Software DVD players

[dZeus]

does anyone have links to sites where you can read good quality reviews on DVD Software players' features and stuff?

The reason I asked is because I've been using Cinemaster 2000 based players lately, and while their image quality and CPU load is very nice, their support for 4 speaker output on my SBLive! Player is disappointing at minimum... I can't get true DD5.1 downsampling to work.... I get the impression that it just clones the front speaker output on the rear speakers

I've tried PowerDVD 3.0, and that works fine with downsampling DD 5.1... however, I can't adjust anything with this player that I want to (rear sound output is very low compared to front speakers output).

I don't know about WinDVD, but I know there are not many versions of that player around that support 4 speaker output, are there?

btw. I've already visited inmatrix (makers of DVDGenie).... while DVDGenie is great, their reviews of the players aren't of too high quality imho

[This message has been edited by dZeus (edited 27 January 2001).]

[Maggi]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by dZeus:
does anyone have links to sites where you can read good quality reviews on DVD Software players' features and stuff?</font>

www.7thzone.com ... more than you wanna know

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">The reason I asked is because I've been using Cinemaster 2000 based players lately, and while their image quality and CPU load is very nice, their support for 4 speaker output on my SBLive! Player is disappointing at minimum... I can't get true DD5.1 downsampling to work.... I get the impression that it just clones the front speaker output on the rear speakers </font>

Than you put the wrong question ...

I use the Cinemaster engine for myself and found it to be having the best AC3 downconverison options and quality.
I also have a SBLive! 1024 with FPS1000 and the Cinemaster engine offers a dedicated 4/0 downmix while adding the option to redirect the bass signals form other channels to the subwoofer ...

In my actual setup I use 2 Channel downsampling with surround compatibility and redirect the bass from löeft, center and right to the subwoofer.
The resulting playback stream can be recorded into a stereo wave file and lateron crunched into MP3 without loosing the surround information !

Sounds good ?[*]Open the old Mediaplayer that came with your windows installation (c:\windows\Mplayer.exe)[*]click on the devices menu (might take a while until the interface has loaded all deviced and you might need to click a 2nd time)[*]choose the Cinemaster entry[*]use the file requester to load a VOB file from DVD[*]start playback[*]enter the menu devices>properties

now you see a different device tab which has a dedicated AC3 Setup menu ...

Lemme know if you encounter problems, because I tweaked my system for playing back extracted AC3 files on the fly and chnaged a lot in my registry.

Cheers,
Maggi

[xortam]

A couple other DVD SW sites:

DVD resources on InsideDVD World

DVD SW reviews on DVD Digest

[dZeus]

Thanks for the info guys! I'll check out your links tomorrow

Maggi:
my current problem with Cinemaster 2000 is the following:

I've got an AC3 test VOB file, which works perfectly in PowerDVD 3.0. This test vob file has an 'announcer voice' which will go to all channels and tell the channel name it should come from. it also does the center and lfe channel, and at the same time it announces LFE, a low-frequency noise should be heard through the appropriate speaker.

The problem I have:
when I set Cinemaster to stereo mode, my rear speakers clone the sound of my front speakers, and rear channels of the test vob are played back in stereo (but not surround because of the cloning problem ).

When I change the audio mode to either Pro Logic, 3 Speaker or 4 Speaker in DVD Genie, they all give the same result: front and back are still cloned, but rear channels of the test vob are now mono (as if it now decodes in dolby pro-logic mode).

In the direcshow filter properties (which I guess you wanted me to change, but I don't have mplayer 1, since I use Win2k. However, graphedit allows access to the same panel as I assume), I can only change to stereo or pro-logic settings.

I get the impression I have a version of cinemaster that is limited to pro-logic operation (and then still not working properly, looking at the cloning problem). My cinemaster version is some kind of elsa version of the player, decoder engine v2.38.01.6605.

The LFE downsampling is not done at all, except when I enable 'use lfe decoding' in DVD-Genie (still cloned on rear speakers). This off course is not surprise


Normal operation in Windows also has rear speakers cloned from front speakers... I can't find a way to change that in Win2k (yet?), if it's possible in the first place.

[xortam]

dZeus ... Here's another site that had DVD region free info. You'll be able to tell if it has SW reviews or not better than I can.

[dZeus]

xortam: you forced me to work a bit on my French language again

However, I don't need region free info, because I don't even have a DVDROM drive! I only use Software DVD players for playnig back .VOB files I download from our university campus network

[xortam]

I thought I remembered that you lived in Paris. Just checked your profile and it says Netherlands, oh well. Actually, the region free page is now missing or moved. I just thought you might find some SW reviews on there. Never mind.

[fds]

Not all releases support all the different sound downmixing options because of the higher licensing fees they have to play, so users who have no need for such support can get the cheaper version and don't have to play for the premium priced multichannel version.
WinDVD is like that for example.

Usually, much like region protection, these options are disabled only as far as the license forces the manufacturer to do so. Often it's only hidden as a registry tweak or some other small modification.

I'm not really experienced in all the sound downmixing options the players offer. I have an external decoder and simply use AC3 pass-through so any player sounds exactly the same for me.

It looks though as if PowerDVD and WinDVD are by far better than Cinemaster in the audio decoding department. WinDVD, especially, even has a leaked version which can even decode DTS. As far as I know, they are not going to make that version available for purchase on the site, only offer it for OEMs etc. High licensing fees again.
Both PowerDVD and WinDVD support Dolby Headphones too which are kind of cool. Cinemaster definitely does not.

If I were to play a single VOB file alone CinePlayer would be my very last choice.

[dZeus]

PowerDVD has built in DTS decoding and downmixing to 4 speaker :PPP

The problems with Cinemaster I've got (apart from the not-being-able to downmix to 4 speaker), are that I can't easily rewind to a certain position, because the time advance bar is completely messed up. The filter also isn't completely directshow compliant, because the audio and video filter are integrated into one filter instead of seperate... don't even try to play back an AC3 file in mediaplayer with cinemaster

That's too bad, because I really like the picture quality of it, and also the deinterlace filters, that are great...

[fds]

What kind of PowerDVD release is that?

Cyberlink makes no mention of such a feature anywhere.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">
Certified MMX Dolby Digital 2/4/6-channel decoder with (floating point) Pro-Logic decoder

Supports SPDIF pass-thru for Dolby Digital (AC-3) and Digital Theater System (DTS) for enhanced audio fidelity
</font>

Are you 100% sure it's decoding DTS?

[dZeus]

hmm... you may be right... the odd thing is that I've got hold of 3 DTS trailers, and 2 of them give perfect 4 speaker output in PowerDVD 3.0. The last one doesn't give any output.

However, because you mentioned this, I tried to decode them with WinDVD 2.0 with 2 speaker stereo output.. and the same 2 of the 3 trailers work fine with this directshow filter... however, the last one caused a crash, so maybe that's the only one with real DTS sound in it... the other probably have DD5.1 sound? I don't really understand why... why would a DTS trailer have DD5.1 sound? still, I get the impression this is the case with the 2 trailers that give output in both PowerDVD 3 and Intervideo WinDVD 2.0

[fds]

That's very likely. DTS according to the DVD specs can not be the only sound track on a DVD, it can only be provided in addition to one of the mandatory sound track formats.

You should try the Gladiator DVD (every other person has a copy nowadays ) or any other DVD with a DTS soundtrack.

If you are playing VOB files stand-alone, most players don't let you to choose which sound track to play and just go with the default. (CinePlayer, PowerDVD, WinDVD included.)

[Topha]

www.inmatrix.com