Total Media Theatre

[lopri]

Well, how is it? Say, compared to PowerDVD. (Forget Nero) Is it a good (or better) alternative?

 

[PurdueRy]

I tried both, TMT3 was better in my opinion. Not because of features but just from a usability standpoint. It just works better.

 

[lopri]

Hmm.. Could you elaborate a little bit? An example, possibly. I'm kinda fed up with PowerDVD 8 and looking for an alternative, and that's how I found about TMT. Thank you.

 

[PurdueRy]

They are fairly similar usage wise. The difference just came down to general performance. I found that powerDVD took significantly longer to initially load the BD than TMT3 did on my 8x drive. Also, at least in Win7 with my config, PowerDVD drops windows to "basic" configuration. This isn't necessarily a huge problem but I sure would rather have it not do this. Lastly, powerDVD froze when loading a few discs and sometimes when I would try to close the program before it had fully opened the BD.

Now I don't feel powerDVD was bad...but when I compared the two TMT3 was simply better performing. As I described it was quicker and had less freeze-ups/crashes.

What issues are you experiencing in PowerDVD?

 

[lopri]

Oh, do you mean that you can have Aero and Blu-Ray at the same time using TMT? That's great to hear.

My issue w/ PowerDVD is inconsistent performance as well as DRM. I am not sure how much PowerDVD is to blame when it comes to DRM because I strongly believe ForceWare is a big part of it.

Performance-wise, PowerDVD seems OK with some titles and struggles with others. I do see slow loading, intermittent judder, and for some movies it's impossible to control anything while under playback. And the registration pop-up as well as Movie-link thingy that makes me do extra clicks at the end of movies..

DRM-wise, PowerDVD sometimes refuses to play certains title at certain times, telling me to switch to analog connection. But my system is DRM-ready as far as I know. As I said I believe it's a combination of PowerDVD + ForceWare + possibly my 30" monitor (HP LP3065).

This is on my Intel system. I'm getting a new Blu-Ray drive ($59 Lite-On deal) for my AMD system and I was wondering if I should get PowerDVD 9 or try out something different.

 

[KeithP]

I don't know if this will be an issue for you or not but TMT doesn't support Vista 64 last I checked.

-KeithP

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: KeithP
I don't know if this will be an issue for you or not but TMT doesn't support Vista 64 last I checked.

-KeithP

TMT3 works fine on my Win7 64 system. I could try it on vista 64 as well...but I can't imagine it wouldn't work if it works on Win7.

OP, which BD's do you have issues with? I could give them a try if I happen to own them. Everything I'll played so far has worked without any issue. I have no judder or slow down. I'm using the LG 8x blu-ray drive. I haven't had any DRM issues yet.

 

[lopri]

I will upload a screenshot later on. There is no specific title that refuses to play all the time. It just happens randomly to any title. (but easily reproducible, just by trying several discs). As far as available controls inside the player (while playing a movie) are concerned, I'll have to go through my discs because I can't remember which ones gave me issues.

I have an LG GGC-20L(?) or something like that and I believe it reads BD-ROM @x6.

 

[lopri]

Oh and one more thing. My monitor has 3 x dual-link DVI connectors, of which I use two to switch between the systems. Interestingly, if I change the input from computer A (on which PowerDVD is playing a Blu-Ray disc) to computer B, then the playback stops and PowerDVD gives me an error message when I go back to computer A's desktop. I'm guessing this has to do with DRM as well, and it's extremely annoying.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: lopri
Oh and one more thing. My monitor has 3 x dual-link DVI connectors, of which I use two to switch between the systems. Interestingly, if I change the input from computer A (on which PowerDVD is playing a Blu-Ray disc) to computer B, then the playback stops and PowerDVD gives me an error message when I go back to computer A's desktop. I'm guessing this has to do with DRM as well, and it's extremely annoying.

That does sound like DRM to me, can't help you with that issue though.

 

[lopri]

Here is an example of the above mentioned.

Iron Man playing

Playback halted

And thing is, I get the same error message randomly (without switching output) as well. Usually reloading the disc or re-launching PowerDVD fix it, but it is very annoying.

 

[lopri]

OK. My Blu-Ray drive arrived last Friday and I finally got a chance to try it out. I downloaded Total Media Theatre 3 trial version and installed it, and for the most part it worked seamlessly. Interestingly, I had to run it under Vista SP2 compatibility mode on Windows 7 RC (x64), though. And I decided to go all the way and downloaded PowerDVD 9 trial as well. (I've been using PowerDVD 8)

Overall, there are a lot to like about TMT 3 compared to PowerDVD 9.

- Better integration with Windows. Blu-Ray playback doesn't disable Windows Aero. Despite the option "Force Aero on" (or some such), PowerDVD 9 still disabled Aero while Blu-Ray movie is playing.
- On the same line, TMT 3 actually works with Windows Media Center. While PowerDVD 9 shows up in WMC, I couldn't get it to work it correctly. It just worked with TMT3.
- I like the GUI and settings options of TMT3 better than PDVD 9.

So it should be a winner, right? Well, not so fast..

