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After resetting back to POWERDVD 11 V2024 I also tried to update to version 2608 and so far it seems to be retaining the Region number at normal and allows me to play back successfully.
From this it makes you wonder then why 3318, the latest version causes this problem of region resets back to zero.
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I too have run into this same problem since yesterday, Feb 28th.
Without doing any updates or changes I had been running PDVD11 3318 successfuly since it was released months ago and all of a sudden the software resets region to zero so can't play any discs. Uninstalling, running the cleanse program and re-installing up to 3318 did not help. Back to the same problem. You can see that the program connects to the internet as soon as it starts and pauses for a while then when you check blu-ray region code you see it back to zero right away.
The only thing I've found so far is that if I uninstall, cleanse and re-install only up to version 2024 it seems to run without resetting. This is only today March 1st so not sure how long it will last.
I also have PDVD 12 as well on the same computer on another partition and it has been so buggy that I refused to use it until new updates arrived. Up until yesterday I was content to keep using PDVD11 until version 12 got better.
What was strange is that on the same day, the 28th, I decided to try version 12 again since version 11 was dead in the water, I discovered that version 12 did the same thing. As soon as I started it, the region count went to zero. This issue had not shown up on V12 yet. It's obvious that these programs always go to the internet home servers whenever they start up, probably to check on new security keys but it seems that it's affecting region codes as well. Only saving grace is that a few days ago there was a new update to version 12 with 2428 and that seemed to reset the region code back up again to 5 after this happened.
This is an old problem with POWERDVD. I had this problem happen about a year ago in JAN 2012 with exactly the same problem on version 11 and opened a ticket with Cyberlink but after putting me thru hell gathering them data, I never received a response from them on this problem. I gave up on them and was then forced to re-install my operating system, Windows 7 and POWERDVD 11 as well. I'm not going to thru this again with them.
I realize that this thread is for version 11, but the key reason I stopped using version 12 and gone back to 11 is that version 12 aborts constantly when playing back high resolution audio tracks such as DTD-HD MA or DOLBY TRUE HD audio tracks. Originally this was thought to be related to using INTEL HDMI audio, however when I went to an NVIDIA HDMI audio card with different driver and discovered the same problem, I pretty much gave up on it. This was to be fixed in this latest version 2428 but it's not. The problem is still there. I have now given up on the software and considered the upgrade a total waste of money.
If the region reset problem on version 11 continues and does not get fixed, I will also be yet another customer that switches vendors and will never come back. I have spent a lot of $ with Cyberlink with versions 7, 8, 9, 11 and now 12 and have had a lot of grief along the way. I will not continue to spend $ on a company that basically destroys what should be a real enjoyment of movie watching thru a computer.
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HI Excalibur,
Thank you for the added info. I tried to look for this in the registry but had missed it.
After I posted this message, I saw the reference earlier in the sequence about DVDFAB Passkey so decided to try and download the free lite version. It easily reset the counter for me back up to 5 so my POWERDVD 11 is now back working again so I didn't have to mess with the registry myself.
What was strange for me is that my blu-ray drive's counter has never changed and remained at 4. I've never touched it. Only POWERDVD 11's couner developed this problem on its own. I never changed the region settings on any playback program I've used and I've used Version 7, 8, 9, and now 11 for several years now. This is the first time that the program just changed itself to zero while the blu-ray drive remained at 4. Seems like a software bug to me but based on my bad experiene so far I doubt that Cyberlink will acknowledge that and then provide a fix for it.
Thanks again.
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Hi,
I too have run into a similar problem to this. After upgrading from POWERDVD9 to POWERDVD11 and running successfully for several months, my POWERDVD region code went from 4 remaining to zero recently.
I've been running latest version for several weeks now but started running into this problem with region code on Jan 1st 2012.
The blu-ray drive in my pc still shows 4 region codes remaining and this has never changed. Only POWERDVD 11 reports 0 changes remaining. I have never used this feature at all as I only use Region 1/A and therefore do no change it.
