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    Choppy PowerDVD 8 Blu ray

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by jrflurry, May 14, 2009.

  1. jrflurry

    jrflurry Notebook Enthusiast

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    So i swapped out my disc drive on my m15x with a Panisonic UJ-120 Blu ray drive...Which works great when plugged in but when off the "wall power" the blu ray play back is super choppy. After a bit of investigation using cpuid i found out that PowerDVD 8 is using only the cpu for play back! Now i have already gone into Alien fusion and set the cpu to run on full off of AC power...all my games run great with no downclocking from the cpu or gpu but PowerDVD 8 still wont let the CPU spike high enough to run smoothly??

    Any ideas or just something im missing??
     
    jrflurry, May 14, 2009
    #1
  2. Matrix_XII

    Matrix_XII Notebook Consultant

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    Change the power setting to High performance ?
     
    Matrix_XII, May 14, 2009
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  3. jrflurry

    jrflurry Notebook Enthusiast

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    Did that already. And even on high performance once off AC it downclocks your CPU. You need to change settings in Alien Fusion....but as I said....did that already.
     
    jrflurry, May 14, 2009
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  4. DenverESullivan

    DenverESullivan Notebook Consultant

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    Jflurry,

    There is a setting in PowerDVD to either 'enable hardware acceleration' or 'PureVideo'... I can't remember which.

    Unless that is enabled, all decoding is 100% CPU.

    Also, you have to have a PureVideo HD-enabled card (ie. 8800m GTX or greater). I don't believe anything below those specs will work for BluRay.

    - Denver
     
    DenverESullivan, May 15, 2009
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  5. Mister Scary

    Mister Scary Notebook Enthusiast

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    I encountered the same problem while running off the battery. I thought I was either in stealth mode or using on-board graphics, but neither was the case. I haven't figured out the fix yet, but Denver's suggestion sounds promising. I'll have to check out the PowerDVD settings when I get home.
     
    Mister Scary, May 15, 2009
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  6. jrflurry

    jrflurry Notebook Enthusiast

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    "nvidia pure video" is enabled and it's still thumping on my CPU. I'm running a 9800m gt so I should have no problem with any video format.

    I guess it's just a problem with PowerDVD 8. I did some searching around the net and alot of people are having the same issue. Turns out it's just crummy software. There is a PowerDVD 9 out now but i'm not dropping $100 on software to watch blu ray off of AC power.

    Stll...if anyone comes up with a solution let me know!!
     
    jrflurry, May 15, 2009
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  7. mingocr83

    mingocr83 Notebook Geek

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    Download the latest patch from the Cyberlink Support website... that will fix the problem!
     
    mingocr83, May 17, 2009
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  8. rive0108

    rive0108 Notebook Consultant

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    The best build is 2217. I use PDVDU8, and have no issues on high performance. On battery it is choppy. That's because most BIOS' have power saving modes that downclock the CPU, as does Windows, and Powerdvd, and If your gonna play a BD disk you need to be on AC for best performance, DVD is ok for battery.
     
    rive0108, May 17, 2009
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