Running Blu Ray on my Customized Dell Dimension 3000

K

Kawika322

Obliviot
Hi,

I am trying to figure out if I I will be able to run Blu Ray discs on my computer. I have a Dell Dimension 3000 with a Pentium 4, 2.4 ghz processor with 2 gb ram. Originally it had a 250w power supply, but I replaced it with a 500w. To upgrade my graphics card from the internal Intel(R) 82865G Graphics Controller, I installed a Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT 1gb graphics card. I also took out one of the optical drives and installed an LG BH08 Super Mulit Blu Ray player/writer.

After doing all of this and installing the LG software (which is hear is not that great) I tried playing a Blu Ray movie, and all I got was the sound and no video. I put in a different Blu Ray movie and I got both sound and video, but it played very choppy. To compare, I played a regular DVD and it seemed to work fine. From reading a few different posts, I heard that using Media Player Classic Home Cinema might be better than than the LG software and PowerDVD7.

Is there any way that I can change settings on my computer for the Blu Ray to play correctly? and with my current hardware setup, is it even possible that it will play decently? (i.e. is my processor too inferior to support it?)

Any information would be helpful.

Thanks,

Kawika
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Hi Kawika and welcome to the forums :)

Unfortunately, it does sound like the processor could be the bottleneck, although I can't verify that since I haven't tested it out myself. But Blu-ray movies are quite CPU-intensive, and given that your P4 2.4GHz would be about five-years-old, it kind of leads me to believe that it's the issue.

You may want to look through the options of your player and see if there's a way to enable GPU acceleration, to see if that helps. PowerDVD does have something like that, but I'm not sure if it's entirely GPU-accelerated or if it still relies some on the processor. If PowerDVD doesn't work, you might want to test out other Blu-ray player software to see if it runs any better, like WinDVD and Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre. I'd also recommend checking out Media Player Classic Home Cinema, like you mentioned.
 
Tharic-Nar

Tharic-Nar

Senior Editor
Staff member
Moderator
The other problem could very well be the dreaded HDCP protection system as well, the lack of video playback sounds like the culprit. In order to play back HD media, you typically need a HDCP compatible Chain. The monitor needs to be HDCP compliant, this is usually over HDMI, DVI or Displayport, VGA will not work. The graphics card needs to be compliant, again, all ports apart from VGA etc. (i think yours is compatible). Also the BD drive needs to be compatible (which yours is). And finally, the software, which may be a weak link as well.

You will struggle to get HD playback with a P4 without graphics acceleration. so Media player Classic Home cinema will be needed, or if you have a copy, PowerDVD. I have a P4 3.0Ghz, and i have to use MPC Home Cinema to play HD content back, otherwise i get 70-100% CPU usage for 20fps playback.... :(
 
Kougar

Kougar

Techgage Staff
Staff member
Kawika, have you installed the latest drivers from NVIDIA's website for your graphics card? Without them you will not get GPU acceleration for your Blu Ray movies. The Pentium 4 should be capable of playing most Blu-Ray titles with the 9400GT doing the brunt of the work, by itself it will not be capable of playing full bitrate Blu-ray content.

Most movies do not yet have the flag set that requires HDCP for playback to the best of my knowledge. You can grab Home Cinema (and codecs for it) through this installer package: http://www.codecguide.com/download_k-lite_codec_pack_full.htm
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Tharic-Nar said:
The other problem could very well be the dreaded HDCP protection system as well, the lack of video playback sounds like the culprit.
Click to expand...

That could be a possibility as well, but most often, if there's an HDCP issue, then there will be an error that makes it clear, and generally, a movie wouldn't play just choppy... it wouldn't play at all. HDCP varies from movie to movie as well though, so it's hard to say. Like you mentioned, it could actually have to do with the connections themselves, and the display.

Tharic-Nar said:
I have a P4 3.0Ghz, and i have to use MPC Home Cinema to play HD content back, otherwise i get 70-100% CPU usage for 20fps playback....
Click to expand...

Is this HD Blu-ray quality, though (30 - 40Mbit/s)? There's a lot of HD out there that's not really HD in terms of bitrate.

Kougar said:
Kawika, have you installed the latest drivers from NVIDIA's website for your graphics card?
Click to expand...

Good point, that one escaped me.
 
Tharic-Nar

Tharic-Nar

Senior Editor
Staff member
Moderator
HDCP can work in a number of ways, from limiting maximum resolution to that of a DVD, by preventing any video playback at all - but still allow audio, or by completely disabling playback, it doesn't even need to give you warnings - that's why it can be a pain to diagnose, it's all up to the publishers discretion. But your probably right, choppy playback is usually just a lack-of or unoptimised processing grunt...