I submitted a ticket with the service desk on this but after a week am getting the run-around with no solutions at all.
I too wonder if this is related to upgrading from previous versions. I have already tried to unistall and deleting all folder traces of Cyberlink from my system followed by a re-installation but to no avail. Makes me wonder where this information is kept.
When I had a problem a couple of years ago with V9, the technician handling my ticket sent me a 'cleanup' program 'CLCLEANER' that essentially eliminated all traces of the POWERDVD9 program from my system, then I was also given a link to a new BASELINE version of the program and re-installed the program and that cleaned up my problem at the time. I wonder if there is a similar thing available for V11 that would also reset the region count back to normal upon re-installation.
Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.
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Deville,
Running out of suggestions for you.
What you described in your last message is normal behaviour. As soon as you disconnect the HDMI cable from your card, the sound driver will automatically disable that port. When you connect a DVI device the sound is not transferred thru that connection as DVI doesn't carry sound. That's all normal and it means your REaltek HDMI driver was working.
If I were to guess, your POWERDVD installation (not sure which version you use - only POWERDVD 9 Ultra and 10 ULtra support HDMI audio) may need to be re-done. If you do try that, I would make sure that the HDMI cable is connected and the HDMI connection active while you do so.
Good luck.
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Deville,
Seems that you're experiencing a lot of the same issues I found during my experience with all this.
Given what you've told me, it would seem you've managed to successfully install the Realtek HDMI driver for ATI on top of the ATI driver however I wonder if the video card is actually seeing your receiver for audio. In the Windows sound panel, you should choose the HDMI output as default and it should show as enabled with a green checkmark. This might seem like an obvious question but make sure that you've connected the HDMI cable to the video card and not to the on-board HDMI slot. HDMI should show up as a choice on the POWERDVD menu of audio choices in all cases if HDMI audio is installed and enabled.
It doesn't matter if you disable the on-board video in the bios as long as the bios is set to choose the PEG (PCI-Express Graphics) selection as the default which overrides the on-board video when present.
In the attachment you sent, it clearly shows you've tried to choose Dolby TrueHD 5.1 as your audio source on your disc, however the bit rate is too low (should be > 9,000Kbps) and therefore it's showing that POWERDVD is downsampling the audio output since it hasn't found the HDMI connection yet.
I know your video card should work for HDMI as I mentioned I've used one successfully. I haven't tried the new ATI drivers yet but based on my experience that shouldn't make a difference once you use the Realtek audio driver.
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Deville,
You have a video card that I know works as I have one of those as well and got it to work for me.
The Realtek Audio driver you want is on the REaltek Web site under High Definition Audio Codecs and it's called 'ATI HDMI AUDIO DEVICE'. Current version is R2.55 and it's about 20 MB to download.
The Realtek audio driver must be installed after you install the ATI Video/Audio drivers which include the CAtalyst Control Center (ie. the complete suite).
Once installed, in the Windows sound panel, you would need to choose the 5.1 or 7.1 channel for speaker selection and apply that.
You also have to go into the AMD/ATI Catalyst Control Center (the icon should be in the right hand side of the task bar). Driver version 10.12 is current and worked for me. Inside this panel, you have to go into Desktops and Displays and you see your monitor/lcd display, choose HDTV support, add 1080p60 format to the display manager and apply, then select 1080p60standard at bottom of that screen and choose apply format there as well.
Once you do all this, Cyberlink should present to you the additional audio selection in the Audio tab. This only works after you start playing the movie (the first time you do it). The option is not visible until after you start the movie. A strange quirk of PowerDVD.
Also ensure that your receiver is capable of receiving an HDMI 1.3 or 1.4 as a standard to be able to process the latest audio streams and set it to any audio so that it adjusts to whatever comes to it.
As I noted in my previous message, a lot of these steps should not be necessary but such is the quality of software these days. Everything is about speed to market vs quality and ease of use.
Good luck.
