Problem with playing a few ripped HD-DVD's over GB network

I only have 3 discs, King Kong, Happy Gilmore and Meet the Parents. They all play fine on a local HD, but over the GB network, only KK plays without stuttering. They stutter in the exact same place everytime if that matters. The server is a XP box and both of my other boxes are Vista machines running PowerDVD 7.3. Any ideas?

 

I have a GB network as well. Even with my previous 100base-T network I could not get HD DVD titles to play at all, with PowerDVD Ultra 7.3, using the 'Open movie file on hard disk drive' option. Blu-ray titles work fine with this option.

I am able to play them if I use the 'Open media files' option instead. How are you playing them?

 

Just as an alternate idea.... instead of streaming it over a network connection can you hook one of your machines directly to the TV?

I have a Vista machine using PowerDVD 7.3 and it plays HD-DVD and BLU-RAY perfectly! But I have my vista box connected to my Sony 70" using a DVI to HDMI cable ... doing it this way also gives me full native 1080p that my TV supports.

Just a thought.

 

If you make a shortcut to the XPL file, you can play it without having to load the movie. Just double click that file. As for over the network, if it works locally on that machine and has problems over the network, its probably because of your network card. The built in network cards in the motherboard take up a lot of cpu. Try getting a network card via pci slot. I recommend Intel network cards. I had this problem and switched it for an intel and it worked great.

What are the specs of your computer?

 

My HTPC setup:
- E6600
- GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 W/ Onboard GB
- MSI ATI Radeon X1600 PRO
- Vista Home Premium
- XBOX360 drive
- PowerDVD 7.3
- AnyDVD-HD
- ATI Catalyst 7.2
- Samsung DLP via DVI

 

If you have a dual boot system, you may want to try and run it on WinXP. I had a problem with Hollywoodland on vista but it worked great on xp.

 

I have a feeling it is a Vista or a PowerDVD problem. If I make one of the machines a dual boot, is it easy to unistall XP later on and not have to deal with a boot menu on startup?

 

Before trying that, what are the specs for your server?

 

My Server setup:
- AMD x2 3800
- GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 (rev. 1.0)
- Onboard GB ethernet
- On board video
- Windows XP Professional
- 40gb IDE Seagate Baracuda for the OS
- (4) 500gb SATA 3Gb/s hard drives > Motherboards SATA 3Gb/s ports as individual volumes.

King Kong does not stutter at all, even when the reported bit rate is much higher then they are with the two that I am having problems with. That leads me to believe that the problem is with either Vista or PowerDVD.

 

Your server specs look fine.

How are you connecting to the server? What are your network specs? Are you using a router or a switch? If so, what brand are you using? Are they 1 GB also?

Also, I'll try Happy Gilmore in a day or two and let you know the results.

 

Same thing here; playback jerks and stutters over LAN. Running from a fast and expensive RAID-5 NAS over Gigabit LAN.

 

try this, uncheck enable cookies on powerdvd 7.3 under hd dvd then advanced, that fixed the problem for me over the network

 

Didn't help here

 

Yeah, I was wrong, I tried everything I could think of on Vista and it still freezes over the network about every 10 mins. I ran it on XP over the network and everything works great. I'd recommend a dual boot system until PDVD fixes the vista bug. You can just tell the system to default to XP on the dual boot and choose within 3 seconds. That way, you cant really tell its a dual boot.

 

HD DVD Enigma

As promised, I tried ripping Happy Gilmore and, guess what, it works fine streaming from both XP and Vista servers under PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 with patch 2605n.

Here's where the enigma comes in! I can't play King Kong successfully without stuttering. I ripped it again on both XP and Vista servers using AnyDVD HD 6.1.3.6, but it stutters when played from either server from another Vista box.

IMHO, it's hit or miss as to whether an HD DVD title will play remotely across a network. Adding insult to injury, I haven't found a single blu-ray disc that won't play successfully over my network.

I purchased the Nero Showtime HD DVD/Blu-ray plugin hoping that I would have a second player to test with. What a waste, I can't get it to play either format. I submitted a support request on the Nero website and their answer was that Showtime will not play commercial blu-ray discs. They said nothing about the ability to play commercial HD DVDs.

BTW, how are you playing the HD DVD discs across your network? The only way I can get them to play is by navigating to the HVDVD_TS directory and double-clicking on the main movie .EVO file.

 

Yeah, Vista is hit or miss what HD DVD it can play over the network. XP plays them all fine for me. To play HD DVD movies over the network, I make a shortcut to the XPL file and then you can double click that file. However, you have to map the network drive on the client pc pointing to the right server drive to make this work.

 

Thanks for the tip! I mapped the network drive, but I didn't have to make a shortcut to the .xpl files, because I'm able to play all my HD DVD files using the "Open movie file on hard disk drive" option under PowerDVD Ultra 7.3.

I can say, almost for sure, that your problem is not a Vista problem because I've been able to play every movie without stuttering from a Vista server to a Vista client.

I can't test using an XP server right now so I will post those results later.

 

did you play the movie all the way thru? it only freezes at about 10 mins into the movie

 

Ok, the problem is vista ultimate. I reinstalled with vista premium and all is ok.

 

Ok, I think I narrowed down the problem even more. Its UAC in vista. If UAC is disabled, they PDVD 7.3 will freeze about 10 mins into viewing it. If UAC is enabled, all is good. I have not tried this on Ultimate yet but my guess is that all will be ok.