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Nero showtime

eraser2002

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Hi,

after reading the problems with PowerDVD i am about to purchase a blu-ray pc drive (already got 360 hd-dvd) and want to watch films from disks and hard drive

Is it worth investing in nero? does it support playing from hard drive using AnyDVD etc?

Or should wait for the new Arcsoft player

cheers
 
I had problems with PowerDVD as well and bought the Nero blu-ray plugin. However, Showtime doesn't play ANY of my original blu-ray discs (about 10) without AnyDVD and it doesn't play any BD+ protected titles - with or without AnyDVD.

If Showtime does play your discs (when using AnyDVD and no BD+, originals and ISOs from hard drive) it's more or less ok but I found the picture quality of PowerDVD much crisper and overall better.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend using Showtime. I'm glad that I got PowerDVD working again and will stick to this piece of software for now.
 
Thanks for replying Alex, im glad i checked cause its about £55 including nero 8

ill stick to powerdvd for now

cheers
 
I had problems with PowerDVD as well and bought the Nero blu-ray plugin. However, Showtime doesn't play ANY of my original blu-ray discs (about 10) without AnyDVD and it doesn't play any BD+ protected titles - with or without AnyDVD.

If Showtime does play your discs (when using AnyDVD and no BD+, originals and ISOs from hard drive) it's more or less ok but I found the picture quality of PowerDVD much crisper and overall better.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend using Showtime. I'm glad that I got PowerDVD working again and will stick to this piece of software for now.

I've been pushing ShowTime for quite some time now as an alternative to PowerDVD. Yes; it's buggy, Yes; its a more hidden interface. And it requires an extra $25 for the HD plugin. It also has some minor issues that require workarounds on some systems.
The ups though are that it WILL play most of your BluRay titles, and all of your HD-DVDs with AnyDVD running. For less money than the upper tier CyberLink software, you also get a multi-platform burner (that creates fully compliant BluRay and HD-DVD discs among dozens of others) , a video editor that is clck-click-done for most formats and highly editable/modifiable from Nero StartSmart and the ini files. Vision also creates, not just burns, HD and BluRay discs. There are free templates downloadable for the HD plugin to create those funky in-disc menus too!
It won't play BD+ yet....
My suggestion is wait for the latest refresh that will get posted on Monday on their site, and download from the web, don't buy the older retail package. Monday's refresh update is supposed to solve some of the BD+ issues.
As for picture quality PowerDVD resets system graphics setting during use whereas ShowTime uses your own settings. With ShowTime running, play around with the setting by right-clicking to bring up the program menu and just adjust them till you find what you like best.
 
I went out and bought the HD plugin for Nero 8. On one of my machines it works fine; on another, all I get for sound is a popping noise, and the movie menus become inaccessible so I can't play the film. PowerDVD works on both machines. Are there any known incompatiblilities with ShowTime? Nvidia 7600GS and Creative Labs Audigy 2 Platinum Pro ZS on the troublesome machine, with very recent drivers.
 
The other thing I wanted to mention with ShowTime is that I can play .EVO files from the hard drive on the machine that works, but cannot find a way to "play a folder" so that I get the movie menus, etc, like I can with (an older) PowerDVD.
 
The other thing I wanted to mention with ShowTime is that I can play .EVO files from the hard drive on the machine that works, but cannot find a way to "play a folder" so that I get the movie menus, etc, like I can with (an older) PowerDVD.

Yes, it will play from the hard drive WITH AnyDVD/AnyDVD-HD. ShowTime currently supports BluRay and HD-DVD from the drive or the disc with AnyDVD. Some BD+ issues were solved with today's refresh. Others will take longer to work out. In order to use the HD/BluRay support you will need the HD plugin.
 
Yes, it will play from the hard drive WITH AnyDVD/AnyDVD-HD. ShowTime currently supports BluRay and HD-DVD from the drive or the disc with AnyDVD. Some BD+ issues were solved with today's refresh. Others will take longer to work out. In order to use the HD/BluRay support you will need the HD plugin.

Thanks for your response, I have read you are a successful ShowTime user. When I chose the option which seemed to be the one I wanted, the program scanned the directory I specified and told me it couldn't find a DVD structure. I do indeed have the plugin (I can play a HD file).

Any comments on my earlier post? Thanks for your time.
 
Does PowerDVD have to be uninstalled to use ShowTime?
 
Wydo,
I don`t think you would have uninstall either one,just don`t let either one start automatically or there could be conflicts.
 
