Adventures in 4K UHD + HDR Troubleshooting

[Manni]

Hi Paul,

A couple of things:

1) As long as you don't use the red foxy for piracy (which I don't condone or approve of either) but simply to unlock your original disks for playback or ripping, I really don't see why it's a problem to use it that way, as it makes it possible to not have to use PowerDVD, which is a poor player for the reasons explained below. It doesn't matter if you rip to unprotected ISO/folders or if you play the physical disk, if you unlock the disks then you don't have to follow any of the SGX nonsense and you can freely choose your hardware (and use for playback the same PC as you use for ripping, if you use UHD friendly drives and NOT officially SGX approved drives).

2) PowerDVD is a poor player especially for HDR because it doesn't support madVR. jRiver is my player of choice because it supports both full BD menus AND madVR. AFAIK there is no other standalone player that does that. I rip all my 2D disks to BD folders because I want the Oppo 203 clone to be able to play them when using network playback with the MyMovies iPad app. It's unable to play files with remote playback, unlike my Dune HD Pro Vision 4K Solo. Otherwise ripping to unprotected ISOs works best for me (for example for 3D Blurays, though I use my external player to play them as nVidia has stopped supporting 3D MVC).

3) Forget about AMD GPUs for HTPC use. Their drivers are full of bugs. Unfortunately, nVidia is the only sensible option. I have a 3090 with my AMD 5950X and it works fine. AMD CPUs are fine of course, unlike with SGX.

4) I highly recommend to use madVR as a renderer because it has the best HDR tonemapping for projectors (miles better than PowerDVD), this will really help you to play titles mastered above 1,000nits. You don't need 10,000nits, but many title are mastered to 4,000nits and you want the best way to tonemap them to whatever peak brightness your projector offers. That's what madVR does (along with best upscaling and more). It's dynamic tonemapping, which means that it can display dark scenes just as well as bright scenes, dark titles just as well as bright titles. Your Optoma (like most other projectors to the exception of recent JVCs) most likely does static tonemapping, which means that you have to manually select the correct setting for each title, and even then some scenes will be too bright and others will be too dark, because even if it uses the static metadata for the whole disc to decide what settings to use, scene brightness obviously varies during a film. Dolby Vision and HDR10+ are trying to address this with dynamic metadata, but none is necessary with madVR, which does better from plain HDR10.

5) madVR also support 3D LUT calibration (with Calman, Colorspace or the free DisplayCAL), which means that you can get very advanced correction and a reference picture.

I don't have the time to develop each of these points (many of them are rabbit holes that can take dozens if not hundred of hours to get right) but hopefully this will give you an idea of what to research if you'd like to improve significantly the picture quality and accuracy of your system.

Hope this helps!

[Jamie]

Hi Paul,

A couple of things:

1) As long as you don't use the red foxy for piracy (which I don't condone or approve of either) but simply to unlock your original disks for playback or ripping, I really don't see why it's a problem to use it that way, as it makes it possible to not have to use PowerDVD, which is a poor player for the reasons explained below. It doesn't matter if you rip to unprotected ISO/folders or if you play the physical disk, if you unlock the disks then you don't have to follow any of the SGX nonsense and you can freely choose your hardware (and use for playback the same PC as you use for ripping, if you use UHD friendly drives and NOT officially SGX approved drives).

Hi Manny,

I believe that Paul doesn't want to have a foxy discussion on the CMC forum in depth so that he won't have the studios targeting him. I agree with what you say on piracy and I think Paul would agree in spirit. I buy all my videos, dvd, bluray, uhd too but the studios still call us pirates. Because of this, Paul tries to not call out so called piracy programs directly.

[Pauven]

I believe that Paul doesn't want to have a foxy discussion on the CMC forum in depth so that he won't have the studios targeting him.

No concerns here. Manni followed my example, kept the conversation very high-level, didn't promote piracy, and didn't provide URLs. All good.

[Jamie]

Hi Paul,

I don't know how busy you are on other projects, but if you do have some time, I was wondering if you have had any more information on how to setup a htpc for 4k and HDR use. I thought you had a calibaration tutorial for HDR calibration on the forum but I have not been able to track it down. Maybe I was dreaming it.

I was wondering whether you are still using windows 11 for your HTPC and whether they have delivered the HDR calibration app as described in this article. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/ ... ation-app/

I was also wondering what cpu, motherboard and gpu you would recommend now for a 4k UHD HTPC? I may try putting one together in the next couple of months. This will serve as a server as well as a htpc. I will be running premiere, photoshop, mymovies, cmc, ripping blurays, uhd disks, audio cds "for backup".

Hope all is well.


