Articles - > Is Your PC High Definition DVD Ready?

Title:	Is Your PC High Definition DVD Ready?
Description:	Use this guide to see if your computer is high definition DVD (HD DVD/Blu-ray) ready
Author/Publisher:	DVDGuy
Ease of use:	Not Rated
Software Used:	Arcsoft Totalmedia Theatre, CyberLink BD (HD) Advisor, PowerDVD Ultra, WinDVD, WinDVD High-Definition Advisor Tool
Page Viewed:	128996 times

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Charles Etheridge: Hi, I’ll give you some specs; Gateway...
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Page 3 of 3: Software Requirements

Graphics Driver

As recommended by Cyberlink, you will need NVIDIA ForceWare drivers later than version 93.71 and ATI Catalyst drivers later than version 6.7 in order to ensure compatibility with PowerDVD Ultra for Blu-ray or HD DVD playback. It is worth keeping an eye on this thread @ AVS Forum, since there are certain combinations of drivers that will work best with PowerDVD Ultra. But the general rule is to get the latest drivers, which will work better with PowerDVD Ultra or WinDVD.

Playback Software

When this guide was first wrote, there was really only one commercially available product to playback Blu-ray and HD DVD movies, PowerDVD Ultra. Since then, several alternatives have popped up, including PowerDVD's main competitor, WinDVD. WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-ray adds both Blu-ray and HD DVD playback, and rivals PowerDVD Ultra in terms of support (both now support Blu-ray Profile 1.1).

PowerDVD Ultra: Playing HD DVD in action

There has also been some favourable views on Arcsoft Totalmedia Theatre, which also supports both Blu-ray and HD DVD playback, and it comes with a 15 day trial version so you can test it out for yourself!

Conclusion

So that's it for now. More information will be added to the guide as it becomes available. While Blu-ray and HD DVD playback should already be possible for some people, hopefully Blu-ray and HD DVD playback will become less simple as better hardware and more software become available.

Got more questions? Post them in our High Definition DVD Forum and get them answered by other expert users.

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Hardware Requirements
Page 3: Software Requirements <--

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Hi, I’ll give you some specs; Gateway FX530XV running Vista Ultimate SP1, 4Gb RAM, video card is an Nvidia 8600 GTS (SLI), Gateway FPD2485W monitor (that’s 24” LCD) , both video card and monitor use DVI-D connections and are HDCP Certified. The Processor is an Intel E6400, and yes, it is a Core 2 Duo, running at 2.13GHz. There’s also a Toshiba SD-H802A drive for HD DVD and a Sony BWU-200S for Blu-Ray, both mounted in the computer case. Just for the record there's also a Pinnacle Digital HD TV Tuner card being fed by a Comcast HDTV digital box. The Comcast remote handles volume, muting and channel selection. The sound card is a Soundblaster X-Fi feeding a Logitech Z5300e externally powered 5.1 speaker system rated at 280 watts RMS, and the sound really is quite good, and this eliminates the need for an HDMI connection. Interestingly on Cyberlink’s evaluation card everything comes up green. Over the last six or seven months, however, I've had PowerDVD 8 Ultra, and PowerDVD 7 Ultra. With both all I can get is a black monitor with the HD DVD and Blu-Ray, though both drives play conventional DVDs quite well. During this time I wrote at least twice a week to one of their tech support people and things never did get any better. I very recently uninstalled all the Cyberlink programs and wrote them demanding my money back. As it happens the last time I tried to send a comment to tech support I was not able to log in. Their password people said that I had used the wrong one and sent me a confirmation of what they said it should be. It was exactly what I had been using all along, and that was the last that I heard from them. No word yet on the refund. The next thing I tried was Corel WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-Ray. So with that I'm getting very high resolution video but no audio. Again conventional DVDs work just fine from both drives. I'm talking to them about things, but this time I'm sure not going to give them anything like 7 months. Their evaluation program also showed all good. You seem to be in favor of Cyberlink, but do you happen to know of any other software producers that can accommodate these two formats in a form that actually works? I would really appreciate whatever feedback you may have. I really would suggest being very careful of having anything to do with Cyberlink. Good luck,

Thank you for providing this nice guide :D Note that i am able to play both provided "Pirates 2" HD video test files (as well as Apple HD trailers) on the following system: Athlon AMD3200+ [@2.3ghz], 1024MB DDR400, Geforce 6200TC, BenQ V2400W 1920*1200px. Software: mplayer and VLC on a 64-bit Mandriva Linux with GNOME desktop. - 720p plays perfectly with both players, CPU @ 40-55%, - 1080i is shining but there are some dropped frames (mplayer better than VLC), CPU usage up to 98%. Regards, kozaki