Much Larger DVD Problem - Help!

[Excalibur]

(not sure what happened to my old thread - the topic is now the time, only my one follow-up remains, and other oddities...)

Anyhow, before updating any of the Cinemaster components (I did see your reply Le Bodge before the thread got all wiggy), I thought I'd try a couple other DVDs just to satisfy myself that it was just Sixth Sense I was having a problem with (I managed to test my SS DVD in a "real" player this morning, and it worked fine).

Well, it's not. Apparently, none of my DVDs work (or at least, the ones I have access to now, to test).

They all come up with their respective copyright warnings, then the player almost switches titles/chapters and begins playing the main menu or movie (you can see the control panel flash briefly with the new numbers, and the movie window resizes), but instead it stops completely and reverts to its default "DVD Player" (no disc inserted) mode.

So, it's not just The Sixth Sense that does this - it's everything!

All was well and happy not all that long ago, so I'm a little troubled by this. The ONLY things I know I did to my system to change anything are updating the G400 drivers (from 5.50 to 5.52) and I reinstalled DirectX v7.0a (though it was already installed before - I just did it to humor tech support for a game on another issue).

I've now double-checked IRQs, DMA-enabling on the DVD drive and all the usual fingers and toes. I uninstalled the Matrox DVD player and reinstalled. Changed nothing.

Does this make sense to anyone? Somehow I've completely lost my ability to watch DVDs...

- Excalibur

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PII-450MHz @ 450MHz, Giga-Byte GA-6BXE MoBo (v3.3 BIOS), 256MB PC100 ECC RAM, MGA G400 MAX AGP 32MB; not overclocked; PD 5.52 / BIOS v1.5 - 22, SB-AWE64 Gold, Windows 98SE, DX7.0a and lots of other goodies that would just be showing off to list.

[rjcarr]

The only thing I can think of is Matrox Drivers wig out if you don't _completely_ remove the old drivers before making the update. I think matrox has a utility to do this, but if you followed the procedure, then I am clueless like you.

Hope this helps -joe

[Excalibur]

Thanks Joe. I did use their utility, and I looked myself for anything it left behind (every once in a while, it doesn't seem to get everything, which is odd) before I installed the new drivers. I'm currently in the middle of trying to revert to the v5.50 drivers to see if this makes any difference, but at this point, well... I'm not holding my breath.

- Excalibur

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PII-450MHz @ 450MHz, Giga-Byte GA-6BXE MoBo (v3.3 BIOS), 256MB PC100 ECC RAM, MGA G400 MAX AGP 32MB; not overclocked; PD 5.52 / BIOS v1.5 - 22, SB-AWE64 Gold, Windows 98SE, DX7.0a and lots of other goodies that would just be showing off to list.

[Excalibur]

*sigh*

I've reverted to the v5.50 drivers, and nothing is changed. I've tried a few more DVDs and they all do the same thing. Not one of them will play. Those that have obligatory copy warnings at the beginning will play that, then fail. All the others just fail outright.

I'm not entirely sure what to do at this point.

- Excalibur

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PII-450MHz @ 450MHz, Giga-Byte GA-6BXE MoBo (v3.3 BIOS), 256MB PC100 ECC RAM, MGA G400 MAX AGP 32MB; not overclocked; PD 5.52 / BIOS v1.5 - 22, SB-AWE64 Gold, Windows 98SE, DX7.0a and lots of other goodies that would just be showing off to list.

[Excalibur]

Okay, so I've been fiddling.

Something in the back of my brain caused me to remember an ASPI layer issue with the Creative Labs DVD player (I use the Dxr2 drive), which goes away when you install Adaptec's updated ASPI layer drivers.

Well, just for the heck of it, I grabbed them from Adaptec, installed them, rebooted and viola! My movies play now. Go figure.

Doesn't make much sense to me, as I was just watching a few of these exact titles just a couple weeks ago. So maybe I'll discover in a day or two that this didn't fix the problem, and the real problem is moonbeams or some such intangible thing.

One oddity, though - I still can't play The Truman Show (one of my test discs). It plays the warnings, but acts as I described previously.

