zoom player display is garbled

[VJ]

Hello,

I have an issue with Zoom player. It used to work fine, but now the playback of dvds is garbled (not the menus, only the movie-bits).

Only the top half of the display is used, there are large blocks visible and the colours are way off. Reverting back to the default settings or uninstall/reinstall doesn't work.
It occurs both when overlays are used, or when it is switched of. DVDmax settings makes no difference.

As video decoder, I use the Cyberlink decoder. (There is a limited version of Cyberlink Powerdvd on my computer) Strangely enough, Cyberlink does play the DVD properly. The audio-decoder is AC3filter.

Any thoughts?


Jörg

[greinedo]

It can be an overlay problem (bad video standard PAL/NTSC choice). PowerDVD needs overlay. It doesn't work here any longer since I switched to VMR9 renderer.

I had also stange things with my previous setup (G400, DVDMax) related to color dept. Changing the color dept help sometime to recover good video flow.

But in fact the PowerDVD video filter is the worst I tried (blurry picture, problems with Zoom Player, not working with FFDSHOW,...)

I would advise you to download the free trial release of the latest WinDVD, and see if your problem is gone.

Or better, the dscaler 5 DVD video filter. I just tried the combination dscaler video filter+AC3_Filter audio + Zoom Player + FFDshow+reclock . It works good. For my eyes the dscaler 5 dvd filter is as good as the WinDVD filter, but it is free and takes less CPU ressources.

off topic : AC3_Filter takes a lot of CPU horsepower, and cause frame drops (in my setup XP2400 overcl. to 2.25Ghz). When decoding the sound hardwarewise with my SB audigy 2 zs or my previous SBLive 5.1, the sound is far better and no frame dop. You can find SBlive 5.1 OEM for less than 25€ now.

[VJ]

I thought it was the same with Dscaler as well, but I'll have to try again (will do it tonight)...

CPU horsepower is not an issue: before the display was messed up, I never had frame drops, even with AC3Filter (IIRC, I had about 3% CPU usage when playing a dvd with 5.1 audio). (my system is a dual Xeon 2.4 )


Jörg

[greinedo]

wow ! I'm impressed.

With such a power you can play a lot with FFDShow video processor before touching the limits

Hope you solve your problem !

[VJ]

Changing to DScaler did indeed solve the problem! Weird though: with the PowerDVD video decoder, other DVDs don't give issues (and the one that does initially also had no issues).

But now I've run into another issue: with one DVD it gives:
-
An error has occured
key exchange for copy dvd protection failed
-
I get a similar error in Media Player with another DVD. Any idea what causes these type of errors?
(the DVDs are not copies, but original DVDs)

FWIW, I checked CPU usage, and was mistaken: it fluctuates, with peaks of 8-10% CPU usage.


Jörg

[greinedo]

my opinion is when using dscaler video filter with zoom player you cannot read protected DVDs even original ones (no copies). You must remove the CSS protection of the DVD before trying to play them with the dscaler filter.

2 ways :

- rip the DVD on the hard disc with dvddecrypter for ex. (takes time and hard disk space), and then play from the hard disk.

- install the trial release of AnyDVD. Then your DVD is seen as unprotected because AnyDVD modifies the video stream on the fly before it reaches the DVD software app.

I bought AnyDVD for that reason. It every penny worth.

[VJ]

But some DVDs do play back, with dscaler. Even the one that doesn't now, did play before. Now it just gives this errormessage.

What is the point of having dvd player software if you can't play DVDs?

[greinedo]

Some DVDs are protected, other not. You have to pay for decrypting DVD player software. When you buy PowerDVD or WinDVD for example, you pay for it. A free DVD player cannot legaly provide a decrypting feature, due to licensing fees.

[VJ]

But this doesn't explain the fact that those DVDs have played before. Just all of a sudden, they don't play anymore.


Jörg