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Thanks for the link, kokap.
I never used PDVD12, I *bought* it, but it had problems on my system and tech support were no help, so I went back to version 11 until version 13 came along.
I've logged an issue with tech support. I'll see if I get any kind of a useful answer.
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So not just me, then. ;![]()
Have you spoekn with tech support, kokap? Did they make any suggestions?
Or have you just been manually stopping the processes, like I have?
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Please let me Highlight that technical or customer Support is neither reading, monitoring nor replying in this Forum. If an issue has been discussed in the Forum it does not mean that it is a known issue or an issue at all - some of the symptoms are related to platforms, some are bugs, but if the users don't Report them to the technical support Team - they cannot know about them.
I think that suggests that either technical support doesn't keep accurate track of issues raised with it (which I can quite believe, given my own experience with them), and treat every issue raised as a single problem in isolation, or other people have realised how useless it is to post incidents with them.
I don't want to just rubbish tech support, but I find it frustrating that such a high-profile app is so badly supported — especially when you make the case that so many things on a system can affect its performance. You'd think that would mean they'd be on their toes with supporting it, not going back to baby-level questions every time you raise a question wih them.
OK. I'll go through the list in your linked message. I've already done with this tech support, and none of the informqation has ever even be referred to by them, so does it really make a difference? Ah well:
PowerDVD Version: 13.0.3520.58, FULL retail ULTRA version (bought from Cyberlink site)
PowerDVD SR Number DVD131120-01 (DVD 130313-10)
PowerDVD TR Number TR131129-935
Operating System Windows 7 x64 SP1
Account has administrator rights
Video card: ATI Radeon HD 5700
Video driver: version 9.12.0.0 (Windows Update reports no newer driver available)
Audio device: Realtek HD Audio
Audio driver: 6.0.1.6194 (Windows Update reports no newer driver available)
Audio setting in PowerDVD: varies, but usually Dolby Virtual Speaker
ODD drive: LG BH10LS30 BD Burner
Display: Samsung SyncMaster EX2220
Connection: DVI
Refresh rate: 60 Hz
Single monitor environment, no 3D
Antivirus: Bitdefender Internet Security 2014
Browser: Have Chrome, IE 11 and Firefox 26 installed. Use Firefox as default.
No virtual ODD
AERO typically left on
Habitually use Hardware acceleration but no TrueTheater Effects
DXDIAG is attached.
Thanks for your help, Michael, but I'm not sure how any of that info has a bearing on PDVD leaving processes running when it closes? Nevertheless, I appreciate any comments you might be able to make.
Thanks.
Bran
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Thanks Michael,
But the reason I post here is I get a lot more useful suggestions and information out of other users than I ever have from Cyberlink technical support.
Out of the issues I've taken to them, not one has ever been resolved. The most useful suggestion they've ever offered has been to wait for the next version, upgrade, and hope the problem goes away. The most *usual* reply I get is "no-one else has ever reported this" (even when there are threads on the specific issue here on the forum!) and then they seem to think that ends the matter. Most of my enquiries have ended with my providing as much information as I can and then tech support saying things like "make sure you have the most recent video drivers" (despite the fact I've already told them that I do), and then their simply not replying any further.
Bloody useless, not to mention unprofessional. It must be obvious I'm not impressed, but I have every right to be. More to the point, it leaves me with no option but to post here. Opening an incident with tech support is a waste of time.
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When I close Power DVD 13 Ultra (build 3520) on my system, it shuts down normally but always leaves two processes running. The next time (in the same Windows session) that I insert a disc or launch a file into PDVD from Explorer, ratehr than launching the app I get an error saying it's already running, and I have to go into Task Manager and manually close the two processes before the app will load.
Why is this happening? I've tried removing the app and reinstalling, but it makes no difference. Is there a way to resolve this?
(Just for reference, I get no errors on the re-install or installing the updates. As mentioned, I have version 13 Ultra, build 3520, so there are no newer updates to install. This is on Windows 7 x64.)
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When playing back PAL-encoded material that was originally shot at 24fps, is there any way to drop the audio back to its original pitch?
I'm currently playing this kind of material through VLC, which does have this capability, but I actually prefer the quality of image and sound PDVD13 produces.
If PDVD13 can't do this, it would be a great feature to have.
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I'm not sure how they could do that though, since on disc subs are raster bitmaps. I suppose some trickery could allow something like hue shifting, which would work on already coloured subtitles, but that still wouldn't help with white subtitles.
