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lyd
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 390
Location: Lake Mills, Wi
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| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:01 am Post subject: LG drive + PDVD -- Blu-ray great, hd-dvd not so much. |
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I watched several blu-ray discs over the holiday and was delighted with the performance. I'm still only at 720p on my 8500, but this stuff looks wonderful, and no problems at all with playback. (Well, okay, PDVD crashed a couple of times when I clicked "play" from the disc's main menu, but worked fine after just launching it again.)
Tonight I watched a HD-DVD disc, and while the picture was just as nice, there were dropped frames at several points. My CPU usage is very low on both processors. Anyone have an idea where I should be looking for a problem?
lyd
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nuttall_chris
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 832
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:16 am Post subject: |
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We need more details about your setup;
- what version (patch) of PowerDVD are you using
- what CPU
- what graphics card
- what disk is causing the problem
Chris.
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lyd
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 390
Location: Lake Mills, Wi
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| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 3:05 am Post subject: |
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I was just wondering if there was a more general sort of known thing. I probably need a better sample than just one disc before I get too worked up about it. I have another one here and I just netflixed several more.
To answer your questions, though, in case you have any good suggestions:
Powerdvd Ultra (deluxe) 7.3 3319a. Using spdif out if that matters.
AnyDVD HD 6.3.0.3 is running, none of the HD-DVD fixes are checked.
(I am outputting VGA so it is not required, of course. Got a moome card here I plan to be using as soon as my cable comes in, is why I installed it. 
Conroe 6600 running at ~3GHz (333.4*9), 2GB Corsair RAM running 1:1, 4-4-4-12
EVGA GeForce 7900 GTO, stock freqs, 169.21 drivers
The disc I was playing was Balls of Fury (VC-1), audio selected was DD+ which PDVD is apparently transcoding to DD EX.
lyd
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nuttall_chris
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 832
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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That setup should be working fine, I don't have a copy of Balls of Fury so I can't test it in my setup. But try some other HD-DVDs and see if the problem is still there.
You could also try different versions of the driver for the video card, but I don't expect that to be the problem as your Bluray playback is working fine.
Chris.
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WanMan
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10270
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| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 1:38 pm Post subject: |
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lyd, do you have a copy of Casino Royale on BD? I repeatedly got the BSOD during the airport action sequence.
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Trust no one. Absolutely no one. Advice of the board.
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lyd
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 390
Location: Lake Mills, Wi
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| Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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| WanMan wrote: | | lyd, do you have a copy of Casino Royale on BD? I repeatedly got the BSOD during the airport action sequence. |
No, I don't. I grabbed a screener back when I was watching movies on my 27" Panny GAOO, and wasn't really impressed enough with it to run out and buy it since. Now that I've started a netflix subscription again maybe I'll add it to the queue. (Insert argument about the studios getting all their money one way or another, sooner or later, so quit griping, here. ;-)
Man, I can't remember ever seeing a BSOD on XP. I think the last time I really fought a battle with blue screens was NT 4. On the other hand, that was also the last time I used windows for any length of time unless I absolutely, positively could not avoid it.
Now that I have constructed this new box running XP for gaming and HT, I might be getting acquainted with that friendly shade of blue again. I've had good luck so far, though. The secret is still not to use it for anything you don't absolutely have to. The linux, mac and freeBSD boxes are for everything else.
lyd
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WanMan
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10270
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 2:25 am Post subject: |
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You know, I am right there with you on the BSOD. I had never seen that happen in XP before. I am finding it difficult to believe that the OS can crash (dump) because of a single peripheral component.
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lyd
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 390
Location: Lake Mills, Wi
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 3:22 am Post subject: |
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I'd blame powerdvd before I blamed the hardware/drivers, but I suppose it could be either. Or some other insanely difficult to trace interaction. This is windows we are dealing with after all.
And maybe I spoke too soon. I tried to play Ratatouille on blu-ray and was experiencing some bad stuttering, and after trying a few of the obvious things I decided to try updating pdvd. I backed up 3319a and then installed 3319f. When I hit play the first time my machine spontaneously rebooted. Good grief.
It didn't happen the second time, but the stuttering didn't disappear either. I'm not really sure what's going on, but it does seem to vary depending on the disc. I put in something I had watched before to make sure nothing had changed, and it still played fine. As it stands so far:
No problems: Cars, Fifth Element (re-mastered), Road Warrior, Underworld
Stuttering, to varying degrees: Ratatouille, Pans Labyrinth, Balls of Fury
Balls of Fury was HD-DVD, the rest were Blu-Ray.
