Bluray software puzzle...

MaxBurn

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Hope someone starts writing a bluray program to give them some competition...

Me too. Would like to know why power dvd feels the need to disable aero in win 7 when it loads a BD and mess up all my toolbar widths/positions, does this even if the task bars are locked. Would also like the click on screen menu functionality that DVD has.
 

Mercutio

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BluRay playback happens in a virtual machine that needs control over both audio and video on your PC. Everything that's obnoxious about BluRay (slow load times, disabling Aero) really stems from that.

Anyway PowerDVD 9 Ultra works fine for me, though I'm still a little pissed off that it only does two-channel audio playback for DVD-Audio discs. Other than that it's really one of the most trouble-free programs I can think of.
 

Stereodude

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Who cares what PowerDVD does for DVD-Audio Playback? :scratch:

Foobar 2k + the dvdadecoder plugin will give you full resolution multichannel DVD-A playback regardless of the soundcard in your PC. :cheers:

I ripped all my DVD-A's to ISO's with DVDFab Decrypter (which decrypts DVD-A discs) and use the above combination to play them back. It works great! :thumbright:

It's my understanding that the plugin can play back encrypted DVD-A discs (without any issues), but will fail on a partially encrypted DVD-A ISO's (like a DVD-A run through AnyDVD which removes CSS, but leaves the CPPM).
 

MaxBurn

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The virtual environment does explain a lot about my irks with power dvd, I was not aware of that and just thinking it was a funny decision to make it compatible with more computers with slower video/cpu. Man I can't wait till my dune player gets here and I can ditch the HTPC idea.
 

Bozo

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Me too. Would like to know why power dvd feels the need to disable aero in win 7 when it loads a BD and mess up all my toolbar widths/positions, does this even if the task bars are locked. Would also like the click on screen menu functionality that DVD has.

You can save you desktop as a Theme, then just click to reload it.
 

Santilli

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Appears I managed to get a NZH trojan, according t Nod32.

Wonder if that had something to do with it?

Still scanning...

I've managed to play some of the Bluray Iso stuff, but only after ripping it from iso.
Then it plays in Spanish, and, the Ultra setting that allowed changing audio steams is no longer present.

See if the Trojan had something to do with that...
 

Santilli

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Went back, did a clean install, used the downloads of 2 and 3 service packs. Installed latest drivers from HIS, up and running. Watching a BIG kitty, read lion, on her back.

Super Seven is truly incredible, visually, and, the AnyDVD to Clone read off the hard disk is working great. Plus, I'm ripping another at the same time.
 

Santilli

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Figured out the DVD and some Bluray problems with the ATI 4670, and PowerDVD 9 Ultra.

With newer movies, hardware decoding works great. With older Bluray, some of them anyway, and regular DVD's, you have to use software decoding on this machine.

Strange, but that single setting is what was causing the problems.
 

blakerwry

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All DVDs and the majority of older blu-ray are encoded with MPEG2. The majority of newer Blu-ray discs tend to be encoded using AVC. Perhaps your hardware does not support MPEG2 decoding or your software does not support AVC decoding - i forget which problem you had (or perhaps you had both). The back of the Blu-Ray case will generally state which codec was used and the bitrate.
 

Santilli

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Thanks.
I've only found one disk I can't play at all: The Punisher.

Other then that, screwing with the settings, I've been able to play pretty much everything.
 

Pradeep

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All DVDs and the majority of older blu-ray are encoded with MPEG2. The majority of newer Blu-ray discs tend to be encoded using AVC. Perhaps your hardware does not support MPEG2 decoding or your software does not support AVC decoding - i forget which problem you had (or perhaps you had both). The back of the Blu-Ray case will generally state which codec was used and the bitrate.

There are two versions of The Fifth Element on Blu-ray. The initial release uses MPEG2, and upon release was generally marked down for a poor quality image. It was then later re-released encoded in AVC with peaks in the mid 30 mbit/sec range (I believe from a better original source), the picture quality of this version is outstanding. Colours are just sublime.
 

Santilli

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There are two versions of The Fifth Element on Blu-ray. The initial release uses MPEG2, and upon release was generally marked down for a poor quality image. It was then later re-released encoded in AVC with peaks in the mid 30 mbit/sec range (I believe from a better original source), the picture quality of this version is outstanding. Colours are just sublime.

I'm looking at two boxes, and, they don't mention mpeg2 at all.

I loved the 5th Element, and would really like to see a decent version of it on Bluray...
What does the good one say to indicate the picture quality, off the box if possible.
 

Stereodude

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What are you talking about? Doesn't PowerDVD have an option to show playback information? Arcsoft does. You right click on image while it's playing and pick Information and then it tells you the video codec, bitrate, and sound format.
 

Santilli

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WHY would I want to get the bad version, play it, to find out it's the bad version, by playing it through PowerDVD?

Also, The Punisher disk wouldn't play at all. I mean not even load, or have XP even see it was in the drive...
 

Pradeep

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Greg, as MaxBurn previously mentioned, the "good" version has TrueHD audio as an option, the original only had uncompressed 5.1 PCM.

