The first UHD Blu-ray drive

[img eL]

More photos

http://ascii.jp/elem/000/001/435/1435835/

http://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/...s/1044739.html

[crazy_gringox]

Everyone can verify Intel® SGX Platform support with tool from Intel site.

https://software.intel.com/en-us/sgx-sdk/download

Intel® SGX Platform Capability Tool for Windows (ZIP)

[ddjmagic]

Originally Posted by nilsman

LOL. Seems someone at Amazon Japan woke up just now and found two more Pioneer UHD players sitting on a shelf... So ordered one of them. Should get it next week and will report if UHD Blu-ray works on my setup (Z170).

Isn't the latest version 16, which as far as I know does not support UHD blu-ray? Wonder if this is a typo or some scheme to get users to pay for version 17 upgrade once that is released? Guess I will find out eventually...

It's a custom oem v14 bundled with the drive that will work with UHD BD.
The retail version won't have UHD BD support until v17 (which even though it isn't advertised download links for v17 live are available to install)

[imhh1]

Originally Posted by puddy77

Are you getting HDR out of your PC? Or just SDR?

No HDR on PC yet.
4k/SDR work fines on the app and on edge.

Originally Posted by ddjmagic

It's a custom oem v14 bundled with the drive that will work with UHD BD.
The retail version won't have UHD BD support until v17 (which even though it isn't advertised download links for v17 live are available to install)

Nice so this special version of powerdvd will work with UHD BD(not just UHD video files). One more step towards UHD BD backup.

[Jeff R 1]

Originally Posted by nilsman

LOL. Seems someone at Amazon Japan woke up just now and found two more Pioneer UHD players sitting on a shelf... So ordered one of them. Should get it next week and will report if UHD Blu-ray works on my setup (Z170).

Isn't it strange that Pioneer write that PowerDVD 14 is included with the drive. Isn't the latest version 16, which as far as I know does not support UHD blu-ray? Wonder if this is a typo or some scheme to get users to pay for version 17 upgrade once that is released? Guess I will find out eventually...

If you managed to order one of these drives you must live in Japan or do they send to European addresses ?

[nilsman]

Yes, I ordered one and its on it's way. Seems to be in transit in Germany at the moment. I'm just hoping that the bundled PowerDVD 14 version is not Japanese language only...

Amazon Japan seems to ship it almost everywhere through the Global Shipping Program. But if you buy some of the other sellers available on amazon.jp (local sellers) then they would not ship outside Japan.

[triffid]

Mine is arriving tomorrow. It just passed the customs today. It is time for me to choose the right Z270 board.

[nilsman]

Nice. Mine should also arrive tomorrow. I will try it with the Z170 board that I already have.

I do foresee one problem and if you have not already bought a board you might want to consider this. My Z170 board has two HDMI ports, one 1.4 and one 2.0. The 2.0 port does not seem to support DTS MA and Dolby TrueHD on normal blu-ray or mkv. In fact it seems to be a limitation in the LSPCON chip used to convert DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 on all Z170 (and Z270?) boards. The 1.4 port supports DTS MA and Dolby TrueHD without any problems but it does not seem to support HDCP 2.2. So if all connections need to be HDCP 2.2 for UHD blu-ray it will not matter how I connect the PC to the display and preamp. I will not be able to bitstream lossless audio. Therefor if I were buying a new board I would be looking for one that supports HDCP 2.2 on at least two ports. With such a setup it should be possible to connect the HDMI 2.0 to the display and the other HDCP 2.2 port to a HDCP 2.2 preamp. But this is just me guessing so take it for what it is. Maybe all Z270 boards already do this or maybe HDCP 2.2 is not needed for audio...

[Jeff R 1]

Originally Posted by nilsman

Yes, I ordered one and its on it's way. Seems to be in transit in Germany at the moment. I'm just hoping that the bundled PowerDVD 14 version is not Japanese language only...

Amazon Japan seems to ship it almost everywhere through the Global Shipping Program. But if you buy some of the other sellers available on amazon.jp (local sellers) then they would not ship outside Japan.

Yeah, you're right, I just had to find the right buttons on the Amazon site.
It was going to cost me around 312.00$ Canadian.

It was going to take till March/April to send it, so I'll just wait until they are available in my neck of the woods.

[Jeff R 1]

Originally Posted by triffid

Mine is arriving tomorrow. It just passed the customs today. It is time for me to choose the right Z270 board.

Originally Posted by nilsman

Nice. Mine should also arrive tomorrow. I will try it with the Z170 board that I already have.

I do foresee one problem and if you have not already bought a board you might want to consider this. My Z170 board has two HDMI ports, one 1.4 and one 2.0. The 2.0 port does not seem to support DTS MA and Dolby TrueHD on normal blu-ray or mkv. In fact it seems to be a limitation in the LSPCON chip used to convert DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 on all Z170 (and Z270?) boards. The 1.4 port supports DTS MA and Dolby TrueHD without any problems but it does not seem to support HDCP 2.2. So if all connections need to be HDCP 2.2 for UHD blu-ray it will not matter how I connect the PC to the display and preamp. I will not be able to bitstream lossless audio. Therefor if I were buying a new board I would be looking for one that supports HDCP 2.2 on at least two ports. With such a setup it should be possible to connect the HDMI 2.0 to the display and the other HDCP 2.2 port to a HDCP 2.2 preamp. But this is just me guessing so take it for what it is. Maybe all Z270 boards already do this or maybe HDCP 2.2 is not needed for audio...

