Asus FAQs - some common questions

Q : What kind of DVD acceleration features does the v3400/v3800 have ?
Q : What kind of DVD acceleration features does the v6600 have ?
Q : Which drivers should I use to obtain the best DVD playback ?
Q : Which software DVD decoding solution suits my v3400/v3800 best ?
Q : Which software DVD decoding solution suits my v6600 best ?
Q : Do region control rest with my Asus card ?
Q : What is this thing called "Macrovision" and how can I disable it ?
Q : Why does the Creative and Diamond Nvidia cards have better/worse TV-output than my Asus one ?
Q : Can my Asus v3400/v3800 achieve full screen TV-out ?
Q : What is this "Overscan" that you keep talking about ?


Q : What kind of DVD acceleration features does the v3400/v3800 have ?
A : Almost none. The v3400/v3800 features the TNT/TNT2 chipsets which does not have built in hardware DVD acceleration. It has hardware overlay, colorspace conversion and sub-picture alpha blending support (for more information, click here), but these features have been standard in all graphic cards since the introduction of DirectX. All graphic card manufacturers claim that their card has "DVD Acceleration", but only cards featuring the s3 Savage, ATI chipsets and the new GeForce-256 based cards have true hardware DVD acceleration.


Q : What kind of DVD acceleration features does the v6600 have ?
A : The v6600 have built in hardware DVD acceleration in the form of Motion Compensation. You'll need special software that can take advantage of this kind of acceleration, but presently only Cyberlink's upcoming PowerDVD 2.5 player and WinDVD 2000 (with DVD Genie 3.24+ hack - not tested) has this feature. You can download this player on DVD Digest's Download Zone site.


Q : Which drivers should I use to obtain the best DVD playback ?
A : For your v3400, you should use Asus driver version 1.91. For your v3800, you should use driver version 2.25 and for your v6600, you should use the newest drivers available. You can download these drivers on the drivers download page.


Q : Which software DVD decoding solution suits my v3400/v3800 best ?
A : Because the TNT/TNT2 chipset does not have hardware DVD acceleration, all of the software players work pretty much the same. My personal favourite is the player that use cinemaster decoders as my machine is not fast enough (only a Celeron 333a). If you have a faster machine (PII 400+) then you might like to try PowerDVD or WinDVD. You can download these players on DVD Digest's Download Zone site.


Q : Which software DVD decoding solution suits my v6600 best ?
A : Because the Geo-Force 256 chipset does have hardware DVD acceleration, you'll need special software to take advantage of this feature. Currently only a special version of PowerDVD 2.5 and WinDVD 2000 (with DVD Genie 3.24+ hack - not tested) has this kind of acceleration support. You can download this player on DVD Digest's Download Zone site.


Q : Do region control rest with my Asus card ?
A : The region lock issue has nothing to do with the graphic adapter when using software player. It is the player that controls these setting and therefore can be easily cracke....I mean "reconfigured". DVD Genie is currently the best program to "reconfigure" your DVD region settings. Please refer to my download page for download links to DVD Genie.


Q : What is this thing called "Macrovision" and how do I disable it ?
A : Macrovision is a form of anti-piracy measure that has been around for a long time. If you have ever tried copying a rental video and noticed the picture changing brightness and out of sync, this is Macrovision at work. Many new DVD movies have this feature (eg. Starship Troopers). For further information, see the Macrovision FAQ. The Chrontel 7003, use in Asus v3400 graphics cards, does not support Macrovision. Asus drivers prior to version 2.16 do not have macrovision playback problems, but later drivers employ a tactic known as Macrovision blocking. This simply means while no macrovision distortion patterns are applied to the video output signal (like "normal" Macrovision), the software player in question will simply stop playing if it detects that tv-out or dual-view mode is selected. However, there is now a way to go around the macrovision blocking problem, at least for the v3400, and you'll see full hints on how to do this on my Macrovision Remover page. This trick might also work with v3800 and v6600 cards.


Q : Why does the Creative and Diamond cards have better TV-output than my Asus ?
A : It is best described to be different because Asus uses a entirely different encoder chip, the Chrontel range, than the other Nvidia manufacturers (and also the reference design), which uses the BrookTree range. The BT range is not neccesarily better or worse than the Chrontel 7003 (in fact, some Chrontel produces better picture than the BT chip) but because the BT range was the chip used in the reference designed Nvidia cards, much work has been done already on it to implement it properly into Nvidia cards and reference drivers. This is primarily why most people have had trouble using reference Nvidia drivers with Asus cards, especially if they try to use the tv-out function.


Q : Can my Asus achieve full screen TV-out ?
A : This is a hard question to answer. The answer depends on whether Asus can finally find a solution to their Overscan problem in their drivers. There is a utility called Asus TVCC that one can use to achieve this overscan. However, it only supports NTSC cards, and you'll require an NTSC compatible TV to be able to see full-screen. This is discussed in more detail on my full-screen page.


Q : What is this "Overscan" that you keep talking about ?
A : As far as I can figure out, it has to do with stretching the picture on a TV set so that there isn't a black border around. Sometimes the picture is stretched so much that some of the picture is lost in the borders. The Asus TNT/TNT2 drivers currently only support overscan in Dual-View mode, so in TV-out mode, the picture has a black border around it. Too much of the picture is still lost in Dual-View for it to be really useful. We are still hoping that Asus can resolve this issue with future drivers (request dated July 1999).