Arcsoft TotalMedia and Defense+

Comodo Internet Security - CIS Resolved/Outdated Issues - CIS
#1

I may have a compatibility issue between Arcsoft TotalMedia Viewing Software (arcsoft_totalmedia3.5_englishtbyb) and Defense+.

After watching tv for an undetermined period of time on my computer, Arcsoft viewing software starts to exhibit regular video pauses, a rather annoying trait. This is to say that the audio will continue while the video seems to temporarily freeze, then continue to display. This issue continues until the computer is completely shutdown. The TotalMedia software will work correctly again after a complete computer restart… After sufficient time passes again, the problem will resume. To date, I had been unable to solve this mystery. I can’t say that Arcsoft has been of much help with this detail, either.

I started by disabling my Avast Antivirus but this changed nothing.

I don’t have a lot of external software running on my computer, so it didn’t take me long to start considering Comodo Personal Firewall 3.13 (with all current updates until today 11-25-2009 installed.) I really didn’t expect to find anything there, but darn, when I disabled Defense+, even after having been in operation for hours, my Arcsoft TotalMedia software began to operate much faster, and those video lapses disappeared completely.

Reality is that the Arcsoft software is quite demanding in and of itself in terms of resource needs, so I might be whistling in the wind here. It is possible that cutting Defense+ just gives it more resource space to work with temporarily. Considering my initial result I thought that someone might want to explore this.

Details:

Home XP Sp3 (All current updates.)
Directx (Downloaded this week, the current latest redistribution package and installed… 9c, 10? whatever they call it. directx_aug2009_redist)
Inspiron 1100 CPU 2.40, 1gyg of memory
Avast Antivirus (with current updates to 11-25-2009 1:29 am)
Comodo Personal Firewall CIS_Setup_3.13.119746.572_XP_Vista_x32 (No Antivirus but Defense+ now disabled, all current updates installed.)
Generally speaking, a very clean and lean, well-defragged machine.

#2

I love it when I’m back to resolve my own problems.

I stopped the regular pause and jumping routine that I was seeing in the Video of my Arcsoft TotalMedia program. This is how I did that.

I went into the Windows Performance Options dialogue area (right click and choose “Properties” over “My Computer” to do this.) I had previously allowed scant few of the visually glitzy options to function. This is because I always prefer performance over glitz. I eliminated the few decorative Windows features (such as slide menu, fade menu) and chose the setting “Adjust for best performance”. I hit “Apply” and closed the window.

Opening Arcsoft TotalMedia and then opening it’s TV window interface, I now had a smooth and much faster video display. I left the tv mode functioning for several hours after that and the problem did not return.

To me this suggests that if there was a conflict here, it was not caused by Defense+. The problem was more likely related to incompatibility between Windows visual gui features and Arcsoft Totalmedia or simply, one related to the availability of adequate video resources for both WIndows and Arcsoft’s Tv software.