now still don't know whats changed.

Im using vista32 and a nVidia Graphics card.
I don't have AnyDVD HD or any other software installed and it even fails on a homemade BD-RE (BDMV Format)

Any ideas ?? could turningf off UAC do this becasue as far as im aware that is all that ive changed.

that's IF the core's are the same and following the same development path, which I highly doubt...


They already said they will be selling it as a standalone product...

Also having tried both cards, I am committed to use ATI.
I find there performance (If properly supported) is better than NVidia.

So, as an ATI 2600Pro user, do you suggest I:

A. Not purchase this product, or

B. Purchase from Arcsoft since there is no additional testing or support available from vidabox?


- Rich

It really depends on how the disc has been authored. Warner titles tend to jump right into the film, well the few I have here do anyway.

Anyway, hope you enjoy HD 2001 - it's stunning.

Keith

Arfster,

So since when I change detail_def to 100, and Detail is changed to 31 00 30 00 30 00 00 00 as a result.

If I set detail to 31 00 30 00 30 00 00 00 (Not changing detail_def), translate into setting detail to 100 for every pc's registry?

Also, I updated the List.

Also, Mr Sergio aka Vidabox.
We have a nice list with all the complaints about the Totalmedia software.
You need permission before you can open a thread about your version of the software, since your the company selling it.
Or, you can just post in this thread, and:
- list the numbers in the complaint list not related to your version of the software,
- and the complaint number (s) fixed in your version.

I would like all the arcsoft kept in one thread.
I can update the list detailing the different complaints between the two versions. There's plenty of room to update that post.

Edit. Also. If you can list the complaints by number, that you think should be deleted.

will there be a 2.35:1 mode with this player? or custom aspect ratio control?

I'm a bit confused by this. From what I've seen, TotalMedia Theatre (Arcsoft or Vidabox version) is only a player. TotalMedia Extreme is the Arcsoft product that includes burning, editing, etc.

The only US BD+ discs so far are from Fox.

Fellow Intel G35 owners out there unite! Im not sure if you've already done so but if you register for the club arcsoft thingy (for free) on the arcsoft.com website you get free email support. You can then fill in a support form and maybe we can get this sorted. Ive been getting a lot of replies from the arcsoft people so far (though nothing that helped so far) but they are replying to your questions. Make sure that you say that you've used the Japanese version and that it worked fine (better) on your system and that you have reinstalled your OS before trying this new english version. That will save you and them 2 days of mailing about without progress.