Bewildering Issue with BD playback

[robertvswild]

I've recently been stressed with a more and more common issue playing back store bought BD movies. The problem seems to occur at random from movies dating back a year ago to brand new on the shelf today. Some movies play and others will play to a certain point in the very beginning and then revert to a strange picture where everything looks like a melting oil painting. Eventually it cuts out and simply shows a green screen while still playing the sound just fine.

My set up:

Sony BDU-X10S Player
Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q9450 @ 2.66GHz
4.00 GB of DDR2 PC2 9600
Win Vista Ultimate 32-bit Service Pack 1
Two Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3870 video cards in Crossfire set up
An LG Flatron W2252TQ monitor
Gigabyte EX38-DS4 motherboard


Sony tech support said they don't know what the problem is, they had me run their Cyberlink BD Advisor program and all green lights. I've tried updating firmware for the player but then my computer will no longer see the player for the next several reboots, so I'm not sure if the firmware update is taking hold or not. I'm using Cyberlink PowerDVD for playback and have all their updates as of tonight Nov. 11th 2008.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Trying to take back a BD movie when it won't play is a hassle no one should have to deal with, and I seem to have to do so with 50% of the movies I buy due to this issue. Sony has washed their hands of it without giving me a solution, so I'm left out cold on what to do here.

[odin24]

Every once in a while I experience something similar to what you are describing, images go distorted and everything stops responding... then the blue dump screen. Once my PC takes a "dump", I reboot and the Vista problem solver comes up and say the graphics driver caused the problem... go here and update. However I have the most current version already installed.

I have a Gateway PC 2.4 quadcore, nvidia model ? gfx card, 32 bit. LG BD burner.

I suggest you try updating your graphics driver, and or try different playback software. Arcsoft Total Media Theatre is by far the Best for PC playback.

[trshaw]

I'm thinking you are having the issues with movies encoded in Mpeg4 or VC-1

I have similar issues, I can play pretty much any movies encoded with AVC, however, movies in mpeg4 are unplayable. They are very processor intensive, I'm beginning to think it might be a heating issue. Not sure what to tell you, i've had this problem for while now and its very frustrating (looks at you Transformers).

[odin24]

Originally Posted by trshaw

I'm thinking you are having the issues with movies encoded in Mpeg4 or VC-1

I have similar issues, I can play pretty much any movies encoded with AVC, however, movies in mpeg4 are unplayable. They are very processor intensive, I'm beginning to think it might be a heating issue. Not sure what to tell you, i've had this problem for while now and its very frustrating (looks at you Transformers).

AVC is belongs to the MPEG-4 family... (MPEG4 Part 10). Could be other parts of the MPEG4 spec that cause issues, but regarless AVC is MPEG4.

To the OP, try having the the latest codecs installed. K-Lite or CCCP are great for AVC h264 playback. Also, try using Haali Media Splitter, and FFDShow (filters) while using Media Player Classic. FFDShow does a great job with all of the latest HD audio and video codecs. Everything mentioned in this post are all open source legal freeware, just google them, or you can aquire them from most A/V forums.... Doom9 and Afterdawn are good ones.

[robertvswild]

Thank you for the suggestions, everyone. I'll try some of these fixes and see if it makes a difference. I know that I tried updating my graphics drivers for the ATI cards but once I did it would no longer see both cards and I couldn't set it up in crossfire anymore....silly manufacturers and their firmware update failures.

Please let me know if anyone thinks of something new to try as well.

[blckman]

Originally Posted by robertvswild

Thank you for the suggestions, everyone. I'll try some of these fixes and see if it makes a difference. I know that I tried updating my graphics drivers for the ATI cards but once I did it would no longer see both cards and I couldn't set it up in crossfire anymore....silly manufacturers and their firmware update failures.

Please let me know if anyone thinks of something new to try as well.

