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Actually, as I read the End User License Agreement (EULA) which can be found in the cyberlink directory where POWERDVD is loaded, it does not restrict the software to one device, the only restriction is to one "user":
EULA
"* GRANT OF LICENSE & USAGE RESTRICTIONS
Below are the general license terms and usage restrictions followed by specific provisions depending on the type of license you have.
CyberLink, as licensor, grants to you, the licensee, a non-exclusive right to download and/or install the accompanying PowerDVD software program(s) (hereinafter the "SOFTWARE") on a certain number of computer(s)/ device(s) in accordance with the number of the license(s) you purchased and use the SOFTWARE in accordance with the terms contained in this license. You agree and acknowledge that you may receive SOFTWARE update, upgrade notices or any commercial electronic messages during the use of SOFTWARE.
...
**INDIVIDUAL CONSUMER
If you acquire the SOFTWARE under an individual license it is for your own use under the general terms above."
As I read the license, as long as I (the user) am only running one instance of the software, there is no restriction as to the number of devices on which the software can be installed.
This is more in line with cloud based software that does not apply hardware installation restrictions, only use restrictions.
As for your upgrade question. As long as you keep the key, you can reinstall PowerDVD and use the same key and it will reinstall. If, in the future, you purchase an upgrade to PDVD 19 (hypothetical) at reduced cost (license upgrade), retain both keys. That way if you ever need to do a clean install, PDVD will request the license for PDVD 19, recognize it is an upgrade key, and then request the previous version key PDVD 18 key, to allow the installation to proceed.
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Are you talking about movie cover or online movie info that are mapped to your imported movies?
They are from Moovielive.com, if you can't locate one on the online movie database for sepecifc language or region, then powerdvd cannot map the cover for your movies. They all come from cyberlink's online movie portal, or you can assign your photos as a custom cover art by right clicking.
Here is what I have found and will put in a ticket to get an answer. When I installed PDVD18 and left PDVD17 undisturbed it had the movie titles under the disk cover. If I deleted PDVD 17 data and tried a clean install, I would have some movies with cover art and titles and other movies without. On further investigation, I realized that the ones without titles were the ones that copied the Video Disk (DVD) file structure to the folder and the ones with titles were the *.iso image files.
My library structure is a 5 digit folder number and then the video files:
Video Rip
X:/#####/{Movie Title}/VIDEO_TS/
ISO Rip
X:/#####/*.ISO
I know that PDVD 17 used the name of the ISO file for the movie title, or the name of the Folder {Movie Title}, for the movie title under the cover art. PDVD 18 does not pick up the name of the folder for the Video Rip.
I also noticed that the sort order is based on the 5 digit folder ID for the ones without a movie title and on the movie title for the ISO Rips.
This, along with the media folder scanning problems, seems to indicate that Cyberlink screwed up the module that scans and populates titles.
*** Update 20180526
Since I have been informed the Forum is not part of Cyberlink support, I will pass on the latest.
Entered the ticket. Got the usual Tier 1 answer. Uninstall, reboot, reinstall, and see if it goes away. Exercised that option by first, keeping PDVD 18 data, No joy. Then, went through the same routine except this time removed PDVD 18 data. This puts me in the world of poor performance populating the libray, currently taking a couple days to add 200 movies. At any rate, can already tell it has not solved the problem. We will see what is next.
Since PDVD 18 has an infinity for pulling movie info from Cyberlink instead of grabbing the art from the folder that contains the movie, I think the performance is somewhat impacted by this database stuff. Unfortunately, the database is wrong in several areas. For example, it routinely pulls old movie covers instead of the correct one.
****Update 20180528 KNOWN BUG
<p style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: " open sans","segoe ui","meiryo","微軟正黑體","ms ui gothic","ms pgothic",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; padding: 0px;">With regards to your previous concern, by pilot checking, we can reproduce similar condition that certain newly imported Blu-ray/DVD-Video folders do not show the title normally in PowerDVD 18 movie library.
<p style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: " open sans","segoe ui","meiryo","微軟正黑體","ms ui gothic","ms pgothic",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; padding: 0px;">We have escalated the reproduced condition/case to engineering team awaiting further technical investigation.
<p style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: " open sans","segoe ui","meiryo","微軟正黑體","ms ui gothic","ms pgothic",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; padding: 0px;">Because the root cause is unknown temporarily that requires further technical inspection, there is no immediate solution currently.