Jamie

[Pauven]

Hey Jamie,

I've been too busy to deal with HDR. My projector came out with a firmware update, which blew away all my settings, but looks much better out of the box. I have turned off HDR on the PC, and with what I've been watching lately (non HDR content) it looks better this way. HDR is always lackluster on projectors anyway...

I don't know if they released the HDR calibration app, but I am still using Win11.

As long as you're cool like a red fox, I would stick with Nvidia for the GPU. I saw in the news today that you can now find 3080's for under $600, IIRC. That has plenty of horsepower for driving all the visual enhancements you could ever want. For CPU, you can do pretty much anything you desire. If you are doing Premiere and Photoshop, you do want some horsepower, so something in the higher end from AMD or Intel.

Things are well here, I'm just incredibly busy. In the middle of a master bath remodel, prepping another home for sale, finishing up my new pinball machine for a trade show in a few weeks, and going live on a year long project this weekend. I would love some downtime...

[Jamie]

Hi Paul,
Thank you for your answer to my question and taking a few minutes away from your schedule. I hope all your projects work out fine and that you are able to find some downtime between projects.

Jamie

[somerandomuser]

hello there,

nice guide, I kinda did the same (yes, in 2024) I faced that no-uhd-hdr-blu-ray issue myself, and it p***ed me off so much, that I couldn't play any UHD Blu Rays on my PC that I decided to get my hands on some (cheap) hardware that supports SGX, which I did, I had a good fight with Power DVD to see/recognize that SGX is active on the system (only after a clean OS reinstall and using a specific version ob Intel ME + SGX) and yes the Adviser kept saying that SGX is missing, never the less, Power DVD itself seemed to recognize it... BUT I've run into another issue, now that Power DVD actually recognizes SGX, it still won't play the UHD Blu Rays discs saying:
"Error code 21110: This media cannot be played because PowerDVD wasn't verified remotely."
Tried all the UHD discs I have, I am guessing there is some feature missing, which has to be installed activated remotely (I can see some loading bar with a initialization message appear for a very short time) and then it always results in this error, if I turn off my internet connection I would get a different error, saying that I need an internet connection.
I tried versions 22 and 17 Ultra of Power DVD by now, both with the same result... does anyone here know what exactly is missing and maybe how to fix that?
I really brings my p**s to a boil, having won the fight with that SGX crap and still failing so close to the goal :/

[somerandomuser]

well, after (unsuccessfully) fight with it for a few days, this is what I have to say/ask about it:

I get a feeling of being BSed... and this is why

well, I got myself a BD-Drive which is capable of UHD HDR BD playback, of course I was gonna be a cheapskate and use some free software for playing BD-UHD discs, so I quickly landed on the Leawo's Player page, which is capable of playing UHD BR discs, BUT not HDR capable. (colors all "dim/washed out")
Didn't take much time to figure out that Power DVD (before version 23) is/was capable of UHD HDR BD playback, sounded good.
Of course I had to dive in that SGX/AACS (sh*t)pond, after hours of reading on this topic, I came to the conlusion that my gaming build is not gonna to cut it (i5-11400 with no SGX support). So I thought "ok, let's get our hands on some SGX capable Intel CPU which would also support HDR output through the integrated GPU" (there is a list of such GPUs on an Intel website, starting from Intel HD 610 I think, well at least all of them were Intel (U)HD 6XX).
So I ended up getting a used Dell Latitude 7280 for a very low price... still thought it was going to be a walk in the park.
So, of course I ran in to that SGX requirement error when trying to play an UHD BD disc on Power DVD 19 Ultra. (That "This media cannot be played because the required Intel SGX (SW Guard Extensions) wasn't properly started." error)
After reading some more and trying out the adviser, I did a complete reinstall of Win 10, and a certain (not the newest version) of Intel ME and the XGS drivers. That got me past the XGS error in Power DVD, but now it failes the on-time activation of the blu ray hd feature (it's connecting to the cyberlink servers but always comes up with error 21110 "This media cannot be played because Power DVD wasn't verified remotely." it actually give a different error if no internet connection us available 21113 which basically tell me to make sure an internet connection is available and firewall is not blocking the communication) I actually open a support case about that, but don't have high hopes for a solution, they probably gonna nail me wiuth that SGX and the very strickt requirements for UHD HDR playback, which by the way are met.
But this is not even the point of this thread, during the process of fighting with the SGX drivers and HDR support for the Intel HD 620 GPU, I kinda started wondering:
The story goes "you MUST HAVE SGX hardware and software support to playback UHD HDR BD discs" ok, I'm down with that, but then maybe someone cares to explain to me:
1. how does MakeMKV manages to rip the UHD HDR Disc conent, which is than displayed properly on Power DVD as well as on MPC-BE with Hardware HDR support through the NVidia RTX 4060 GPU
2. how Leawo's Blu Ray player is able to play the UHD BD disc without HDR?
Is ACCS is used to only encrypt the HDR Data now? Did those guys figure out how to bypass it? Did they maybe emulate the hardware SGX function within their software? I kindma doubt it...
Also I got on UHD BD disc which is not HDR, which looks the same when you play it with Leawo's player or rip with MakeMKV! (all the others only have true HDR colors after ripping with MakeMKV and playing on MPC-BE with D3D Renderer or Power DVD Ultra and ahve those dimed colors on Leawo player, they also all say HDR on the cover and this one does not)
But Power DVD 19 Ultra would still not play it.
The point is, I really get a feeling that Cyberlink is BSing people about that SGX hardware support and all that strict hardware requirement stuff instead of creating a proper solution within their software. (which is kinda understandable since people who buy UHD HDR BD discs will probably be a minority, like myself)
Still, all that, kinda forces me to either, buy those discs and rip them to watch (since the output is quite large 50-120 GB they will fill up my SSDs/HDDs pretty soon and I don't want to have to rip every movie on demand, if I decide to watch it, or even worse, using some "not-so-legal" methods to come by those UHD HDR movies.
I just wanna buy the movies I like the most in UHD HDR Quality and watch them without makign a science prokject out of it, it doesn't seem like an out of proportion request to me.
The quick and dirty version:
Play UHD HDR BD disc on I5-11400 no SGX with Leavo --> Dim washed out colors - no HDR
Play UHD HDR BD disc on i5-7300U with SGX with Leavo --> Dim washed out colors - no HDR
MakeMKV of the same disc on on I5-11400 no SGX MPC-BE with D3D11 encoder or Power DVD Ultra --> proper HDR colors
MakeMKV of the same disc on on i5-7300U with SGX MPC-BE with D3D11 encoder or Power DVD Ultra --> proper HDR colors
Directly playing the same disc I5-11400 no SGX with with Power DVD Ultra --> no SGX support error
Directly playing the same disc i5-7300U with SGX with with Power DVD Ultra --> one time Ultra HD Blu-Ray feature initiation error
So how is this "SGX feature required for UHD DB playback" stuff fitting in here? AACS only encrypting HDR data? MakeMKV emulating it? Leawo emulation it without HDR support?

