dvd problem/question

[Nitemare]

I rented some dvd's over the weekend and played them on my computer and found out it locks up occasionally..


when I say lock up, I mean the whole machine, the screen goes black..ctrl, alt, del doesn't even bring up anything. I have to reboot and let the machine chill for awhile. This happens after anywhere from an hour to 3 hours and never happens when anything else is playing.

I've got an gforce mx and updated the drivers for it, w2k pro sp2 on a tbird 900mhz with 512 mb of high density memory running at PC100

Also, I'm using powerdvd to play the movies. Any ideas what is causing it and would a hardware decoder card help?

 

[jcmoran]

<< ...and never happens when anything else is playing. >>



Sorry I don't have a solution, but I do have a question. I know you said it doesn't happen when anything else is playing, but does this mean that the same thing will not happen when viewing movies with MS Media Player? Or have you not tried that?

 

[Nitemare]

<<

<< ...and never happens when anything else is playing. >>



Sorry I don't have a solution, but I do have a question. I know you said it doesn't happen when anything else is playing, but does this mean that the same thing will not happen when viewing movies with MS Media Player? Or have you not tried that? >>



I have not tried that other than on short clips like avi and mpegs. So far this is only happening when I play dvd's and it is not consistent..watched Apocalypse Now: Redux all the way thru..close to 4 hours and it didn't happen at all...happened about an hour or so into meltdown w/ jet li though, made it all the way through Friday as well, but locked up during viewing the outtakes.

All movie viewing comes after a fresh boot btw.

 

[jcmoran]

<< I have not tried that other than on short clips like avi and mpegs... >>


Sorry, what I meant to suggest is to try viewing a DVD with Windows Media Player. You alreadt have the DVD decoding software loaded so Media Player should work for you just fine. When you insert a DVD, I suspect you have your system configured so that PowerDVD starts automatically. When it does, shut it down and launch Media Player, then you can test the theory that it may be PowerDVD and how it relates to either your system or your DVD drive.

 

[Nitemare]

cool, will try that this weekend

 

[XWolfsraider]

two cents here:

1 I had same problem before in 98 as some disks try to load pcfriendly as you are tring to watch
using powerdvd at autolaunch. also look out for interactive dvd as it will also install in background
while power dvd is loading

2 try holding down shift key as you load disk this prevents auto playing the disk then start power dvd normally or win media player and you can also use the run command to see if (browse)there are other programs on disk

hope this helps


mike
power dvd version 2.5 works on xp and 2000 some older versions dont (info)🙂

 

[tm37]

Is the DVD Player native or dO I have to download a codec for Media player?

 

[Nitemare]

<< Is the DVD Player native or dO I have to download a codec for Media player? >>



Not sure what you are asking there. The dvd drive is internal and i am running a program (powerdvd xp)to play it.

I can't get the program to even start now...pwerdvd.exe is giving me unhandles exceptions, so I am going to try windvd 3 now

 

[jcmoran]

<< ...so I am going to try windvd 3 now >>


I am sure you won't be as happy with WinDVD when compared to PowerDVD because when compared to PowerDVD, WinDVD is virtually featureless, but you have probably already decided that by now.
You can easily disable the auto start feature of your DVD drive from the hardware properties. Then you will only have to manually launch your PowerDVD after putting in the movie. Sounds like you may have to uninstall both WinDVD and PowerDVD, then re-install PowerDVD to correct your woes.
🙁

 

[theplanb]

hmm.. what is your temperature on CPU, system and videocard?