Weird DVD viewing problem
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All, I had some spare time the other night, so I decided to watch a DVD on my computer. I slap it in and it brings up Windows MediaPlayer. The beginning of the movie is fine, but as soon as it get to where I should play or select a chapter, it is totally messed up (ie. I can see things on the screen, but it's not the way it should be - kindof like a scrambled cable channel). I try WinDVD but is has the same problem. So, I go and check Windows Update to see if I'm missing anything. Nothing pertinent. So, I check the Dell site and see that there is a newer video driver than I have for the Radeon 9800. I download it and install it. No problems. Reboot my machine and start again. Same problem. I try to do a screen-shot of the problem and go into paint. Paste it in and there it is. Select and cut the screen of WinDVD and paste it into a new picture. It pastes it in, but the section I 'cut' is not what is painted. It's more like it took the size of the output and grabbed the upper left corner of the original screen shot. I only get a small corner of the actual DVD output and it doesn't exactly like what I was seeing either. I reboot again. I try a DVD that I've made using my camcorder and it plays fine. I think that, maybe something was messed up but now it's fine and try again. In both MediaPlayer and WinDVD, I get the same results. Audio is fine but video is totally messed up. In either case, the homemade DVD works great in both players. Anyone have any idea of what might be going on? I know it worked several months ago, because I watched a couple of DVDs but just haven't had time since then. Lots of security updates and the like have been installed. No major software additions that I can remember. My system: Dell Dimension XPS Radeon 9800 128M Windows XP, SP2 Thanks, Mike
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All, I had some spare time the other night, so I decided to watch a DVD on my computer. I slap it in and it brings up Windows MediaPlayer. The beginning of the movie is fine, but as soon as it get to where I should play or select a chapter, it is totally messed up (ie. I can see things on the screen, but it's not the way it should be - kindof like a scrambled cable channel). I try WinDVD but is has the same problem. So, I go and check Windows Update to see if I'm missing anything. Nothing pertinent. So, I check the Dell site and see that there is a newer video driver than I have for the Radeon 9800. I download it and install it. No problems. Reboot my machine and start again. Same problem. I try to do a screen-shot of the problem and go into paint. Paste it in and there it is. Select and cut the screen of WinDVD and paste it into a new picture. It pastes it in, but the section I 'cut' is not what is painted. It's more like it took the size of the output and grabbed the upper left corner of the original screen shot. I only get a small corner of the actual DVD output and it doesn't exactly like what I was seeing either. I reboot again. I try a DVD that I've made using my camcorder and it plays fine. I think that, maybe something was messed up but now it's fine and try again. In both MediaPlayer and WinDVD, I get the same results. Audio is fine but video is totally messed up. In either case, the homemade DVD works great in both players. Anyone have any idea of what might be going on? I know it worked several months ago, because I watched a couple of DVDs but just haven't had time since then. Lots of security updates and the like have been installed. No major software additions that I can remember. My system: Dell Dimension XPS Radeon 9800 128M Windows XP, SP2 Thanks, Mike
The screengrab problem you're getting is because the player software is using a video overlay which is keyed in to the screen on a specific RGB colour - when you screengrab you actually just get a window filled with that solid colour, but because of how the overlay works, you see the overlay peeping through (try moving the window around to see what happens) As for the playback problems, I have no idea - does it do the same on all shop-bought dvds? -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Phoenix Paint - back from DPaint's ashes!