I got an answer back from NVIDIA, a rather generic answer telling me to update to the latest driver when asked if their Pascal cards support SGX and UHD- Blu-ray.
Are you guys running NVIDIA GPU's to see if they work with the new drive ?
Driver version, 378.66, dated February 14, 2017.

[hansolo]

Originally Posted by img eL

More photos

http://ascii.jp/elem/000/001/435/1435835/

http://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/...s/1044739.html

Still no UHD logo on drive? Not that it matters.

[triffid]

I just unpacked the parcel. This is the software disc:

[nilsman]

Originally Posted by Jeff R 1

I got an answer back from NVIDIA, a rather generic answer telling me to update to the latest driver when asked if their Pascal cards support SGX and UHD- Blu-ray.
Are you guys running NVIDIA GPU's to see if they work with the new drive ?
Driver version, 378.66, dated February 14, 2017.

Netflix 4K will only work with Intel HD graphics, not with Nvidia (or AMD) yet. So I have planned to use Intel HD graphics also for UHD blu-ray. I do have a Nvidia card with HDCP 2.2. so I can try that down the line.

[nilsman]

Originally Posted by triffid

I just unpacked the parcel. This is the software disc:

At least text is in English :-)

[nilsman]

Included manual is Japanese language only so cannot really understand it. But looking at the pictures it seems to cover some interesting items like drive settings wihtin windows. Might have to google translate it at some point.

[imhh1]

Were you able to play a UHD BD with that custom version of powerdvd 14 ?

[MisterXDTV]

Originally Posted by nilsman

Included manual is Japanese language only so cannot really understand it. But looking at the pictures it seems to cover some interesting items like drive settings wihtin windows. Might have to google translate it at some point.

Drive settings in Windows? Like what?

[Jeff R 1]

Originally Posted by nilsman

Netflix 4K will only work with Intel HD graphics, not with Nvidia (or AMD) yet. So I have planned to use Intel HD graphics also for UHD blu-ray. I do have a Nvidia card with HDCP 2.2. so I can try that down the line.

That would be much appreciated.
Some say that PlayReady 3.0 is only needed for Netflix, but when it comes to UHD Blu-ray, PlayReady 3.0 isn't a requirement, just SGX, that and the usual, HDCP 2.2 enabled hardware and HDMI 2.0.

If you look in the list of requirements from Power DVD 17, it doesn't mention PlayReady 3.0 at all, although NVIDIA says their cards and drivers will or are compatible.
No one really knows for sure.
I contacted AMD and got a totally useless answer about all of this and that is that they can't tell me anything until it's made public.
I don't when they plan to make it public, but now is as good a time as any.

[nilsman]

Have not gotten as far as trying to play UHD blu-ray yet. Will report back with results on that later.

Re drive setting it looks like something to do with burning. Guess it might also have to do with region settings (for DVD?). There are actually two tick boxes in the screenshots in the manual with text in English next to them. These say "Peak Power Reducer" and "LED + japanese text". But all the rest is in japanese so no idea what they mean/do.

Installed the drive and got some generic driver from Windows. So the options from the sceenshots in the manual do not look the same. There was no driver with the drive (the included CD seems to only contain PowedDVD stuff). So need to fiddle with this some more...

[nilsman]

As expected this is not really plug-and-play :-)

Have still not got UHD Blu-ray working. But here is some info about the progress so far for anyone interested.

- No drivers come with the drive and I have not been able to find any online. The manual has this URL somewhere among all the Japanese instructions http://st-trade.co.jp/product/. But this drive is not listed on that site (yet?). Currently I'm using the driver that Widows 10 installed. Seems to be a quite generic driver dated 2006 so not sure if this is the best option.

- The PowerDVD disc that comes with the drive has a bunch of Cyberlink software. I have only tried PowerDVD 14 so far. Note that the install program is in Japanese ONLY. Had to do a bit of guessing to install PowerDVD but got there in the end.

- Once installed PowerDVD is reading my Windows language setting so the UI is mostly in English. But it is obvious that this is a hybrid version. Quite a few error message and other pop-ups are still in Japanese.

- When I tried to play a UHD Blu-ray I got an error that "Intel SGX PSW runtime" was missing or motherboard/PC is not compatible. Strange as I verified that SGX was available though HWiNFO?

- Checking the BIOS and SGX was actually not switched on. There are 3 BIOS setting for SGX "disabled", "enabled" and "controlled by software". If I select "controlled by software" I cannot get the HDMI 2.0 port to work (random black or green screen). So left this set to "enabled" for now.

- That got me past the SGX error message and PowerDVD installed some sort of SGX component.

- Now when I try to play a UHD Blu-ray I get a message about "Power DVD is preparing for UHD Blu-ray. This is only needed first time.". But after a while a new error shows up saying "Intel ME not ready". Have checked and I already have the latest Intel ME available for my board installed (11.6.0.1126).

- Revert to trying to play normal Blu-ray in PowerDVD. This is working fine and actually looks really good. Good news but not really what I need.

- While looking for updated ME driver I notice that there is a new firmware 1.61 (I have 1.48) for the LSPCON chip. So next step is to try to update that...