Problems after installing Toshiba HD-DVD Drive

[brasco2006]

Hi All,

I have just installed an hd-dvd drive on my new PC. The mobo is an ASUS P5KC. The drive uses an IDE interface so have had to use the Jmicron IDE connector. After installing the drive here is what has happened:

1. HD-DVD drive IS detected in the Jmicron POST. HD-DVD drive can be seen in device manager.
2. Once in Windows XP, cannot open up drive in My Computer with an error message saying Windows doesn't recognise disk format. No disk information is displayed.
3. In PowerDVD Ultra, the movie picture is garbled. (Not a video driver problem, as a DVD will play perfectly in my other DVD-RW drive on the same PC)

Just to give my own thoughts on this and would appreciated some opinions. Before installing the HD-DVD drive I have a SATA HDD and DVD-RW drive both are connected to 2 SATA slots, but are using IDE mode for data transfer. Is this conflicting with the data transfer to the HD-DVD drive?

Any help appreciated. Thanks, RM

[SiM]

Is your graphics/monitor HDCP compatible?

[brasco2006]

Yes, I have LG 204WT and ATI HD2400XT.

[toolsong]

Maybe give this tool a go link

[brasco2006]

I have just done a reinstall of Windows XP and I can now watch HD-DVD but a problem still remains. The movie will pay smoothly when using the default small screen in powerDVD ultra. When I enable full screen video for hd playback, the frame rate starts to suffer and movie starts to stutter. I have the following PC spec and have run Cyberlink HD advisor:

Intel Core 2 6320 @1.8GHZ
2GB DDR2 800 RAM
Asus P5KC Motherboard
ATI Radeon HD2400 XT
Toshiba SD-H802A HD-DVD drive

The advisor said that the CPU could do with an upgrade but this processor is still in Cyberlink's recommended Intel CPUs for HD-DVD playback. Anyone have any ideas on why playback performance seems to drop dratsically when running in full screen mode on PowerDVD??

Any advice/info appreciated.

[spiral out]

Maybe try overclocking the CPU and see if that helps. Are you using 720p or 1080p?

[brasco2006]

My monitor only has a maximum res of 1680x1050 (LG L204WT). Which means a HD picture of 720p (I think?).

[Skinleech]

PowerDVD is a pretty sh1tty bit of software to be honest, very buggy. Doesn't the 2400 have full VC-1 acceleration though? Ensure that's enabled in PDVD, as it should take 90% of the load off your CPU. Of course, the HD-DVD you're watching might be AVC encoded, but your GPU should decode that on board too. What film are you trying out?

What is your CPU usage at anyway?

[brasco2006]

PowerDVD does have full hardware acceleration enabled. I did check the performance manager and cpu usage was about 15% on average while running the HD-DVDs.

So I can't understand why the video performance in full screen mode is poor. The films I have tried so far are Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix and Training Day. These particular HD-DVDs are VC-1 encoded.

[peterb]

Probably a red herring, but check the DVD installation in the bios to make sure it is operating in DMA molde, and again in windows hardware manager to ensure that it is operating at optimum transfer speeds.

[brasco2006]

Thanks will look into that. Will also reinstall PowerDVD just to be sure. Will post back results.

[brasco2006]

The HD-DVD drive is running through the jmicron IDE controller on my motherboard (Asus P5KC). Can I access the jmicron controller? Does it have a BIOS?

[peterb]

The HD-DVD drive is running through the jmicron IDE controller on my motherboard (Asus P5KC). Can I access the jmicron controller? Does it have a BIOS?

If it is an embedded controller, it should be controlled by the main system bios. Don't have that partcular mobo myself though.

[Skinleech]

Maybe you'll find some of these 2x00 series registry tweaks of use:

ATI HD2x00 Registry Tweaks

If the films are playing fine windowed, there really should be any reason that they don't in full screen that I can think of, especially with acceleration on. What version of PDVD are you using?

[brasco2006]

I am using PowerDVD Ultra with the latest patch 3516.

[Skinleech]

I've not tried 3516 as yet, am sticking to the older builds. Have you tried an earlier build to see how it works? 3319a would be a good one to try, I've been using it for a while and it's as solid as PDVD gets. No direct link will be available via Cyberlink's site of course.