bluray on PC 4 days of work, no results

[10bob]

Hi!,
New to this forum and probably my last resort.
After some thought the idea came to me to extend my home cinema system with a pc that could do all sorts of beautiful multimedia stuff.
View movies, pics and listen to music which were all stored on my pc.
This is the setup;

Mainboard Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2H
Processor AMD X3 8450 AM2+ 2100
Memory 4GB Kingston
HDD WD 10EAS (1TB)
Graphics NVIDIA 9400GT (512MB) HDCP ok
Powersupply Zalman 500W
Media lab IR control
As an afterthought I added a Plextor px-b300sa.


Putting it together was easy enough and sure the whole thing was up and running in a jiff.
With XP sp3 as the OS because I still had a license lying around.
I bought a blu-ray (Firefly ) disc to do the blu-ray testing part.
The pc was setup with a 19” LCD monitor with the idea that once all worked to satisfaction it would be hooked up on my Samsung 46 “ LCD TV via a DVI to HDMI cable

Plextor supplied Windvd 8 as the player for Blu-ray material.
It crashed as soon as it sniffed at the disc. Does play avi’s and dvd’s but that’s about all.
Tried powerdvd 8 ultra, it accessed the disc but stopped by itself.
VLC player was no alternative either. (But plays mkv files in 1080p, astounding.)
I found that XP couldn’t access the disc either so after some googling found out it needed UDF 2.5 support and tried everything again, no result. (But XP could now access and read the disc.)
Took the whole thing to another PC that had Vista Ultimate SP1 on it and repeated the whole story, still nothing.
Both the advisor from windvd and powerdvd found only the CPU in wanting but do not believe this as the second system has a Core2 3Ghz CPU implemented.
Did not install any other codecs that where not supplied by the players.
Reading in forums, the few that have built their own system, many seem to suffer from the same problem with different brands of drives.

Presently I’m at the end of my wits and although I’m not a complete idiot working with pc’s do not know what to do next.
Do any of you have solution or a pointer to this problem?

[9Nails]

Your CPU, RAM, and GPU look all in order. I don't see any problems there.

Try patching WinDVD or PowerDVD. I recently ran into issues where I needed to update my player software to include support for new titles. Although Firefly should be readily supported and is a fantastic pick for your test disc IMHO.

Also check that you have the latest firmware for your drive from Plextor.

I built my system from a Gigabyte GA-X38T-DQ6 motherboard and Intel Core 2 Duo 6850 CPU with a GeForce 8800GTX, 2 Gigs OCZ DDR3 RAM, PC Power & Cooling 750w Silencer Quad, Win XP SP3 MCE 2005/Vista Ult 64 dual boot and an LG HD/BD DVD Rom drive and PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra and it works ok.

[10bob]

Thanks, 9nails
I can't patch windvd because it's oem and Corel does not support these versions, powerdvd is the newest version no patch there. The same goes for the plextor drive it is so new there are no firmware upgrades yet.
Getting very curious about "Firefly", bought it on a hunch.

[blckman]

I would say try Arcsoft Total Media Theatre Extreme. It plays just about anything you throw at it. I'm a little suspect about that plextor drive. I've seen it, but not the best ratings on it. I have the LG HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Combo drive and it already has a a firmware update to boot. I would say check tp see if you're Nvidia drivers are up-to-date. If you purchase the Arcsoft software and you're still having problems, then I would suggest returning the drive and going to newegg.com and purchase the LG Drive. Most people aren't having too many problems with these drives. I really suspect this could be a hardware issue. Everything looks solid. Even the motherboard is nice. Good luck.

[10bob]

Thanks blckman,

I'll have look at nividia and check for newer drivers, plextor still has no new firmware. Still, the only thing the drive has to do is stream the data on the disc and initially it seems to read it alright. Food for thougt and will try if it copies data to the HD.
Also will have a try arcsoft and see if there's a trail version, if not consider buying. ( The VLC player which is opensource played also everything up to now.)
There also seems a foggy discussion about HDCP not accepting a monitor with a vga input.
I tried a converter from vga to DVI, no deal. Then I connected the pc to my TV with a DVI to HDMI cable, nice big picture! otherwise no succes. It does do normal DVD though.

[JClay]

Are you getting an error message or is it just crashing?

