Going Blu Ray, what you should know

[Percul8or]

Well I rushed out and bought my Pioneer Blu Ray drive BDC-S02BK ($215.00 Umart) when the war between Blu Ray and HD DVD had been won.

Wacked it in and then spent the rest of the day trying to get it going. Brad at Pioneer as usual very supportive but still not going.

I run XP MCE

It came with two Cyberlink applications
Play Movie 1.5 that is a wrapper for MCE ie adds menu entry to MCE and it jumps out and plays Blu Ray in Cyberlinks player (uses nVidia PureVideo HD)
BD Solution is the player and other Cyberlink apps

Things you need to know:
From http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_pvhd_build.html

For playing Blu-ray (and HD DVD) movies

For the ultimate HD DVD or Blu-ray movie experience on a PC, you will need the following:
A PCI Express graphics card with NVIDIA® GeForce® 7 or 8 Series HDCP-capable GPU, secure HDCP CryptoROM, and 256MB graphics memory.

NVIDIA® ForceWare® featuring NVIDIA® PureVideo™ HD technology (greater than or equal to Microsoft® Windows® XP driver version 158.22 for the GeForce 8800 and GeForce 7 series GPUs or greater than or equal to Microsoft Windows Vista™ driver version 158.18 for all GeForce 7 or 8 series GPUs)

Optical disc drive supporting Blu-ray and/or HD DVD movie playback
Blu-ray or HD DVD movie player software with PureVideo HD hardware acceleration of H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2 high-definition content.

I have two graphics cards, a Gigabyte 7600GS silent and http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=2237

and a Gainward 8600 GT silent.http://www.gainward.com/product/prod...roducts_id=138

So you see neither will work. The 7600 because it does not have HDCP and the 8600 because although it has HDMI and HDCP it is not supported in XP yet...(fine in Vista)

Gigabyte have released a 7600 silent that fits the bill, silent, HDMI, HDCP http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=2485
and although I have read reviews on the card going back to 2006 I can't find any here.

Any one seen it?

So I am sitting here wondering what to do. Wait until nVidia release support for the Gainward, fork out big buck on another video card (8800), go to Vista or just forget Blu Ray for a while.

Any suggestion or correction to above appreciated.

[logifuse]

I'm probably totally wrong, but I thought HDCP and AACS was (is?) never going to be supported under XP?

[dgaust]

You can still use VGA or component output and get 1080p goodness on XP. You just lose out on the digital connections (dvi/hdmi).

[The Brad]

Originally Posted by Percul8or

So you see neither will work. The 7600 because it does not have HDCP and the 8600 because although it has HDMI and HDCP it is not supported in XP yet...(fine in Vista)

Honestly, for my money, if you have a capable system (ie Core2Duo, 2GB+, 8600), Vista is simply much simpler to set up and superbly reliable for me. I'll qualifiy that by saying I only run Intel/Nvidia combo, but I don't see any reason to stick with 2005.

The hardware decoding support in 2005 is much "lighter" than what you get with Vista and the new-gen cards so that's a tangible benefit if you ask me.

[bigdonk]

HDCP is supported under XP SP2, at least with ATI hardware & drivers

and AACS is also supported in XP SP2, at least with the MS XBOX 360 Toshiba drive and cyberlink PDVD.

I used to run XP MCE2005 with ATI hardware and drivers with cyberlink PDVD, and it all just worked.

[dgaust]

Originally Posted by BM-Pioneer

Honestly, for my money, if you have a capable system (ie Core2Duo, 2GB+, 8600), Vista is simply much simpler to set up and superbly reliable for me. I'll qualifiy that by saying I only run Intel/Nvidia combo, but I don't see any reason to stick with 2005.

The hardware decoding support in 2005 is much "lighter" than what you get with Vista and the new-gen cards so that's a tangible benefit if you ask me.

I was beginning to think you'd been kidnapped.....

[pantonious]

grab a HD2400XT???

should work fine in XP (but i haven't tried), should be cheaper then getting a 8800 card and does everything you need.

[Percul8or]

I thought T read somewhere that MCE needed a min of 128 bit memory interface??


Anyhow I think Vista is the way to go. One of the cheapest.

Looks like I have to do a rebuild anyway.

Thanks guys

[pantonious]

u mean on the GFX Card?

nah, my 2400XT works a treat...maybe see if u can find a 3400 card to give it a bit more grunt...

[warren13]

Be careful here....I finally got around to testing my setup and have had issues and Blu-Ray is still not working as far as I am aware.

I run...

Core2Duo E6550 CPU
GA-G33-2SH MoBo
2GB Corsair Ram
G33 and/or HIS ATI 3850 HD GPU...I am trying through ATI Radeon 3850 first...if I get this working I'll pull it out and test G33 onboard graphics.
250GB SATA Drive
Pioneer S02 Black Drive
OrigenAE S14V
Windows Vista Home Premium
Both DVI and VGA used as TV is not currently HDCP.

updated to 7.3 and 1.5 respectively for cyberlink OEM software and the Blu-Ray disc I hired still loops on the Play movie screen and won't let you select the DVD style menu to play movie, select sceene etc.... It is a known issue with some Blu-Ray formated (there are different versions of Blu-Ray standard) discs without an ETA for a fix...as far as I am aware.
__________________________________________________ _______________________
Dear warren13,

Thank you for contacting CyberLink Online Support.

We understand your concern related with PlayMovie software.

In response to your concern, please note that we have not released any latest upgate/patch for PlayMovie after the version PlayMovie 1.5.

For an immediate response, please get back to us on the following mentioned link:

index.jsp

Please feel free to contact us back for any further clarification or for any assistance related to CyberLink Products.

Thank You and Best Regards
__________________________________________________ _____________________

I have since written back but am yet to get a reply.