Oh, thanks for that, Daelin — I honestly didn't realise they were pre-generated bitmaps. I thought they were player-generated, which is why I was lobbying Cyberlink for the ability to change typeface and colour. I'd spoken to support about it, and they'd said they would add it to the list for features to be considered; I wonder why they never pointed out that it couldn't be done? And then, when V13 was being launched, one of the new features they specified as a reason to upgrade was that the font could be user-chosen; I think they could have chosen their wording far better.
But I'm very puzzled; if these subtitles aren't player-generated, why the heck are they frequently so bloody ugly and often unreadable? Why do they choose blocky charactes that don't flow easily and disappear into the image behind them? If subtitles on DVD can be player-generated, why not on BD? Is there any advantage to having them as bitmaps, rather than as a text stream?
I guess I've gone a bit off-topic now, sorry, but it was a well-intentioned suggestion to start with.
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Yeah, I have read that post, Michael.
But I think asking people to post all that information upfront is a bit silly, and makes little sense, if most of it isn't going to be relevant to the problem. I asked if anyone else had seen similar behaviour. If no-one has replied to that, I don't think information like what browser I have set as default is going to make any difference. From what I've seen in other threads, conversation often gets bogged down in people meaning to help, but pursuing questions about specifications that don't really have much prospect of being involved in the issue, and everyone ends up spinning their wheels.
I'll open an incident with CS, but I don't hold out much hope for it. Their standard answer is usually to claim they've never heard of such an issue, that no-one else has reported it, even on problems where there's a lot of discussion here on the forum and it's clearly commonly occurring. And several times I've compiled reports and log files and typed laborious amounts of information and sent it to CS, only to never hear from them again on the incident. They don't seem to know or care whether a problem is ever actually resolved or not.
The problems I've detailed here used to happen repeatedly with version 12, and I never got a useful reply from CS, nor a genuine attempt to troubleshoot or resolve the problem. When I upgraded to version 13, the problem went away on the first install, but after the recent patch the problem's back.
I have to tell you, as a paying customer, it's incredibly frustrating.
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Hmmm, that's never a good use of time.
I haven't had a single incident resolved by them.
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Hi Michael,
Any word on this from the team, please?
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Has no-one else seen this behaviour?
I've tried the whole uninstall/reinstall thang, but it makes no difference.
Anyone?
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Hi all,
I installed the new update to PDVD 13 Ultra, because even though it was working well in most respects I was getting the crashes others have apparently reported and then having to reboot my PC before I could use the program again.
The installation of the update seemed to go well, and showed no errors. However, PDVD 13 is now doing some strange things with the image display.
For instance:
1) When I first load a BD in my PC drive, and PDVD13 launches, it will start playing the audio of the disc (whether the menu or the film, depending on the disc), but the application's opening menu screen remains, rather than displaying the content of the disc. If I hit the play button, the display starts showing the disc, but both audio and video begin to stutter and lurch until they manage to synchronise, and then it plays correctly from then on. This happens with every disc I've tried, from a whole range of studios. (Which I assume means it's not caused by a specific disc's BD-Java or coding procedures, since it affects all of them.)
2) As a habit I run PDVD13 windowed, in one corner of my widescreen monitor, when I'm doing other things on my PC. But when I want to focus on the video that PDVD13 is playing, I expand it to full-screen mode using the toggle control in the bottom right corner of the PDVD window. Since installing the latest upgrade, when I do this the PDVD application expands to the full screen, but the display of the BD I'm watching stays the same quarter-size but moves to the top left corner of the screen. It'll stay like this for several seconds — usually until the next change of camera angle, which means the entire image needs to be rewritten — and then the image suddenly "bounces" out to full screen. Going back the other way — minimising to a window in one quarter of the screen — produces a similar result, except that the app window is only one quarter of the screen, but the display of the BD remains full-screen, but with only one quarter of it showing in the PDVD window. Then, after a few seconds, the PDVD window refreshes and shows the full image resized within the window.
This has only been happening since the most recent update. It didn't happen in the previous version of PDVD13.
I've checked, and there are no updates for my graphics drivers. Are others seeing similar issues?
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Hi Michael,
Many thanks. I appreciate your response. ;![]()
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In my installation of PowerDVD 13 Ultra, there are four audio options: Stereo: Dolby Surrond Compatible Downmix; Dolby Virtual Speaker or TrueTheatre Surround.
With Blu-rays that have mono audio, only the first two options work. I use TrueTheatre Surround by default, but if I play a BD that's mono through it, then there is no audio (it's silent) until I switch the audio to one of the first two options.
