Some Noobish Questions

[Moo Moo]

Hello all,

Some (hopefully) basic questions before I start a trial of HD.

Am I right in thinking that with AnyDVD HD the only pre-requisits for playing an encrypted UHD Blu Ray disc is a UHD Friendly drive and a PC that has enough power to handle the video playback?

For example, the PowerDVD Advisor tool tells me that I lack

Intel SGX Technology
Advanced Protection Audio/Video Path GPU
HDR - High Dynamic Range (GPU/Display) -- This is optional

With AnyDVD HD installed, could I play my discs using any compatible player - maybe even the integrated playback capabilities within Kodi?

Thanks and greets

Moo

 

[mbarnstijn]

PowerDVD won't play UHD discs unless you've got SGX and Advanced Protection, whether AnyDVD is in use or not.

If you don't care about the UHD disc structure (menus, etc.) and just want the main movie, then you can use the CloneBD tool (free if you don't transcode video) to pick the main movie and extract to a single 4K video file with audio tracks and subtitles. (Use AnyDVD settings to remaster subtitle fonts and positions if you wish.) Then most 4K capable video players like MPC-HC and Kodi can play the resulting video. PowerDVD mayl still refuse to play 4K video files if you haven't got SGX or Advanced Protection, but I'm not sure about that. I don't have a 4K rip to play with just now so I can't test it.

If you want the full disc experience with menus, I'll let others talk about NOT PowerDVD software that can do it because I don't have knowledge of that. I use PowerDVD on a fully capable system, or Dune 4K Pro to play back my ISO backup copies made with AnyDVD. I'm still waiting for Dune 4K Pro to introduce menu playback for UHD. It might be a long wait.

Anyone else willing to chime in with their 4K playback experiences of UHD ISO with menus, outside of PowerDVD?

Cheers,

--michael

 

[Moo Moo]

Hi Michael,

Thanks very much for the reply and for the info.

From your answer, I am thinking that SGX and Advanced Protection are not needed to playback UHD Blu Ray discs that are being decrypted by AnyDVD HD with some other players (i.e. other than PowerDVD).

I am looking to simply insert a disc and play, rather than ripping the disk.
I am trying to make my UHD Drive Friendly at the moment and then will try my luck with other players and post my findings here.

Thanks

Moo

 

[Ch3vr0n]

Yup, that's right, there's only 1 catch with that. Not many can play UHD (right) and PowerDVD hardcodes the SGX requirements. Its specifically stated in the UHD system requirements section. Although with anydvd it technically should play them, it won't. Thats how they designed it. The only way around that is to create a movie-only file like MKV/MP4. Then it doesn't care.

 

[Moo Moo]

Thanks Ch3vr0n,

I will be happy to sift through the various players and try them out - the think stopping me at the moment is the fact that my drive (BU40N FW 1.0.3) is an Official UHD Drive.

I will need to convert it to a UHD Friendly version before I can experiment with various players and rippers.

Once I get there, I will share my research!

 

[Ch3vr0n]

don't think you can.

 

[testiles]

I will be happy to sift through the various players and try them out

Hi Moo Moo.

Try JRiver.

I've had good results using it to play UHD discs and .iso's on my Desktop that is not "UHD-compliant per PDVD".



T

 

[Moo Moo]

Thanks Testiles, I will give JRiver a look.
Regards
MM

 

[testiles]

Thanks Testiles, I will give JRiver a look.
Regards
MM

No problem!

I should probably mention that VLC could be a free alternative, depending on your taste. It's not my cup of tea but a trusted Forum associate I know likes it almost a much as she likes JRiver.

When I tried it back-when, it did an ok job of playing UHD discs but could not play the Menu. It's improved since then and if you have the most recent version of Java should handle Menus too.

When I did a quick recent trial, it provided Menus for some of the UHD discs I played but not for others. Since Menus are important for me, I didn't test further.

Of course, both JRiver and VLC (and in fact any un-official media player) would require AnyDVD to play movies.



T