<p style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: " open sans","segoe ui","meiryo","微軟正黑體","ms ui gothic","ms pgothic",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; padding: 0px;">Our engineering team will do the best to investigate the issue for solutions.
<p style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: " open sans","segoe ui","meiryo","微軟正黑體","ms ui gothic","ms pgothic",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; padding: 0px;">We would like to say thank you for reporting this.
<p style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: " open sans","segoe ui","meiryo","微軟正黑體","ms ui gothic","ms pgothic",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<p style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: " open sans","segoe ui","meiryo","微軟正黑體","ms ui gothic","ms pgothic",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; padding: 0px;">****
<p style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: " open sans","segoe ui","meiryo","微軟正黑體","ms ui gothic","ms pgothic",arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; padding: 0px;">What for the next patch....
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Uninstalled v18 and reinstalled v17, the titles returned.
Upgraded to 18 without installing 17 and all of the titles went away again.
When you say you upgraded to 18 without installing 17, did you remove all the 17 data. I did the same thing, I removed 17 and upgraded to 18. The titles populated, but only to the level they were in 17. It appeared to be using the saved data. I added a few more seasons in the TV section and PDVD 18 would not add them or display them.
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It appears there is rank incompetence at Cyberlink in the coding department. They took working functionality, scanning folders, displaying and sorting titles, in PDVD 17 and now it doesn't work at all in PDVD 18.
How difficult can scan folders for titles be?
I have uploaded the latest update and still cannot get the library titles to display. I am running PDVD 17 on the same machine, and everything is fine. In PDVD 18, I get the rotating dashes and after 24 hours, have populated 32 of my 102 TV seasons. I have about 30% of my movie titles as well, and they do not sort by title properly.
I have been assuming they would find this bug and fix it quickly, but after two post release updates, I am just frustrated.
So in the never ending saga of poor support. I patiently waited for the patch hoping it would fix the problem. Seems to me like a feature that works in PDVD 17 and not in PDVD 18 would be a no-brainer. Find the code modules that were messed with in 18, go back to what worked in 17, and solve the user's problem. Well, No-Joy on the patch.
The added benefit of being patient is that I am outside the 30 day window for a refund, so not I am at the mercy of Cyberlink. I have a software "upgrade" that doesn't work at all and no recourse other than to sit around and wait for them to take their time in fixing the problem.
To add insult to injury, it was explained to me by the Cyberlink Moderator, you know the guys that hang the official trademark Cyberlink branding on their profiles to feel important, that Cyberlink does not monitor or care about the problems reported in the forum. It appears that this forum, listed under their support menu and on their site, is just a place for the community of users to type words about software problems that are ignored by the Cyberlink company and development team.
Time to look for an alternative. Next request for my money to upgrade to PDVD 19 will fall on deaf ears.
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It appears there is rank incompetence at Cyberlink in the coding department. They took working functionality, scanning folders, displaying and sorting titles, in PDVD 17 and now it doesn't work at all in PDVD 18.
How difficult can scan folders for titles be?
I have uploaded the latest update and still cannot get the library titles to display. I am running PDVD 17 on the same machine, and everything is fine. In PDVD 18, I get the rotating dashes and after 24 hours, have populated 32 of my 102 TV seasons. I have about 30% of my movie titles as well, and they do not sort by title properly.
I have been assuming they would find this bug and fix it quickly, but after two post release updates, I am just frustrated.
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Is anyone from CyberLink going to acknowledge that this bug exists, and there is a problem? How about a little feedback.
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Good to know I'm not the only one. I doubt that reloading 17 is going to fix the issue. I uninstalled 18 and reinstalled 17 and the titles were there, that's how I got the screen shot with the titles. I installed 18 without uninstalling 17 and the issue continued. I figure I'll just wait until it is patched.
As far as being a network issue. I thought a bit more about that and since the title information comes from the directory that the disk information is stored, if it can see the movies there is no reason it can't see the directory name it is pulling from.
Found my original PDVD 17 load. Installed, and all the titles came back on scan. Media folders were updated with some new seasons I added. So, the folder scanning problem and the lack of movie titles is due to a change between 17 & 18.