[Pauven]

Hi Some Random User.

Sorry to read about your struggles with legal UHD Blu-ray playback. You'd think it would, or at least should, be simple, but it's extremely convoluted and essentially broken.

Basically, if you legally buy UHD Blu-ray's and want to watch them on your PC, which seems like a reasonable ask, the protection mechanisms are so broken that in effect you must break the law to watch them successfully.

SGX primarily seemed like a solution targeting fully integrated PC's (aka "laptops", though some NUC style PC's also were good candidates). While it technically is possible to meet the requirements with a desktop PC, even a DIY build, it does seem like this was much harder than it should have been.

That said, I believe SGX was only supported by PowerDVD, so even if you had a fully compliant PC, your only choice was to use PowerDVD as your player.

The SGX technology was cracked wide open a few years back. Intel's answer to this seemed to be simply dropping the feature altogether after the 10-series. Which you discovered with your 11-series i5-11400. CyberLink responded by removing SGX from their PowerDVD player. Play close attention to their current PowerDVD marketing - while they promote 4K and even 8K video playback, they only claim support for DVD and BR discs, NOT the 4K UHD BR discs.

I do believe that certain legacy versions of PowerDVD, omitting certain patches, are still SGX capable. But from the errors you're encountering, it seems possible that CyberLink may have simply dropped support for these older versions, removing the online validation capability from their servers. If (and this is a big IF) that is correct, then legal SGX playback is well and truly DEAD.

1. how does MakeMKV manages to rip the UHD HDR Disc conent, which is than displayed properly on Power DVD as well as on MPC-BE with Hardware HDR support through the NVidia RTX 4060 GPU

Any software that circumvents disc encryption is technically not legal is most countries. By illegally removing the disc encryption, playback constraints are also removed, hence that's why the content becomes playable.

2. how Leawo's Blu Ray player is able to play the UHD BD disc without HDR?

Answer to #1 applies here too.

Is ACCS is used to only encrypt the HDR Data now?

No, not that I'm aware. I think you are confusing HDR playback support with playback protections. HDR is fairly complicated, so many players simply lack support for the feature. Additionally, HDR support requires the entire playback chain to fully support the feature (disc, player, OS, TV/projector, and this applies to multiple competing HDR methods). If you don't have proper support at even one point in the chain, muted colors is the most common result.

The point is, I really get a feeling that Cyberlink is BSing people about that SGX hardware support and all that strict hardware requirement stuff instead of creating a proper solution within their software.

