I just used MediaInfo to look at every BD disk I currently own. What I found was that there were three different audio formats used, overall.

There's PCM, which I cannot play. (That's what's on the Aika Zero BD, and all the Japanese tracks on DieBuster.)

There's AC-3, which I can play. (Cosmic Voyage, and both audio tracks on DBZ Bardock.)

And there's AC-3 TrueHD, which I cannot play. (Burst Angel)

There's no getting around it. I'm going to have to upgrade PowerDVD. Let's give it a try. First to uninstall the older version, just for cleanliness.

UPDATE: Only I can't. The uninstall data file isn't there.

UPDATE: Installation complete. First thing it did was to phone home and find out that there was an update. But it's a different update than the last time. So I let that install, too.

And I just used PowerDVD 8 to watch the DBZ Bardock movie. Worked fine. And the CPU loading was amazingly light; it only used about 20% in the last part, even when playing from the disk, and displaying full screen.

Now for the bad news: when it finished, there was a readme. The readme described the various versions of PowerDVD 8, and what they can do. And if I'm reading their chart properly, the OEM version doesn't support Dolby TrueHD. Which should mean that the sound on the Burst Angel BD's shouldn't work. Now I'll give it a try and see.

UPDATE: No, it worked fine. Sounded good, and the subtitles display properly. So now to see if Aika Zero's sound is right.

That one plays fine, too. Looks like all the codecs I need are now installed, at least as far as PowerDVD8 is concerned. Now the adventure: does Zoom Player still work for normal DVDs? And if so, does it work on BDs?

UPDATE: Zoom Player plays DVDs fine. But it's still using PDVD6's decoder.

UPDATE: Zoom Player trying to play Aika Zero is exactly the same as before: huge CPU load, and no sound.

UPDATE: If I try to make Zoom Player use PDVD8's stuff, it doesn't work with DVDs at all, and it doesn't know how to handle BD menus, and when it tries to play the Aika Zero M2TS file there's still no sound and it still hammers the CPU. In other words, it can't be used for BDs.

But if I return its settings to what they were, it plays DVDs fine. Looks like I'll have to use PowerDVD8 for BDs.

Which is not the worst of fates. Anyway, I do have a BD playback solution now.

UPDATE: PowerDVD doesn't seem to have made the new codecs publicly accessible. HandBrake still blows up on processing the Aika Zero file. Bummer.

UPDATE: Well, CRAP! Zoom Player locks up when I try to play MKV's and MP4's now. PowerDVD 8 won't even try to play them; it doesn't think they're media files.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:08 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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