PowerDVD andOD+

from WinCustomize Forums
When i want to play a DVD in PowerDVD i don't get any picture, UNLESS i quit OD+. Does anyone know why/how this happens and if there is anything that can be done about it ?
objectdock
13,245 views 27 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What version of PowerDVD are you using? How do you have your dock set (always on top, always on bottom, normal....)?

I am using PowerDVD 5 and don't have the problems you describe with OD+. Try and play around with the settings described above and tell me if it makes any difference or not.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I tried PwerDVD 5 this morning and the only issue I had was that my systray dock was on top of the full screen video. Beyond that, it seemed to work quite well.
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm having the same issue when I try to play a DVD using InterVideo WinDVD while ObjectDock is running. When I have a movie playing in fullscreen, there isn't a problem, but when I play it at a normal size, I can only hear the audio, but there is no video. The screen only shows a blank color. I also have the same issue when playing a DVD in Windows Media Player while ObjectDock is running. It plays fine for awhile, but as soon I start to move my mouse over to ObjectDock the video disappears and I can only hear the audio. Anybody knows what's going on? I'd also like to mention that this occurs problem when I set ObjectDock to autohide.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I am having a similar problem with running WinTV (Hauppauge) from ObjectDock Plus. If I minimize the TV window and then restore it, I get a black screen (and sometimes even when I change TV channels). I wonder if there is a problem with TV/Movie video coming in from an external source....
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
im using power dvd6 i get the same problem black screen it seems to fight to ply the dvd, but doesnt happen, just black with sound, however. My divx movies work 100% i wonder if skinner was playing somth. other than an actual DVD. though it is a little problem, having to disable too play addvd i can live with that.

PS what is the deal with the sys tray docket, does it cause OD+ to time out/crash or not???
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I'm having the same problem with PixelView TV and basically any maximized DVD player(BlazeDVD + the ones from above). Well that would ANY PLAYER AT ALL apart from BSPlayer It didn't happen' immediately. But I can't track it as to when So I don't know what caused it...I just remember that one day I wasn't able to maximize my TV but I thought the TV was a problem I don't watch much DVD's so...it took me quite long to figure out.

It really sucks that there is no bug report page at stardock for these kinds of problems...
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
To all those who have the same problem, i finally found a solution. On this very site is a docklet called "docktool" which allows you to close OD, start a program, and after it finished, restart OD. Works like a charm for my problem.

docklet can be found here Link
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
i can't figure out how to use that program. the instruction was poorly written with broken english. i read it 20 times and still can't figure out what's saying.

obviously this is a wide known problem. i have this issue with my windvd 6 and powerdvd and winDVR. you would think they should've fixed it when desktopX 3.0 came out. but no.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Try moving any docks you have on the left side or the top over to the right side or the bottom.

Ok, maybe it's not just me. I had a similar problem with both of my pieces of video software (WinDVD and ATI's Multimedia Center) and what I discovered was I could avoid the problem by not having any docks on the left side or the top of my primary monitor on my dual display system. I'm thinking my primary monitor would closely equate to the monitor on a single display system.

I would be ok at first with putting docks on the left aligned center or bottom, or on the top aligned center or right, but in any case after I started customizing the docks at some point any of them would cause my video software to display blank. I never did figure out at exactly what point my customizing (adding items, sizing, transparency, etc) caused the problem. A dock on the left aligned top or on the top aligned left would cause a problem immediately.

Also, while I had docks on the top or left, I could exit OD+, load the video program, restart OD+, and it was fine. Kind of like OD+ was grabbing video resources that the video software needed unless the video software was running first to claim them.

Oddly enough I can literally stack docks on top of each other on the right side or the bottom of the primary display and not have any problem (other than it not being very usable). It seems like there is some graphic conflict created by the docks getting too close to the upper left corner of the screen.

This particular quirk isn't a problem on the secondary monitor.

Try moving any docks you have on the top or left over to the right or the bottom. If nothing else I would be curious to know if that takes care of the problem. Also, I'm running an ATI AIW9600XT video card, what are you people running - maybe it's an ATI related thing? Maybe if we give Stardock enough clues they can figure out what the heck is going on.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
It's due to the overlay usage of each program conflicting. Not much you can do about it other than use primary surface or if you DVD player of choice can for example use an OpenGL overlay instead of standard.

Also, VLC can get around the issue with its DirectX overlay.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks for the info Septimus.

I'll brazenly show my ignorance here: What's VLC?

Thanks.

(And again, just so it doesn't get lost in the little booklet I typed up there, I do avoid the problem by not having any docks on the top or left edges of the screen.)
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
i knew it had to have something to do with overlay.

anyone know how to get that german program to work. ?

i just ofund out that VLC is a cross platform media player which also plays dvds. i wonder if it supports digital S/PDIF output. i would still like to use windvd or powerdvd to play all my dvds without using vlc tho.
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hi, I just discovered that OD was stealing overlay on my system, when I play tv with MMC
no overlay, close OD and I get overlay back. I also don't know exactly what point it started doing it but closing and reopening OD doesn't sound like a solution, it sounds like I don't want to use this prog if that's the case. I'm going to keep looking into it.
I've been a RAge3d forum member for a long time and I'll post about it over there too. I
tried changing drawing technology in performance tweaks and that did nothing. Coincidently
another tv prog I have called IUvcr doesn't have an overlay problem but I think I read somewhere that it's capable of using an alternate overlay where as the ATI MMC isn't? Later..