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HI Tech81. Thanks for those suggestions. I had already tried most of those and thought I'd tried just about every permutation, however your suggestion # 2 actually helped to give me a clue.
It turns out that even though my display adapter was set to 1080P (1920 x 1080) thru the HDMI connection, the display driver defaults to the pc configuration and you have to go out of your way to add the 1080P HDMI choice in the output of AMD/ATI's video control panel. This is so obscure and not obvious. Once I did that, I was then able to select thru PowerDVD, the "NON-DECODED HD AUDIO to external device" and actually got the HD audio stream to my receiver. I should add that this only worked with the AMD/ATI 5000 series card (with driver 10.12) combined with the Realtek HDMI Audio Driver (255). The AMD/ATI HDMI audio driver included does NOT work in passing the HD audio bitstream out, however the Realtek one does. This means you have to install the Realtek HDMI audio driver after the AMD/ATI drivers are installed to override. This was already noted in prior suggestion from Michael of Cyberlink but wanted to make sure it was understood here as well.
I think it's kind of ridiculous that you have to choose an obscure option in the AMD/ATI CCC control panel to make this work. What this means is that as long as you're working with a display device that has a native 1080P resolution you're fine. Usually I connect to my JVC D-ILA 1080 projector so this is not a problem. When I connect my LCD computer panel which is a Dell 2709W model with resolution of 1920 x 1200, I have to downgrade the resolution to 1080P as noted above to make the HD audio stream work. It is beyond me to understand why the video stream configuration is connected at all to the audio stream. As far as I'm concerned these 2 should be separate configurable items.
This may be digressing a bit from the original issue, but I had an NVIDIA GT 430 card on hand, so tried it as well with my config. I loaded the latest drivers from NVIDIA site (260.99) and tested the same thing as above. With this card, POWERDVD9 will NOT pass thru the DD HD or DTS HD bistream audio and the options for NON-DECODED HD AUDIO is not presented at all. When using POWERDVD10 however (I downloaded the trial version), this does work. I think Cyberllink should fix this as POWERDVD9 should be able to use either AMD/ATI or NVIDIA chipsets for this as noted on the supported hardware list.
Note to Cyberlink is that all this should be better described on the web site info for hardware compatability and configurations. I'm glad I found something that worked, but I should not have had to spend countless hours trying this out the hard way. This also means that AMD/ATI should fix their HDMI audio driver as well and not force us to install a third-party driver (Realtek) to make it work.
Sorry for the long-winded message here, but given the # of people having this same issue that I've seen in the forum, I thought this might help others.
Thanks all for the suggestions.
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Thanks for the suggestion but I am using port 1 for this test. I've actually tried several of them. I have 6 in total to choose from and all exhibit the same problem unfortunately. I also made sure that the default programming on receiver is set to accept any kind of audio sent to it but to no avail.
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Just to add more info here. I've tried some other permutations.
I can now reproduce this same problem when I change video cards to a new EVGA/NVIDIA GT 430 card. This card is documented on NVIDIA site to support HDMI 1.4a. I loaded the latest version of the video driver and associated HDMI driver from NVIDIA (260.99) I can verify that the card supports the bitstream audio formats thru Windows Sound Panel and send audio output to 5.1 channels thru it as well. When I point PowerDVD9 to the HDMI audio I get the same results as above with the ATI 5000 series card combined with Realtek HDMI audio driver. With the NVIDIA card I can see and choose the HDMI output, select "non-decoded HD audio" thru PowerDVD9 and still have no audio thru that option. When I choose PCM decoded by POWERDVD I can get PCM audio stream to receiver.
This all tells me that the video card choice and HDaudio driver whether Realtek or NVIDIA thru HDMI do not have a bearing on this. There is an issue with POWERDVD9/10 (I tried both and got the same result) sensing the HD audio device and sending the right stream to it.