The movie folder, even with the lose of underlying titles, seems to scan correctly. The TV folder and CD folder do not. I have complained about the media library GUI for at least three releases and no one seems to care. Cyberlink seems more interested in thier online data than with providing a decent interface. Maybe they have hosed it up so bad that someone will take a look at the complaints and fix it. I have another post in the PWDVD18 "what do you think" forum that outlines the lack of functionality with the media library.
By the way Cyberlink, I have good hardware, good software, and participate in several betas programs to include Windows Insider. I can pretty much tell you across several platforms from the stable production release to the front line beta that your program has the same problems. You should be able to replicate.
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I am having more problems. When I imported PDVD 17 settings and tried to go to my music library, the application hung and would not respond. I uninstalled 18, removed settings and tried again, but only added movies and tv shoes, my music library is quite large.
Movies added fine, but you are correct, no titles like were displayed in PDVD 17. TV shoes did not repopulated. It added the first 2 seasons of the first show and then all I get is the rotating starburst. No titles added.
I need to try and reload PDVD 17 and see if I get my media library to repopulate.
I do not have a NAS, I have a tower with hard drives and letters.
Something is wrong with scanning and populating the media library.
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PowerDVD 18 does not appear to update my media folders. After install, the settings were imported from PowerDVD 17. I got the circling dots indicating it was scanning the folders. At first, it hung on the Music Folder and would not display the items. I uninstalled and removed the PowerDVD 17/18 saved settings. I reinstalled and identified my movies and tv shows. It scanned and displayed the movie folder, but after 14 hours it is not displaying my TV shows.
I am going to reinstall 17 and see if I get them back.
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Hi blackcoffee,
The Artist button does not duplicate the functionality available under "All Songs" button.
"All Songs" displays all titles ordred alphabetically.
"Artist" displays Album which causes an Artist with a single song on a compilation.
"Albums" displays Albums in an alphabetical order.
Greetings
Hicham
I guess I didn't phrase it properly. Currently, there is no way to sort by Album Artist. I have used other libraries, Windows Media Player for example, and the artist sort is by album artist which groups the Albums under the Album Artist name. With that functionality you assign an "Album Artist" that is "Various Artists" that represents compilations. Programs like Tag/Rename are very helpful in maintaining libraries. So, if you want a compilation album, you go to Various Artitsts and find them. Likewise, Album Artists sorts do not list Albums with single songs. This is the functionality that works for some people.
As you note, if a person needs to find all songs by an artist, across all albums (including compilation), you can select all songs from the top bar menu and then click on the "Artist" column to find all songs with the same "Artist" tag to include those residing on compilation albums.
The functionality that is not currently available in PowerDVD, that would be available if Album Artist is a sort field, is the ability to generate a grouping of all compilation albums. Sure You can display individual albums, but then your entry level is Albums with no grouping that puts compilation albums in one location. This problem is mulitplied when you are looking for compilation albums of a specific genre like "Various Classical Artists" or "Various Jazz Artist". Other than searching through a list of Albums and having these compilation albums scattered throughout the list, the ability to group on "Album Artist" in a well constructed and maintained library puts these albums together.
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blackcoffee, This would happen to me constantly in powerdvd16 when adding or removing titles from my media folder. It's only happened to me once in powerdvd17, but I haven't added many titles since the install. I was going through and having to reset the cover art individually until I started backing up the media database and when it would happen, I'd overwrite the current one with my backup and it would fix them all back.In windows just search for %localappdata% and inside the cyberlink folder, I'd zip up a copy of the PowerDVD16(17) folder. I'd do this before adding or removing titles in case this issue would occur. I never thought about asking support to look into it.
Thanks for confirming the problem. Hopefully they can fix the problem, the app should make this work automatically.
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Is there anyway to have PowerDVD display Album Artist instead of Artist when the "Artist" button is selected in the top left navigation?
Here is my problem with the logic. The Artist button displays Artist > Album which causes an Artist with a single song on a compilation item to be lists and extends the list. This duplicates the same functionality available under the "Songs" button. You can choose Songs and then sort on artist to find all the songs.
I would prefer, which is implemented in other library programs, Artist uses "Album Artist" and compilation albums are displayed under "Various Artists" which is the accepted tagging. In my view, this cleans up the Artist > Album taxonomy of an artist selection and does not eliminate the ability to use "Songs" to search compilation albums for singles.
Hello, Cyberlink. Is this an idea? Bad idea? With 166 views and counting, some people may be interested in knowing your position on this topic.
