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While many today choose to stream content, I play lots of 1080p BDs and DVDs, and much prefer using these Windows players. https://jriver.com/ https://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdvd-ultra/features_en_US.html?r=1
https://www.videolan.org/
They decode DTS-MA to a lossless MCH PCM signal, play all region discs and have the zoom and slow motion features which I often enjoy using, but which are found in practically no hard wired BD players.
Thus, my pc would need to output the video via HDMI, either to the processor or directly to my TV. But as neither SPDIF nor AES/EBU can transmit lossless MCH audio, the processor would need to have a USB audio input to do so, to be fed from my pc, like this DAC has. https://exasound.com/Products/s88StreamingDAC.aspx
But regardless of brand, design or price it seems that few if any MCH processors have a USB audio input.
https://bryston.com/preamps/sp3/
https://www.audiocontrol.com/home-audio/immersive-av-preamp-processors/maestro-x7/
https://www.mcintoshlabs.com/products/home-theater-processors/MX100 https://nadelectronics.com/product/m17-v2i-surround-sound-preamp-processor/
And even if they did, could perfect syncing and quality of the video and PCM 5.1 audio from the Blu-Ray disk be assured, when played via any of these three Windows players?
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You need to ask Cyberlink that question. This is just the user forum full of Powerdvd users like you. We have no idea. Dave
Will do, though I hope others at the aforementioned thread have done same.
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It's been FOUR years since PowerDVD users have made this request.
https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/65530.page
How much longer will we have to wait for this very basic and long overdue control to be added to PowerDVD's feature set??
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Dave, thanks for the feedback. I got a nice response from Tech Support that sheds some lumens on the subject:
“To encode a 2.35:1 produced video (that manufactured by movie studio) in a standard 16:9 container without video distortion, the movie disc's video will be planted with black bars at top and bottom side. They are part of the video content natively.
To play the aforementioned video type in full screen and eliminate the black bars on the top and bottom side, it requires further video cropping features.
Currently, PowerDVD does NOT support the video cropping (crop and zoom) feature for Blu-ray movie playback.
We have escalated the support suggestion to product team as feature development reference. Thanks you for the feedback.”
This seems to imply that it’s not a BDA/copyright restriction and also affirms QC2.0’s thesis that the feature has never existed. It also gives optimism that a future release will support it. I’m currently testing six players and all, with the exception of PowerDVD, will zoom/crop a BD. I will revisit Cyberlink’s effort when the next release appears. Hopefully the product team will work on an implementation of Instant Zoom for Blu-Ray and make the rumor about its support in a future release come true.
John
Thanks so much for your diligent Q & A here about those BD player features we both find of great value-and, I would add, we rightly deserve to enjoy, at least with BDs from our own collections. https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/65530.page
Actually, I use zoom on my Pioneer Elite LX500 BD player for one and/or two reasons with some movies: First, with movies like “Blood on the Moon” (194 or “Whirlpool” (1949),which were shot in something other than what was, prior to 1953, the standard “Academy” 1.33:1 AR. Consequently, they will have a relatively smaller image when viewed on a 16:9 (or 4:3) screen, AND with boarders around the entire image. I can find watching this fatiguing enough to sacrifice image content by cropping the image slightly by zooming.
My other use for zooming in on movies with no AR problems when viewed on my screen’s native AR, even if only used temporarily, is that zooming offers a dimension of intimacy with the characters, landscapes and other objects of the scene.
FYI: My Oppo 95, like all Oppos, has zoom, though only the discontinued Arcam BD players and most Pioneers, like my LX500, let you move and center the zoomed image on the screen.
Unfortunately, the BD Assn somehow finds it necessary to endorse and promulgate the use of BD authoring software which disables player zoom control either unconditionally or at least by default but optional zoom enabling. Thus, all of my Criterion Collection, Universal and ScreamFactory BD titles are zoom disabled, though none of my Warners, Kino and almost none of my Twilight Time BDs are.
You said that Total Media Theater player will let you zoom on both DVD AND BD movies. But will it also let you do slow motion?
However, while my new desktop will have a six or 8 core xeon rocket lake processor and at least 16GB of ECC RAM, this review says that TMT is "resource hungry". https://totalmedia-theatre.en.softonic.com/]https://totalmedia-theatre.en.softonic.com
Does this mean that even a Rocket Lake processor with a TDP of 105 watts and a modern-but NOT gamester level-video card fan noise could be especially noticeable?
In any case, there doesn't appear to be a recent version of TMT available online. Apparently, developer ArcSoft had ended support for it. https://www.arcsoft.com/]https://www.arcsoft.com
JRiver player is superb in many ways. While I’m not yet set up to use it zoom is apparently very easy to do via one or more handheld learning remotes.
