Why don't some videos play on my DVD software?

[shira]

I recently bought 2 commercially-manufactured (ie, NOT burned) DVD's. Earlier DVD's from that manufacturer work fine on my computers. However, these 2 new ones do NOT. They DO both work fine in the VCR/DVD player on my television set.

Symptom: black screen and horrible sound quality that seems to be continuously skipping.

Software used: problem occurs on 3 different software programs: InterVideo WinDVD, Windows Media Player, and RealOne Player. The OS is WinXP.

The problem does NOT occur on PowerDVD - it plays both DVD's fine. So, this would seem to rule out a hardware problem.

I really don't think this is a region problem. All the software programs are coded region 1, and the DVD producer told me the DVD is regionless.

Any idea why 3 out of 4 playback software programs on the same computer cannot play back the DVD?

[Prospero424]

When you say that these are commercially produced DVDs, do you mean that they are major motion pictures, or the like? Or are they professional-quality DVDs, such as a student film project sent off to do a limited production run?

I ask because production and/or burning methods can vary GREATLY between different distributors/producers, many times these parties do not strictly adhere to DVD production standards. Incompatibilities can enter the process during either the authoring or production processes, and different playback software in combination with an increasingly wide array hardware combinations can manifest the problems inherent to this (rising trend) lack of standards. Even the type of discs used can cause problems with certain players.


Well, sorry I can't be of much help here, I suspect that this is something that you're just going to have to live with, unless there's some crucial information that hasn't been provided. Let me know what you think,


Prospero

[shira]

Hi Prospero! They are dance instruction DVD's, produced by an individual dancer (ie, not affiliated with one of the big distributors). So I guess you could put it in the category of an indie - she invested the money to create a polished result, but it's not the type of thing you could expect from one of the massive corporations. I don't know her sales volume, but I'm willing to bet it's a limited-size production run through a local vendor.

I tried to run the video on two different computers, therefore two different hardware devices. On both computers, the videos won't play with the 3 apps I identified - either WinDVD, RealOne, or Windows Media Player. I only have PowerDVD installed on one of the two computers, so I don't know whether it could play the DVD on both, I just know it can play it on one.

I was hoping maybe someone could steer me to a configuration option that I could tweak, but maybe that won't help!

When you say that these are commercially produced DVDs, do you mean that they are major motion pictures, or the like? Or are they professional-quality DVDs, such as a student film project sent off to do a limited production run?

I ask because production and/or burning methods can vary GREATLY between different distributors/producers, many times these parties do not strictly adhere to DVD production standards. Incompatibilities can enter the process during either the authoring or production processes, and different playback software in combination with an increasingly wide array hardware combinations can manifest the problems inherent to this (rising trend) lack of standards. Even the type of discs used can cause problems with certain players.

Well, sorry I can't be of much help here, I suspect that this is something that you're just going to have to live with, unless there's some crucial information that hasn't been provided. Let me know what you think,


Prospero

[Prospero424]

First off, unless you have a DirectShow compatible MPEG2 decoder installed, WinDVD is the only software you listed that can decode the video on a DVD besides PowerDVD. It may simply be an issue with WinDVD, or you could have an old version of it. See if you can install PowerDVD on the other two computers or update WinDVD on them to the newest version. If this is not possible, and you've tried this on multiple computers with different hardware (pay special attention to the actual DVD drives, make sure they are different makes and models) I suspect that there is a problem inherent to the particular process used to produce these DVDs.

I would suspect that the printer/producer is at fault, having testeed their method on standalone (set-top) DVD players and not with modern PC software. Again, this is just the most likely culprit in my opinion, not an outright indictment of the producer.

If you are technically savvy enough, here are some tips:

Make sure the WinDVD and PowerDVD are up to date and the latest versions.

Make sure the DVD-ROMs playing the discs on the computers are relatively new.

Try some other players, there are some great free ones out there far superior to Windows Media Player and RealOne Player. Zoom Player and BSPlayer for example. Of course, these will require that you have an MPEG2 decoder installed, but so does Windows Media Player and RealOne.