Hello robertvswild. I have to say this time and time and again. I used to admire the ATI line of videocards. However, many years ago I had DVD playback issues and freezing in mediocre games that required less than optimal settings. Really hate to tell you this, but try purchasing an Nvidia based graphics card. I just don't like the driver support for ATI and never will. I'm not saying they're a bad company because their actually a company under the umbrella of AMD now. That being said, if you have an Nvidia based card laying around stick it in and test the playback with that card. Good luck and God bless....

[trshaw]

Originally Posted by odin24

AVC is belongs to the MPEG-4 family... (MPEG4 Part 10). Could be other parts of the MPEG4 spec that cause issues, but regarless AVC is MPEG4.

To the OP, try having the the latest codecs installed. K-Lite or CCCP are great for AVC h264 playback. Also, try using Haali Media Splitter, and FFDShow (filters) while using Media Player Classic. FFDShow does a great job with all of the latest HD audio and video codecs. Everything mentioned in this post are all open source legal freeware, just google them, or you can aquire them from most A/V forums.... Doom9 and Afterdawn are good ones.

yeah i got them mixed up...AVC and Mpeg 4 play bad..VC-1 are the ones that really work. granted i'm playing them on a p4 3.0 OC'd to around 3.5ghz or so which may make a difference. for now it was a first build HTPC as proof of concept for me. next build will be much better.

[odin24]

Originally Posted by trshaw

yeah i got them mixed up...AVC and Mpeg 4 play bad..VC-1 are the ones that really work. granted i'm playing them on a p4 3.0 OC'd to around 3.5ghz or so which may make a difference. for now it was a first build HTPC as proof of concept for me. next build will be much better.

Ahh, got'ya.

[robertvswild]

Well I'm happy to have some good news in my progress of this problem. After an entire day of sifting through ideas I was able to narrow the problem down. The issue turned out to be playing blu-rays in MPEG-4 formats. However, MPEG-2 and VC-1 formats would play fine on my set up. I was then able to pinpoint that my graphics adapter drivers were causing the issue.

It seems the drivers for the Catalyst Control Center for my ATI Radeons was out dated. Of course I tried to update the dirvers before to the latest 8.11 set, but after doing so it would no longer allow me to crossfire my cards, so I reverted to the originals again to focus on what I thought was the issue at the time (my player itself or playback software). Reading comments from the ATI community testing this release, I've gathered that the Catalyst 8.11 driver was a flop, lucky me on the timing. So yesterday I installed and tried the next most recent Catalyst driver (version 8.10) and it has seemed to solve my issue.

I rented a blu-ray today that was MPEG-4 format and have been able to watch it without an issue/green screen/pixel screen etc. Although, Disney had my player do a particular update from their site before I was able to play it. So unfortunately I do not know if the new graphics adapter driver solved the issue or this Disney update for this particular movie. I plan on renting other, non-Disney, movies in MPEG-4 to see if I can produce the same results with no playback issues.

I'll post again after more tests, when I confirm the new drivers solved the problem.

P.S. There is supposed to be a new 8.12 Catalyst driver pack coming out in December 2008 around the middle of the month. So if you use ATI Radeons and have bene having the same issues don't use 8.11, use 8.10. Hopefully this 8.12 version driver will have the capability to play all blu-ray codec formats without incident.

[robertvswild]

My Blu-ray playback issue has been resolved. It was my graphics drivers all along. The solution was to update to next to newest driver set Catalyst 8.10.

I'm going to try updating to the latest Catalyst Driver 8.12 (as of 2008 12-10), from the 8.10 that fixed my playback issue. So cross your fingers that this doesn't start this roller coaster ride all over again.


You can close this thread.

[s1agathor]

Please don't close this thread!

I'm running nvidia 8800GTXs and I'm having the EXACT same problem and after searching for days I finally found this thread. All MPEG4 Bluray and HD movies play with image corruption. Green red and white blocky pixel groups pop in and out. After a while the graphics driver crashes and Vista 64 has trouble recovering it. Please don't bag on Vista(64) everything has been working fine for a long time. VC1 and MPEG2 movie are OK though I have noticed small single white pixels every once in a while. Not distracting but that never happened before problems started.
Started sometime around an update to 181.22 (but I'm not sure enough to blame the driver) Tried to revert to 180.48 and then to 178.24 and back to 181.22 always using driver sweep. No change.
All other media and games are doing just fine. Texture tearing in FSX is probably unrelated. Temps are nice and low, cpu (Q6600) usage not maxed out.

