Hi All

I thought it was about time that I shared my findings with everyone on my Vista setup. Hopefully some of the pitfalls I have been through will help other people.

My setup is a P4 3.GHZ 2GB of RAM, 160GB Data Disk, HD 2600 XT PCD X16, Pioneer BD202 Bluray Drive with a Silverstone LC03 with VCD case.

Video

Getting video acceleration with the HD series cards on my P4 was a  nightmare. I needed the UVD acceleration as the P4 was not beefy enough to decode Bluray films. Initially I bought a HD 2400 PRO. This was a waste of time, especially as MPEG 2 HD was not done on the UVD so it didnt accelerate properly.

I replaced with a HD 3600 XT (Sapphire Silent) this card is fantastic. However it took me until Radeon 8.3 CCC with the HD tweaks from this site: http://home.comcast.net/~exdeus/ati-hd2x00/ to get hardware acceleration working.

The second big issue was the decoder that would play to Bluray films. I had nothing but issues with PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra lack of integration into VMC was dismal even with My Movies 2.44 server. Also it was unstable as hell.  In the end I have opted for Arcsoft Total Media Theatre. I know other people have had major issues. All I can say is try version .110 it is fantastic and has fixes for CCC 8.3. HOWEVER it only Hardware Accelerated in VMC not MCE 2005.

Sound

Sound was a nother nightmare. I have an M-AUDIO Revolution 5.1 card. Excellent card but driver support was a nightmare. In Vista the audio stack has been re-built bottom up. A lot of vendors are struggling with this one. I needed it to output via S/PDIF. In the end after a lot of research it turned out it uses a VIA ENVY 24 chipset. So I used the latest VIA reference drivers.

Next step is to get VMC to output S/PDIF. Another debacle. In the end I found out the following must be set:

• VMC must be set to use the Microsoft Audio Decoder use VMC decoder changer to check.
• VMC must be set to use S/PDIF from the VMC Audio setup.
• The VIA control panel must be set to use S/PDIF.

MPEG 2 Decoder

I use the Arcsoft MPEG 2 decoder which seems to be OK. This comes with TMT. Again use the VMC decoder to change this. This can be found: http://www.whittakermoore.com/VMCD.exe

S3 Standby

S3 resume standby seemed to work ok in Vista however to get  VMC to resume from standby when recording scheduled recordings I did have to add in the following known reg fix:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\usb]

"USBBIOSHACKS"=dword:00000000
"USBBIOSx"=dword:00000000

This is only half of what I have found out but maybe it gives people some hope if they are battling with VMC.

Dave

Hey, thanks for your post - quite informative, but I wonder if you can provide a bit more info about your M-Audio revolution 5.1 sound card. I have the same card and have so far been unable to get it to work with vista 64 bit.

Could you provide more information about how you downloaded the drivers and got them to work with the card? I think I have located the drivers you mention, but windows does not recognise them.

thanks in advance,

I have found that TotalMedia Theater stutters slightly on my setup, have you expereinced this?  PowerDVD is smooth on my system for Blueray but Arcsoft drops frames.  I'm running a Core 2 processor with a 8500gt.

 

---

E4500
4gig Ram
500gig hdd
Nvidia 8500gt
Nvidia DualTV Tuner
HDHOMERUN Tuner
Vista Home Premium
Linksys 2100 Extender
WHS 3.2 TB storage

Hi there

Yes I had the same problem withWindows not recognising them. When in Computer Manager\Device manager locat the Multimedia Audio controller that is the M-Audio card and the select update driver. Then select 'Browse for selected driver'. Instead of finding the .inf file choose the 'Let me pick from a list of device drivers options'.  Select the 'Sound, video and games controller' option. Use the Have Disk button to locate the .inf file and then select the Envy 24 Sound Card from the list. Re-boot then run the setup from the VIA drivers to install the audio desk. This should work.

The following link are the drivers you should be using:

http://www.viaarena.com/Driver/Envy24_Family_DriverV530b.zip

Hope this helps

Dave

Hi there Pete

I have pretty good playback. I was watching Prates of the Caribean 3 last night and it only 'slightly' stuttered once in TMT. I have found since ATI released 8.2 and above driver sets HD on their UVD chip seems to work very well. However it has taken them 9 months to release a stable driver.

I have found too many issues with Power DVD 7.3 Ultra so I have given up with it.

Dave

Powerdvd 8 Ultra works fine for me, I just want Vista MCE integration.

---

E4500
4gig Ram
500gig hdd
Nvidia 8500gt
Nvidia DualTV Tuner
HDHOMERUN Tuner
Vista Home Premium
Linksys 2100 Extender
WHS 3.2 TB storage

Does that sound card you guys are using have Dolby Digital Live built in? I have an Auzentech X-Plosion card, with DDL, and it has worked perfectly in Vista from day one.

pete1122:

Powerdvd 8 Ultra works fine for me, I just want Vista MCE integration.

Exactly why I am using TMT. The integration with VMC is sweet as. It is so seamless the wife cannot notice it is a different program :).

AFrost20:

Does that sound card you guys are using have Dolby Digital Live built in? I have an Auzentech X-Plosion card, with DDL, and it has worked perfectly in Vista from day one.

I don't believe this card does decode dolby digital onboard. However I leave the decoding to my AV Amp by using the s/pdif pass through.