triffid
Member
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- Mar 14, 2017
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Really interesting thread. My computer plays UHD BDs already, yet I am still curious about other people's progress on this field. It was not easy for my wallet, but in the end I decided to do exactly what CyberLink suggests and I bought new compatible components in order to use the drive from Pioneer. My previous PC was old and not very powerful, so I needed to replace it anyway. However I totally agree with many people here: the UHD BD playback is not worth it if you have - say - less than 2 years old X99 or Z170. My first BD drive was also from Pioneer, their (probably) first model at that time. It was equipped with an IDE connector, not SATA, and it was capable of burning BDs at 2x. I needed to wait almost a year before I could afford stronger CPU and GPU to be actually able to watch BD movies. So this situation is old news for me and I expected some troubles since December 2015 when I started to read about upcoming UHD discs in February. I knew from the beginning I will buy everything needed to make it work and I did it. I was playing with the idea of buying Ryzen or wait for Intel X299 and then I simply gave up and bought Z270.
I noticed many of you found our thread at blu-ray.com, where we discuss similar matters. Again and again the same questions. If you don't mind, this is how I see the whole thing now:
Software
CyberLink PowerDVD is the only solution. I doubt the other BD software companies will ever get the licence. Currently only custom PDVD 14 bundled with Japanese and US Pioneer drives is working. The leaked PDVD 17 is not and its startup screen does not show the UHD BD logo (actually almost no logos at all). This will change in April, when the retail version comes out. (And Windows 10 is also required)
Support
Do not ask for any support. You will get either a worthless generic answer or nothing (ASUS, ASRock, CyberLink etc.). Unfortunately the only country where a customer's satisfaction is above all, is Japan. Pioneer Japan answers polite, to the point and within 2 days.
Drive
Pioneer BDR-S11J-BK, BDR-S11J-X, BDR-211UBK and BDR-XD06J-UHD (external) are obviously OK and it seems much older LG notebook drives BU40N and BU50N are too. Now when CyberLink UHD BD Advisor is here, everybody can test their LG BH16NS55 or anything else and see if it is compatible or not. I doubt it and I also doubt any update can make it work. LG wants to sell new drives, not give you an update for free.
Motherboard
List of possibly compatible mobos is here: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=13271422&postcount=108 The motherboard's BIOS must support SGX and it must be enabled manually because the default setting is probably Disabled. It also needs additional Intel software downloadable from the motherboard's support page.
CPU
KabyLake i5 or i7 with IGPU 630/640. There are some SGX compatible SkyLake CPUs with S in the code, but these should not work.
GPU
Only the IGPU above is available now. Any graphics card will ruin the secure environment, even if it is HDCP 2.2 compatible. If the motherboard has dual BIOS, it is possible to set one to use with a graphics card and the other with the IGPU.
HDR
As far as I know 4k HDR monitors are not available yet, the first are coming from LG (one model) Acer (one model) and ASUS (two models) this year.
I noticed many of you found our thread at blu-ray.com, where we discuss similar matters. Again and again the same questions. If you don't mind, this is how I see the whole thing now:
Software
CyberLink PowerDVD is the only solution. I doubt the other BD software companies will ever get the licence. Currently only custom PDVD 14 bundled with Japanese and US Pioneer drives is working. The leaked PDVD 17 is not and its startup screen does not show the UHD BD logo (actually almost no logos at all). This will change in April, when the retail version comes out. (And Windows 10 is also required)
Support
Do not ask for any support. You will get either a worthless generic answer or nothing (ASUS, ASRock, CyberLink etc.). Unfortunately the only country where a customer's satisfaction is above all, is Japan. Pioneer Japan answers polite, to the point and within 2 days.
Drive
Pioneer BDR-S11J-BK, BDR-S11J-X, BDR-211UBK and BDR-XD06J-UHD (external) are obviously OK and it seems much older LG notebook drives BU40N and BU50N are too. Now when CyberLink UHD BD Advisor is here, everybody can test their LG BH16NS55 or anything else and see if it is compatible or not. I doubt it and I also doubt any update can make it work. LG wants to sell new drives, not give you an update for free.
Motherboard
List of possibly compatible mobos is here: http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=13271422&postcount=108 The motherboard's BIOS must support SGX and it must be enabled manually because the default setting is probably Disabled. It also needs additional Intel software downloadable from the motherboard's support page.
CPU
KabyLake i5 or i7 with IGPU 630/640. There are some SGX compatible SkyLake CPUs with S in the code, but these should not work.
GPU
Only the IGPU above is available now. Any graphics card will ruin the secure environment, even if it is HDCP 2.2 compatible. If the motherboard has dual BIOS, it is possible to set one to use with a graphics card and the other with the IGPU.
HDR
As far as I know 4k HDR monitors are not available yet, the first are coming from LG (one model) Acer (one model) and ASUS (two models) this year.
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