How do I play HD DVD/Blu-Ray on my setup?

[Pleiades]

I just bought an LG Multi Format player from Scan & a test disc from ebay but cannot get any results using the supplied Powerdvd software. The Advisor program flags up in red my OS (XP64), drivers (latest Catalyst) and display (presuming they mean monitor - mine is HannsG 28"). The graphics output is DVI to HDMI. I don't understand what else I need?

Thanks for any pointers!

[Webby]

Is that using the X1950 in your "My System" section? If so it may not be HDCP enabled in which case you may need a new graphics card My X1950XT says it will do accelerated h.264 decoding (which is blu-ray) but makes no mention of HDCP without that some (possibly all) blu-ray discs wont work.

Does it work with a standard DVD?

[Pleiades]

Gosh darn it! Blu ray Advisor gives a green light to the actual gfx card but not to the (latest) drivers! But then why would it flag up the OS & Display as well - maybe not a very reliable utility? Oh well...

I will have a gander on ATI site.

[TheReaFireblade]

I just bought an LG Multi Format player from Scan & a test disc from ebay but cannot get any results using the supplied Powerdvd software.

I believe only PowerDVD 8 Ultra supports HD-DVD and Blu-Ray?

[Pleiades]

I got it to work with AnyDVD . Unfortunately it's only a 21 day trial but I think I'll buy it. It removes copy protection on the fly. Maybe I need full version of PowerDVD as you say for built in functionality but it didn't state that, just pointed to driver/hardware capability problem sigh...

[Skinleech]

I believe only PowerDVD 8 Ultra supports HD-DVD and Blu-Ray?

8 has no HD-DVD support out of the box, there is a dodgy patch for it, but I don't know if it works on the newest builds.

PDVD 7 supports both formats, but as been discussed, AnyDVD HD is the best way to avoid any HDCP issues. My set up is fully HDCP compliant, but I use AnyDVD HD anyway. If nothing else is ideal to remove ant region coding on US BDs. HD-DVD has no region coding to worry about.

[TheReaFireblade]

8 has no HD-DVD support out of the box...

You're right... it doesn't... now.

They obviously removed HD-DVD support when Blu-Ray won out in the (second) "format war", which is damned annoying actually, because there are probably millions of us who still own HD-DVD's, and many of us bought the program based on its dual-HD format support

[Pleiades]

I got a retail LG Blu-Ray/HD DVD drive: was I expecting too much for it to play Hi-Def movies straight out of the box?

Never mind, glad AnyDVD is out there...