Techie help required please! *bats eyelashes*

[mitchy]

I'm having major problems playing DVDs on my computer, but only film dvds. Playback is fine at first but after about five minutes the playback becomes choppy and rapidly degenerates until it is unwatchable. I've updated every single driver I can think of, I'm using the latest version of DirectX, I've got the latest K-lite codec pack installed and the DVDs appear to be in good condition, no major scratches or flaws. I do not have any problems with other types of video playback - mp4 and avi files are just fine. And, weirdly, I haven't had any problems watching DVDs of TV shows, just films. The problem exists across all the media players I have on my PC.

I'm running Windows XP which has been regularly updated. I'm currently triple checking for viruses and unwanted spyware but I have done this before and nothing improved. Graphics card is NVIDIA GeForce G11, sound card is RealTek Audio.

Any ideas guys? I've about reached the point where I'm thinking it's gotta be the DVD drive being freaky and I'll just buy another one. :P

ETA: doccy has walked me through a few things, like deleting a spare Primary IDE Channel that seemed to be redundant, tweaking the Registry, making sure DMA was being used, deleting some recent windows updates to see if they caused the problem etc. So far no joy. I have been able to play some DVDs successfully but not all. I can't find the common denominator. *sighs*

Comments

[doccy.livejournal.com]

should I be worried that under ATAPI controllers, I have 2 Primary IDE channels

Shouldn't be a worry - I assume that you have more than one drive (DVD and CD, or somesuch?). Even if you don't, that could be a leftover from an older piece of hardware - and that might be something to come back to if these two don't have any effect :)

one has Current Transfer Mode as "Not Available", and the other has CTM as "Ultra DMA Mode 6" Would this be affecting anything?

It's the "DMA if available" that's most important - the remaining settings should be fine. And, seeing as you're on the "DMA if available" already, then best to try the second fix... Good luck!

[mitchy.livejournal.com]

Tried the second thing, didn't work :( I thought we'd cracked it, I certainly got to watch for longer but eventually the choppiness returned.

BTW, there were six subfolders, but only one said it was the Primary IDE Channel AND had a MasterIdDataCheckSum key. The others had various things mentioning Master and Slave (kinky) but not in that format.

[doccy.livejournal.com]

OK then... Next try. Do you have just the one DVD drive, or do you also have a second DVD drive/CD drive?

[mitchy.livejournal.com]

Just the one drive, plays dvds and CDs, which is why, I guess, I have multiple stuffses (to use the technical term :D)

[mitchy.livejournal.com]

PS: Am on AIM, if that would be easier/quicker? :)