HD DVD on Windows 8?

[sj33]

VLC will work albeit with no menus, but you need to install a program like AnyDVD HD to bypass the ACSS protection.

[Baseley09]

VLC now plays HDDVD? Is that right?

[sj33]

I'm pretty sure it does, as well as Blu-Rays - though not supporting the encryption, menus etc.

MPC-HC certainly does, too.

[Lyris]

VLC doesn't play HD DVD per se but it supports all the codecs HD DVD and BD use.

If you can bypass the AACS protection (AnyDVD HD), just find the HVDVD_TS folder and drag the .EVO clips into VLC to play them.

Ahhh... suddenly it was 2006 there for a second

[Baseley09]

Ive tried that its a rough solution as many movies are split into more than one .EVO, you can get an HD-EP30 for ?30 delivered its the best way.

[Lyris]

Yeah, FEATURE_1.EVO and FEATURE_2.evo etc. I forget what the reason for that was.

[randombs]

Probably similar to how DVD video is split into 1GB files to fit in with the ISO 1GB file size limit?

I don't have Windows 8 but have a lot of HD-DVDs(20+) back home so a decent solution has been difficult to find so I settled on that old version of PowerDVD and AnyDVD HD. Part of me was considering just downloading 720p rips of the more important stuff(e.g. Blade Runner) and watching those or buying a cheap standalone as per baseley's suggestion.

Hope you manage to find a decent method.

[Lyris]

That's what I was thinking, but that wasn't a limitation on HD DVD. If the format was still around it'd be worth me finding out what the reason was!

Another alternative (for movies you own!) is to repackage them onto Blu-ray Discs, but you'll need a burner of course. There's a tool called eac3to that can strip the elementary streams out.

First port of call is to identify the streams inside the EVO:

eac3to d:\hvdvd_ts\feature_1.evo+d:\hvdvd_ts\feature_2.ev o+d:\hvdvd_ts\feature_3.evo

(etc, add the files together on the command line and eac3to will join them).


That will return a list of streams in the file with numbers, for ex:

1: VC-1 Video
2: Dolby Digital Stereo
3: DTS 5.1

so you can then give it:


eac3to d:\hvdvd_ts\feature_1.evo+d:\hvdvd_ts\feature_2.ev o+d:\hvdvd_ts\feature_3.evo 1:c:\remux\video.vc1 3:c:\remux\DtsTrack.dts

Then you can feed the elementary streams into TSmuxerGUI, set the output mode to BD and author a basic Blu-ray Disc with a few clicks.

Usual disclaimer, check legality etc.

[coalsen]

VLC doesn't play HD DVD per se but it supports all the codecs HD DVD and BD use.

If you can bypass the AACS protection (AnyDVD HD), just find the HVDVD_TS folder and drag the .EVO clips into VLC to play them.

Ahhh... suddenly it was 2006 there for a second

I tried to do just that to get support for my newly bought Toshiba HD DVD drive. The video works but the audio is all distorted. What am I doing wrong?

[sj33]

Have you tried using MPC-HC instead? I personally prefer MPC-HC anyway, it's more lightweight.

http://mpc-hc.org/

Latest builds from here http://nightly.mpc-hc.org/

[coalsen]

Better, but...

Have you tried using MPC-HC instead? I personally prefer MPC-HC anyway, it's more lightweight.

http://mpc-hc.org/

Latest builds from here http://nightly.mpc-hc.org/

Thanks for your tip! Didn't think of that. For the first time the audio works, but the video is still lagging (just like it does on VLC). What more to do?

[sj33]

Just curious, what graphics card do you have?

The player should be automatically set up to use DXVA, which will decode the video using the graphics card. However, if you have an older or poor quality Intel graphics card, this may not work.

Try and find a copy of CoreAVC (and then disable the built-in H.264 decoder within MPC-HC). It's not freeware, but it's probably the best codec to use if you can't use your graphics card to decide the video (CoreAVD will use the CPU instead).

[coalsen]

Just curious, what graphics card do you have?

The player should be automatically set up to use DXVA, which will decode the video using the graphics card. However, if you have an older or poor quality Intel graphics card, this may not work.

Try and find a copy of CoreAVC (and then disable the built-in H.264 decoder within MPC-HC). It's not freeware, but it's probably the best codec to use if you can't use your graphics card to decide the video (CoreAVD will use the CPU instead).

I have an all-new HP ENVY Touchsmart 4-1202eo and from what I understand, it doesn't contain a separate graphics card. It seems incorporated into the Intel i5 processor, right? Or maybe I'm not clever enough to figure out what graphics card I have. The box says nothing about it from what I can tell (before I've had ATI Mobility Radeon and such).

So maybe I should get CoreAVC?

[Baseley09]

Ya it will have Intel HD Graphics 4000 built onto the CPU, which should be fine for 1080p content.

[coalsen]

Ya it will have Intel HD Graphics 4000 built onto the CPU, which should be fine for 1080p content.

Sure, all others 1080p works perfectly (including BDs).