With my system, if the clip is more than 10Mb/s (which is pretty much all HD content), then i get frame dropping, anything over 10Mb and it turns from a flip book animation to a PowerPoint Presentation, sometimes as low as 0.25fps... which would be the 40Mb parts probably.

These days, i just watch HD content on the PS3 hooked up to my 24" monitor.
 
2

2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey
Kawika322 said:
I am trying to figure out if I I will be able to run Blu Ray discs on my computer. I have a Dell Dimension 3000 with a Pentium 4, 2.4 ghz processor with 2 gb ram. Originally it had a 250w power supply, but I replaced it with a 500w. To upgrade my graphics card from the internal Intel(R) 82865G Graphics Controller, I installed a Nvidia GeForce 9400 GT 1gb graphics card. I also took out one of the optical drives and installed an LG BH08 Super Mulit Blu Ray player/writer.
Click to expand...

Yes your computer should do a fine job with BlueRay. I have several friends who run BlueRay on Atom based machines running 1.6ghz, with the ION video chip and they handle it just fine so given that your system is easily twice as fast, I shouldn't think you'll have a problem.

The video card should be no problem. It goes beyond 1080p resolutions and is advertised for HD content. So I think this should be OK too.

Depending on your monitor you might not be able to decode to full 1080p but a good media player (or Codec) will be able to adjust the resolution for you. If possible get connected to your monitor with DVI or HDMI as these are far better than VGA or SVGA.

So, hardware wise I'm thinking you're probably ok.

Now for the software...
First... Uninstall everything from the LG disk. You don't need any of it for the drive to work. In Hardware Manager, uninstall the drive and shut down your system. Disconnect the drive, boot up your system, let it discover the drive is missing, check that all other drives are behaving normally and then shut down, reconnect the drive and boot it back up... Wait for the new hardware detection, allow it to auto-install and do not be tempted to reinstall LG's garbage.

DO NOT go into the driver's dialog and set your DVD region, the minute you do that it will only play disks for that region.

Second, uninstall any codecs you've installed for BlueRay playback. Half of them don't work and the ones that do work tend to be of remarkably poor quality.

Next you need to go to Nvidia and get the latest video drivers.
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

Depending on your OS version you may need to update Direct X to get the best from the card and drivers.

Lastly, I strongly recommend that you get a copy of MPClassic, Home Cinema version. Don't get the one from Free Codecs, they've got it all messed up. Go right to the MPC-HC home page... http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/ MPC-HC comes with all codecs internal, you should not need to install anything else.

Ok, now the fun part... MPC-HC does not run right out of the box. You do have to do some setup. Leave all Playback options on "System Default" so that it automatically selects the video drivers for you. Otherwise go through everything and set it up as your system dictates.

I currently have MPC-HC in about 20 systems and so far it's never let me down.
 
B

Brett Thomas

Senior Editor
As 2tired states, there's not really a processor bottleneck with that system because of the graphics card. His instructions are solid and should work fine for you to enjoy good blu-ray movies.

If you have any problems, make sure to post them - there's not any reason his instructions shouldn't produce a working system for you, so if you still have trouble then we can help you get to the bottom of it. :)
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
Wow, great response Tango. I'm sure Kawika is on the path to proper Blu-ray playback (it's unfortunate they have remained so quiet since the original post, though).
 
2

2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey
Rob Williams said:
Wow, great response Tango. I'm sure Kawika is on the path to proper Blu-ray playback (it's unfortunate they have remained so quiet since the original post, though).
Click to expand...

Typical of the "new courtesy"... He got his answer.

If it wasn't working we'd probably have heard about it by now.
 
Rob Williams

Rob Williams

Editor-in-Chief
Staff member
Moderator
2Tired2Tango said:
Typical of the "new courtesy"... He got his answer.

If it wasn't working we'd probably have heard about it by now.
Click to expand...

Haha, I'm not too sure... it could be a lot of different things. It's not the first time it's happened here, so it could be that they posted on more than one forum and forgot one or more of them. Either way, your advice is going to prove useful to anyone who searches for the same problem in a search engine.
 
K

Kawika322

Obliviot
Hi 2Tired2Tango. Thank you for your advice. I have been busy with work and school these past few weeks but now have a little free time so I am going to try your method. I will probably have some hiccups along the way, as I am only moderate savvy in terms of hardware and software issues, so I will be sure to post questions I have.
 
2

2Tired2Tango

Tech Monkey
Kawika322 said:
Hi 2Tired2Tango. Thank you for your advice. I have been busy with work and school these past few weeks but now have a little free time so I am going to try your method. I will probably have some hiccups along the way, as I am only moderate savvy in terms of hardware and software issues, so I will be sure to post questions I have.
Click to expand...

Ahhh... the old distraction problem. Been there....

I'm pretty sure that if you follow the steps you should be fine but there's a pretty good crew here so if you get stuck at least one of us should be able to help.
 
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