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All, I had some spare time the other night, so I decided to watch a DVD on my computer. I slap it in and it brings up Windows MediaPlayer. The beginning of the movie is fine, but as soon as it get to where I should play or select a chapter, it is totally messed up (ie. I can see things on the screen, but it's not the way it should be - kindof like a scrambled cable channel). I try WinDVD but is has the same problem. So, I go and check Windows Update to see if I'm missing anything. Nothing pertinent. So, I check the Dell site and see that there is a newer video driver than I have for the Radeon 9800. I download it and install it. No problems. Reboot my machine and start again. Same problem. I try to do a screen-shot of the problem and go into paint. Paste it in and there it is. Select and cut the screen of WinDVD and paste it into a new picture. It pastes it in, but the section I 'cut' is not what is painted. It's more like it took the size of the output and grabbed the upper left corner of the original screen shot. I only get a small corner of the actual DVD output and it doesn't exactly like what I was seeing either. I reboot again. I try a DVD that I've made using my camcorder and it plays fine. I think that, maybe something was messed up but now it's fine and try again. In both MediaPlayer and WinDVD, I get the same results. Audio is fine but video is totally messed up. In either case, the homemade DVD works great in both players. Anyone have any idea of what might be going on? I know it worked several months ago, because I watched a couple of DVDs but just haven't had time since then. Lots of security updates and the like have been installed. No major software additions that I can remember. My system: Dell Dimension XPS Radeon 9800 128M Windows XP, SP2 Thanks, Mike
I had a problem like this with a labtop I had. It seemed to be either a video card problem or a memory issue. I didnt have alot of ram and I know that I had a older video card on the labtop. I also ran into a problem with a pc that I had and it happened to be the video card on the pc. As soon as I upgraded the video card I was able to watch the dvd with no problems. hope this helps alittle bit.
There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
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All, I had some spare time the other night, so I decided to watch a DVD on my computer. I slap it in and it brings up Windows MediaPlayer. The beginning of the movie is fine, but as soon as it get to where I should play or select a chapter, it is totally messed up (ie. I can see things on the screen, but it's not the way it should be - kindof like a scrambled cable channel). I try WinDVD but is has the same problem. So, I go and check Windows Update to see if I'm missing anything. Nothing pertinent. So, I check the Dell site and see that there is a newer video driver than I have for the Radeon 9800. I download it and install it. No problems. Reboot my machine and start again. Same problem. I try to do a screen-shot of the problem and go into paint. Paste it in and there it is. Select and cut the screen of WinDVD and paste it into a new picture. It pastes it in, but the section I 'cut' is not what is painted. It's more like it took the size of the output and grabbed the upper left corner of the original screen shot. I only get a small corner of the actual DVD output and it doesn't exactly like what I was seeing either. I reboot again. I try a DVD that I've made using my camcorder and it plays fine. I think that, maybe something was messed up but now it's fine and try again. In both MediaPlayer and WinDVD, I get the same results. Audio is fine but video is totally messed up. In either case, the homemade DVD works great in both players. Anyone have any idea of what might be going on? I know it worked several months ago, because I watched a couple of DVDs but just haven't had time since then. Lots of security updates and the like have been installed. No major software additions that I can remember. My system: Dell Dimension XPS Radeon 9800 128M Windows XP, SP2 Thanks, Mike
Download updated codecs, I suspect this rather than the player software itself. Elaine :rose: The tigress is here :-D
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The screengrab problem you're getting is because the player software is using a video overlay which is keyed in to the screen on a specific RGB colour - when you screengrab you actually just get a window filled with that solid colour, but because of how the overlay works, you see the overlay peeping through (try moving the window around to see what happens) As for the playback problems, I have no idea - does it do the same on all shop-bought dvds? -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Phoenix Paint - back from DPaint's ashes!
Thanks for the explanation of the screengrab 'problem'. I didn't know about that. The playback problem seems to be with all of the commercial DVDs that I've tried so far. Granted, not a huge number, but a handful just to see if it was an isolated problem. Thanks for the help! Mike
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I had a problem like this with a labtop I had. It seemed to be either a video card problem or a memory issue. I didnt have alot of ram and I know that I had a older video card on the labtop. I also ran into a problem with a pc that I had and it happened to be the video card on the pc. As soon as I upgraded the video card I was able to watch the dvd with no problems. hope this helps alittle bit.
