That's just... stupid.  What a dumb move.  I had planned on picking up a dual drive for my PC and upgrading my PowerDVD7 to be able to play my HD and Blu-ray movies.  But I guess that won't be happening.

So now that PowerDVD has shot themselves in the foot.. what's another alternative for playing HD and blu-ray movies on your PC?

It does seem like a rather dumb move, since there are still millions of HD-DVD discs out there.

I hope at least the interface is better than 7.3 is, as it's quite annoying compared to earlier PowerDVD versions.

Quoting tweeter:

Quote:
Got an upgrade offer from Cyberlink for PowerDVD 8 (i own v7 Deluxe but am using OEM v7 Ultra which came with my Blu-Ray/HD-DVD ROM drive and supports both formats).

I was looking at the info on their website and noted mention of Blu-Ray support but no mention of HD-DVD.

So i emailed them to confirm this and their response was:

Quote:
Thank you for contacting CyberLink Online Support.

We understand your concern related with HD DVD playback support in PowerDVD 8.0

We would like inform you that HD DVD playback is not supported in PowerDVD 8.0

Just an FYI.

Gasp! And here I thought I was being smart getting the LG dual drive and el-cheapo Xbox HD. They both work splendidly and my (growing) HD library is a treat. But now ... arggggh!

Thanks I will have to try that.

Quoting tweeter:

Quote:
Got an upgrade offer from Cyberlink for PowerDVD 8 (i own v7 Deluxe but am using OEM v7 Ultra which came with my Blu-Ray/HD-DVD ROM drive and supports both formats).

I was looking at the info on their website and noted mention of Blu-Ray support but no mention of HD-DVD.

So i emailed them to confirm this and their response was:

Quote:
Thank you for contacting CyberLink Online Support.

We understand your concern related with HD DVD playback support in PowerDVD 8.0

We would like inform you that HD DVD playback is not supported in PowerDVD 8.0

Just an FYI.

Just say no to PowerDVD.

Quoting bob9000:

Quote:
Quoting Nadja:

Quote:
I haven't got v8 yet, but 7.3 runs both of those (the US version of the former) when used in conjunction with AnyDVD HD, which would imply a foulup with the copy protection being to blame.

I just tried playing Across the Universe with Powerdvd 7.3 and the AnyDVD 6.4.1.2 trial running. Still no go. Did you mean use Anydvd to rip the disc to my HD and play from that? That pretty much defeats the purpose as far as I am conncerned.  If not then I must be doing something wrong.

Hmm, strange, mine is playing it just fine. Looking at a review of PowerDVD 8, there are reports of people who get to the menu on this disc but no further, is that what's happening with yours? It's not an ideal solution, but if it is the complicated java that's causing the problem, maybe you can play the movie by selecting the files directly from the disc? You want to navigate to it in Open Media Files, then select the BDMV folder, then STREAM, and select the .mts files that cover the main feature (00111.mts seems to be the whole thing and then some... it reads as being nearly five hours, and I haven't watched the film yet so I can't really investigate it as yet).

Any luck with Almost Famous?

I decided to buy v8. Not too into the new mooovie features, but I did find a zip on usenet that successfully patches HD DVD support back into it, apparently taken from v7 and some v8 betas. I only tried a couple of discs but it all seemed to go as smoothly as ever. However, with v8 I now have the same problem with Across the Universe, in failing to progress beyond the menu. A concurrent install of 7.3 still works though. Almost Famous is still behaving for me on both. Wee-udd!

Well, hardware players like the 1200 also have issues with Across the Universe, so something is not right with that disc...