I'm not sure that your assessment is accurate. Years ago, before SGX died, the support was real. It was always difficult, but it did work. But Intel killed SGX, CyberLink dropped support (apparently retroactively), and thus the ONLY legal pathway for playing UHD Blu-rays on PC's has been eliminated. I think you are reading product specs and instructions from years ago, for obsolete products that no longer have support. So it's not that you are being BS'd. It's simply that the offending companies have failed to update legacy documentation to clarify that SGX is dead and legal playback is no longer possible.

I just wanna buy the movies I like the most in UHD HDR Quality and watch them without makign a science prokject out of it, it doesn't seem like an out of proportion request to me.

While I agree 1000%, it seems that the media conglomerates want exactly the opposite. I think they would prefer if physical media died, and streaming was the only remaining option. That way, they could restrict access any way they see fit, and charge whatever fees they desire.

It seems many of us have grown up in a luxurious time when reasonable playback was actually possible. But now we are criminals if we legally purchase a disc and have the crazy idea to watch it on a PC. I don't know where in the world you are located (and I'm not asking), but odds are what you want to do is simply no longer legal (depending upon your country). Sorry.

And as you've found, there are ways to get around these pesky playback restrictions. But since these ways are not legal, I don't permit their discussion here. Yes, we acknowledge they exist and readily admit that the only way you can successfully playback content on a PC anymore is by using such tools. But if you want to discuss using these tools, you need to find a website that is willing to host such content (there are plenty out there). As clearly detailed in the "Decorum for the Forum" rules, I don't permit piracy or cracking content, and some of your discussion here is traversing into that restricted area.

I don't think you are a My Movies or Chameleon Media Center user, you seem to have stumbled onto our little forum here in searching for playback solutions. In case you're not aware, My Movies is a movie collection cataloging solution. CMC is a front-end GUI for browsing your My Movies collection, and initiating playback. And playback, of course, typically means playing content that is stored on a NAS media server, which implies that disc contents have been copied to a hard drive (though direct playback from disc is also supported). So if you read between the lines, you'll understand that pretty much all My Movies + CMC users are in the same boat as you, and have likely already adopted using tools to get playback to work. And since PowerDVD has basically abandoned us, you'll see that most users are preferring other players, like MPC or JRiver MC.

I wish the best of luck to you. But in my opinion, your best path forward is to simply give up on SGX and any type of legal playback on a PC. If you want a legal playback option without the "science project", then a dedicated UHD Blu-ray disc player is your best (and perhaps only) option. If for some reason you still want to pursue PC based playback, then you'll have to decide for yourself your comfort level with violating any local laws that may prohibit what you are doing.

[somerandomuser]

well first of all thank you for replying to that rant!
Your explanations also sound solid, I kinda didn't take under consideration, that the other "playback solutions" I mentioned, could simply be circumventing the encryption, since those are not being found on some shady sites/forums, but are offered openly/officialy (why not implement HDR as well than, I am talking about Leawo here, is a mystery to me).
Just btw. I also stumbled upon that DVDFab solution that also seem to support UHD HDR BD playback (by some Austrian publisher I guess) this one only supports a few DB drives, they got their own stuff going on with "friendly" and "unfriendly" drives (take a guess which group my drive belongs to
So after all that time I spent on this, I would also have to conclude, that simply buying and playing a UHD HDR BD on a PC, might be out of reach (I also kinda agree with you on Cyberlink possibly dropping the online ressources for the older version of Power DVD which would support the playback on the suitable hardware)
You were right about me finding this forum while looking for playback solution, this was (almost) the only source I could find, which would offer a proper description/explanation of the Issue, BIG THANKS for that once again!
Just one thing to clarify about the above question/answer:

Is ACCS is used to only encrypt the HDR Data now?
No, not that I'm aware. I think you are confusing HDR playback support with playback protections. HDR is fairly complicated, so many players simply lack support for the feature. Additionally, HDR support requires the entire playback chain to fully support the feature (disc, player, OS, TV/projector, and this applies to multiple competing HDR methods). If you don't have proper support at even one point in the chain, muted colors is the most common result.

I wasn't actually confusing HDR with playback protection, since I didn't assume/think that other software solutions would circumvent protection/encryption, I was wondering how they are able to play the content without those hardware restrictions just without HDR, this is why that question was meant to be (half) ironic. This is what I still sort of don't get, if Leawo is able to make a product capable of UHD BR playback, why not also offer HDR playback? Like make a free of charge version for regular BD playback and a paid/premium version with UHD/HDR support? (I actually never tied to playback an UHD HDR BD disc with HDR hardware support turned off, so I don't know if the colors would look "normal" this way, meaning no HDR but at least not dim/washed out, if that is the case, than that "solution" would at least make a little sense to me)

Anyway, thanks for clarifying stuff!