What are the possible causes of non-optimal DVD playback on a laptop?

[Pundit]

The laptop is a P4 1.6 w/ 512 RAM. Apparently, it's choppy and skips frames. I don't know anything else about it. Any ideas?

 

[paralazarguer]

You'll have to be more specific. It could be a lot of things
Could be the DVD rom not being in DMA mode
Could be the drivers for your video accelator if it supports DVD acceleration
Could be the software used not recognizing above
Could be chipset drivers
Could be windows startup is cloged with no resources depending on whether it's a 9x OS or not.
You'll need to be a lot more specific.

 

[AnMig]

I have stuttering on my 8200 and while playing svcds.

It might be a hardrive problem, at least thats what dell is telling people.