How do I fix “choppy” DVD playback?

[Malpine Walis]

OK here is the deal. I use my main computer to watch DVDs a fair amount of the time. The fact is that I sit a foot away from my 19 inch monitor and ten feet from my 27 inch television. So I actually have a wider field of view on my computer and I get the full resolution of my monitor, which is obviously a good deal better than a regular TV. In fact, I have some DVDs of old 70's TV shows and on my computer, I can see the grain of the film that was used originally.

The problem is that I had to replace my DVD drive a while ago because my old drive gave up the ghost. I suspect that it was killed by some form of DRM but whatever. The fact is that I have a new drive and it works fine for installing software but it is just terrible for DVD playback.

What happens is that the picture seems to be dropping frames or something (I am not even sure what the proper language is to describe this) and it freezes for a fraction of a second every second or so. The audio stream is not affected and play just fine. But seeing the video freeze like ten times in ten seconds is very annoying.

I have already tried downloading new drivers for my graphics card, my mobo and flashing new firmware for the drive and nothing that I do is working. It seems as if something is not timing properly on my system. So what do you HTPC gurus think I should try next?

[nd4spdbh2]

are you using some sort of decoder like nvidia pure video.... pretty much what program are you using to play the dvds?

[Malpine Walis]

Well, I have tried a few media players. VLC, WMP9/10, whatever came with the graphics card. They all have the same problem. Which is leading me towards the idea that whatever I am dealing with is in hardware somehow....

[David]

Any background tasks running?

[MVC]

What are the manufacturer/model numbers of the old and the new DVD drive?

[hyperasus]

Is your computer overclocked? I've noticed this before when my overclock wasn't 100% rock solid stable.

[bchur83]

Make sure the drive isn't in PIO mode also. I had this about a week ago, the drive was running in PIO mode. Check the device manager under the disk drive controllers to find out.

[mdameron]

nVidia card?

Here's what I would do.

Rule out your drive: Rip the DVD to your hard drive with DVD shrink. It's pretty straight forward, don't worry about all the settings, just get in on your hard drive.

Download the FREE trial version of nVidia's pure video pack, and play the DVD using that.

After many headaches from trying to watch DVD's, I'm going with screwy software as my guess. Everything just worked much better (and the sound was phenomenally better!) when using the pure video pack.

Maybe also try getting your hands on a newer DVD player with a larger cache.

[Malpine Walis]

Well, the drive is an Aopen burner with a 2MB buffer and it runs in UDMA 4. so I don't think that it is a screwy drive. Then too, my graphics card is an ATI 9550 so nvidia tools would not fix this. I will try ripping a DVD to my hard drive to see what happens though.

[Brando]

I don't know if this is the same thing or not but I used to get pauses during playback no matter what program I used. I tried updating video drivers, updating power dvd, and tried windows media player and player classic to no avail. Then I downloaded the k-lite codec pack with included windows media player classic and it's been smooth sailing ever since.

[Malpine Walis]

OK, I think I have it figured out sort of. It does have something to do with the codecs that I am using. The ripped disc worked fine in VLC (on the second try – somehow I managed to mess up the first rip with one part of the movie being in French, another having TV for the blind enabled and so on). The thing being that VLC has a sort of internal codec structure that does not connect to other players.

Then too, I do have a codec pack installed but it comes with a copy of media player classic and that plays the DVD that I was testing with just fine. So now I guess that I will just have to look around and find the codec pack that matches the player software that came with my video card and change them over.

Thanks guys.

[stratcatprowlin]

Did you try disabling hardware acceleration?

[Malpine Walis]

Oh yes, most certainly I tried that. No dice. however, since I have found a somewhat less than optomal workaround, I think that I am going to have to find the right codec pack and see what that does for me.

[Brando]

OK, I think I have it figured out sort of. It does have something to do with the codecs that I am using. The ripped disc worked fine in VLC (on the second try – somehow I managed to mess up the first rip with one part of the movie being in French, another having TV for the blind enabled and so on). The thing being that VLC has a sort of internal codec structure that does not connect to other players.

Then too, I do have a codec pack installed but it comes with a copy of media player classic and that plays the DVD that I was testing with just fine. So now I guess that I will just have to look around and find the codec pack that matches the player software that came with my video card and change them over.

Thanks guys.
What player came with your card? If you have an ATI I'm guessing power dvd. Is there any particular reason you don't want to use media player classic? After I gave it some time I found it to be great in pretty much every way. The only thing I miss from powwer dvd is fast forwarding\rewinding with the mouse wheel but I quickly realized the navigation bar in classic works perfectly well after a little getting used to. After I realized I could make a song playlist in classic there was no reason not to uninstall power dvd.

[deathman20]

Yup I have that issue on my laptop. Windows media player chops on almost every single DVD taht I've tried playing. Can't figure out why as my desktop plays it perfectly fine. Yet if I played it in InterVideo WinDVD it works perfectly fine no frame skip at all.

I couldn't figure it out because I installed a few codec packs as well but oh well just got to use a different piece of software.

[Malpine Walis]

Well deathman, since I have partially figure this out for my machine (and seeing your post), I am thinking that it has something to do with how different media players are using different codecs. Apparently, it is possible for a given player to connect to a different codec than what is required. I don't understand this fully but I have seen similar stuff in the past. For example, when I was on linux last year, I had some videos that would only play with the colors looking sort of wrong but in a way that was hard to describe.

Apparently, you and I both have some form of media player that will work even though it is not our first choice.

@Brando: Granted that I can get it working right now but at the moment, the order for playing a DVD is to put it in my drive, wait for the wrong player to load by default, close that and then launch the right video player. In my humble opinion, that is not optimal. I should be able to just put the DVD in and start watching it.

However, I now am at the point where i at least have a partial understanding of the problem and I can work from here to put it right. I will post back when I have the matter more fully resolved.

[Brando]

I just messed around with media player classic settings and got it to do what I think you want it to. Go into view\options\player\formats and check the autoplay\dvd box. Then go to player settings and check the "launch files in fullscreen" box. Then the next time you put in a disc and the play options box comes up check "always perform selected action" and double click "play with media player classic". Works like a charm. Just put the disc in your player, press the button to close it again, and the movie starts up in full screen with no further action on your part. I hope that helps.