I didn't investigate too thoroughly on the rest, but on Ratatouille the stutters were reproducible at the same points on the disc, and those points were not necessarily ones with a lot of movement on screen. One of them was where the rat was in the sewer and just turning a page in the cookbook.
When it happens on that disc, it looks like things are in slow motion for a second, then the audio will go, then some number of frames are dropped and everything starts back up. It only happened a total of 6 times or so through the whole movie, but of course it is way too irritating to live with.
It acted a bit different when it stuttered on Balls of Furry; I didn't see the slow-motion effect first. I only played Pans Labyrinth for a minute or so as a check, and audio was dropping a lot. I didn't pay real close attention to what the video looked like.
lyd
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AnalogRocks
Forum Moderator
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 26706
Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
TV/Projector: Sony 1252Q, AMPRO 4000G
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 6:19 am Post subject: |
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| lyd wrote: | I backed up 3319a and then installed 3319f. When I hit play the first time my machine spontaneously rebooted. Good grief.
lyd |
I'm getting the same problem. I already had Power DVD Ultra installed so I just put the drive in. I can see the contents of the disk from my computer but if I open PowerDVD the computer blue screens too fast for me to catch the error then reboots. It get's stuck in a re-boot loop unless I take the disk out of the drive.
Welcome to digital 
It may be a hard ware issue between my sata controler but then again it could just be the software too or a combination of both.
I unplugged it and went back to the Xbox HD-DVD drive.
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CRT.
HD done right!
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WanMan
Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 10270
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 12:16 pm Post subject: |
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Lyd, if you are going to blame Cyberlink then you can include LG in that matter. I'm doubting LG did any testing of the OEM software with this drive, and since they are not supporting the OEM (Cyberlink and LG) then consumers are just SOL.
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lyd
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 390
Location: Lake Mills, Wi
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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| WanMan wrote: | | Lyd, if you are going to blame Cyberlink then you can include LG in that matter. I'm doubting LG did any testing of the OEM software with this drive, and since they are not supporting the OEM (Cyberlink and LG) then consumers are just SOL. |
I'm not convinced the problems I'm experiencing have anything to do with the drive at all. They may, though. I'll have to rip one of the problem blu-ray's to hard drive and then see if I have the same problems playing from file.
If I do not it would actually be good news, as far as I am concerned, because I would then at least know along what path I should be debugging. Right now there are so many variables that I'm fairly without a clue.
lyd
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nuttall_chris
Joined: 08 Mar 2006
Posts: 832
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 12:33 pm Post subject: |
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I have no info to back this up but I'm going to point my finger at your video card. I had a few problems when using my Nvidia 8500GT card and when I upgraded to the ATI 2600XT everything as been running perfectly smooth.
Chris.
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator
Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah
TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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OMG. This crap is exactly why I have no interest whatsoever in trying to play HD-DVD/BD with an HTPC and why I have a PS3 and an XA1. They're not perfect (and the XA1 is slow), but they work beautifully every time.
Wake me up in 6 months or a year when there are some known good and reliable configurations, and I'll get interested again. I love HTPC and the idea of HTPC, but not when it's a pain in the ass (which is more often than not, unfortunately).
SC
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lyd
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 390
Location: Lake Mills, Wi
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 10:57 pm Post subject: |
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| ecrabb wrote: | | I love HTPC and the idea of HTPC, but not when it's a pain in the ass (which is more often than not, unfortunately). |
If you don't love the pain in the ass, you don't love the idea of HTPC. Which is fine, of course, but the pain in the ass is part of the deal. It feels so good when it stops. ;-) For a while... then you decide to play with something else, some new bit of hardware or software, this or that tweak, what have you, and it starts all over again. That's what its about. I enjoy that process, despite bitching about it (a right I will fight to the death to preserve ;) often enough.
It's not too hard to put together a box with a carefully selected batch of software, get it working, and then lock down the config, (and like you say, in 6 - 12 mo. you'll probably be able to add BD and HD to the mix) but to me that's just another appliance. Why use a PC at all if you're not going to be jacking around with it all the time?
It's just a matter of taste.
lyd
Last edited by lyd on Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Mark_A_W
Joined: 15 Mar 2006
Posts: 3068
Location: Sunny Melbourne Australia
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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Install Reclock and run 48/72/96hz.