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Yes. you're right. If for the discrete GPU case, the HDCP 2.2/HDR/HDMI 2.0a features are implemented by the discrete GPU.
So when NV/AMD GPU can support UHDBD, then mainboard is not required for HDCP 2.2/HDR 10/HDMI 2.0a.
But so far there's no discrete GPU that supports UHD-BD. I guess CyberLink is still trying hard to persuade NV/AMD to work with them to come up a solution.
UHD-BD DRM requirement not only requires HDCP 2.2, if you take a look at the AACS2 License agreement, you'll see there're far more requirements that need to be meet. For example, they need kernel mode processing, they need to protect the screen from being captured by 3rd party screen recorders, etc. These requires support from NV/AMDs, CyberLink can't make it on their own.
Is it just me, or do the producers of UHD seem out of touch with reality? In this over-the-top effort to protect "intellectual property" (questionable term at best) they are really impacting the methods on delivery for the product. I think the music industry figured out long ago that standing in the way of content distribution through multiple means was counter productive.
It might just be the geek in me, but I am part of the over 60 crowd that invests in players, big TVs, and old school home theater approaches. That being said I also like my HTPC approach to serving up content to that system. Streaming has a place, but ripping BDs and UHDs, running through hardware to a display is still a market. 3D never really took off because it got so complicated. Is that the future of UHD? Not a lot of people are currently investing in UHDs and you don't find them on the shelves. Same scenario I saw with 3D. Granted, you don't need the glasses that people don't like, but making hardware acquisition expensive and complicated isn't going to work in thier favor.
So, in this forum and context. It's nice that we have software programmers incorporating UHD in PowerDVD 17. But, if you can't access the functionality because hardware platforms are difficult to impossible to obtain, having it as the Number 1 reason to upgrade probably won't force a lot of sales and may rebound when buyers figure out what it takes to deliver UHD.
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Let me try to explain this in more detail.
PowerDVD would send the decrypted video (compressed in HEVC) to GPU (Intel HD 630 or above), then the GPU would perform the video decoding (DXVA) and send the video and the HDR data from GPU to HDMI. The HDMI port is on the motherboard and there's a chip called LSPCON which performs the DisplayPort to HDMI conversion. So if this LSPCON chip that is included by the motherboard didn't support HDR metadata, then the HDR effects can't be pass to TV via HDMI.
This is why MotherBoard also plays a key role for HDR 10/HDCP 2.2/HDMI 2.0a
There might be boards that included the support for HDCP 2.2 and HDMI 2.0a but not HDR 10, then the board can play UHD-BD but only in SDR mode.
Thanks for the clarification. However, how does your scenario pan out when you have a graphics card with it's own HDMI or DisplayPort connector. In that case, it seems like the motherboard is out of the loop since the traffic goes from the software to the buss to the high end GPU.
That being said, there is a path from the UHD BD drive through BIOS to the buss through the chipset. Does that play into the completion of the entire path from media to display, or not?
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Hi blackcoffee,
We cannot download your attached pics. Could you reupload them?
Greetings
Hicham
Sure.
Wrong Ratio
Correct Ratio
These links should work.
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That's the old BIOS. I have the latest F21, but it does not have an SGX option under peripherals.
The Intel SGX feature is optional for motherboard even the chipset on the board is capable to do it.
That is, although the chipset is a "right" one, if the manufacturer doesn't implement the Intel SGX feature on their "firmware", still no Intel SGX.
And, this feature is usually controllable in the BIOS. If no such options, probably no Intel SGX support.
Unfortunately, any confirmation should refer to Gigabyte as there are various motherboards support it or not support it.
For other users who might be reading this topic, I personally think that's the thing (the motherboard supports SGX or not) which CyberLink cannot and "should not" provide the answer, because the answer is not appropriate to refer to a software vendor but the hardware manufacturer.
What they wrote in the support article is neutral statement as a testing result which is sufficient information at least to me.
I would disagree that the software vendor is immune to hardware implementations. Especially in this case. If your advertised software functionality, in fact your premium feature, is UHD, then you are responsible for hardware support. This is further complicated by the fact that Cyberlink both posts hardware compatibility on thier website and provides a software advisor tool which is used to establish hardware compatibility.
In this case, UHD depends on very specific hardware which is just hitting the market and there are practically no drives to support playback. The claimed selling points of the software are not widely available to existing hardware or customers.