[10bob]

Hi jclay,

The windvd 8 app just crashes as soon as it sees a bluray disc and windows wants to report the log to u-soft
Powerdvd 8 ultra just fiddles around with the disc a bit and than stops playback.
If I try to run a 2ts file from the disc it won't do anything with it either. (some access moments of the drive.)
The VLC player gave an error about the codec but stated it could do nothing about it.
I just downloaded the arcsoft player and will install shortly and let it known what that will do.
thanks for all the interest and suggestions.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by 10bob

Hi jclay,

The windvd 8 app just crashes as soon as it sees a bluray disc and windows wants to report the log to u-soft
Powerdvd 8 ultra just fiddles around with the disc a bit and than stops playback.
If I try to run a 2ts file from the disc it won't do anything with it either. (some access moments of the drive.)
The VLC player gave an error about the codec but stated it could do nothing about it.
I just downloaded the arcsoft player and will install shortly and let it known what that will do.
thanks for all the interest and suggestions.

You'll need an update to WinDVD 8 to get it to play properly. The problem with the OEM supplied software is that most OEM manufacturers don't provide the necessary updates.

In terms of PowerDVD 8 Ultra what version do you have installed? In case you missed it Cyberlink's update page is a bit tricky. The have a PowerDVD and a PowerDVD Ultra link. If you click on the PowerDVD Ultra link it will only show updates for 7.0. However, if you click on ther PowerDVD link it will show the updates for PowerDVD Ultra 8.

http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/downl...s_1_en_US.html

[saljr]

I see the newest up date for PowerDVD 8 Ultra support 1080p/24. I hope by next year everything will work.

[10bob]

Thanks rdodolack

I Downloaded the update and will try to update. I'm concerned at the moment of having so many players installed and considering to cleanup the whole bunch, cleaning up the registry as well because there is an amazing amount of entries there. Maybe even a reinstall of the os is in order because I've no idea how many dll's are now involved.

[10bob]

Hi rdodolak
Just installed the latest update of powerdvd8 , it answers with: There is a disc with an unsupported format in drive E: (It being bluray "firefly" disc)
Version of the update file 2217d_tare38_dvd081014-07.exe
That's a new notice it gave, could it be that this disc is causing it?
If so what is a safe bluray disc to test the system?

Thanks again for the support

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by 10bob

Hi rdodolak
Just installed the latest update of powerdvd8 , it answers with: There is a disc with an unsupported format in drive E: (It being bluray "firefly" disc)
Version of the update file 2217d_tare38_dvd081014-07.exe
That's a new notice it gave, could it be that this disc is causing it?
If so what is a safe bluray disc to test the system?

Thanks again for the support

It looks like you downloaded the one for PowerDVD 8 Standard/Deluxe instead of the Ultra. You'll need Ultra in order to play Blu-ray discs. If you do have the standard/deluxe version installed this would explain that message. The filename for the Ultra is:

Cyberlink.2217aU_TaRe38_DVD081201-06.exe

Here's a direct link:

http://update.cyberlink.com/ftpdload...D081201-06.exe

[ObiTrentKenobi]

interesting... i don't know why so many people have had issues with bluray playback.

I popped my Sony bluray drive in, installed PowerDVD 8 ultra that i purchased on sale for 69.99, and i was playing blurays instantly. i didn't bother with any bluray playback software.

i'd say to test -any other- bluray disc. maybe it's just your copy of firefly.

also, did you actually purchase PowerDVD 8 ultra? their trials have limited playback functions.

___________________________________________
Gateway GT5404 with Vista Premium
upgraded to 2GB Kingston DDR2
GT 8500 512mb DDR3 PCI-E
Intel Pentium D dual-core 2.2GHZ

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by 10bob

If so what is a safe bluray disc to test the system?

Fox recently changed its BD+ keys since the old BD+ keys were recently hacked. This is driving an update for all players and affects recently released Fox Blu-ray discs. Cyberlink doesn't specifically state what was fixed in this release in terms of disc compatability. I'd try older Fox releases or other Studio releases.

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by ObiTrentKenobi

also, did you actually purchase PowerDVD 8 ultra? their trials have limited playback functions.

The trial that available for download doesn't support Blu-ray Disc playback.

[10bob]

Hi rdodolak,
You hit it on the nose, the update did it and can now play bluray discs!
Amazed at the simpleness of the solution, a bit irritated that powerdvd stated it could play bluray but failed to do so. They could have mentioned it needed an upgrade to be able to do so.
Thanks again for the solution giving tip and eat humble pie for upgrading with the wrong patch.
Well holidays are nearly over and so is the biggest hurdle.
I hope the rest of the puzzle won't be of the same magnitude.
That will be connecting sound to the cinema system (Denon AVC-A10se) via spdiff coaxial, hooking the tv to the pc and figure out why the desktop is larger than the display. The NVIDIA config screen does not resize the screen as it suggests, so the first thing I'll do is get the newest drivers; Yes I've learnt my lesson, before anything, even if its new get the newest drivers is the motto.
I'll let the forum know how I fare.

Thanks again all,

Bob