Ecrabb, why are you here if you are just going to piss and whine?
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lyd
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 390
Location: Lake Mills, Wi
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| Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Mark_A_W wrote: | | Install Reclock and run 48/72/96hz. |
Is that to me? I'm already outputting at 72Hz, and the BD should be 24, right? I'm not sure what reclock does for me here.
The stuff I am describing above is not judder, it's a bigger problem.
lyd
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Mark_A_W
Joined: 15 Mar 2006
Posts: 3068
Location: Sunny Melbourne Australia
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 12:03 am Post subject: |
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| lyd wrote: | | Mark_A_W wrote: | | Install Reclock and run 48/72/96hz. |
Is that to me? I'm already outputting at 72Hz, and the BD should be 24, right? I'm not sure what reclock does for me here.
The stuff I am describing above is not judder, it's a bigger problem.
lyd |
Reclock will help with jerks and jumps. Without it I cannot get totally smooth playback of HD-DVD's. With it they are fantastic.
Only take you 10 mins to try it.
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lyd
Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 390
Location: Lake Mills, Wi
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 2:45 am Post subject: |
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| Mark_A_W wrote: | | lyd wrote: | | Mark_A_W wrote: | | Install Reclock and run 48/72/96hz. |
Is that to me? I'm already outputting at 72Hz, and the BD should be 24, right? I'm not sure what reclock does for me here.
The stuff I am describing above is not judder, it's a bigger problem.
lyd |
Reclock will help with jerks and jumps. Without it I cannot get totally smooth playback of HD-DVD's. With it they are fantastic.
Only take you 10 mins to try it. |
Well, I tried to try it, but I couldn't get it to load when I started pdvd. Tried every combination of the force with and preferred player stuff. What's the trick?
lyd
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Mark_A_W
Joined: 15 Mar 2006
Posts: 3068
Location: Sunny Melbourne Australia
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:06 am Post subject: |
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Ahh...that reminds me. PDVD 3319a doesn't let Reclock load.
PDVD 2911 lets it load, and that's what I use.
Sorry..
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator
Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah
TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010
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| Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2007 3:21 am Post subject: |
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| Mark_A_W wrote: | | Ecrabb, why are you here if you are just going to piss and whine? |
Wow, that's really something coming from you since you're probably by far the biggest pisser and whiner on this forum. I don't think there's even a close second. Hardly a week goes buy when you're not pissing and whining about this environmental thing or that - profanity and all. In my opinion, you've practically REDEFINED pissing and whining! I guess I should have asked you the same question after one of the hundreds of posts that you've made - posts that really did amount to nothing more than bitching, pissing and whining - and had no relation whatsoever to CRT or even HT.
Reading the thread, I was merely surprised to see that you guys were having issues with hardware and software that's been shipping for months, now. I guess the LG drive itself hasn't been around long, but I assumed ATA or SATA optical drive drivers were pretty mature, and CyberLink should certainly have had time to have worked most of the big kinks out of PowerDVD by now. I surprised to see that PowerDVD was as unstable as it was - actually crashing just playing a disc. We're not talking beta software - this is a shipping release! I was just commenting, though. I didn't know I couldn't do that or that you were the arbiter of what was appropriate.  On second thought, who better to judge pissing and whining than the head pisser and whiner.
Sorry for the detour guys.
| lyd wrote: | | If you don't love the pain in the ass, you don't love the idea of HTPC. Which is fine, of course, but the pain in the ass is part of the deal. It feels so good when it stops. For a while... then you decide to play with something else, some new bit of hardware or software, this or that tweak, what have you, and it starts all over again. That's what its about. I enjoy that process, despite bitching about it (a right I will fight to the death to preserve often enough. |
I know what you're saying. I enjoy the process of setting up a new machine, too. I don't even mind a little troubleshooting and I love the power and flexibility of an HTPC. For instance, being able to play music, DVD, streaming media, MPEG-2 HD, MPEG-4 AVC... the list goes on. That just isn't available in any sort of STB. But, what I don't love is installing and reinstalling, tweaking, and hours of screwing around - just to get it to work right. The worst of all is going through all the crap and not getting it to work right at all because of buggy software or drivers. I just don't like paying for stuff and being a beta tester, I guess.
In 6 months, the software and drivers will be more mature and the hardware (like video cards) will get cheaper - and I'll jump in. By then, you guys will have all the bugs worked out for me.
SC
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