Why can the two higher settings not play mono, such as Dolby Digital 1.0, or simple stereo Like Dolby Digfital 2.0? Shouldn't they be backwardly compatible?
Examples of Blu-ray discs I have trouble with (all of these have audio as Dolby Digital 1.0) :
- The Searchers
- Jason and the Argonauts
- The Adventures of Robin Hood [the Errol Flynn version]
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The ability to totally disable subtitles.
Or to change the colour/font of subtitles.
Cyberlink sold that as a major feature of the current version, but just happened to forget somehow to tell people that it didn't work with Blu-ray or DVD, only ripped copies converted to formats like AVI. Kinda misleading of them.
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Ahh, thanks for that, CLD. I do look at the manual when issues arise, but tend to only skim it — I don't see the point in reading manuals that in many places say only the same text as appears when you hover the mouse over a button. (It's not just Cyberlink's fault — I think most manuals are just pointless these days. Are they auto-assembled, or something? Does no-one actually *write* and *proofread* anymore?)
Anyway, that's going off-topic, I guess.
Michael, you've helped me indirectly to solve it. I changed the Auto-Resume setting to "Always play from the beginning", rebooted my PC (that bit may not have been completely necessary, but I wanted to load the Registry afresh), then changed it back to "Resume from the Last Scene", rebooted again, and now it works as expected.
So maybe some toggle setting in the Registry hadn't, ermm, togged. But now it seems to have.
Thanks for your help and thoughts, folks. :![]()
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Thanks for your reply, Michael.
It's on "Resume playback from the last scene". I don't want to put it on "Always play from the beginning", because I want it to resume where appropriate and possible.
But does that stop it from playing at all, when it has a disc it's never played before?
I think the wording is unfortunate, because it's not very clear what the options are. I think it should be something like "Always play disc from the beginning" / "Resume a disc from previous position where possible" / "Wait for input to begin playing". Seems to me that makes more sense, and is less ambiguous.
So, unless the "Resume playback from the last scene" option is stopping new discs from playing, I don't think this is the source of the problem. Thanks for your input, though.
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I'm using PDVD Ultra 13.0.3105.58 on Windows 7 x64. In Windows, PDVD is set to Autoplay.
If I load a BD in my drive, PDVD launches, and recognises the disc ... but then just sits there, with the "Play" icon displayed in the middle of its screen. If I click this icon the disc plays, but why doesn't it start playing automatically, as previous versions of PDVD have done?
I've tried uninstalling and re-installing, but this doesn't change. And I can't find any options in Settings that change this behaviour.
Is this what is supposed to happen?
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By the way, deleting the files created by CLHelper didn't work for me.
Did you disable internet access for "\PowerDVD11\Common\NavFilter\CLHelper.exe" and "\PowerDVD11\Movie\PowerDVD.exe" in firewall?
You can also try to disconnect your PC from internet (just temporary to test) it should work 100%.
In case certificate files have other names in your case, delete the whole CryptnetUrlCache folder. It's safe, because it's just a cache, but you can make a backup copy of this folder just in case.
Hi John,
Just a quick apology that I haven't replied to this post of yours before now. I never got a notification that there'd been a reply to the thread until just tonight, when I got a notification that brought me here and I saw your reply. It wasn't my intention to be rude, John.
Anyway, many thanks for your suggestions. I finally took a plunge on PDVD 13, frankly against my better instincts. I'm not particularly happy with it, but at least it doesn't have the problems I was experiencing with versions 11 and 12. I'm seriously unimpressed that I had to buy a nwe version just to get a bug fix, but increasingly that seems to be the situation with Cyberlink software. I think that's a shame.
Anyway, thanks again for trying to help me. Best wishes to you, mate.
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Thanks Michael.
I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium x64, fully patched, and with only one user account — the account is created as a full administrator and was the account under which I installed the software. No group profiles are created or enabled, and I'm the only one who uses this machine. There's no wireless access or shared folders or resources.
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Well, clearly it doesn't do that in all circumstances. I never got that option — as I said, it just popped up an error message that no previous version was installed, and cancelled the installation with no input from me.
I wonder if it's because I'd already manually cleaned out the redundant keys from the registry left by the previous versions? I'd previously had version 11 on this machine, upgraded to version 12, then gone back to version 11 when version 12 kept misbehaving and the replies I got from tech support were totally useless. So there were keys left in the registry from both versions.
PowerDVD leaves a lot of crap behind when it uninstalls. Who knows what the installer was looking for?
Out of curiosity, Michael, what did you do to test this? Knowing that might answer a few questions.
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