Problems playing DVDs.

[JTVevox]

Whenever I play DVDs it either chops every couple minutes, or chops constantly.

I'll start off with my system specs...

Windows XP SP2
ATI Crossfire XPress 3200 Mobo
AMD Athalon 4000+
1GB of PC3200 RAM
Radeon X1600xt
Sound Blaster Audigy ZS
200GB SATA HD
ASUS DRW-1608P2S DVD Burner

Okay so when I play DVDs in Windows Media Player 11 the video will play really choppy. So I tried playing it in Intervideo WinDVD and it chopped about every minute or two. I have also tried a few other players with the same result. I cleaned up my computer, ran spyware cleaners, registry cleaners, windows updates, reinstalled Windows Media Player, DirectX, and my video drivers. I also tried the DVDs in another system and they worked. Any idea what is causing this problem?

 

[jcortes]

do you have the latest drivers for the graphics card?

 

[JTVevox]

Yes, I reinstalled my video drivers from ATI. I also made sure to remove the old ones before I did it so I got a clean install.

 

[junglemike]

Possibility 1) Video overlay mode is not working properly. To test this:
open TaskManager,and launch your DVD again. If you see 100% cpu usage -> you need to (re)install video driver and/or directx (again!)

Possibility 2) Disk is scratched or has errors making it hard to read for the dvd-drive. To test this: Downlod free DVD Decrypter
http://www.mrbass.org/dvdrip/
Rip the DVD to your hard drive and try to play it from there (hard drive). If it cannot copy, or plays fine off the hard drive, Than possibility 2) is correct.
Another test for option 2) is:
Make a "copy DVD" in Nero, and choose "Image recorder " instead of real recorder (in case you have real recorder). It will prompt to save the file to harddisk. Than mount this file with Deamon tools (or similair) that can mount virtual cd/dvd rom.
Than try to play your film from virtual drive.

 

[JTVevox]

Okay the CPU was at 100% when the movie chopped, but it wasn't always at 100% because sometimes the chopping wasn't bad. It was still noticable that the playback wasn't smooth, but it wasn't bad chopping. So it did sound like Possibility 1 was my problem.

I uninstalled my video drivers and anything ATI related. Then I downloaded the drivers from ATI and DirectX. I installed the new drivers then DirectX, and then tried the movie again, with the necessary rebooting inbetween just about everything I did of course.

I had the same problem. I downloaded dvdrip and it was going to take an hour and a half to decrypt so I just went in the livingroom and played the dvd in there to make sure it worked. It worked perfectly so I ruled out a faulty DVD.

Although when I installed dvdrip I got an error when it first opened and I just hit ignore, maybe that might hint at a problem with my drive? Here it is...

DeviceIoControl(IOCTL_STORAGE_MCN_CONTROL) Failed!
Device:[0:0:0] ASUS DRW-1608P25 1.39 (D (ATA)
Unable to disable media change notification.
Reason: The parameter is incorrect.

Now what?

 

[talldude123]

To watch DVD's on your PC, I highly recommend CyberLink PowerDVD for $30.

 

[JTVevox]

I downloaded the trial version of Cyberlink PowerDVD v7 and it has the same problem.

 

[dcc]

Tried cleaning the optics?

 

[junglemike]

PowerDVD is JUNk (sorry) .
First,since you have near-100% cpu usage, try trully optimized free opensource players like a) VLC (videolan.org) and b)mplayer (mplayer.hu).
Also, if it is still overlay problem - press on print screen button while playing in any player. After taking print screen - opne mspaint, and click edit->paste. You should see black window instead of movie (b/c it's overlay). If you can just see a movie there - this mans that overlay is NOT working, and that's why it takes huge amount of cpu to display the video . I can watch DVD video on Pentium 1 233mhz mmx processor (when overlay is working of course).
If overlay is the case - this can [only] mean faulty drivers/directx, b/c they are the only things responsible for overlay.

 

[JTVevox]

Yeah it looks like it's the overlay.

Why then is reinstalling my drivers and direct x not working? I've done it 2 times now and it doesn't fix it. Is there a setting somewhere yo yurn on overlay or is there a certain way I should be uninstalling my drivers before I install them again? I just reinstalled DirectX over the old version because I don't think there is a way to remove it, right?