The lossless audio support that we first covered a while back has been put back to the release of 8.5 at around the August-September time frame. Again, Cyberlink was keen to stress that this will be a free update if you already own PowerDVD 8.
This delay can be significant issue for those wanting to use PowerDVD 8 with Blu-ray disks, but after discussing this with both Dolby (TrueHD) and Cyberlink, as well as various motherboard vendors (Gigabyte boards that use the Realtek ALC889a and features “content protection”) and even AMD (in reference to its 780G and its audio limitation to S/PDIF pass-through under HDMI) during CeBIT, all we can conclude is that HDCP for full quality audio is just a complete mess.
ArticleThatPissesUsOff said:The latest iteration set to be launched next month is PowerDVD 8, which comes in three flavours – the Deluxe version that retails for $99 and includes Blu-ray and DVD support or the standard version that retails for $50-60 but omits the Blu-ray option. There's also an Ultra version available at a later date with full bitrate HD audio support, DTS 5.1 (why is this Ultra only?) and it's also the only version with HD DVD support.
Competition - that is what is needed!So, I really don't know what to make of that. I'm hoping they're wrong and Ultra is the 99 dollar version like we all expect.
I just have this feeling that someday soon we will see a program that actually works from one of these vendors, I cant see this poor support continuing, if its does, it would be well worth someones time to make one that does work right.It's not like we haven't been trying to find a competing product. ArcSoft enticed us but fell far short. Nero is a disaster for some of us. WinDVD 9 doesn't look very promising. So, there's not a lot out there. I'd happily pay 100 bucks for a software that SIMPLY WORKS.
I just have this feeling that someday soon we will see a program that actually works........
It's not like we haven't been trying to find a competing product. ArcSoft enticed us but fell far short. Nero is a disaster for some of us. WinDVD 9 doesn't look very promising. So, there's not a lot out there. I'd happily pay 100 bucks for a software that SIMPLY WORKS.
I'm curious as to why you think ArcSoft TMT fell short. I've been using it for a bit now and it plays all my HD-DVDs and BD movies flawlessly. I'm currently using it with ISO images of my HD movies played across a network from a WHS server. I have yet to find any fault in it, and at least it makes some sort of attempt to integrate itself with Vista Media Center. Something that I'd hoped PowerDVD would've done a long time ago. Plus, with the 50% of deal going now till April 6th, you can't beat the price.
You are one of the lucky ones. A lot of people have massive problems getting it to work. The trial did not work very well for me, either. There are numerous complaints about it on AVS forums. I decided to hold on to my money rather than waste it on yet another product that doesn't perform 100% the way I want.
I actually haven't pulled the trigger on ArcSoft TMT yet, I'm still on my trial. The only thing that doesn't work right are the downmixes of TrueHD soundtracks to DD5.1. I think that's a problem in PowerDVD also. (Unless you go the multi-channel analog cable route.)
Other than that, I guess I am lucky.