The first UHD Blu-ray drive

[MisterXDTV]

Originally Posted by 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...

Oh my even Intel ME is a problem now? DRM at its worst

[nilsman]

Forgot to say that the File Explorer can see all files on a UHD blu-ray disc. This is one of the first things I checked. So that is good news.

Also a screenshot of the latest error message. In this example most is in English but there are places with more Japanese language. When playing a normal blu-ray the options menu next to play/pause e t c turns to Japanese. And as you can see the pop-up message titles in this example are corrupt Japanese (or English translations are missing)...

[imhh1]

Wow they clearly don't want us to play UHD BD on pc.

[MisterXDTV]

Originally Posted by imhh1

Wow they clearly don't want us to play UHD BD on pc.

That's the only thing we know for sure!

[Jeff R 1]

Just occurred to me, having a mother board with only one HDMI port outputting UHD Blu-ray, I would have to get a new AVR too.
Unless the HDMI 1.4 port can be used just for "sound".
Very unlikely though...
This whole thing is just too problematic at this point.
I'll keep an eye on all the forums dealing with this, but I'll give it until April or May when Power DVD17 goes public and there are more users to give feed back to Cyberlink about all the bugs there will be.
If you contact Cyberlink about it for help, I'm sure they'll just tell you that nothing has been released publically, even though there is this version that comes with the Pioneer drive.

[HDTV1080P]

Hopefully we will see a USA and North America release soon.

[nilsman]

LSPCON is now on firmware 1.61 but this only made maters worse. Still same error in PowerDVD but now Netflix 4K has stopped working. Cannot even browse the Netflix website properly and when playing something it's max 1080p.

Agree with all the comments. This is not easy but then again I did not expect it to be. For me this is not a problem. It's not my primary PC and I have a standalone UHD player if I urgently need to watch a UHD Blu-ray ;-)

Unless you're willing to mess around a lot it's better to wait until standards and drivers/software mature. Even if I get it working eventually I'm not sure how good the picture quality will be or how stable it will run.

[Jeff R 1]

Why don't you try the leaked Power DVD 17 version.
There's even a patch for it now.
It may not make any difference, but at least it will all be in English.
There's an option to buy a subscription on the Cyberlink's web site to use it.

https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/new-...rdvd-17.72076/

[nilsman]

Ok, re-installed Intel Graphics Driver and uninstalled PowerDVD. That got Netflix 4K working again. Same problem with Power DVD 14 though.

Thanks for the link to version 17. Tried that and also the patch. Even bought a 3 month subscription for it. But similar error with same code 21204. This time it says i need to "re-install a full set Intel ME software components" but also talks about SGX.

It might be that this simply does not work on any Z170 board. Or it does not work on the particular Z170 board I'm using as something is missing in the BIOS/SGX. I'll mess around a bit more with the Intel ME tomorrow and also see if I can verify SGX in detail through the tool someone posted over at redfox. Enough for one day...

[PeterMac]

nilsman - what motherboard do you have ?
Edit:
Found in your posts that you are using ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac, do you know any cheaper boards with same form factor size with HDMI 2.0 also, most motherboards for Kaby Lake in that form factor use HDMI 1.4 which is total weird, HDMI 2.0 should me standard now even in low end boards.

[nilsman]

Originally Posted by PeterMac

nilsman - what motherboard do you have ?
Edit:
Found in your posts that you are using ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac, do you know any cheaper boards with same form factor size with HDMI 2.0 also, most motherboards for Kaby Lake in that form factor use HDMI 1.4 which is total weird, HDMI 2.0 should me standard now even in low end boards.

The ASRock board that I have also exists in a Z270 model. Believe that is the cheapest board at the moment if you want HDMI 2.0 through a LSPCON. There are also some Gigabyte models but they are more expensive and probably ATX form faxctor.