I am sure that if you bought software that had no hardware support or implementation, you would question the advertising claims of the software retailer. Software cannot run without hardware.
So, ask CyberLink do not manufacture a UHDBD software player and do not release it when the hardware support is not sufficient currently, will it satisfy you?
As you said "Software cannot run without hardware", blame software vendor won't help you or other user resolve their problems.
And, you do have your free choice not to buy it as it is a commcercial software.
"PC" is an industry and ecosystem need every participants (software, hardware, etc) to deliver every piece of features and functions on the devices.
For what you said:
"I am sure that if you bought software that had no hardware support or implementation, you would question the advertising claims of the software retailer. Software cannot run without hardware."
Yes, I will definitely question the software vendor.
But, I saw CyberLink made "big" efforts to provide free advisor and support articles to help users before they puchase sofware, and they did NOT across the red line to GUARANTEE something they do not manufacture or test with basic "integrity".
Therefore, I left my questions and blame, and search for the helps what they currently provides or users provide in this forum.
For now, use PC to play back UHD-BD is such a geek thing, such as you want to play BD movies decades ago.
UHD-BD requirement is not CyberLink's "product" but it's a "fact" in the PC industry.
Sure, this fact is not well acceptable for enthusiasts if they want it at this very early stage for PC markets.
I guess the main difference is that I am a system engineer not a software engineer. Here is the problem, for the last three releases problems, bugs, and lack of functionality with the GUI and library management modules have persisted. At the same time, Cyberlink has pursued a functionality that is of no value and doesn't justify the annual $50 donation on my part.
We probably agree on one thing, PowerDVD 17 isn't worth the money to upgrade.
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That's the old BIOS. I have the latest F21, but it does not have an SGX option under peripherals.
The Intel SGX feature is optional for motherboard even the chipset on the board is capable to do it.
That is, although the chipset is a "right" one, if the manufacturer doesn't implement the Intel SGX feature on their "firmware", still no Intel SGX.
And, this feature is usually controllable in the BIOS. If no such options, probably no Intel SGX support.
Unfortunately, any confirmation should refer to Gigabyte as there are various motherboards support it or not support it.
For other users who might be reading this topic, I personally think that's the thing (the motherboard supports SGX or not) which CyberLink cannot and "should not" provide the answer, because the answer is not appropriate to refer to a software vendor but the hardware manufacturer.
What they wrote in the support article is neutral statement as a testing result which is sufficient information at least to me.
I would disagree that the software vendor is immune to hardware implementations. Especially in this case. If your advertised software functionality, in fact your premium feature, is UHD, then you are responsible for hardware support. This is further complicated by the fact that Cyberlink both posts hardware compatibility on thier website and provides a software advisor tool which is used to establish hardware compatibility.
In this case, UHD depends on very specific hardware which is just hitting the market and there are practically no drives to support playback. The claimed selling points of the software are not widely available to existing hardware or customers.
I am sure that if you bought software that had no hardware support or implementation, you would question the advertising claims of the software retailer. Software cannot run without hardware.
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That's the old BIOS. I have the latest F21, but it does not have an SGX option under peripherals.
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Is there anyway to have PowerDVD display Album Artist instead of Artist when the "Artist" button is selected in the top left navigation?
Here is my problem with the logic. The Artist button displays Artist > Album which causes an Artist with a single song on a compilation item to be lists and extends the list. This duplicates the same functionality available under the "Songs" button. You can choose Songs and then sort on artist to find all the songs.
I would prefer, which is implemented in other library programs, Artist uses "Album Artist" and compilation albums are displayed under "Various Artists" which is the accepted tagging. In my view, this cleans up the Artist > Album taxonomy of an artist selection and does not eliminate the ability to use "Songs" to search compilation albums for singles.
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When My Library populates it initially displays a screen shot from the beginning of the video. So the aspect ratio of the cover art in the library is 16:9. Then it will find the title or folder jpg file with DVD art and attempt to display it. However, the aspect ratio remains 16:9 and does not display the entire cover art.
This did not occur in PowerDVD16. When it found the correct cover art, the aspect ratio would be correct.
If I manually right click, and select the same cover art which is displayed in the wrong aspect ratio, it will then correctly display the art. I would prefer not having to do this for 600 titles.
TV Mode works much better finding covers and displaying them correctly.
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