playback problem only on softawre player-mpeg

[unicorn23]

Hi Folks,

Sorry if I sound like a complete novice, but with a few new movies on VCD or MPEG if you prefer I have been getting a funny problem on my PC i.e. choppy blocks throughout the movie irrespective of the type of software player used. I believe these are called motion artifacts. But funnily all of the problematic files(movies) play without a hitch in any standalone hardware player(VCD/DVD). Has anyone else experienced this? I also did the toothpaste/cream experiment which is usually recommended for problematic DVD's on these CD's and cleaned them to a shine in the process but still no Go. By the way the system is:

Intel Celeron 666
Windows XP Pro
DVD-ROM-Creative
Samsung CD-Writer
Nvidia Riva TNT2
Pinnacle PCTV Plus
D-Link LAN
128MB RAM
100 GB HD
All UDMA

Note this problem is completely new i.e. never had problems with this system previously, just with these new movies. I am sorry if this topic has been broached previously but I could not find a post regarding this identical problem on any forum. I have several theories none of which are sound but could be a new method of encryption(doubt there is any encryption on MPEG1) or the drives on computers are probably more sensitive to the errors on these CD's. By the way the speeds of the drives are 12X(DVD) and 32X(CD).

Any help in this regard will be greatly appreciated. TIA-

Unicorn23.

P.S: The 23 is for the greatest athlete ever. No guesses.

[Oliver]

Can you list what s/w players you've tried, along with their versions? Could the problem be with just these new movies? Are they downloaded movies, or did you encode them yourself? If you didn't encode them, the problem could be just that you downloaded poorly compressed mpegs.

[unicorn23]

Hi,
I tried the stuff(4 movies) on WinDvd(don't know version), PowerDvd4XP,
WMP9,I-ON VCD Player as well as umpteen others whose names I could'nt even recollect. As to your question of the Mpegs, these were not downloaded or encoded by me but are commercially available stuff bought by a friend of mine. He had no problems playing these on his standalone's neither did I. The problem arises when you put the stuff on the PC. Tried it on 3 different m/c's varying from Pentium 3 to 4 to Celeron to OS's such as WXP, 98, ME. No go on all these m/c's.

TIA.

[Oliver]

What movies are these? Maybe there are known problems with those discs(?) I don't know the extent of the choppy/blockiness you're seeing, but VCD is a low resolution format, and they will look worse on a computer monitor than on a TV, as a TV is a low resolution display to begin with. Also, check that DMA is enabled on your CD-ROM drive. Otherwise, you might want to begin troubleshooting the PC hardware itself.

[unicorn23]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

These are movies of the late 90's(English) pretty good. 2 of these are NTSC and the other two are PAL. As you already know the NTSC Vcd Res is 320 X 240 and the PAL res is 352 X 288. But guess what I have just played 5 movie (3 ntsc and 2 pal)VCD without a hitch after I encountered this problem so I know for sure the Res isn't the problem as I also tried seeting the lowest res on the PC but then the Ques why did the other movies play without a hitch. The year of prod'n of all the movies in question(erroneous and otherwise is from the same 2 year period i.e 1998-2001). Any guesses.

TIA.

P.S.: I did check the file props to see if there was something unusual but came up zip. And my standalone DVD wouldn't have detected these VCD'S as PAL (std) and NTSC(std) if there was any problem, would it . Just a suggestion.

[unicorn23]

Hi,

Sorry but forgot to mention but I did specify in the 1st post that all the drives are UDMA. so no problem there. Just thought I'd clarify that.

TIA.

[Maverick3n1]

I believe all of those software titles have option to do hardware mode or software mode. If you have it set to software mode, the processor you have won't be able to support play back of something like that and it will run choppy. If you have it set to hardware support and are running a crappy low end card you could be having that same problem.

[unicorn23]

Hi Folks,

Thanks for at least having a look at the problem but as the last post mentioned, the first thing I did was to check the hardware acceleration on all the software players. And no the problem ain't the Card which is Nvidia TNT2 64Bit AGP as why the hell would it play multi-angle DVD's like the Matrix smoothly without a hitch in all its glory. I do know that Mpeg is CPU-Intensive but as I already mentioned I did manage to play quite a few Mpeg VCD's prior to this dilemma without a hitch(Both NTSC and PAL) on these very same software players and with the very same m/c config and as I repeatedly say even now except for these few titles which are giving me a headache.

P.S. The other titles play like a dream and these 'pains' play perfectly on the standalones. HELP ANYONE????????????????????????????????

[unicorn23]

Hi everybody,
I was thinking about my problem and I was wondering whether it could be because the optival pickup on the standalone players has a higher error threshold than the optical pickup on the PC-drives(CD and DVD). Could anyone who has info on the DSP capabilities of the optical pick-ups of both these types of drives give me some insight into this theory. Maybe I'm wrong but I doubt it as I just had the lens cleaned on my PC-drives and still no solution. Thus I came to the conclusion that the S/N ration on the standalones during signal processing is higher. Please could someone correct me if I'm wrong. Any help would be appreciated. TIA.