So, long story short, I think the problem is fixed, but now my complaint is:

Why is the Truman Show incompatible with the Matrox DVD player?

As usual, any insight, thoughts or tips are very welcome. Thanks for reading.

- Excalibur

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PII-450MHz @ 450MHz, Giga-Byte GA-6BXE MoBo (v3.3 BIOS), 256MB PC100 ECC RAM, MGA G400 MAX AGP 32MB; not overclocked; PD 5.52 / BIOS v1.5 - 22, SB-AWE64 Gold, Windows 98SE, DX7.0a and lots of other goodies that would just be showing off to list.

[Rags]

Are you referring to the "Special Features" inside the Truman Show, or the whole disc won't play?

Rags

[Excalibur]

Rags:

The whole disc, unfortunately.

I put the disc in and either the player loads automatically or it's already open; in either case, the copyright notice/warning plays (in English, then in French), then the drive spins for a few seconds, then the title bar on the Matrox Player goes from "TRUMAN" to "DVD Player" and it stops playing. If I hit the play button, the process starts all over again, to no new effect.

So I can't even get to the movie or a menu.

- Excalibur

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PII-450MHz @ 450MHz, Giga-Byte GA-6BXE MoBo (v3.3 BIOS), 256MB PC100 ECC RAM, MGA G400 MAX AGP 32MB; not overclocked; PD 5.52 / BIOS v1.5 - 22, SB-AWE64 Gold, Windows 98SE, DX7.0a and lots of other goodies that would just be showing off to list.

[leech]

I have a problem with Matrox's DVD player as well. For some reason certain DVD's I have will just simply not play with it, and then it crashes. Not responding on the task manager. They all play fine in PowerDVD and XingDVD and I even downloaded the trial WinDVD. But of course none of these DVD players support the Dual-head that the G400 has. Well it's not too big of a deal when I'm watching the movies myself, but when I have friends over, I usually hook it up to my TV and let them watch it while I'm on the net. Oh well, any help could be appreciated. Oh yeah. Guess this has something to do with it too, I have a Pioneer SCSI 303s drive. Love the slot load. And some of my Audio CD's won't play either. Yet in Linux I have no problems with the exact same Audio CD's. In fact I had to literally turn off my auto insert in windows because it was messing up some things, any help would be appreciated. (perhaps I need to go to Adaptec's website and download new SCSI drivers too?) Laters.

Leech

[Excalibur]

Anyone who still cares:

I did some searches on Deja(News).com and found a bunch of discussion from about a year ago about many MANY people having problems playing The Truman Show on various software decoders on their PCs. It was unclear to me if any player was an exception (I'd read several times that PowerDVD could play it, but I tried it, and it doesn't).

So... uhh... I guess The Truman Show doesn't work at all, period? Does that sound right?

Currently I'm using the Cinemaster player I got from Matrox (which I understand to be the '98 version?), with the v1.0.32 decoding engine, and it sure as heck can't play The Truman Show.

Also noticed that I can't access the Special Features area of The Matrix - also to be expected?

- Excalibur

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PII-450MHz @ 450MHz, Giga-Byte GA-6BXE MoBo (v3.3 BIOS), 256MB PC100 ECC RAM, MGA G400 MAX AGP 32MB; not overclocked; PD 5.52 / BIOS v1.5 - 22, SB-AWE64 Gold, Windows 98SE, DX7.0a and lots of other goodies that would just be showing off to list.

[Mark F]

So what is the current "best" upgrade to the MatroxDVD player? Is it a version of Cinemaster98 or Cinemaster99? And How best to "install" or upgrade to retain DVDMax features?

Thanks,
Mark F.

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OH NO, my retractable cup holder swallowed a DVD...
and burped out a movie

[mynx]

leech: Does your DVD drive have the newest bios, 1.10 last I knew. What disks don't play? I haven't had any problems with mine.

[smokva]

Hey Mark F !
The very last version of the Cinemaster99 engine is 2.0.37.6359.
It runs very nice with MATROX's version of that player.