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REALmagic Hollywood Plus DVD Decoder Card |
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Reader's Comments
I have a REALmagic Hollywood Plus card combined with a Aopen DVD (also
tested with Sony). The pictures look nice on my TV an I can play all codes
with rem select 1.7 and other programs. The trouble is when I use these
programs to play a region code other than what is in the card. When the card
says region 1 and I use rem select to play region 2 it will not play smoot.
There is some small stops in the movements. the same is the other way
around, if I set the card on region 2 and use rem select to play region 1.
the problem is that you can only do this 5 times.
Any sugestions.
Ivan
Hi Ivan,
I think your problem may be caused by the different colour formats (NTSC vs PAL). Are region 2 discs PAL? Region 1 are certainly NTSC. If your television is multi-system, you should select that option from DVD Station. If you television is NTSC only or PAL only, then the card is having to do the conversion between PAL and NTSC. There is a framerate difference of 5 frames per second between the two formats. The stutter you get may be due to the frame rate conversion that it going on. Usually you will see a slight stutter every second.
Unfortunately unless your tv is multi-system, there is no way around it. My tv is multisystem, so I set the output to NTSC when viewing an NTSC DVD, and to PAL when viewing a PAL DVD (or as mentioned earlier, set the output to multisystem and the output will follow the format of the DVD).
I am updating the review to mention this problem.
Hope this helps :)
Dean
I liked the review you made about the above decoder card, there are a few
errors in it..
1. You state that the hw+ can convert ntsc to pal, this isn't true. It does
convert the signal, but it doesn't convert it very well, sigma doesn't have
a solution for the "stuttering" you get every second because of the
conversion from 24fps to 25 fps. They have promised to solve it in the next
month or so ( they've made such promisses A LOT ), in the meantime they've
released a pal60 option which isn't anything more than the NTSC signal with
a PAL color palet.....
2. As a macrovsion defeater you only mention remote selector, there is
another utility that did the job about 8 months earlier than remote
selector. It's called Zone Selector. Seeing this program is freeware, I
think the author needs some credit...
Kind Regards,
Michiel
Thanks for your reply Michiel.
I wasn't aware of Zone Selector, and will add it to my review. I just checked it out and it looks very good, though does not have remote control abilities.
Yes, you are correct in that the converted signal does stutter. Personally I always set my output to multi-system to avoid conversion. I will add this to my review.
Thanks again
Dean
Dean, G'day I also bought a HW+ decoder card from EYO. A few months back
when the prices were a bit higher! Coupl'a points about the HW+ card -
* The SP/DIF out works great on a Dolby Digital receiver! DTS won't be
missed until I get some DTS encoded ROM's.
* NTSC is ~30 frames/sec, PAL is 25 fps. When viewing NTSC DVD's on a PAL
TV you should use the PAL-60 mode (if your TV supports it) otherwise you
will get frame jitter once a second since the MPEG card is trying to
produce a matching PAL frame rate. This is an issue with the HW+ cards
that seems to annoy most ppl. The Creative DXR3 had a driver fix which
supposedly solved this problem a few months back.
* Just a point on NTSC vs PAL DVD's. PAL discs are slightly higher
resolution that NTSC. NTSC is 720x480, PAL is 720x576 (I so I'm lead to
believe). However, the resulting MPEG video bandwidth is the same -
x y depth frame
NTSC = 720 x 480 x 12 x 30 = 118Mbps
PAL = 720 x 576 x 12 x 25 = 118Mbps
* Rather than using Region Selector you should hunt out the replacement
SDUDF.DLL for the Sigma drivers which disables Macrovision and region
checking all together. With this you can run the DVD Station without
having to run Region Selector or Zone Selector (which I used to use) at
all - try here
Wow! a must have!
* Rather than using the supplied 3.5mm stereo line-out to soundcard
line-in, there is a registry setting which tells the HW+ drivers to send
the audio data to your soundcard directly. This saves the audio signal
going thru the D-to-A on the HW+ card incurring the resultant signal
degradation.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Sigma Designs\REALmagic\13]
"EnableDAC"=dword:00000000
Cool!
* whenever you change your screen resolution or refresh rate you should
re-run the HW+ Config app. The decoder will still run but it won't be
really "clean" until you run Config.
* Also check your HW+ driver versions, 1.70 is the latest.
* A mate had his HW+ card die on him a few weeks back. EYO were quite
happy to replace it... hang on to your receipt!
Andrew
Thanks Andrew!! Lots of excellent info there...
Hello!
After reading your article on the Overclockers,I am now very
interested in buying a Hollywood+ DVD Decoder card. Thank you for your
informative review!
I have a question tho. I would like to upgrade my speakers up to
the Dolby 5.1 standard.(With 6 speakers.) You have mentioned on your
article that thru the use of the "S/P-DIF Out" socket, I can connect it
to a proper amp. But if I am using a PC sound card like the Creative
live! or Diamond MX300, Could I still get that Dolby 5.1 effect?
On Sharkyextreme, they have posted a review
on a set of speakers from Taiwan (Skywell Magic Theatre Pro), I think
that is the type of speakers I would like to get.
Anyway, I don't expect you to know everything about DVD setup on
PC....but if you can share any info , it would be really helpful!!!!
Thank you for taking your time to read this e-mail!
Stephan Tang from Brisbane
Hi Stephen,
The Hollywood Plus outputs it's audio to the rear connectors only. There is a registry hack to get it to output directly to the sound card, but I doubt that this would work with dolby digital. If your sound card also has an S/P-DIF input, you could feed the output of the HPlus to the input of the soundcard, but that may be the only way.
Sorry I can't really be of help - I guess you could try sigmadesigns.com to see if they have any patches for the drivers that could make this work.
Thanks for reading my review - I am please you liked it. I am making a few minor updates from feedback I have had so far - check it out again in a day or two.
Dean
good review,
2 things slightly wrong
first a p133 is not powerful enough for all dvds
try a cartoon like antz where you get max data difference it will freeze and stutter
I know i have tried it, fine for normal films, no good for cartoons
had to change to a p200 for all dvds to work...try antz in your p166 see if it works? (it might)
next there is no conversion process in pal/ntsc it just throws away extra data
ntsc played in pal (30fps played at 25fps) gives a jerky picture
but most pal tvs will play pal60 (30fps), conversion means adding frames
and regenerating the fps.......very expensive pro equipment to do this!
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Portal/2851/
sarahjane
Hi Sarah,
thanks for this info, I will give it a go. I have added a bit to the review on the frame rate conversion. thanks again
Dean
Sarah has quite a number of interesting utilities on her web site.
Dear sir,
I want to thank you for the great review you did on the RealMagic Hollywood Plus. For the last weeks i'm doing my own research about the DVD way to go - searching for every piece of information before i will take out those precious bucks out - and your review is not my first one to read . I was impressed by the product pictures, the screen shots of the software and the personal impression you gave to the review. This kind of reviews should have the title "User-to-User" - as they give you the feeling that the reviewer is someone just like you - and you can count on him .
Keep on the good work !
Efi kaufman
ISRAEL
HI!
Your assumption of true widescreen is incorrect. Here are the correct terms and ratios:
Standard -: 1.66:1
WideScreen -: 1.85:1
CinemaScope -: 2.35:1
35mm film runs at 18" per sec or 24fps.
How do I know this? I've been a projectionist for 15 yrs.
Bye,
David...
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