PowerDVD 5 Issue(s)

[Gurm]

Has anyone noticed corruption with PowerDVD5?

It's most prevalent on SVCD's, where it is GUARANTEED to happen within the first minute of the movie, and usually every couple minutes.

It's not terrible - just a blip of green icky blocks that flashes onto the righthand side of the picture about 2/3 of the way up... but quite irritating.

I haven't seen much mention of it before. I've reproduced it on multiple computers. If it were just SVCD's I wouldn't care, but it does it with storebought DVD's as well, if not as often.

So - is this a bug? I'm assuming yes. Also, is there a forum somewhere specifically devoted to PowerDVD? I haven't found one yet.

- Gurm

[spiderman2k1]

What windows to you use. With bad ram but when i put good ram in ever thing was fine. You might just have a bad stick of ram in your PC. Also I find windows 200 very good for MPEG 2 play back. Window's 98 after a while being on with out rebooting would have color pop's. Sorry could not be of more help.

[Gurm]

Windows XP, BUT this is verified on 3 OS'es, 5 machines, it's not my system sorry.

- Gurm

[Prospero424]

I have seen this problem on my system too, it happens with any MPEG2 file played using the Cyberlink decoder. Although this does piss me off, I guess I have to assume that this problem is not evident on ALL configurations, this would cause Cyberlink MAJOR problems.

Does anyone who has PowerDVD 5 NOT encounter this problem? Please respond with your system specs.


Gurm and others experienceing this problem already, what video card and driver revisions are you using? I have an ATi Radeon 8500 128MB with the latest Catalysts (3.6) on a Via KT333 chipset with the latest Via drivers. Maybe if we can figure out what these systems have in common, something will come out of it. Couldn't hurt.


Prospero

[Gurm]

Hmm...

Radeon 8500 here (Cat 3.6), with a SiS 745 Chipset, Athlon XP 1800+, 768MB PC2100.

But it did it with Cat3.5 as well, maybe even Cat 3.4 (whatever I had installed before this damn Blaster Worm took out all my machines - don't make fun, I opened up the firewall for a minute to test something... *sad*)

- Gurm

[Svuppe]

I am running PowerDVD 5 and have never seen this kind of problem.

My system is a P4 2.8 GHz, not overclocked. Gigabyte MB with Intel 845PE chipset. 1 GB PC2700 RAM. GeForce 4 Ti4200 (64 MB). Win XP Pro. And finally a Hercules Game Theater XP 7.1 soundcard.
The CPU is cooled so its temperature never rises above 44 deg.C (111 deg.F). The GPU doesn't go much above that either.

[Gurm]

I've got TWO more reports of the problem from other users - one with a Radeon 9100 (8500 relabeled) and one with a 9500pro.

Looks like an ATI issue, folks! I posted over at Rage3D... maybe someone who actually owns this (I'm using the demo still, gonna get a cheap version as an upgrade from 4) should report it as a bug?

- Gurm

[cd090580]

I also have this strange problem with svcd's.

One thing I noticed, all my svcd's mage with tmpgenc play without any error but it seems that the video coded with CCE produced artifacts with PowerDVD5.

Here is a sample:


I run PowerDVD on Windows 98 SE with 128 MB RAM. My graphic cars is a 3dfx Voodoo 3 3000 AGP 16 MB. I have the chipset Intel 440LX.

[TRG]

I have the same problem as you all too. I get the green and blocky artifacts too. I switched back to PowerDVD 4 and i don't get the problem. i seemed to get it on SVCD files regardless of which encoder i used.

[TheDei0niz3r]

From reading the posts it seems not to affect nvidia cards, I also have a ti4200 and have not seen this in powerdvd 5. I also have 1800+ oced to 2800+, 512mb samsung ddr 2700, epox 8rda+ nforce2 mobo.

[Srembecki]

I have an Nvidia GeForce4 MX 440 and have never experienced this problem. And I've used PowerDVD ever since it came out. Never, ever had a problem with it.

[Elrik]

I've found this post through "Search" function because I was having exactly same problems with SVCDs and PowerDVD5 as described in this post but I am surprised that you guys assumed that only ATI cards have this problem. I'm using a pretty old GeForce2 GTS (by Hercules) and I have exactly same problems with PowerDVD5 and SVCDs whether Hardware Acceleration is enabled or disabled. It will play them with green blocks or corruption and other nasty artifacts. Most of the DVDs seem to play fine though but I hate how it leaves black bars on left and right sides when going from full screen back to window (I think it happens specifically after the latest patch). PowerDVD4XP went back to a nice window without adding annoying side bars.

Also, if I mount an SVCD image with Daemon Tools or Alcohol then PowerDVD5 will just play through it in a minute or less (ie as fast as possible).

None of these problems happen with PowerDVD4XP, and none of the latest (as of this date 27/01/2004) Cyberlink patches fix this problem for me. I have also found (through Google) quite a few people with exactly same problems on different internet forums.

So, it looks like they really blew it. This new version is a huge bug-ridden mess. The problem has apparently existed for a long time now but Cyberlink has done nothing to fix it. I guess SVCD playback isn't a priority for them (too bad because they're not getting my money then). The problem is though some people have similar (but rare compared to SVCD) problem with even store-bought DVDs!! That means I wouldn't buy it even if I watched DVDs only.

This is a warning for everyone -- if you're considering to buy PowerDVD5 product, do NOT! Or download a demo and test it with your DVDs and SVCDs before paying. I'm glad I tried it, so it saved me from paying for this "new" junk.

I'll be trying WinDVD5 next, and if that doesn't work then I'll stick with PowerDVD4XP.

Thanks.