Showtime works fine with PowerDVD installed. I use both with no problems. I bought the HD plug-in for Showtime quite a while back but was unsatisfied with the results. I found that I had to upgrade to Nero 8 in order for it to work properly. I've been using rlung's method of shrinking HD-DVD and BD discs and Showtime seems to work fine for playing back the stripped down files. I still use PDVD for playing BD+ discs since they can't be reduced in size. I shouldn't think it would matter if you have AnyDVD HD running in the background if you have already ripped the files to your hard drive since encryption has already been removed at that point. Playing them from the original disc does require AnyDVD HD.
 
I'm busy evaluating Nero 8 for the next fortnight.

It's running on the same PC as Powerdvd, they don't seem to upset one another.

I already owned the HD-DVD/BD plugin which I bought to accompany the previous nero 7. This plugin still works on Nero 8 with showtime 4 which is handy.

When Nero 8 plays HD/BD discs, it does a good job, (apart from BD+ but you've just said that's in hand) and Nero seems interoperable with anydvd.

In terms of development I reckon they are stil 6 months behind PowerDVD but catching up.

I notice we now have a hardware acceleration checkbox on Nero 8, but I can only get it working for MPEG2.

The main issue I have that stops me embracing Nero wholeheartedly, and will ultimately put me off buying it, is the inefficency of the H.264 decoder.

With PowerDVD and no DxVA I can play H.264 blu-rays at 65 percent CPU with lovely playback.

With Nero 8 the CPU maxes out at 100 percent for the same H.264 movies and playback is no good. This is on a C2D 2.7. PC

MPEG-2 and VC1 performance is comparable to Cyberlink.

If it wasn't for the crapness of the H.264 decoder, I'd buy Nero 8 as I like the direction the company is taking and want to support them.

The good news is that Nero will find it harder to justify diabling HD-playback from hard disk (as Cyberlink have already done) since Nero is a full editing/recording/burning suite, wheras PowerDVD is a pure and simple disc player.
 
The good news is that Nero will find it harder to justify diabling HD-playback from hard disk (as Cyberlink have already done) since Nero is a full editing/recording/burning suite, wheras PowerDVD is a pure and simple disc player.

I couldn't get this to work. I saw three options - play disc, play media files, play movie file from folder (or some three things like that). When I tried to play from folder, I got an error saying a DVD-Video structure was not found. I have the HD plugin...
 
That's odd that you get a "DVD structure not found" error.

I haven't had that one myself in my limited experience with Showtime 3/4.

While we await further input from other more knowledgable Nero users, have you tried opening one of the .evo files (assuming you are on HD.DVD) directly in showtime, you can even do this by right clicking the file from windows explorer. That removes the DVD structure issue altogether.

The ones to look for are the one or two biggest .evo files inside the directory structure. They are usually just under 15 gig each as they are split across the two layers of HD-DVD

If you've got blu-ray the same advises except the files to look for are the largest .m2ts files which can be up to 25 gig each on dual layer blu rays but are typically smaller.

Let us know how you get on...
 
Hi Mobile,

Yes I can definitely play the .EVO files directly (well, on one machine I can, the other craps out with a loud "pop" sound). Just can't seem to open as a complete movie - by that I mean with menus, etc. I suppose I could create an ISO and mount it as required, bit of a hassle though.

This all may be moot with Arcsoft coming on board!
 
Thanks for your response, I have read you are a successful ShowTime user. When I chose the option which seemed to be the one I wanted, the program scanned the directory I specified and told me it couldn't find a DVD structure. I do indeed have the plugin (I can play a HD file).

Any comments on my earlier post? Thanks for your time.

Nero has some structural (core-programing) issues with Vista and XP 2005. I'm not sure about the older versions of XP. I've found that for people who have a problem playing from the drive using "play from folder" creating a UDF ISO may solve your issues. You can drag the sub files from the directory into IMGBurn and use the build->ISO output and then mount the image. That solves most PfF issues.
 
I'm afraid I haven't had much joy either playing from a hard-drive folder using Nero7/8. I've tried on two PCs, neither respond at all.

I'm in the same boat as you bjmills

I'm not sure why it's not working on Nero7/8+BD/HD plugin. Does anyone have it working?

If you cross over to the Arcsoft thread, several people including myself have managed HDD folder playback with the new Arcsoft player. But not everyone, possibly implying environmental issues with their HTPCs.

Is this a fundamental nero7/8 failing in that it just can't play back HDD folders or is in an environmental issue that is only affecting the respondents in this thread??
 
I tend to think the technology is still to immature. What works on system A doesn't work on system B.

The Arcsoft player has similar problems - menus don't work on one movie, but do on another, etc. I also found that I couldn't play ISOs with Arcsoft, but I can play the very same ISO with PowerDVD.

Very frustrating.
 
Is this a fundamental nero7/8 failing in that it just can't play back HDD folders or is in an environmental issue that is only affecting the respondents in this thread??

I believe it's a bit of both. I've had very little trouble playing back from the drive or the HD player. But I have had a few issues from time to time.
 
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