Disappointing HD DVD

[admin_exported]

Recently bought a new top of the range HP laptop with HDDVD player and HDMI out. loads of memory and processing power.

I usually watch DVDs via HDMI from my arcam DV79. connected it up to my Pioneer 505XDE plasma and looking forward to watching some HiDef Jason Bourne action on HD DVD(came free with the laptop) ......it was very poor. running the laptop out of windows as instructed (has a quick boot called "quickplay" which prevents loading up of windows and allows full use of memory and processing for media playback. HiDef via my xbox360 (all being composite input) is usually lovely.

via HDMI colour was extreme and screen continually flickered. frame rate would spontaneously drop to unwatchable. despite using the setup options with the player and the plasma basically unwatchable and certainly not as nice to look at as with the old DVD playing back through my arcam (I had the DVD already). optical ouput of sound to the amp gave good 5.1 sound.

slight improvement using VGA in PC mode outputting to the plasma running at 1280 x 768 resolution (optimal for plasma) rather than HDMI - although colour now "normal" and flickering able to be stopped by setting plasma to "game" mode rather than "movie" that I usually use (except when using the XBOX360) there are still issues with frame dropping to level that is unwatchable.

all very disappointing and have not rushed out to buy more HD DVDs!!!

Any ideas how to sort this if it is sortable? is it an laptop issue or is it the plasma I wondered if there is "too much processing" going on as I know that the plasmas reprocess the information. is it just a crap HD DVD player? seems annoying if they can seel a system which basically doesnt work. any advice would be appreciated.

regarding the plasma does anyone know why the pioneer identifies odd resolutions such as when playing the xbox360 at 720p identifying the image at 750p and standard DVD playback via HDMI as 625?

the plasma seems fine being used as computer monitor in PC mode(playing back video recorded in windows media centre (XP) via VGA and for playing games that way as long as resolutions of 1024x 768 or 1280 x768 are set on the laptop output as per instructions.

In the instructions for the plasma in the section under HDMI there is a note saying "PC signals are out of correspondence" can anyone translate and is that causing the probelms with the HDMI

I wondered if anyone else has tried this sort of setup or had similar issues with this sort of kit?

 

[Anonymous]

not much interest in this then. ho hum

 

[Anonymous]

I suppose with decent quality HD-DVD seperates just filtering onto the market, but still costing over £600 rrp, I cant see how the picture from a laptop is going to be of a similar standard.

Memory, the CPU and the GPU are all variable factors in a PC's capability...you say you have loads but is it still enough?

Also, check what playback software are you using. Maybe there are some major compatability issues...

 

[Anonymous]

I would agree regarding cost though you can get a HDDVD drive for the xbox 360 for about 120 quid which plays reasonable hddvd and the xbox has coniderable less processing power than my laptop. re compatibility its tricky to know with HP being so unhelpful. thanks for your input and interest though.

specs are core 2 duo T5600, 2GB ram and nvidia geforce go 7600 with 512MB ram. using HP playback software "Quickplay" which includes HDDVD software. HDMI out

 

[Anonymous]

I didnt have any problem with the downloaded content to my old mans PC, it was like looking through a window in full HD.

 

[Anonymous]

Can you confirm that the HDMI out is fully supported by the Quickplay software? I.e. Play the HD-DVD via quickplay on the laptop screen, and play the HD-DVD in Windows on the laptop screen, then finally play the HD-DVD in Windows via the HDMI out.

 

[Anonymous]

you can only play the HDDVD through the quickplay software. documentation came with the laptop that stated this. It does not behave like an ordinary Data / CD or HDDVD disc when you insert it in the drive. it reads as an unkwon disc in the drive with a size of 0 bytes. you cannot explore it and you cannot play or autoplay it. the only access to the disc is if you have already initiated the quickplay software. I think this is an antipiracy move with HDDVD.

There is no HDDVD playing software through windows media player or windows media centre. if anyone knows of software you can download that would identify/ play HDDVD let me know.

you can boot quickplay without loading windows or if you go into windows you can boot the software directly from a link in the menu/desktop or through windows media centre. it has been integrated into the installed version of windows media centre. I presume this is to prevent potential piracy issues.

yes you should be able to play out through HDMI apparently. again this is the prefered method as it again prevents piracy apparently.

of note I have been back in contact with HP and they have been appallingly bad:

initially they tried to get me to "update my video drivers". fortunately Im reasonably computer savvy and realised that the drivers they had sent me were for a completely different graphics card/ chipset/ make etc. on questioning them about this they informed me that on no account should I install these drivers (yeah right!). they also sent me an incomaptible BIOS patch which may have killed my PC stone dead.

they then infromed me it was cos I needed to plug the laptop into the mains when using HDDVD......like I hadnt tried that already....

then they infromed me that I was trying to play it at too high a resolution. I informed them that there were really only 2 options 720p and 1080i and assumed the software would restrict the output to these just as the DVD software would prob select 480p. I did as was told and reduced resolution to 800x600 (the lowest this graphics card can do) . this made no difference. I tried playing the HDDVD back on the laptop screen under these resolutions and it apears the problem is not related to HDMI etc as the problem exists on my laptop screen playback just the same as on the plasma. same loss of frame rate/ slowdown/ jerky etc.

I informed them of this and they now feel that there is a hardware problem. they want me to send it back. this follows me asking some technical questions regarding resolutions etc and I think from the replies that the guys on the other end are following a simple menu system for answering technical queries as I dont think they understood what I was asking.....

they have told me they will wipe the computer so I will lose everything and need to back up all my data....

I suppose I will have to comply but I dont think it will sort this problem out. I feel that basically they have shovved an HDDVD drive in this thing and it isnt capable of playing it for one hardware reason or another. has anyone else had similar problems.

also are there any dodgy HDDVD discs out there? I wondered if the disc they sent me (bourne supremacy) may be causing the problem?

DVD playback on this machine is sweet actually. I watched casino royale yesterday and its smooth and detailed even at high resolutions. It has no problems playing latest games either so appears to have plenty of processing/ graphics potential.

anyone know of any good software to use that will back up my current laptop to a disc so I can just restore it easily on its return? I can easily burn work files and stuff but I dont want to have to reinstall all the stuff like the antivirus/ firewall and other patches updates etc manually

thanks for input. much appreciated

 

[Anonymous]

....and Richard I have also downloaded HiDef content from the internet and it plays that fine. I only appears to be HDDVD playback that is the problem.

Cheers

Mark

 

[Anonymous]

Norton Ghost is a decent back up programme.

Dreadful support from HP there. Remember you are covered by your rights as a consumer.

 

[Anonymous]

Ive been flirting with more computer based forums about this.

Apparenlty it may be the quickplay software that isnt up to scratch. people with the same drive (a toshiba TS-L802A have had similar problems). some have found that using PowerDVD ultra (cyberlink) which plays BD and HDDVD as well as conventional DVD appears to remedy the problem. trouble is its £60. any experience of using this please?