Corel admits: BluRays are not meant to be played on PCs

spitfire_ch · Post by **spitfire_ch** » Fri May 22, 2009 7:17 pm

Since the beginning of this year I am trying to get WinDVD 9 Plus Blu-Ray playing my Blu-Rays. Well, they do play, but with 2 second interruption every 3 seconds. With such a stutter, they are totally unwatchable. Any yes, my PC far exceeds the requirements to play Blu-Rays. So, after trying everything I could think of (which included e-mail support that was surprisingly friendly) I finally - in my desperation - called Corel telephone support. Guess what the nice lady told me:

"Well, Blu-Rays are not DVDs, they can't be played just like that. If you even want to go so far as to connect a projector or external audio, WinDVD will most likely fail, because the companies behind Blu-Rays do everything they can to make it impossible to play Blu-Rays on customized systems. If you want to struggle with Blu-Rays instead of using regular DVDs, that's your own fault, and hence it's not our job to help you. Check the news boards instead."

Way to go! That¡¦s what I call successful customer relationship management! They basically admit that WinDVD CANNOT play Blu-Rays, unless you watch them on your integrated system with onboard sound, PC-Speakers and on a regular screen. Great. I mean, this is the point why you want to watch Blu-Rays, to get stereo sound and a picture limited by a regular screen, right?

It is also extremely helpful that they don't mention that BEFORE you buy WinDVD and that you can't evaluate the Blu-Ray functionality of WinDVD unless you buy it.

If you haven't done so already, don't make the same mistake as I have, DO NOT buy the Blu-Ray upgrade for WinDVD - chances are high it will never work. The regular version of WinDVD is great, however, just leave your fingers off Blu-Ray!

- spitfire

mankhan · Post by **mankhan** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 10:36 am

I agree but may we know what problem you are facing in playing back blu-ray. What components you have, give us full configuration of your PC and we are here to help.

I have my PC with WinDVD 9 blu-ray and i use projector and it works almost 90%. Some blu-ray discs creat problems but it can be fixed.

spitfire_ch · Post by **spitfire_ch** » Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:34 pm

Thanks for your reply.

-- The main problem is that BluRay-Discs play as a slideshow on my system using WinDVD. Well, maybe slideshow is not the correct word. It's more like running for 3 sec, then sound stops for a couple of seconds while the image may or may not move on, sound is back for ~3 sec, then goes away again. As a result, BluRay discs are not watchable. I've tried all settings I can think off, reinstalled the program several times but to no avail.

-- Another problem I have is when playing regular DVDs and turning the 2HD-setting to more than the default value (50%), audio and video will get out of sync after a while.

-- Plus when activating Pal TruSpeed, and restarting WinDVD, I only get stereo sound, no multichannel, no SPDIF.

In the mean time, I tried PowerDVD, which - even in the trial version - plays BluRays perfectly fluent, and also has no problem with pushing the TrueTheather HD setting to more than default.

From that I conclude that my system definitely can play BluRays, in contrast to what the nice lady from telephone support wanted to make me believe.

But thank you very much for trying to help! It's good to know not everybody is like the phone-lady. I would also like to mention a certain George from Corel e-mail support, who was indeed very friendly and really tried to help (but in the end asked me to call telephone support).

Best regards
- spitfire

OS: WinXP Pro SP3
Motherboard : ASUS P6T DELUXE LGA1366
Processor : CPU Core i7 920/2666 QuadCore
Memory/RAM : Kingston Memory DDR3 3GB Kit of 3 PC3-10666
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280
Sound Card : Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1
Amplifier: Creative Inspire 5.1 Digital 5700
Hard Drive : 2x Samsung SpinPoint F1R, 500GB Raid 0, 1 x SpinPoint F1, 1TB
BluRay: Optiarc, BR-5100S-0B, BluRay-Rom
DVD-RW: Samsung SH-S223Q
Projector: Panasonic PT-AX-200E

mankhan · Post by **mankhan** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:24 am

sorry for the late response. yous system configuration is more than perfect and do only one thing that remove xp and install vista ultimate 32-bit or 64-bit depending on your machine and then install windvd 9 blu-ray again and install all the patches and i believe your problem would be solved. i have little bit less powerful machine than yours but windvd 9 blu-ray works like charm. i dont think anything is wrong in your machine, its just installation issue which would be solved with Vista Ultimate.

mankhan · Post by **mankhan** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:27 am

also there is something on your PC which is conflicting with WinDVD. In my case, initially winDVD was conflicting with Haali media splitter (to play mkv files) so i had to remove it and installed haali splitter using "Final Codecs 2008" and my problem was solved and winDVD worked well since then.

spitfire_ch · Post by **spitfire_ch** » Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:22 pm

That's interesting. How was this conflict manifested? Also by stuttering? I do have Haali media splitter installed. Guess, I'll give it a try! Thanks for this hint!

- spitfire

mankhan · Post by **mankhan** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 9:49 am

your problem seems XP SP3. Just install Vista then you shall have much better pciture due to direct x 10 plus your problem shall be solved.

In my case WinDVD was not loading at all and i just figured out when i remove haali, it works and when i install haali, windvd doesnt work. so i did that so many times and finally when i installed haali through Final codecs 2008, then both worked windvd and haali for mkv, no any conflict.

by the way i recently upgraded to wondows 7 build 7201 and picture now even better but windvd works fine except its ALL2HD is not working, perhaps in the next edition or patch they shall fix it for wondows 7.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Thu Jun 18, 2009 5:05 pm

mankhan wrote:...... Just install Vista then you shall have much better pciture due to direct x 10 plus your problem shall be solved.......

Could he not simply update his DirectX

mankhan · Post by **mankhan** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 10:03 am

no sir, windows xp lacks direct x 10, cant be upgraded. well this is as far as i know. please tell me if i am wrong. besides i have used both windows using projector on 150 inches screen and found much different picture quality. vista or now wondows 7 much or way better than xp for video playback.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Sat Jun 20, 2009 4:49 pm

mankhan wrote:your problem seems XP SP3. Just install Vista then you shall have much better pciture due to direct x 10 plus your problem shall be solved......

Seems a mighty expensive cure to me, what is the cost of upgrading your operating system to Vista (Soon to be replaced by Windows 7) plus the additional hidden costs of upgrading "things that don't work with vista" whether that be other software or very often hardware such as video card, audio card, network card and anything else that you later find does not work with Vista. Of course you may be one of the lucky ones where everything works though from past experience of upgrading from any operating system, there is inevitably something that will not work.

I would advise the poster to try updating his/her direct X first and if that does not work it is then a matter of exploring what else may be at fault. I doubt anyone would like ONE piece of software so much that they would be prepared to go the lengths of upgrading an entire operating system.

mankhan · Post by **mankhan** » Sun Jun 21, 2009 9:47 am

Sir-, if you see spitfire_ch PC configuration you shall see that he has one of the best PC one can have and problem with WinDVD 9 blu-ray is that it exhibits different attitude with different machines and operating systems, besides the fact that winDVD 9 has better picture quality over the other softwares available, no any better feature is there. Its start-up is very slow, its huge, it has not much options for setup while wathcing blu-rays, hardware accelaration and vista aero off function is very annoying, etc. etc. so i believe that spitfire_ch is facing some frustrating behavior from WinDVD 9 and we must guide him in right way.

He can have image of his c drive where he has installed xp through acronics and can try Windows 7 (if he is not able to get Vista) as it is free and valid until july 2010 and to see where is his problem. If he face same attitude of windvd as he was facing on xp then there is some serious issue with his harware otherwise problem is solved.