chrisloudon
18th May 2007, 02:59
Hi guys,
Hopefully one of you guru’s knows what my problem is and can tell me how to fix it. I will apologise for the long post but I always find too much information better than too little.
Over the past month or 2 I’ve accumulated a fairly extensive collection of HD-DVDs and Blu-rays from various news groups. I’m not about to buy an HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive until it looks like one format is going to be a clear winner. So at the moment I’m playing the movies from my hard disk. My system is a dual core Pentium 3.4ghz, 2gb ram, ATI Radeon X1800(non HDCP) and more hard disk space than the boys at NASA. My graphics card is connected to my 40” 1080p Samsung LE40F71BX via the standard analogue cable (DVI > VGA converter at the graphics card end).
For playing back my HD-DVDs I’ve been using PowerDVD 7.3 with limited success. If I manage to get the film to play it does play fine with no problems but it usually takes a good 5 to 10 ‘PowerDVD has stopped responding’ messages before it plays. Also when playing I am unable to select any other audio streams. My Amp doesn’t decode WMA pro 10, LPCM 5.1 or MLP lossless so if any other these audio streams are the default I either get no sound or horrible static. Also PowerDVD only lets me play the EVO files in file mode; it will not open the HD-DVD from the hard disk where I assume I would be presented with the movie title and menu screen where I could select the various audio streams and subtitles. Any HD-DVDs with a default audio track I cannot decode I must remux with only the video and audio tracks I need. When playing back Blu-ray movies PowerDVD will load the files as if it were a disk and play through the intro previews and adverts but stops short of any main feature or menu screen. If I select an individual m2ts file I get video but no audio. Again I think this is a problem with the default audio track and I cannot switch to another. I have yet to find an m2ts demux / remuxer that works.
With all these various problems with PowerDVD I decided to give Nero’s Showtime with HD-DVD & BD plugin a bash but this time the problems get worse. Showtime will not playback any of my HD-DVD or Blu-ray files in either mode. I do get sound and I can cycle through the different tracks but I don’t get any video. The information window reports the video information as ‘no information available’. The main video windows vanishes as soon as the film starts and when I maximise the screen all I can see is the Showtime logo splash screen.
On one hand I’ve got PowerDVD which despite its instabilities does seem to ignore any HDCP issues I may have and the fact I don’t have either an HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive but not being able to select different audio tracks during HD-DVD (evo) or blu-ray (m2ts) playback is a real pain in the arse especially if the default audio track is MLP lossless or LPCM 5.1 which my amp doesn’t recognise. On the other hand there is Showtime which has never crashed but won’t display any video on both HD-DVD or Blu-ray films / files. I wouldn’t mind if I got some nice descriptive error message. At least I’d have something to work with but I’m not.
If it’s an HDCP problem why would PowerDVD ignore it and not Showtime. If it was a lack of HD-DVD or Blu-ray drives, again why would PowerDVD ignore this and not Showtime. Arrrrrrgggg. Help please.
Sorry again for the rather lengthy post but this has been driving me crazy for ages now.
Thanks in advance for anyone who can help.
Chris.
Hopefully one of you guru’s knows what my problem is and can tell me how to fix it. I will apologise for the long post but I always find too much information better than too little.
Over the past month or 2 I’ve accumulated a fairly extensive collection of HD-DVDs and Blu-rays from various news groups. I’m not about to buy an HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive until it looks like one format is going to be a clear winner. So at the moment I’m playing the movies from my hard disk. My system is a dual core Pentium 3.4ghz, 2gb ram, ATI Radeon X1800(non HDCP) and more hard disk space than the boys at NASA. My graphics card is connected to my 40” 1080p Samsung LE40F71BX via the standard analogue cable (DVI > VGA converter at the graphics card end).
For playing back my HD-DVDs I’ve been using PowerDVD 7.3 with limited success. If I manage to get the film to play it does play fine with no problems but it usually takes a good 5 to 10 ‘PowerDVD has stopped responding’ messages before it plays. Also when playing I am unable to select any other audio streams. My Amp doesn’t decode WMA pro 10, LPCM 5.1 or MLP lossless so if any other these audio streams are the default I either get no sound or horrible static. Also PowerDVD only lets me play the EVO files in file mode; it will not open the HD-DVD from the hard disk where I assume I would be presented with the movie title and menu screen where I could select the various audio streams and subtitles. Any HD-DVDs with a default audio track I cannot decode I must remux with only the video and audio tracks I need. When playing back Blu-ray movies PowerDVD will load the files as if it were a disk and play through the intro previews and adverts but stops short of any main feature or menu screen. If I select an individual m2ts file I get video but no audio. Again I think this is a problem with the default audio track and I cannot switch to another. I have yet to find an m2ts demux / remuxer that works.
With all these various problems with PowerDVD I decided to give Nero’s Showtime with HD-DVD & BD plugin a bash but this time the problems get worse. Showtime will not playback any of my HD-DVD or Blu-ray files in either mode. I do get sound and I can cycle through the different tracks but I don’t get any video. The information window reports the video information as ‘no information available’. The main video windows vanishes as soon as the film starts and when I maximise the screen all I can see is the Showtime logo splash screen.
On one hand I’ve got PowerDVD which despite its instabilities does seem to ignore any HDCP issues I may have and the fact I don’t have either an HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive but not being able to select different audio tracks during HD-DVD (evo) or blu-ray (m2ts) playback is a real pain in the arse especially if the default audio track is MLP lossless or LPCM 5.1 which my amp doesn’t recognise. On the other hand there is Showtime which has never crashed but won’t display any video on both HD-DVD or Blu-ray films / files. I wouldn’t mind if I got some nice descriptive error message. At least I’d have something to work with but I’m not.
If it’s an HDCP problem why would PowerDVD ignore it and not Showtime. If it was a lack of HD-DVD or Blu-ray drives, again why would PowerDVD ignore this and not Showtime. Arrrrrrgggg. Help please.
Sorry again for the rather lengthy post but this has been driving me crazy for ages now.
Thanks in advance for anyone who can help.
Chris.