Theater Tek stability?

by **trevis** on Thu Sep 04, 2003 2:42 pm

So, I finally decided to check out Theater Tek over the weekend for my 7 day evaluation period, unfortunately i didnt get much time to really play with it, but Tuesday a friend and i sat down to watch a movie (Spygame), a few minutes into the film i had already had 2 odd audio blips and about 20 minutes in *bam* it crashed! I got a dialog apologizing if I was in the middle of something, but said that Theater Tek had died. After it crashed we switched back over to my hated foe WinDVD to finish the movie. I played with it a little bit afterward and even in just trying to watch a random scene after a few minutes I would get an audio blip.

I’m sure the problem has something to do with the fact that my DVD’s are ISO’s streaming across the network but I’m not too thrilled about the fact that it would crash like that during playback. I’ve played with a lot of DVD players and can’t say that I ‘Love’ any of them but I’ve never had any of the others crash during a movie.

I assume others have not experienced these things?

by **Richard_P_Harvey** on Thu Sep 04, 2003 4:45 pm

I have been using TT since Andrew first released it years ago and never have I had a crash like that. Audio blips may be fixed by making sure that you have the correct audio settings under the audio tab in TT.

You may also want to post your issue(s) over at the TT forum.

by **trevis** on Thu Sep 04, 2003 5:21 pm

I know other people seem to be blissfully using TT for doing exactly what I want to do, but so far no one else seems to be having these issues. I let my trial period expire now, and I really dont want to give 70 bucks if it's not going to be stable in my environment.

I was having similar audio issues on massive scene content change with Zoomplayer as well, the only player that seems to cache enough data to avoid the issue is WinDVD. I've since reconfigured my network to get my HTPC and the media server on hte same switch, that seems to have resolved the intermittant issues with zoom (using chapter 23 of waking ned devine, because that was when i first saw it). I'd like to try it now with tt but i let the trial expire.

I'd sure love to use TT, the aspect ratio control and the ffdshow ease of use are very very nice. I guess i could use a different credit card and go for a second trial run.

by **smurgle** on Thu Sep 04, 2003 10:03 pm

trevis

I stream full DVDs (IFOs w/VOBs) over my network with TT and it has never crashed even once, in the 8 months that I have been using it. I did have some audio problems at first but then I rolled back my Soundblaster drivers to the ones that come with XP instead of using the newer ones from the Creative site (their hardware is good but their drivers are terrible). No problems since.

They (TT) are very helpful on their forums and have nice customer support -- your solution could be a simple one.

Good luck

by **trevis** on Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:17 am

I'm still really interested in the app, and i guess it could maybe be something on my end, but man having that thing throw up an error dialog during a movie went a long way towards getting on my bad side. I'll check out the TT forum this weekend and see if there is a way to get another 7 day eval.

by **smurgle** on Fri Sep 05, 2003 5:21 am

heh yea. I'd probably feel the same way if I had the same experience, especially since it is a hassle to try the software. If they had a simple demo download it wouldn't be so bad.

by **Richard_P_Harvey** on Fri Sep 05, 2003 2:15 pm

I think you may find Andrew will soon offer a 15 day free demo version of the software. His current process is not user friendly for sure and he has taken MUCH heat over it, however it's not of his making but driven by Sonic in an effort to protect their filter license. I know he is working with them to try and find an acceptable way to offer a timed demo version that does not require purchase at all but can be activated and made legit using a more user friendly key process.

As far as your technicial problems go I would again suggest that you post over at the TT forums. Both Andrew and Wayne (karnis) are eager to help out and I'm sure they will have ideas for you.

by **mattdisaster** on Fri Sep 05, 2003 2:52 pm

I think it's time I try this program out. From the get-go I've been using Zoomplayer, but it sounds more and more that poeple prefer this over zp.

-matt

by **Richard_P_Harvey** on Fri Sep 05, 2003 3:19 pm

Matt,

I use both Zoom and TT and I really like TT much better. I use Zoom on my office PC and my Bedroom HTPC both using the WinDVD5 filters that provide DTS decode in the PC. This really works fine for both those machines. But on my main Home Theater it's TT all the way. The Sonic filters produce a better image than all other filters IMHO and the overall all operation of TT is far more set top box like so the entire family is comfortable with it. Plus in my case I send the DVD image out the secondary head of the Radeon 9000pro to my HDTV and TT supports that ability native so TT is basically the only option that really works without using some other software to get multi-mon support.

For me however it's all about picture quality and TT with the newest Sonic filters is impossible to beat. Another option for the tweaker who likes the abilities of Zoom is to buy TT so you get the Sonic filters and use Zoom as the front end. I have actually been a beta tester for Andrew so I have the Sonic filters on my office machine and have Zoom set-up with them. This way you get the same picture quality but the tweakability of the Zoom player. Best of both worlds....!

by **mattdisaster** on Fri Sep 05, 2003 3:43 pm

Sounds awesome, I will defenitly have to it a try. I'll get the trial version tonight and screw around with it. Thanks for the heads up.

-matt

by **trevis** on Fri Sep 05, 2003 5:12 pm

The Sonic filters produce a better image than all other filters IMHO and the overall all operation of TT is far more set top box like so the entire family is comfortable with it.

From what i saw of TT i'd have to aggree that it's image quality seems to be better than the other players that i've used. The colors seem warmer and the image seems to have more depth. I guess i could buy TheaterTek and if it keeps giving me problems i could just fall back to using Zoomplayer Pro with the sonic codecs.

I still dont think it feels much like a settop box tho. When I was originally researching TT I was paging through some screen shots and saw that it had a context (right click) menu I though, "well that's not very set-top box like". Maybe future releases will go farther along those lines.

by **Richard_P_Harvey** on Fri Sep 05, 2003 9:00 pm

Trevis,

The key to TT looking and feeling like a STB is to utilize the built-in keyboard shortcuts. Andrew provides both girder and pronto files but if you use a different remote then it's just learn, learn, learn.

I use a pronto remote and the standard airboard keyboard which makes this totally STB like. Either click on a movie in Xlobby or pop one in the DVD drive, it starts to play and then just sit back with the remote and control EVERYTHING including aspect ratio, audio track, chapter select and obviously pause etc. Totally STB functionality.