Any thought on how I can attack the drivers better? Anything else?

Thanks in advance!

[s1agathor]

Reformatted and used the 180 nvidia drivers. Same problem. Strange colors in MPEG4 blu ray/HD movies. VC-1 and MPEG2 are OK.
I am getting periodic video driver failures. Maybe my GTX8800s are going out or maybe I pushed my Q6600 too far and now its spotty

[dadkins]

Are you overclocking the video card?
Is the video card overheating?

[s1agathor]

The BFG 8800 GTX OC2 is overclock from the factory but I havn't pushed it any more and now that it is water cooled I never see it go above 50c.
It sure does sound like video card heat issues but most games that push the cards are doing fine. It's games like FSX (very CPU bound) and MPEG4 (I understand is CPU intensive) that experience the tearing/pixel blocks and strange colors. Wish I could screen shot it for everyowe but you know how well that works with Blu ray and powerdvd

Thanks for helping me with this!

[blckman]

Originally Posted by s1agathor

The BFG 8800 GTX OC2 is overclock from the factory but I havn't pushed it any more and now that it is water cooled I never see it go above 50c.
It sure does sound like video card heat issues but most games that push the cards are doing fine. It's games like FSX (very CPU bound) and MPEG4 (I understand is CPU intensive) that experience the tearing/pixel blocks and strange colors. Wish I could screen shot it for everyowe but you know how well that works with Blu ray and powerdvd

Thanks for helping me with this!

Try to put the BFG 8800 GTX OC2 back down to the normal speeds. I have heard of BFG's getting hot and unstable from factory overclocks. If this doesn't work, then try reinstalling the drivers again. I just downloaded those drivers as well for Nvidia and my 9600 GT, 512Mb,EVGA, and it works fine with the powerdvd 7.3 software I have running. Now, I would really be careful with powerdvd. I finally figured out how to configure all of the powerdvd's I've worked with. Even the 8.00's and beyond. With the 8.0 versions and above you lose HD-DVD compatibility. That being said, when downloading the latest drivers for Powerdvd you should google the Cyberlink download page. Here is a good tip. I was going to post this in the different software forum to help people. Here goes:

1. http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/downl...386_1_ENU.html

2. http://www.cyberlink.com/prog/suppor...o?locale=en_US

Look at the two URL's above. The first one is for the PowerdDVD updates period. If you go to the second URL and paste it. Notice how all of the versions of software come up. I would suggest that people that have the LG drives click on PowerdDVD Ultra red arrow pointing upward. Notice how the 9-30-08 addressed the retail version of the drives? I downloaded this one because it states in parenthesis (BD+HD), not just BD? I have not had any problems at all ever since I downloaded this patch. If you go to the first URL you don't see an emphasis on these drives at all if you click on the Powerdvd only red arrow going up. I hope this works for all of the Blu-Ray enthusiasts out there. It worked for me. Take care guys and Blu-Ray boys rock on.

[Wolfy]

good advice. Did that solve your problem?

[s1agathor]

Video Card: I’m having trouble following the logic with clocking the card under factory settings. Crysis and other games that are heavily GPU dependant (incl COD Oposing Fronts which supports SLI) have no issues. Even under load for hours Everest shows CPU core and memory temps 20c below what they were at the same clock but with stock air cooler.
I can understand driver issues but since I have had this problem, I have formatted and on the reinstall I used old 178.24 nvidia drivers that I know used to work. It didn’t and since then I have upgraded to the latest 181.06 No dice. Is it worth uninstalling PWRDVD and reinstalling using only the update you recommend?

PowerDVD: I really appreciate the links. Even though I let PowerDVD 7 ultra auto update itself, I was able to download and install build 4617a. Unfortunately the LG (which is the drive I have) specific patches wouldn’t install since I was already at build 4617a. Hopefully they rolled those in. Alas, the problem continues though (and maybe it is my imagination) the problem seems less frequent.

