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Anyone try ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater for HD Playback?

ftimer

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Hello All:

Like many I am a fellow victim of Cyberlink's latest PowerDVD debacle (removal of play from harddrive option).

I have seen a number of threads mention waiting for Arcsoft to release a harddrive playback solution.

However, I just went to their site today and it appears that they have already released TotalMedia Theater that claims to be able to play back HD-DVD and BluRay content:

http://www.arcsoft.com/products/totalmediatheatre/

What I find strange is that none of the forums (AVS, etc.) seem to say anything about this release..

Has anyone tried this software? Does it work with AnyDVD?

I'd rather not be the guniea pig if anyone else has thried this program....
 
I think the English version is a work in progress. It's not out yet just the japanese/ chinese(?) version.....
 
Hello All:

Like many I am a fellow victim of Cyberlink's latest PowerDVD debacle (removal of play from harddrive option).

I have seen a number of threads mention waiting for Arcsoft to release a harddrive playback solution.

However, I just went to their site today and it appears that they have already released TotalMedia Theater that claims to be able to play back HD-DVD and BluRay content:

http://www.arcsoft.com/products/totalmediatheatre/

What I find strange is that none of the forums (AVS, etc.) seem to say anything about this release..

Has anyone tried this software? Does it work with AnyDVD?

I'd rather not be the guniea pig if anyone else has thried this program....

Jus consider the idea that those that have, can't talk about freely yet because of a NDA ;)

F
 
Jus consider the idea that those that have, can't talk about freely yet because of a NDA ;)

F

Well that sucks! :D Hopefully NDA gets lifted soon cause I'm quite curious about this software. I refuse to plunk down hard earned cash on something that's untested, however. In fact, I may wait until I see them handle their first key revocation issue. We'll see.
 
arcsoft total media extreme works fine, but it's only a trial..
it's the japanese version, but the menu is the same like in powerdvd ultra, so you it isn't hard to understand. and it's got MediaCenter Support!!! :)
 
Wait a minute...when you say it's got media center support, do you mean I can open up a BD or HD DVD from inside media center in Vista? Now THAT would be sweet if that was the case!
 
i don't know exactly, because my trial version is expired.
but after you install total media extreme there's a button in mediacenter (tv+movies) and it's called "BD / HD-DVD (and something in japanese..)"
so i can't try it at the moment..
 
That would seriously rock. I'm going to have to seriously consider switching. I don't have the money to buy it right now but tihs certainly sounds promising.
 
Ive tried the japanese version but its some way behind powerdvd ultra.
It didnt work with my media keyboard and im not too sure if the menu system worked that well.
Also powerdvd worked with all films i gave it but found total media centre to be as good (cough) as nero 7/8 with HD plugin.
As I say this was my experiance.

I sugest you wait for slysoft to rip to .iso and use the deamon tools as they sugest to get away from hddvd folder playback.

In theory it should be easier to use as you can double click .iso, it will load in pretend HDDVD drive and power dvd should play it automaticaly, this makes it much simpler to use for all the family
 
arcsoft total media extreme works fine, but it's only a trial..
it's the japanese version, but the menu is the same like in powerdvd ultra, so you it isn't hard to understand. and it's got MediaCenter Support!!! :)


Media Center support probably takes the form of a basic plug-in that switches between the Media Center front end and the HD DVD / BD application using a 10 foot interface. Cyberlink has such an interface as well and its nothing new. In fact its more then likely clunky, awkward and unconvincing as seen here:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2959&p=8

If you scroll down you’ll see a Blu-ray option button in Vista Media Center. The next picture is of the application front end that will play the Blu-ray disc. Click the “Exit” button and you go back to the Vista Media Center front end.

This was for PowerDVD but I don’t expect that ArcSoft TotalMedia will be any different in this respect. Since there is no HD DVD or BD support in Vista Media Center or Media Center Edition 2005 this is about as good as it gets.

BTW, its also possible that while switching between VMC / MCE to the player application that you might see the desktop for a split second. There is often little to no sense of emersion or a seamless transition using such plug-ins,….at least that has often been the case.

The system Dell shipped also had Blu-ray support, which appeared as an option in the media center interface. Unfortunately launching it simply brought us to a poorly made front end for PowerDVD that looked a lot like MCE 2005 and nothing like Vista's media center.
 
Well that's no good. As for installing the Japanese trial, I'm not about to do that. As I said before, I'm waiting for an English trial before I even consider it. But, if it's not seamless and fully integrated into media center then that part's useless to me. It's really not a big deal I just found the prospect of being able to play HD DVD and BD inside media center to be kind of nice.
 
Well its most definitely not “inside Media Center” since Media Center (Vista or 2005) have no support for this.

However, that’s not to say that it isn’t convenient since the plug-in should work well enough with your Media Center remote (hopefully). If you only interface with your system with a remote or this is your preferred method of interface then even a quirky plug-in is better then nothing,….or a mouse / keyboard combo,..

But it wont look or work in an organic way, of that I’m sure.

Early adopters of HD DVD and BD on Media Center had to come up with some ugly hacks to the registry before to get some semblance of this functionality so its good that they are starting to consider the MCE VMC users by adding this feature themselves.
 
I agree. And yes, that was my main motivation for wanting to use media center. I use my mce remote for everything. It works fine in PowerDVD Ultra so it's not a big deal to me, but, would be convenient. I'm sure we'll get there eventually. Look how long it took for DVD products to evolve. We're still at the beginning of the HD era.
 
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