Well, here is my tale of woe:
WinDVD9 keeps closing itself (propably crashing, although there is no error notice, it just disappears) every 10 - 50 minutes while watching DVDs on my system. The event does not show up on the event log.
Although i sometimes notice graphical problems after several crashes. (Screen/Mouselag & Flickering)
When watching Blu-Ray Discs the same problem becomes exponentially worse. I am lucky when i even make it past the trailers into the main menu. When i actually get past the Main Menu... the movie playback usually does not last long, before WinDVD closes itself/crashes.
Of course i found this out after purchasing it...
I have contacted customer support with the supplied phone number.
They told me to email them with the problem description and detailed system information.
I have done so.
They have not replied in 4 days.
I have sent them another email, specifically asking for a refund because the problem was not resolved nor was there an attempt made to actually resolve the problem. (Extensive research on the net on my part has not proven helpful either). I have not received a reply in 2 days.
I am running Vista 64. The system is rock stable in every game i own. I am currently enjoying DVD movies with DVD playback software (trial version) from two different competitiors. Both programs run fine without a hickup. Not a single crash.
WinDVD9 (Plus Blu-Ray) however simply seems to be a hopeless case. I have since tried 3 reinstalls, the latest two with virus/FW off. I have even reinstalled windows from scratch. - Problem persists. Competitior programs still run fine. I specifically bought WinDVD9 to play Blu-Ray Discs ... wich you can not test with the trial. The perfomance is of the program as well as the performance of Corel Customer support is simply put: Abysmal.
I am at a loss of words really.
Posting on these forums is my last hope of getting any kind of advice before considering further steps - Corel support is obviously unwilling to communicate with me at all.
And do not tell me its my fault for running Vista64. On Corels product page it says nothing about being incompatible with Vista64 and i would also have to point out that competitor programs run fine even when watching several DVDs in a row. I have not been able to actually finish watching a single DVD with WinDVD9 so far.
Further system info:
Chipset: Santa Rosa Platform with T9300 CPU & 4gb Ram.
GPU: GeForce 8800m GTX.
Blu-RayDriveVendor: Optiarc.
Changing image quality/improvements/all2hd or hardware acceleration etc. (believe me i tried them all) did not yield results either.
Now, don't take me wrong here. I bought WinDVD9 for good reason. The feature list is absolutely fantastic - on paper. If it would actually run it would be my first choice for a DVD/Blu-Ray Playback program. However, it does not. I would seriously prefer a solution to the problem over a refund. However i did not even get a single suggestion from Corel in a full week.
WinDVD9 Program & Customer Support Issues
Moderator: lata
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oddius2008
Hi,
Corel email support are what one would term very sedate, and seem to have a stock response please remove & reinstall. Called them to arrange a refund which was refused, discussed my issues: answers WinDVD9+BR is more resource hungry than WinDVD8, and it's a h/w problem so nothing we can do.
Apart from not working in XP64, for Vista64 WinDVD9+BR works perfectly so far including BR & HD-DVD. My system is a tad ancient compared to yours, an AMD 4400+, 3GB Ram, 7800GTX, & LG GGCH20L.
Now for stating the obvious are all your drivers up-to-date should be under Vista?
Have you tried disabling other apps from running in case its a resource issue, had it crash on me no log of it as well, but CPU usage was up at 80-90%. when it crashed?
Corel email support are what one would term very sedate, and seem to have a stock response please remove & reinstall. Called them to arrange a refund which was refused, discussed my issues: answers WinDVD9+BR is more resource hungry than WinDVD8, and it's a h/w problem so nothing we can do.
Apart from not working in XP64, for Vista64 WinDVD9+BR works perfectly so far including BR & HD-DVD. My system is a tad ancient compared to yours, an AMD 4400+, 3GB Ram, 7800GTX, & LG GGCH20L.
Now for stating the obvious are all your drivers up-to-date should be under Vista?
Have you tried disabling other apps from running in case its a resource issue, had it crash on me no log of it as well, but CPU usage was up at 80-90%. when it crashed?
Yap all my drivers are up to date. I tried 3 different beta drivers from laptopvideo2go for the 8800m gtx as well. With one exception (unstable driver) all drivers ran perfectly fine for games as well as competitor DVD playback software.
As mentioned above i also reinstalled Windows once, and WinDVD9 was actually the first application that i put on it after driver installation was complete. (Before Virus Scan / FW Installation even mind you, Windows Firewall off, Computer not connected to the Internet of course.)
CPU usage hovers around 10-20% on both cores under full power when playing Back Blu-Ray Discs.
30% - 40% in energy saving mode.
The only time it ever goes higher is with DVD Playback and All2HD enabled.... to about 30-40% under full power... and with Natural motion at max it spikes over 60%.
Switching energy saving / full power does not solve or affect the mentioned problem. Switching All2HD / Natural Motion settings on&off does not affect the problem either.
Playback is also smooth and fine... except that it keeps closing itself / crashing.
In any case... thanks for the reply.
I will be phoning Corel again tomorrow and if they do not have a solution or offer a refund then i guess i will at least get to yell at some people.
As mentioned above i also reinstalled Windows once, and WinDVD9 was actually the first application that i put on it after driver installation was complete. (Before Virus Scan / FW Installation even mind you, Windows Firewall off, Computer not connected to the Internet of course.)
CPU usage hovers around 10-20% on both cores under full power when playing Back Blu-Ray Discs.
30% - 40% in energy saving mode.
The only time it ever goes higher is with DVD Playback and All2HD enabled.... to about 30-40% under full power... and with Natural motion at max it spikes over 60%.
Switching energy saving / full power does not solve or affect the mentioned problem. Switching All2HD / Natural Motion settings on&off does not affect the problem either.
Playback is also smooth and fine... except that it keeps closing itself / crashing.
In any case... thanks for the reply.
I will be phoning Corel again tomorrow and if they do not have a solution or offer a refund then i guess i will at least get to yell at some people.
Please follow up
I am running WinDVD 8 platinum on a old ASUS P4P with a Prescott HT 2.8 processor and an MX4000 GPU. I am trying to time my migration to Blu-ray and keep my old 3+ year HTPC running until then.
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Unless Corel can solve some of these WinDVD9 issues, my migration will not be anytime soon
Please keep this thread going until you either bail, or Corel has a solution.
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Unless Corel can solve some of these WinDVD9 issues, my migration will not be anytime soon
Please keep this thread going until you either bail, or Corel has a solution.
resource hogs
I am mostly a Fedora user but my clients are mostly Windows. I am running WinDVD 8 platinum with XP/SP2 and have used the M$ performance monitor (under "system administration") to figure out a few things. When it comes to resource constraint caused crashes, look at page file I/O and File I/O. Moving the page file to another volume helped reduce my crashes as did adding another gByte of memory.
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When it comes to CPU usage, I use the <ctrl><alt><delete> CPU performance monitor. You can see the level loading between the CPU's. For XP there is a level loading fix for multiple CPU's and ACPI problems. KB896256. It reduced my v8 crashes ten fold. Maybe there is something similar for Vista?
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When it comes to CPU usage, I use the <ctrl><alt><delete> CPU performance monitor. You can see the level loading between the CPU's. For XP there is a level loading fix for multiple CPU's and ACPI problems. KB896256. It reduced my v8 crashes ten fold. Maybe there is something similar for Vista?