Cyberlink Blu-ray player is useless

[boggie]

Hi All,

I am an IT proffessional and have built a media center PC based HD home cinema but am tearing my hair out! I purchased a Pioneer BDC-202 internal BDrom to play back Bluray titles and it was bundled with Cyberlink BD solution. I installed the software and as instructed, updated it to the latest patches (which also installed PowerDVD) etc.

The cinema pc outputs to a VGA touch screen to control the desktop and the secondary monitor is an Infocus IN76 projector. When I tried to play one of the Planet Earth Bluray discs only the copyrights and logos display. When the menu or movie are accessed the projector starts flashing video white noise, only briefly displaying the desktop at 2 second intervals and I am forced to reboot to clear the fault.

I tried running Cyberlink advisor software (results are included below) but it showed no problem with any hardware. Next I tried searching their FAQ which suggested one of the problems might be the use of a dual head monitor so I made the projector the primary monitor, disabled and disconnected the touch screen and rebooted. Same problem - the movie does not display and once I had tried to play the movie or menu the projector starts displaying white noise, flashing up the desktop briefly every 2 seconds again.

I checked I had the latest firmware for my BDrom drive, installed the latest drivers for my graphics card, made sure I had all the latest Windows XP Media center updates etc etc etc but still no joy.

I have now spent 4 days trying to get this bundled Bluray software to play a Bluray disc but have run out of options / ideas. I am writing to Cyberlink as a last resort but I am doubtfull as I find it very rare to even get a reply from online technical support.

PLEASE HELP! What can I do to get this player working with their software and my hardware? I do not want to return it and buy a separate Bluray player as the whole point was to have a single box to play all but it seems the combination of Cyberlink software and the hardware is not fit for purpose, are there any decent Bluray software players?

What annoys me the most is that I am told this issue is most likely happening because of copy protection. I am trying to run a legitimate system and play legal discs but it seems the copy protection system is preventing me from doing so. What is worse is I read that the copy protection has been cracked so I assume it would be much easier to download and watch a ripped Bluray video. My job and morals (not to mention poor internet bandwidth) prevent me from taking such risks. Surely it must be easier than this to 'do the right thing'!

Any help gratefully received!
Boggie

Here are the results of the Cyberlink Advisor:

Check Item BD Ready? Info
CPU : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz Yes
__dwItemID=1001__ : szLibCPUName = Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @
__dwItemID=1002__ : dwLibClockRate = 2133
__dwItemID=1003__ : dwLibFamily = 6, dwLibModel=15, dwLibStepping=6
__dwItemID=1004__ : dwLibNumPhysicalProc = 2, dwLibNumCorePerPackage=2, dwLibNumLogicalPerCore=0
__dwItemID=1005__ : dwLibCorePerPackage = 2, dwLibTotalLogicals=2
__dwItemID=1006__ : szWMIName=Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz
__dwItemID=1007__ : szWMIManufacturer=GenuineIntel
__dwItemID=1008__ : dwWMIMaxClockSpeed=2131
__dwItemID=1009__ : bBatteryExist=0
__dwItemID=1010__ : szGuess=Core Duo TXX (Conroe)
CPU (Hardware acceleration) : No hardware decoder detected Yes
System Memory : 2048 MB Yes
Operating System : Windows XP Service Pack 2 Yes
Graphics Card : Radeon X1600 Series Yes
__dwItemID=1301__ : Adapter Compatibility: ATI Technologies Inc.
__dwItemID=1302__ : VideoProcessor: ATI Radeon Graphics Processor (0x71C2)
Graphics card video memory : 256 MB
Graphics Card Driver : 8.421.0.0 Yes
__dwItemID=1501__ : 2D Driver=6.14.10.6727
__dwItemID=1502__ : COPP=Yes
__dwItemID=1503__ : RGBOverlay=Yes
__dwItemID=1504__ : DEVICE=N/A
__dwItemID=1601__ : Driver 0:
__dwItemID=1602__ : [E:] PIONEER BD-ROM BDC-202
__dwItemID=1603__ : eHCMDrvType=0x002c6fc7
__dwItemID=1604__ : CDRom=1 DVDRom=1 BDRom=1 HDDVDRom=0
Blu-ray Disc Drive : [E:] PIONEER BD-ROM BDC-202 Yes
Software Player : PowerDVD 7.3.3516.0 Yes
Video Connection Type : Analog Yes
Program version : 1.0.2418.0
System language : 0809 ENG English English
Time : Tue Feb 19 21:36:23 2008
Computer : Desktop
System Name : HD-CINEMA