G74SX-ST1 Blu-ray drive issues

[jonfl1]

Hello all, been lurking on these boards since before I bought my G74SX-ST1 a month ago, but this is my first official post... 🙂

What I wanted to know is if any others have experienced the same issues I've been seeing with my DS4E1S Blueray combo drive, which are:

1) I've recently noticed that the drive won't recognize any media at all, that is until I pop in a blueray movie. Which brings me to...

2) When I put a blueray movie in the drive and attempt to play via CinePlayer that came OEM, I get sound but only a black screen.

The only major changes I can think of are my updating the Nvidia drivers to 285.62, ATK Package to 1.0.0.00014, and the BIOS to 203. Other than that, DirectX and everything else that I can possibly update are at the latest update/BIOS revision/etc. I've read a couple of related posts on here, but nothing helpful came out of those. (at least for me)

Any ideas?

[dstrakele]

Hi jonfl1 - I don't know what you've read here previously, so we'll start from zero.

In CinePlayer 3D Settings, did you try setting "Enable 3D Processing" to "Off" from the the default "Automatic"

If it actually is a 3D Blu-Ray disc, did you try changing the 3D format in CinePlayer?

[jonfl1]

Thanks for the reply, dstrakele. I did in fact read about that setting in one of the other threads, and while setting "Enable 3D Processing" to "Off" does prevent an error message in the application, it doesn't fix the main black screen issue.

The black screen issue is annoying, but I'm more concerned about why the drive is not recognizing any physical media at all until BD-ROM media is inserted into the drive. (even though it doesn't display properly!)

[dstrakele]

I went into CinePlayer Help, selected Technical Support, and found this: http://rovicorp.force.com/PublicKB1/articles/en_US/Roxio_Article/Can-I-playback-Blu-Ray-discs-with-C...

That may explain your Blu-Ray issue, but not why media is not recognized. I have been able to play some DVD's in CinePlayer. My impression is it is not the best Player application - it appears quite buggy. I know I ain't paying any money for their plug-in! For the problem DVD, I've found it helpful (like you) to place the DVD in the drive and if CinePlayer auto-launches and fails to play it or starts playing corrupt video, I shut the app down, and relaunch it.

If you put a disc in the drive, does it appear as Drive G: in Windows Explorer?

Does your ODD play audio CD's outside of CinePlayer? An AutoPlay dialog should pop up asking if you want to Play the CD or Burn to CD.

I suspect you've done a clean install of Windows to your SDD. Does your ODD show up in Device Manager? What version Microsoft driver is it running?

[JRd1st]

dstrakele wrote:
I went into CinePlayer Help, selected Technical Support, and found this: http://rovicorp.force.com/PublicKB1/articles/en_US/Roxio_Article/Can-I-playback-Blu-Ray-discs-with-C...

That may explain your Blu-Ray issue, but not why media is not recognized. I have been able to play some DVD's in CinePlayer. My impression is it is not the best Player application - it appears quite buggy. I know I ain't paying any money for their plug-in! For the problem DVD, I've found it helpful (like you) to place the DVD in the drive and if CinePlayer auto-launches and fails to play it or starts playing corrupt video, I shut the app down, and relaunch it.

If you put a disc in the drive, does it appear as Drive G: in Windows Explorer?

Does your ODD play audio CD's outside of CinePlayer? An AutoPlay dialog should pop up asking if you want to Play the CD or Burn to CD.

I suspect you've done a clean install of Windows to your SDD. Does your ODD show up in Device Manager? What version Microsoft driver is it running?

You ever hear of K-Lite Mega Codec Pack? If you decide to try it it's best if you install one of the regular packs plus the 64-bit pack.

[jonfl1]

Just a quick update: Last night I installed CyberLink PowerDVD 11, and Blu-ray disks now play normally with no problem. I ended up uninstalling Cineplayer after that, as I'm confident in assuming that Cineplayer apparently had some sort of conflict with one or more of the updates I've done.

As for the issue with non-BD ROM disks not reading until a BD-ROM is first inserted into the drive, I'll have to do further testing to verify that the issue still exists.

[BrodyBoy]

jonfl1 wrote:
Just a quick update: Last night I installed CyberLink PowerDVD 11, and Blu-ray disks now play normally with no problem. I ended up uninstalling Cineplayer after that, as I'm confident in assuming that Cineplayer apparently had some sort of conflict with one or more of the updates I've done.

You bought the paid version of PowerDVD 11? I've thought about getting that, because that Cineplayer thing seems kind of basic, but I've never used PowerDVD and don't know whether it's actually worth paying for.....

[jonfl1]

BrodyBoy wrote:
You bought the paid version of PowerDVD 11? I've thought about getting that, because that Cineplayer thing seems kind of basic, but I've never used PowerDVD and don't know whether it's actually worth paying for.....

In hindsight, it was probably more than I needed to pay for what you get. But for me, I had to buy something anyway if I wanted to get BD-ROM movies working on my laptop, so I went ahead and just bought it. I've had a great experience with CyberLink products in the past too, and that's really what sealed the deal for me.

[BrodyBoy]

jonfl1 wrote:
In hindsight, it was probably more than I needed to pay for what you get. But for me, I had to buy something anyway if I wanted to get BD-ROM movies working on my laptop, so I went ahead and just bought it. I've had a great experience with CyberLink products in the past too, and that's really what sealed the deal for me.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll look into it. 🙂

[Retired]

I noticed when updating the Video Drivers this can cause the CINE player to crap out with a black screen and no sound. I keep a local copy of the CINEPlayer MSI installer file in MyDocs and whenever updating video drivers I just use the "Repair" option to get the Cineplayer working again. Twice now ran repair through the [programs control panel] and works like a charm.