Regarding encoding:

"In addition to striking a brand new master, the studio has doubled its pleasure from a BD-25 single-layer disc to a BD-50 dual-layer disc, and has switched from the earlier MPEG-2 encode to a brand new AVC MPEG-4 encode."

The version available from Amazon now is the real deal:

http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Element-Remastered-Blu-ray/dp/B000QTD368/

$15 bucks and certainly a reference class picture to demo your system.

Other reference class blu-rays (imho): The Pirates of the Carribbean Trilogy - http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Caribbean-Trilogy-Blu-ray-Johnny/dp/B001BKZD7S/. Also Star Trek (2009 version).

District 9 is also worth a rental. Apparently shot using one of the RED cameras (amongst many others, there's a lot of hand held camera action in this movie. Very dynamic.
 

Santilli

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I've got Star Trek, and, it plays well. I'm beyond pissed right now, since I have Pirates of the Carrib sitting on my desk, and, my system won't play it. Artifacts.

Also, when I tried to install the PowerDVD Bluray 8 version, hoping it would play what 9 ultra didn't it TOTALLY screwed my system. NONE of my 3 DVD players was recognized, and, I'm having to restore windows. System restore didn't even work.

This is typed on my laptop.

Bottom line is my new system is mainly because I can't get Bluray to play correctly...among other things...Can't wait for Friday,...
 

Santilli

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Facts:
Plextor drive artifacts when connected to my Supermicro motherboard, on playing, and on writing with AnyDVD HD to the hard drive.
In other words, what is coming out of the DVD player, into the computer, is corrupted, even when it's NOT playing on the screen.
The corrupted ISO's play just like the disk through the player.
I connected the Plextor to the HTPC, and installed DVD 8, did the upgrade, and it plays
fine. This with an Nvidia 9600, and corresponding software.

I'm in the process or ripping to ISO one of the disks, and, once it's ripped onto the hard drive, it should mount in virtual drive, and play fine on my machine.
That's the theory anyway.
It sure is slow ripping...

Next test is to try playing the iso on the ATI 4670.
 

Pradeep

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I haven't followed the blu-ray ripping scene at all, but is it true that "every" disc has been cracked and allows easy drag and drop copying with no corrupted playback on the other end?
 

ddrueding

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I think so. But trying to convert those files to some other format is sometimes a pain.

I'm currently having issues with "Up" and "Angels and Demons", as the movie itself is broken into multiple m2ts files. My normal workflow doesn't know what to do with this.
 

Mercutio

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I haven't followed the blu-ray ripping scene at all, but is it true that "every" disc has been cracked and allows easy drag and drop copying with no corrupted playback on the other end?

Just like with DVDs, sometimes they update the protection and you have to wait for it to get broken again.

Thinking back, the only BD title I ever had playback issues with was Wall-E, and I more than halfway suspect Disney tried to do some extra antipiracy stuff with that disc.
 

Santilli

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It artifacts at the start, but, the majority os playing beautifully. Something isn't up to getting data fast enough from the bluray player. However, reading from a drive, on the bus, virtual drive, it's awesome...

You can really see Mick's wrinkles.
 

Santilli

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They are simply incredible, fantastic, etc.!!!!!
and, don't forget Lisa Fischer....WOW

Ronnie Woods is incredible. too....
 

Pradeep

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Is it possible to utilise a BD-ROM or BD-R burner drive to playback a retail blu-ray title with lossless sound (DTS-MA or TruHD) via a 5xxx series ATI card and HDMI? Using the latest PowerDVD?
 

Stereodude

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Is it possible to utilise a BD-ROM or BD-R burner drive to playback a retail blu-ray title with lossless sound (DTS-MA or TruHD) via a 5xxx series ATI card and HDMI? Using the latest PowerDVD?
The answer depends on your OS. Using XP, yes if you don't encounter an EDID issues. Using Vista or 7, most likely... There's a work around for the EDID problems for those two.
 

MaxBurn

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Yeah sound on HDMI for computers is weird still. It even freaks out my new stereo a bit. With my GTX260 using the option sound disabled I get lots of cracks and pops on the samsung TV at random times. When I switch over to the big LG TV and route it through my stereo if I should happen to accidentally hit the auto sound source button the stereo totally flips out and switches between the HDMI and SPDIF fairly rapidly. I have to go into the stereo and lock it to the SPDIF.

It looks like we are going to be waiting a really long time for new nvidia silicon, ATI looks to be ahead in the game now.
 

Stereodude

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Yeah sound on HDMI for computers is weird still. It even freaks out my new stereo a bit. With my GTX260 using the option sound disabled I get lots of cracks and pops on the samsung TV at random times. When I switch over to the big LG TV and route it through my stereo if I should happen to accidentally hit the auto sound source button the stereo totally flips out and switches between the HDMI and SPDIF fairly rapidly. I have to go into the stereo and lock it to the SPDIF.

It looks like we are going to be waiting a really long time for new nvidia silicon, ATI looks to be ahead in the game now.
I had a bad experience with an ATI 4550 (no audio at all due to their crap EDID parsing). My GF9300 IGP on my motherboard on the other hand works flawlessly for 7.1 LPCM over HDMI.
 

Stereodude

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Sounds like you got EDID'd by ATI and their inability to write a driver that can parse basic 128 byte strings.
 
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