my specs...Abit NF7-S v2/ Seasonic ss460 p.s./ mXP2600@ 11.5x208 1.675v/ 2x512 Corsair 3200 2.5-3-3-8/ TR ALX-800 cooler/ Antec SLK 3700amb case/ 60 gig Maxtor PATA, 80 gig Hitachi SATA/ NEC ND-2500A DVD-RW/ ATI AIW 9600xt/ TB Santa Cruz/ Klipcsh Promedia 2.1 speakers/ Hyundai Imagequest L90D+ LCD
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
don't have docks and don't install anything if your using windows because that is the cause of everyone problems, i would reinstall power dvd or what ever and just use the recommended settings don't piss around with anything because we all know that windows is crap and it'll just break, like it has done with you
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Awesome! DaveRI you got it man! I moved my dock to the right and my tv works without fail..
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks for the feedback qtrz. A little bizarre, isn't it?

I see that we're both using the same video card, kind of leaves a little itch in the back of my head.

I'm sure that there's some rational explanation as to why leaving the top and left free dodges the problem, which of course is another little itch in the back of my head.

Also odd to me that the video software and object dock will peacefully co-exist in any case as long as object dock is loaded after the video software loads its target file, target tv station, or dvd.

It just seems like there is a loose screw in there somewhere.
Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sorry for the late reply, VLC is VideoLan (videolan.org).

A great app that plays 99.9% of media files.

I think the overlay issue is due to OD taking the primary overlay surface in memory which PDVD needs. If you move it, or close and reopen it while PowerDVD is running, it should reallocate the memory space.

AveDesk can also cause the PowerDVD issue.
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Well I couldn't resist, I just had to play with it some more. It does seem like you can have docks on the left and top and not cause a problem with video software (in my case ATI TV and WinDVD) if you follow some guidelines. I'm just talking about untabbed docks here, and only the docks on the left and top:

1. Had no luck at all with any dock at Position: Left / Alignment: Top, or Position: Top / Alignment: Left. Both those arrangements caused the conflict no matter what I did with them.
2. Having the "Magnification" feature in ObjectDock's Appearance section enabled seems to be a major source of the conflict. I had a lot better luck with that disabled. I even tried smaller sizes such as 32 magnified to 64, or even 64 magnified to 64 (not a typo, I tried "magnifying" to the same size). The autohide and background transparency features didn't seem to be a problem for me. Also, I could use the same dock with the Icon Size set to 192 and magnification disabled and it wasn't a problem.
3. Total pixel size of the dock can be an issue. While I was playing with a dock at Position: Left / Alignment: Bottom the conflict materialized after adding a 10th dock entry at 64 pixels or a 7th dock entry at 96 pixels, both of which coincided with the dock crossing over into the top half of my screen (1600x1200 resolution). When I put an even larger dock at Position: Left / Alignment: CENTER though it wasn't a problem.

So if you want some docks on the top and/or left, are inclined to play a bit, and don't mind giving up the zooming, you can probably get it done. I'm a big fan of the zooming though, so I'm inclined to just leave the docks at the right and at the bottom. I'm sure there's more to it than this, for example I know when I first created a new default dock on top center or left center with the magnification enabled it wasn't a problem initially, but it always seemed to turn into one pretty quickly. I also found that I needed to quit ObjectDock frequently while wrecking it, probably to free up the resources Septimus referred to above. And the occasional reboot helps too - any of that software seems to get a little cranky after I start it up and shut it down a dozen or so times.

So that's about it for me. All this tinkering has made me want to watch a movie on my computer. Good luck to those who follow.
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Thanks again DAveRI for all the leg work, I will play with some of these scenarios tommorow. Also btw I have full version Object Desktop but only free version of Object
Dock. Not really important to the issue at hand but I'm still trying to get used to Object Desktop in general. I've had full Windowblinds for years but only recently purchased Object Desktop. I just seem to gravitate to Object Dock because it's straightforward and does what I need. There seems to be so many problems/obstacles or otherwise things I don't need or would have to augment with some of the Object Desktop programs, ie I'm discovering that the theme manager doesn't seem to be able to, well, manage themes very well for example but that could be my ignorance. It's all so much to
look for and implement new styles, icons, etc. etc. to just make good use of this whole
package, does anyone feel my pain? Object bar seems to be so specific toward the end use
of the actual creator of any given bar that I'd have to change so much for one bar theme
to be relevant to me. Anyone see what I mean? I don't have ALL the time in the world for
customizing, I have to go to work at some point.
Don't even get me started about ATI's latest cat/MMC offering, my god just because you're
Canadian doesn't mean you have to smoke weed ALL the time. sorry, sorry, I don't
hate Canadians! Sorry if my rant got a little off.. bye.
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Bump for Mr Haylebob
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
Like Septimus said it's an overlay problem! Because I wanted my dock on top center while watching TV in window mode I've search for TV and DVD programs that working.
I have found two that work :
TV : MoreTV (Basic but you can choose Resolution without overlay)
Divx,DVD : MediaPlayerClassic (Simple interface but work without any change with OD+

Hope that it helps someone....

Ps:I have a P4 - Geforce 5600 256Mb - WinTV PCI
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Bump.