[nilsman]

I'm back and think I have made some progress... Had some strange things in the Event Viewer saying:

AESMService: Plattform Service initialization failed due to DAL error

So the problems seem very related to SGX. Have been reading up on Intel information about about SGX and found this in one of their Release Notes:

If you need to use Intel® SGX platform service, install the following product:
o Full set of Intel® Management Engine (ME) software components 11.5.0.1000 or newer
Note: To install full set of Intel® Management Engine (ME) software components, you need to install with SetupMe.exe instead of MEISetup.exe (HECI driver only).

And interestingly all the ME installations provided by ASRock (and some other that I have found) only include the file MEISetup.exe... Eventually I found a package that also included the the file SetupMe.exe. This package is much older though and for some Intel NUC.

After installing that package it seems I'm one step further:-) It also installed some program called "Intel Security Assist" but more importantly I no longer get the error "re-install a full set Intel ME software components". Now PowerDVD actually seem to get a bit further in the process "Power DVD is preparing for UHD Blu-ray. This is only needed first time."

It is of course still not working but I have feeling I'm past the SGX hurdle now, maybe... The new error message is "The media cannot be played because PowerDVD was not verified remotely. Code 21110".
I have feeling this might be related to PowerDVD 17 not supporting UHD yet. So I'm going back to the japanese version 14 (as that is supposed to work, as opposed to a leaked version 17).

Edit: Added link to the Intel ME package I used above.

[Jeff R 1]

All of this should have been looked after, maybe it has been in the Pioneer version _ lets hope so. It should have been plug and play.
Thank you nilsman for taking the time to trouble shoot this, but I guess you're in it now so you don't have a choice anyway, but still...

[Terramex]

If you can use the NUC drivers there are even newer ones here: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/sea...+Engine+driver

[nilsman]

Some play golf, I play with PCs ;-) Not sure which of the two is most frustrating...

[nilsman]

Great success!!! Watching Salt UHD Blu-ray in PowerDVD 14 now... Need to test a few discs but it seems to be working now :-) Will come back with some further observation in a while.

[imhh1]

HDR is working ?

[nilsman]

It is working and have played a few discs.

Some conclusions:
- Not really plug-and-play...
- UHD Blu-ray works on Z170 with Kaby Lake (this was kind of expected)
- PowerDVD 17 (the leaked one + leaked patch) does not support UHD blu-ray yet (it seems to do some online verification that fails). The bundled PowerDVD 14 works fine but is only available in mixed English/Japanese.
- The Intel ME drivers provided by the motherboard people (only checked ASRock and Gigabyte US/EU TBH) do not support UHD Blu-ray. Maybe Windows 10 users in Japan (only official market so far) have received some Windows Update with this stuff. Or possibly the motherboard people are distributing this only to users in Japan. It's also possible that PowerDVD installs this, but only on Japanese Windows 10. Either way I got it working with this old thing. This will most likely be solved by the time the UHD drives start selling in EU/US. But for anyone importing the Pioneer drive, and using Z170, this link might be helpful. When installing it I got a warning that I had one newer driver already on my system. I selected to use the older driver in the package on the link.

Some other things worth noting:
- I get a warning in PowerDVD that I have not got HDR (which is true) and can select to play without HDR. This could be because my display does not support HDR or because Windows/Intel HD graphics does not support HDR. But I have no way of easily telling.
- PowerDVD changes resolution from 3840x2160p23 that I'm using on the desktop to 3840x2160p60 when playback starts. This is not optimal but could be some setting I need to change in the Japanese menus.

Have been testing with PC connected directly to the display so next step is to try connecting it through the pre-amp for HD sound (or maybe with two HDMI, one for sound and another for the display). But I don't think that will work due to the LSPCON not supporting HD sound (and HDCP 2.2)...

Can really make any screenshots while PowerDVD is playing but have attached a few other screenshots.

[MisterXDTV]

Originally Posted by nilsman

Great success!!! Watching Salt UHD Blu-ray in PowerDVD 14 now... Need to test a few discs but it seems to be working now :-) Will come back with some further observation in a while.

It's a miracle!!!

[Jeff R 1]

Originally Posted by nilsman

Some play golf, I play with PCs ;-) Not sure which of the two is most frustrating...

I would think Golf would be way more frustrating...
Try your NVIDIA card again.