CPU: I really pushed my q6600. I had it at 3.6ghz until I started getting graphical tearing (usually associated with heat issues in the graphics card). I checked Everest and the cores were hitting >85c on load. YIKES! Now even at 3.0ghz the core temps jump drastically under load and they never did that before. If MPEG-4 is CPU dependant could it be using some process that has been damaged?

MB: I have the 750i (not the FTW) which is not nearly as stable or easy to clock as the 680i I used to have (it fried during a spill a long time ago). I have the latest forceware drivers installed

Memory: I can’t see any reason my RAM could be a problem

PSU: I have the Corsair 750w and if Crysis I doing fine, I can’t see any issues with power.

Many thanks for taking the time to puzzle this out with me. I’m going to give it a week or so and then I’m going to throw new hardware at it (CPU and/or GPU). I hate doing that since it is the most expensive but too many movies are MPEG-4. I’m missing out!

[Wolfy]

I guess I don't understand why you would get tearing from overclocking your cpu? But you definately might have damaged it if it was up around 85 C for a while. A few minutes probably wouldn't do much to it. Can you swap out the cpu? I know, not much fun, but it might tell you something. But start with the easy stuff and swap out RAM and Video Card first. It is possible to damage your RAM overclocking. However, what you are describing seems to me and to blckman (I guess) to be a Video Card problem. Maybe your leak damaged your card?

[blckman]

Originally Posted by s1agathor

Video Card: I’m having trouble following the logic with clocking the card under factory settings. Crysis and other games that are heavily GPU dependant (incl COD Oposing Fronts which supports SLI) have no issues. Even under load for hours Everest shows CPU core and memory temps 20c below what they were at the same clock but with stock air cooler.
I can understand driver issues but since I have had this problem, I have formatted and on the reinstall I used old 178.24 nvidia drivers that I know used to work. It didn’t and since then I have upgraded to the latest 181.06 No dice. Is it worth uninstalling PWRDVD and reinstalling using only the update you recommend?

PowerDVD: I really appreciate the links. Even though I let PowerDVD 7 ultra auto update itself, I was able to download and install build 4617a. Unfortunately the LG (which is the drive I have) specific patches wouldn’t install since I was already at build 4617a. Hopefully they rolled those in. Alas, the problem continues though (and maybe it is my imagination) the problem seems less frequent.

CPU: I really pushed my q6600. I had it at 3.6ghz until I started getting graphical tearing (usually associated with heat issues in the graphics card). I checked Everest and the cores were hitting >85c on load. YIKES! Now even at 3.0ghz the core temps jump drastically under load and they never did that before. If MPEG-4 is CPU dependant could it be using some process that has been damaged?

MB: I have the 750i (not the FTW) which is not nearly as stable or easy to clock as the 680i I used to have (it fried during a spill a long time ago). I have the latest forceware drivers installed

Memory: I can’t see any reason my RAM could be a problem

PSU: I have the Corsair 750w and if Crysis I doing fine, I can’t see any issues with power.

Many thanks for taking the time to puzzle this out with me. I’m going to give it a week or so and then I’m going to throw new hardware at it (CPU and/or GPU). I hate doing that since it is the most expensive but too many movies are MPEG-4. I’m missing out!

I see one of your problems here as well. First, being under a full load like that on a CPU of that magnitude is insane. If you know that is at full load, then you might be in for a future disaster of frying that CPU and motherboard. Next, that was another issue I was going bring up to the entire forum about Powerdvd. You hit it on the nail. I was going to say this as well. Okay. This is to all people in the forum. Downloading and upgrading to the 4617 patch of Powerdvd sucks. I had problems with that patch. I would stick with the one I suggested in my earlier posts. Believe me, I tried all of the various patches. Installed and uninstalled about fifteen different times. That being said, I used all types of combinations and only installed one patch. Another thing is do you have the right codecs as well installed. You should not be getting these MPEG-4 problems at all. This is very new to me.

