Hardware problem: LiteON DH-401S & Movie 'Jumper', BDROM DL read problem

I’m having a problem with my LiteON DH-401S drive recognizing a movie, the movie ‘Jumper’. When I first received the movie last Tuesday, the drive would not detect the movie, it kept saying no disk inserted. I exchanged the movie, but this time I made sure it played in the store and it did. When I brought it home it gave me the same problem. But because I know it works, I kept trying to see what I could do to make it work. I upgrade the firmware to the CP56 file on LiteON’s site, and still nothing. But I kept trying and finally it played but with lots of distortion, every 30 seconds or so, throughout the entire length of the movie. The drive plays other BLURAY movies without any problems.

I called LiteON tech support and they confirmed the movie ‘Jumper’ will not work with my drive. They also confirmed that the drive, DH-401S, will have problems playing BDROM Dual Layer movies. They did not say if and when there will be a fix. After searching the NET I see others with this problem, but no solution.

My question is, the movie did play, but with lots of distortion (static like, like the disk was dirty), is there anything I can do to minimize that?


Here is my system configuration.
Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard
AMD Athlon X2 4850E CPU
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 PC5400 memory
ATI HD3450 512MB PCIE 2.0 Video Card, running in Hybrid Cross Fire mode with the onboard HD3200 LiteOn DH-401S BDROM
Windows Vista Ultimate SP1
CyberLink PowerDVD 7.3 Ultra with the most recent patch.

Assuming that both your video card and monitor are HDCP compliant (you didn't list your monitor), it is not the Liteon 401S hardware problem. It is the copy protection in the Jumper blu-ray.

Jumper Blu-ray has the latest generation of BD+ where old playback software, such as PowerDVD 7 will not play it correctly. You will need the PowerDVD 8 Ultra and its latest patch v1730U(b) dated June 10, 2008. Even with PowerDVD 8 you will see one glitch or more due to the new BD+ but it's fully playable.

If you have AnyDVD HD 6.4.5.0, it should fixed these minor glitches problem.

Yes, it is connect to a Vizio 47" VIA HDMI with HDCP. Play back of other BLURAY movies are the most beautiful thing you ever seen!

The problem with the movie is not just the play back, it is also having windows detect the media.

If you look at the drive the movie is not detected. When looking at the drive from Windows, windows says no media insert. During this time is you try to play with PowerDVD7 or the demo of PowerDVD8 it says no media in disk.

I tried a demo version of PowerDVD8 with the same results, I uninstalled PowerDVD8 because while playing other BLURAY movies CPU usage was 50% to 70%. With PowerDVD7 it is 20% to 30%. I know I can solve the CPU usage problem by playing with the codec, but I want to see if I can get the drive to detect the movie first.

Here how 'Jumper' reacts, the drive does not detect the movie all the time. I reboot, and keep inserting over and over again, when I see it say Jumper, I start POWERDVD7. Then with POWERDVD7, sometimes it will freeze at the start of the movie them you have to start the process all over again. Then if lucky you will get some choppy playback. With PowerDVD8 I didn't wait for the playback, it was also freezing when the movie would play, so I eliminated the software as the problem.

I check all my BLURAY movies, they are all 20GB or 25GB. 'Jumper' is my first dual layer BDROM at 40GB.

I have 10,000 BC & The Spiderwick Chronicles on order for Tuesday, I want to see if I have the same problem.

Why does it not detect all the time?
there a separate pickup laser for dual layer? Could that be bad?

Can you see other Blu-ray titles (other than Jumper) in your Windows Vista?

Yes, they all play. Alvin & The Chipmunks, The Bucketlist, Semi-Pro, The Eye, Twister, National Treasure Book Of Secrets, AVP 2, The Invisible, and others have all played well and still contiue to play well.

On a side note you will notice others with the DH-401S having problems also with Jumper on new*gg customer reviews and also on the HTPC forums.

I think I've been luckly that I get it to play sometimes.

So you're saying that your Vista Explorer (or My Computer) "see" other blu-ray titles fine but not Jumper?

yes. When the other titles are inserted I see the title and the size in windows explorer.

Can you try something for me? Are you using AnyDVD? If you are, try making an ISO image with AnyDVD disabled and using the latest ImgBurn. Mount it with Virtual CloneDrive and enable AnyDVD. See if that plays for you.

