I tried WinDVD but could not get it to play any HD DVDs earlier this summer.  When I contacted their customer support they said that there were problems with it and they had removed that functionality.  Whether that was related to the supposed cracking of the copy protection and now has been resolved, I don't know, but you'll definitely want to confirm that it actually does what it says it's supposed to do before you buy it.  I think they still have a 10-day trial version.

PowerDVD Ultra = PowerDVD 7.3 is the only version that supports HD DVD and BD so far as I know.  That's what I'm using and it works just fine.  But yeah, it'll make you uninstall v4. 

What's special about v4 of PowerDVD?  Is there some feature it has that was removed in the later versions?

How about Nero 8? The website claims it has "Increased Blu-ray and HD DVD recording and playing support".

Quoting Nadja:

Quote:
V4 would appear to be the last version that actually differentiated between stereo and surround 2.0 tracks. Certainly the most reliable method I've used.

Actually, v6 also does it, just not in regular playback mode. You have to close the player and then open it by double-clicking on one of the VOB files on the disc, then you can still see if the Surround flag is set or not. Obviously don't know if the newer versions (7.3 was mentioned above) still work the same way.

...on the other hand, I seem to remember reading some Contribution Notes, where someone said that feature was "re-introduced" into PowerDVD 7...?

Since I'm using PowerDVD 7.3, I can check it this weekend and see if it does pick up the flagging properly.

As far as I'm aware, if your video card and monitor are both HDCP enabled, you should be able to do all HD resolutions, and if the HDCP chain isn't complete then it is downgraded all the way to 480p/576p.

BTW, I just had a go with PowerDVD v8. It doesn't recognise the 2.0 surround in regular mode, but it does if you open the VOB directly as ya_shin described. So I'm stickin' with it!

I'm in a pickle too. I got the drives, just stuck them in, but I've not got a complete HDCP chain.

The cyberlink advisor tells me that everything is green except the connection itself, which is "Digital (without HDCP")". The full log is here. That's the BD one, the HD DVD trips up on the same step.

The only thing that springs to mind for me is that I have the wrong kind of DVI cable? I'm using the dual-link DVI that came with the monitor, might this not be capable?

I was thinking much the same. The monitor is a Dell 3007WFP-HC, definitely HDCP-compliant, but none of the supplied materials seem to vouch for the cable either way.