HD DVD playback: PowerDVD 6.5 or 7.1 ?

[Galileo2000]

Conflicting opinions everywhere.

Some say 7.1 is much better.

Some say it doesn't use VMR9, therefore 6.5 is much better.

I am asking about Video Quality only.

What's your opinion?

Edit: Note to mods: it is about PQ and not a duplicate of the ongoing thread with the similar title. Unfortunately I can't edit the title.

[Rectal Prolapse]

6.5 has better PQ than 7.1, because 6.5's VMR9 has virtually no banding and more accurate colors.

I could not get 7.1 to work in VMR9 mode - the registry entries for enabling VMR9 appear to be ignored!

[<><]

how did you enable vmr9 on powerdvd 6.5? Registry entry? If so, can you list them.

Thanks

[Rectal Prolapse]

It was already enabled after installation. I didn't have to do anything! Strange eh?

An easy way to test it is to use the Alt-PrintScreen key combo while the PowerDVD movie window has focus. Then paste into MS Paint. If you get a black image that is the same size as the window then you know it is in VMR mode. However, this may not work on encrypted discs - I suggest decrypting an EVO file first and then play that.

[Loco Lobo]

It was already enabled after installation. I didn't have to do anything! Strange eh?

An easy way to test it is to use the Alt-PrintScreen key combo while the PowerDVD movie window has focus. Then paste into MS Paint. If you get a black image that is the same size as the window then you know it is in VMR mode. However, this may not work on encrypted discs - I suggest decrypting an EVO file first and then play that.

what is the VMR Mode? what is it good for?

[Loco Lobo]

Conflicting opinions everywhere.

Some say 7.1 is much better.

Some say it doesn't use VMR9, therefore 6.5 is much better.

I am asking about Video Quality only.

What's your opinion?

Edit: Note to mods: it is about PQ and not a duplicate of the ongoing thread with the similar title. Unfortunately I can't edit the title.

I am using PD 6.5. With that playing the decrypted EVO files works great. (playing HD_DVD from hd) Also playing the single EVO files works ok. But I expirienced a problem with the chroma/luma settings. The movies appear quiet dark with PD 6.5 I tried various settings but could not really change it.
I tested the same files with WinDVD8 and it looked brighter and not so collorful. But WinDVD8 abends after some minutes.
Have not tried with PD7 yet as I have to de-install PD 6.5 first and I wanted to spare the hassle.

[Rectal Prolapse]

I have significant banding artifacts using 7.1. I cannot get it to use VMR9 instead of overlay. Level expansion is always done in overlay which explains the large amounts of blocking and banding. It looks horrible - like the typical DIVX/XVID encodes you find everywhere on the net. Colors are also off - there is a red push that I cannot seem to get rid of with 7.1's color "controls" (more like color chaos!).

6.5 has much better PQ - very close to how it should look, using Sonic's VC-1 Decoder as a reference. My system is calibrated for studio video levels (what the compressionists use), not the levels used in overlay (aka 16-235 range expanded to 0-255 PC levels).