No, I'm not using ANYDVD, the PC I'm using is a HTPC and I only use it for watching TV & Viewing DVD/BLURAY movies, occasionally I use it to surf the web.

I do not use it for any other purpose. Although the DH-401S is also a burner, I've never used it as that.

But I think that is a great idea, to see if it will play back better after recording to the the HD. I will try it.

Grab yourself the 21 day trial of AnyDVD. Make an image with ImgBurn without AnyDVD enabled. The image will not play at all when you mount it unless AnyDVD is enabled and running at that point.

Just wanted to update everyone on my progress.

I did not install AnyDVD, previously I've had a bad experince with it. It takes too long to start the playback. But I was going to install it if the Spiderwick Chronicles did not play.

I played 10,000 BC fine, no problems.

when I inserted Spiderwick Chronicles, the drive detected it, when I opened PowerDVD 8 Ultra to play it, the media and drive disappear in Windows.

At that point I gave up, I was not going to try anything else. I shutdown my PC and turned it back on and the drive reappeared.

I pulled it out of my PC and I will be sending it to Liteon, when they return it to me I will be selling on EBAY.

I've ordered a LG BD/HD DVD player.

That's certainly one way to go. Good luck!

One member reported that his LG drives also cannot play Jumper properly: http://club.cdfreaks.com/f142/cdfrea...8/#post2087426

The reason? That ********************ing BD+ protection that's used on it! Use AnyDVD HD to remove that crap and it'll play fine. When I rented that crappy movie, that's what I ended up doing. When I had AnyDVD disabled (before it was updated to handle the new protection) I had the same problem with PowerDVD. What an absolute waste of time and effort on that BD+ nonsense. Just let us watch our movies how we want. Yea, anyway...

Just tested Jumper again with Power DVD Ultra 8, patched with the latest (AnyDVD disabled), on LG blu-ray drive, I only found 1 glitches around 32 mins. It might be more since I don't watch through the end.

Played on the PS3 is perfectly fine, no glitch at all.

There are more, zevia. I watched it with AnyDVD disabled on my HTPC cause when I rented the disc AnyDVD hadn't been updated yet to deal with it. I noticed about 4 or 5 glitches in PowerDVD 8 1730b. I checked it again before returning it with the version of AnyDVD that fixed it and there were 0 glitches. Pretty sad that I HAVE to use AnyDVD to watch a movie glitch free. Also quite a statement as to how useful AnyDVD is for watching movies.

I rarely watch blu-ray on my HTPC anymore, it's more enjoyable to watch it on the big screen and hear the boom boom bang bang from the big speakers.

Hope the OP (redman) comes back with updates.

I just got an Onkyo 606 so I have to agree, the PS3 with HDMI to the Onkyo is the best sound I've ever heard. Once an HDMI audio solution for the HTPC comes out in September, then I'll probably switch back to it.

I have the same problem with Jumper, and now Shutter.

Using Win XP2 SP2, PowerDVD 7.3.

Here the Update.

I got my 401S back from Liteon, still the same problem.

I didn't have a problem with the LG until last night, it would glitch after a while when watching 'Nim's Island'. I was using WinDVD. PowerDVD 8 is completely useless, I had to buy WinDVD. This is the first problem I've had with WinDVD.

I will invest in AnyDVD, I like the results most have been getting with it.

This is getting expensive!!

By the way my HTPC is in the living room connected to a 47" 1080P LCD with 5.1 sorround, I get full affect!!

When it is working, it is GREAT!

The latest version of ANYDVD did not help the playback of Nim's Island.

I also rented Jumper this week and played fine. however i tried to back it up to my PC. I,ve got problems playing only the m2ts file but i have succeed playing it later on. I also had issues about Windows Explorer not recognizing the disc and size.




HTPC cfg: Dual Core E2140, 2GB (667Mhz - Kingston), LG GGC-H20L, ATI Radeon Sapphire HD 3450 256MB and OS WinXP SP2

What V are you saying is the latest.? Maybe its something with that Liteon.Because the LG has no problems with. (GGW-H10NI ).

No problem here with Jumper using PDVD 7.3 or TMT on the 401. Didn't use Any DVDHD. Disk or ISO.

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Last edited by davinleeds; 17-08-2008 at 01:07. Reason: add

Editing is not working properly.
Didn't use ANYDVDHD for playback, just ISO.