I’m zoom + slo mo here. https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,130385.msg911732.html#msg911732
But it’s upsetting and surprisingly to learn from tzr916 here that JRiver can’t do slow motion-and that its developers are not apparently working to add that feature, which is common on most hardware BD players.
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Can PowerDirector 19 import AND export DTS MA 2.0 and/or 5.1 lossless audio?
Or can it only import and/or export DTS HD, lossy audio?
If no DTS MA lossless audio support when might it happen?
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I don't see PowerDirector 18 or 19 or any standalone version for sale at the website anymore, just PD365, which you apparently have to subscribe to monthly.
Was the standalone version discontinued?
If so, does PD365 work where you only pay for it each month for the months that you need to use it?
Then it you don't need to use it for some months you don't pay again until you need to use it again?
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Some otherwise very enjoyable BD movies from my collection have loud explosions or a few scenes with too much violence. And some of them have an excellent sounding lossless DTS-MA mono or stereo soundtrack. I haven't read any PD19 tutorials for how to do this yet, but my question is can I copy the BD movie's disc folders to my system HDD drive or storage HDD, cut out the offending scenes (and/or attenuate the overly loud sound levels), burn the folders to a BD-R or BD-RE disc while retaining the lossless DTS-MA soundtrack?
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Exactly my point. There’s no excuse for any double standards between copying music CDs that you own and BD movies that you own, so long as you do so for your own personal use, and that no profit from doing so ever occurs. Case closed.
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If IP rights-rather than consumer rights-are the central issue here, then why are countless US software makers-including Cyberlink, I believe-allowed to sell software that lets you rip music CDs-even the hundreds I have in my personal collection? But then I guess it's a no-brainer that the political power and megabucks of Hollywood trumps songwriter's guilds hands down. How can this be anything but a clear IP rights double standard?
Justifiable? Why, only because it costs more money to make a movie than to write, produce, record and distribute a song or an entire album on a CD?
Ditto with copying low-res mp3s from iTunes or the high-res 24 bit downloads audiophiles purchased from hdtracks.com. That's no less permissible either. Hooray for Hollywood.
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I'm kinda with Sonic on this. Editing BluRay is easy. But cracking the BluRay's built-in copy protection will be your challenge. PowerDirector doesn't do it, so you'll need to find software that does and that saves the video in an editable format. Just buying the DVD or BluRay doesn't give you ownership of its content.
Not to have this all spiral into debating on intellectual property rights versus legitimate consumer user rights, but I really love the movies I buy and the revamped home theatre system which I'll be spending serious money on to enjoy them with this year. Sure, some physical violence and loud sound are essential to the plot of some movies in my collection but I usually screen these for myself and don't need to see or hear what I'd rather delete or attenuate to enjoy the rest.
As for the legalities of decrypting, my understanding is while illegal in some countries (why?), we in the USA are allowed to make one (1) "back up" copy of any commercially produced CD, DVD or BD. That works fine for my purposes. Redfox, I was told by most JRiver player users, makes decrypting pretty straightforward.
Glad to hear that "editing Blu Ray is easy"!
So regarding hardware, yes I heard that at least the Icelake mobile processors-and certainly the desktop versions-are efficient enough (low TPDs?) to do on-CPU video decoding/encoding. But using a dedicated GeForce or Radeon video card instead and with something as lightweight as PD18 (lighter than Vegas?) will likely run even more coolly and quietly while allowing even faster rendering.
A membership problem here:
https://membership.cyberlink.com/prog/member/service/index.do?lang=ENU
From here how do you get to your profile page?
And when there what do you click on to see your posts and messages?
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I love movies and have a good sized collection of 1080p BD movies. But there are a fair number of them that may have one or two scenes which are too violent or otherwise unpleasant for my liking and/or with brief but very loud explosions. I’d like to be able to simply delete those scenes and/or attenuation the audio level of the explosions, respectively,then save the changes and burn the job file (s) to a BD-RE.
Can a newbie do all of this easily with PD18?
If yes, what would be the hardware and case form factor/cooling requirements?
That is, when using PD18 to render 1080p BD movie images to find where to delete the offending part of a scene from the (decrypted) BD, would the software utilize enough GPU and/or CPU power where a mini-ITX form factor case would be too small not to generate a lot of heat-induced fan noise?
On the other hand, are there now or will be later this year mini-ITX size desktop video cards (Nvidia Ge Force, AMD Radeon) and CPUs (Intel Icelake, AMD Rezyn) which can run PD18 coolly and quietly enough to avoid needing a case larger than mini-ITX?
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007583%20600545970
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