Your system seems awesome. Now, I have to say one last thing to the PC enthusiasts out here and on this forum. This is really important to know. I was in Fry's Electronics this afternoon and I overheard people talking about that 750i chipset. This is a fairly new chip set and I would have to say to all system builders please try not to keep up with the Jones'. I personally would say wait a couple of months(four or five) and let ATI, Nvdia, and Intel, bring out patches for these chip sets because they are bound to have problems and it always happens with a new BIOS released for all of them. No matter what the chip set is. Don't be so quick to build these systems and have the best thing on the block because more is not necessarily better. You're preaching to the choir with this logic because I've gotten burned(CPU+motherboard) and paid the cost in the pocket. Just let another guy buy a particular board or CPU and go to the likes of newegg.com rate and give his/her pros or cons on a board or CPU.

A great example is I have the M3A78 EMI-HDMI,780G chip set. Get this. People were pissed off because the 780G AM2+ board was only going up to the 2.4 Quad Core, 95w stable. This socket would only take the 95w barrier. However, I just knew it would happen. Yes, AMD brought out the 810 that goes 2.6. That 810 is made for the new AM3 socket. However did you know that you can stick a AM3+ processor in a AM2+ board? You can. Here's the link and the new processors. Just an example of my patience and prediction of the industry. My point is be patient on new hardward and software. Sometimes you have to let the Jone's buy the $1,000 CPU and let them tell you the ratings on a particular item.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/fea...s_support_ddr3

[s1agathor]

Yeah 85c and higher is insane. I had the Q6600 up to 3.6ghz only for a while before stability became a real issue. That’s when the graphical tearing started in FSX which is known to be almost entirely CPU dependant. A number of years ago I experienced tearing when my 7900 started overheating. I guess when the memory chips on the video card fry, tearing can occur. I thought my more recent tearing was the 8800 GTXs but their temps were very safe and when I tried testing each card by itself the FSX textures still would tear. I clocked the CPU down to 3.0 but the CPU temps were still jumping up past 80c. I then clocked the CPU down to the normal 2.4 and the temps became reasonable and the tearing in FSX stopped. (By the way, I'm no expert at this stuff my voltages and bus speeds were probably way out of whack). Keep in mind, other than infrequent “Your video driver failed and Windows successfully reloaded it” all other games are and were doing fine (which says good things about the video cards).
It was during this time I noticed issues with MPEG-4 blu ray and hd movies. If the problem turns out to be hardware related, I would really like to know what is different between MPEG-4 and the working VC-1 and MPEG-2.

Wolfy, since tearing used to be associated with the memory of the video card over heating, do you think it is possible that my system memory is to blame? Maybe its the CPU’s cache. I have some extra memory sticks lying around, I’ll test that after work today. Thanks for your ideas!

Blckman, everything has been clocked at default settings for a while now and temps are okay. I have no idea what lasting damage was done but at least I’m stable now. The MPEG-4 issue is the only problem I’m concerned with now.
The I’ve seen the EVGA 750i FTW out for quite a long time. The EVGA 750i (non-FTW) came out in Dec. I grabbed it thinking it was a better version (BIOS) than the FTW. It is not! No chrome heatsink and heat pipe over the voltage cores or whatever those are called and I wasn’t able to get stable overclocks out of it. I wish I could push off hardware purchases for a while so I can dump this setup for an i7, an Asus board and a 280 (no more SLI). Now it looks like I may have to pick up a new CPU or video card prematurely. We’ll see.
I hear you on the software versions. I think I will completely uninstall PowerDVD and reinstall. This time I will only apply the LG specific patch. No other updates. I don’t care if some Blu ray features do not work as long as the weird pixels/blocks will be gone. I appreciate your knowledge and I respect your advice. Keeping up with new hardware is a bad addiction some of us have. At least there is no hangover!

Anyone know of a way I can screen grab this MPEG-4 issue? I’d like to show everyone what it looks like. Obviously PrintScreen is disabled when playing movies.