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I meant that in the Windows7 sound control panel I could choose the 5.1 speaker option on the "Realtek HDMI Output" choice and could produce sound going to the receiver. That tells me the driver is installed and working. I do that test anytime I make a change downstream from PowerDVD to ensure I still have multi-channel sound selected and working.
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Michael, thanks for the suggestion but I ran into the following:
I downloaded and installed the REaltek HDMI driver (now at 255) and installed it. It overrides the AMD/ATI HDMI driver successfully (by the way, this only works if you already have the ATI HDMI driver already installed - if you don't this installation fails). I could verify that it was installed and thru the sound control panel and I could set up 5.1 and test the sound coming into my receiver successfully.
When I start POWERDVD9 and try to play a disc with a DTS HD-Master audio track, I now get the additional option presented which is called "NON-DECODED HD AUDIO TO EXTERNAL DEVICE" which previously did not show up. When I choose this however, I get no sound coming out at all. If I revert back to PCM DECODED by POWERDVD then I get sound again.
This is amazing to me that none of these configurations where everything seems to be set up correctly simply don't work.
Not sure where to go next.
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Hi Michael,
Thanks for response. No, the HDMI driver installed is the latest version that comes with the AMD/ATI driver set. These override the Realtek installation when you install the AMD/ATI Catalyst suite. I would expect the ATI driver is more appropriate given that the audio is passsing thru the video card output. Anyway, that's what shows up in my audio listing. I don't use the other Realtek on-board sound features (ie. the SPDIF and analog), although they're installed.
Dante.
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Hi,
I saw similar threads to this issue but not with same configuration.
I have no issues playing back blu-ray discs in my computer, however I'm now trying to make use of the latest HD audio capability to be sent to my audio system.
My configuration is below and have included DXDIAG info along with Advisor report.
Essentially my AMD/ATI 5000-series video card is HDMI 1.3 capable and supports the DTS HD Master Audio and Dolby True HD. When I query the HDMI Output Properties it shows that the card supports these audio outputs and I've set my speaker configuration to 5.1 channels. The Cyberlink web documentation indicates that these cards are supported for HD audio. My audio receiver is HDMI 1.4 capable and I use a recent quality HDMI cable with high-speed support. The receiver has been set to receive any type of audio stream.
When I play back any blu-ray disc that has HD audio tracks in it, HD audio is never presented as an option in the playback listing within PowerDVD9 Ultra. When I point POWERDVD9 to the ATI HDMI Output, all I can get is "PCM Decoded by POWERDVD" which converts the audio channels to PCM audio streams and the 2nd option provided is "NON-DECODED DD/DTS" which is a compressed audio stream similar to the legacy audio which is much lower in audio quality.
I also downloaded a trial version of POWERDVD10 and got the same results. I even tried a different video card, a 5450 vs a 5570 and no change.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Config:
GIGABYTE GA-H57M-USB3 M/B, Lga 1156 / CORE I5-650 CPU
8 GB RAM
Windows 7 Professional, 64-bit, fully updated
ASUS/AMD/ATI 5570 PCI-E video card with HDMI 1.3+ support with AMD 10.12 updated video driver
POWERDVD9 Ultra with recent update (tried both versions 2528 which is more stable and recent 3608 - less stable)
PIONEER blu-ray reader drive
DELL 2709W video monitor
Onkyo audio receiver TX-NR708 with HDMI 1.4 inputs
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I have just submitted an identical problem but accidentally mis-categorized the forum index category.
I have the exact same problem as noted above, but with an AMD/ATI 5000 series card with recent updated driver and with POWERDVD9 Ultra. My card is a Sapphire/ATI 5670 with HDMI1.3+ abilities and is on the Cyberlink supported list. I can see that the card driver supports the HD audio streams but when I point POWERDVD to the ATI HD AUDIO all I get is the same 2 options as noted above here but is not presenting my audio receiver with the HD audio output that I selected on the blu-ray disc playback. My receiver can process up to HDMI 1.4 audio streams and is set to receive any kind of audio.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks.
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