There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't. We shouldn't assume something's debugged just because everyone in the whole world has access to the source code.
Thanks! While not quite similar, it does give me a couple of things to check. I've moved my PC since the playback was working, so maybe something worked loose somehow. Worth opening up the box and reseating the memory and video card. Thanks for the response! I'm at the point where any thing I can try is a help even if it doesn't necessarily fix the overall problem.
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Download updated codecs, I suspect this rather than the player software itself. Elaine :rose: The tigress is here :-D
The thought crossed my mind. I even mentioned that to a friend. The only problem is that I'm clueless as to what type of beast a codec is and what they do. :-O :confused: I've heard the term and know it relates to video but with that, I've tapped out my knowledge on it. Could you educate me on this? How or where do I get updated codecs? Is it specific to my video card or the OS or ???? Thanks a bunch!! :rose::rose::rose::rose::rose::rose: Mike
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The thought crossed my mind. I even mentioned that to a friend. The only problem is that I'm clueless as to what type of beast a codec is and what they do. :-O :confused: I've heard the term and know it relates to video but with that, I've tapped out my knowledge on it. Could you educate me on this? How or where do I get updated codecs? Is it specific to my video card or the OS or ???? Thanks a bunch!! :rose::rose::rose::rose::rose::rose: Mike
Codec is a shortcut term for Compression/Decompression, and there are many algorithms available. Compression is desirable as it allows a reduction in the size of the file required to store a multimedia file, but in order to properly view the file it must be decompressed by the same algorithm. Some algorithms are inherently lossy, too, meaning that the true content can never be recovered - like JPEG for digital pictures. Whether the required codec is specific to the OS or the video card is a good question. The answer is, "it depends..." High end video cards which include onboard video processors implement a set of codecs that may be upgradable with a video driver/BIOS upgrade. Lower cost cards rely on the system CPU to do most of the codec processing, and codecs are available for download and installation into the OS. The multimedia applet in Control Panel should list the installed codecs on your machine, but I doubt that you'll have much luck finding out from a commercial recording which one is optimal for a particular DVD. This may not help much, but I hope it's informative, at least.:) "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
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Codec is a shortcut term for Compression/Decompression, and there are many algorithms available. Compression is desirable as it allows a reduction in the size of the file required to store a multimedia file, but in order to properly view the file it must be decompressed by the same algorithm. Some algorithms are inherently lossy, too, meaning that the true content can never be recovered - like JPEG for digital pictures. Whether the required codec is specific to the OS or the video card is a good question. The answer is, "it depends..." High end video cards which include onboard video processors implement a set of codecs that may be upgradable with a video driver/BIOS upgrade. Lower cost cards rely on the system CPU to do most of the codec processing, and codecs are available for download and installation into the OS. The multimedia applet in Control Panel should list the installed codecs on your machine, but I doubt that you'll have much luck finding out from a commercial recording which one is optimal for a particular DVD. This may not help much, but I hope it's informative, at least.:) "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City
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Codec is a shortcut term for Compression/Decompression, and there are many algorithms available. Compression is desirable as it allows a reduction in the size of the file required to store a multimedia file, but in order to properly view the file it must be decompressed by the same algorithm. Some algorithms are inherently lossy, too, meaning that the true content can never be recovered - like JPEG for digital pictures. Whether the required codec is specific to the OS or the video card is a good question. The answer is, "it depends..." High end video cards which include onboard video processors implement a set of codecs that may be upgradable with a video driver/BIOS upgrade. Lower cost cards rely on the system CPU to do most of the codec processing, and codecs are available for download and installation into the OS. The multimedia applet in Control Panel should list the installed codecs on your machine, but I doubt that you'll have much luck finding out from a commercial recording which one is optimal for a particular DVD. This may not help much, but I hope it's informative, at least.:) "If it's Snowbird season, why can't we shoot them?" - Overheard in a bar in Bullhead City