TMT 3's disk-loading seems a bit slower than that of PDVD 9. I first thought it's the Lite-On drive (x4) since I was used to my LG drive (x6), but direct comparison proved it's the program.

But there is something I truly could not bring myself to accept TMT 3 as a replacement of PDVD 8/9: Image Quality

TMT 3's image quality was noticeably worse than that of PDVD 9 (which is equal to that of PDVD 8). For both VC-1 and H.264, colors were dull and textures were just not sharp. Full-screen playback on a 30" screen (2560x1600) made it more apparent. Tried a 8500 GT as well as a HD 4890, and the result was the same. Since I play Blu-Ray on Playstation 3 as well, I know how things should look and TMT 3 just didn't provide it. Later I learned that there was a plug-in that's supposed to improve image quality (SimHD) of TMT 3. I didn't try it so I don't know how/whether it works, but at that point my mind was made up. Not just that plug-in works with NVIDIA only, but even if it works my guess is it'll just bring its image quality equal to PDVD's. Add to that Arcsoft charges extra $$ for that was just not an acceptable proposal to me.

So at the end I decided I couldn't win and just live with PDVD 8. You just can't have it all..

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: lopri
OK. My Blu-Ray drive arrived last Friday and I finally got a chance to try it out. I downloaded Total Media Theatre 3 trial version and installed it, and for the most part it worked seamlessly. Interestingly, I had to run it under Vista SP2 compatibility mode on Windows 7 RC (x64), though. And I decided to go all the way and downloaded PowerDVD 9 trial as well. (I've been using PowerDVD 8)

Overall, there are a lot to like about TMT 3 compared to PowerDVD 9.

- Better integration with Windows. Blu-Ray playback doesn't disable Windows Aero. Despite the option "Force Aero on" (or some such), PowerDVD 9 still disabled Aero while Blu-Ray movie is playing.
- On the same line, TMT 3 actually works with Windows Media Center. While PowerDVD 9 shows up in WMC, I couldn't get it to work it correctly. It just worked with TMT3.
- I like the GUI and settings options of TMT3 better than PDVD 9.

So it should be a winner, right? Well, not so fast..

TMT 3's disk-loading seems a bit slower than that of PDVD 9. I first thought it's the Lite-On drive (x4) since I was used to my LG drive (x6), but direct comparison proved it's the program.

But there is something I truly could not bring myself to accept TMT 3 as a replacement of PDVD 8/9: Image Quality

TMT 3's image quality was noticeably worse than that of PDVD 9 (which is equal to that of PDVD 8). For both VC-1 and H.264, colors were dull and textures were just not sharp. Full-screen playback on a 30" screen (2560x1600) made it more apparent. Tried a 8500 GT as well as a HD 4890, and the result was the same. Since I play Blu-Ray on Playstation 3 as well, I know how things should look and TMT 3 just didn't provide it. Later I learned that there was a plug-in that's supposed to improve image quality (SimHD) of TMT 3. I didn't try it so I don't know how/whether it works, but at that point my mind was made up. Not just that plug-in works with NVIDIA only, but even if it works my guess is it'll just bring its image quality equal to PDVD's. Add to that Arcsoft charges extra $$ for that was just not an acceptable proposal to me.

So at the end I decided I couldn't win and just live with PDVD 8. You just can't have it all..

SimHD is for SD media to upscale to HD...not for blu-ray.

I can't say I mirror your comments on disc loading. I didn't time it but for sure TMT3 SEEMED faster.

I also can't say I saw a difference in image quality from TMT3 to powerDVD. Looked pretty much identical for me.

 

[Raduque]

On my system, TMT3 loads BRDs faster than PDVD9. I like it's tighter VMC/7MC integration, too. PDVD9 absolutely sucks when it comes to integrating with VMC. Cyberlink's idea of integration is "Minimize VMC, open powerdvd, and then give the user no way to quit through remote, haha". That shit just don't fly.

I didn't notice any different in image quality between the two, but that just might be my video card.

Specs:
Asus A8N (GF6100)
X2 4400+ S939
2gb DDR-400
Radeon HD 2400 (HDCP and DVI>HDMI adaptor)

 

[lopri]

I might have been mistaken on disc loading speed. As I mentioned, however, it is not a big deal either way. I do not like PowerDVD just as you and this thread began as a seeking for an alternative. I liked just about everything of TMT3 compared to that of PDVD, but it was hard to swallow the difference in image quality. And it is there. I've tried 3 different video cards (8500 GT, HD 3850, HD 4890) and discs using all 3 codecs (MPEG2, VC-1, H.264).

When compared side-by-side, PDVD's image quality was better without doing any scientific analysis.. just by naked eyes, PDVD provided better anti-aliasing, better contrast, higher level of details than TMT3. Only thing I couldn't control was my monitor since I'm using only one right now. Anyhow, I'm going to see if I can tweak the image quality of TMT3 through video card's drivers. If that works, then TMT3 will be the winner, hands-down.

P.S. Thinking about it, doesn't PDVD install its own decoders? Does TMT install any codec?

 

[abaez]

After trying both, I prefer WinDVD. It's liter and faster imho, and it still supports HDDVD's natively.