Or, and this is probably not helpful, but could be, you could use the guides provided on this site and convert the offending DVDs to either a VCD (if you have a CD-burner) or simply extract the data on the DVD to the hard drive as an MPEG2 file. A VCD will almost SURELY play in anyone's DVD player and can be played on any computer without installing any extra software (theoretically at least, as we have seen in this forum repeatedly)

[vance43211]

the movies are do not have macrovision implemented on them

most version of windvd don't play movies that don't have macrovision on them as in the early day of dvd recording they were strongly
against it

they will play non macrovisioned movies if you have the internet off, i think once they catch you playing one with the internet on, that you can't do it anymore

then they seen all of the money that power dvd made when people refuse to buy their products and changed their mind

install power dvd on all of your computers (i would personally take win dvd off)

realone and wmp borrow the software from windvd to play your dvds
they will do the same with power dvd

[vitualis]

the movies are do not have macrovision implemented on them

most version of windvd don't play movies that don't have macrovision on them as in the early day of dvd recording they were strongly
against it

they will play non macrovisioned movies if you have the internet off, i think once they catch you playing one with the internet on, that you can't do it anymore

Do you actually have any evidence for this vance? I've been around for quite a while and I have NEVER heard of this from anyone else, and A LOT of people use WinDVD. This sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.

Furthermore, if you author YOUR OWN DVDs, it will not have the Macrovision flag on. I have never heard of WinDVD specifically not playing back home made DVD discs.

Regards.

[vance43211]

they use to tell you that in the literature.

i took a copy that i brought last year (last march) back for that reason and got power dvd

powerdvd actually help the dvd burning community as you could use to unlock rippers and read vobs with it(windvd didn't read vobs at that time)

once earlier this year

i was over at a friend house

he had all these movie that he got from L.A.(prescreened or something like that)

i was watchin one on his computer

i mess around and turn the internet (he had dial up service) while the movie was playing

they gave us that macrovision warning

and he can't play them movies on his computer anymore

he still is mad at me for that

windvd came to their senses when they realized that a lot of people refuse to buy their products and powerdvd became the number one dvd playing software

i got an old copy of windvd that came with my gateway computer

i will see if i can find it

[vitualis]

Sorry, but I still don't really believe it from the experience of this forum. Nobody has ever mentioned that WinDVD can't play back discs without the Macrovision flag and plenty of people have used WinDVD in its various incarnations for years and years (it is probably the most popular software DVD proggy).

As I stated before, a LOT of people on this forum were early adopters of DVD burning and I am 100% sure that if WinDVD actually did what you claimed it to do, it would have cropped up much earlier.

As for the "unlocking rippers" thing, the issue is that of drive authentication. Not all rippers could natively authenticate every drive (it seemed to depend on the OS too - for example, my old version of DVD Decrypter -- v2.2 -- could not authenticate under Win98SE but once I upgraded to WinXP, it worked fine). One of the old hacks around was to use a software DVD program to start playing a disc (which would automatically fix the authentication problem) first. This worked whether you used PowerDVD, WinDVD or any variety of software DVD player.

Also, I don't believe PowerDVD is the "number one" software DVD player. I believe that WinDVD has that title.

In any case, I don't think that the original poster's problem has to do with some strange Macrovision issue with WinDVD. It sounds like the company that authored the DVD did it in a funny way, or the programs used wasn't well tested on a wide variety of playback devices -- as such, the MPEG-2 decoder that comes with WinDVD (and the codec is probably being used with WMP as well, not too sure about Real) chokes on it. PowerDVD uses its own MPEG-2 decoder and obviously, it doesn't have a problem with it.

Regards.

[vance43211]

i wish i could find one of my copies of windvd

one came with my creative dvd- rom

one with my gateway

and another one with something else

i must have threw them away

i will somehow find you some evidence

that all of the old version on windvd didn't play ripped discs

even if i have to ask intervideo

[Prospero424]

If you really want to get some answers to this, I suggest you start another thread to deal with it. See if anyone else has had problems playing discs not protected by Macrovision with WinDVD and proceed from there.

Maybe this problem is caused by exactly what you describe, perhaps there's something you're overlooking. I just know that you'll get a better response and more information if you discuss this in a new thread.



P.S. Are you still out there Shira? I was wondering how it came out.

[shira]

P.S. Are you still out there Shira? I was wondering how it came out.

Yup, I'm still out here! I loaned one of my problematic DVD's to another person, who has only Windows Media Player installed on her computer for playback software. She was able to play earlier videos by this producer, but not the one I had trouble with.

After testing all the earlier videos by this producer on my laptop, and noting that they ALL worked with all the programs on the laptop (RealOne, Windows Media Player, and InterVideo WinDVD), I then decided to test them on my desktop machine. Interestingly, both RealOne and Windows Media Player froze up on the desktop machine when trying to play them, while both PowerDVD and InterVideo WinDVD were both fine.

I plan to check the Microsoft knowledge base for Windows Media Player to see if it offers any wisdom, as well as the web site for InterVideo WinDVD.

I'm no expert on Windows playback software - at first, I liked InterVideo WinDVD the best of the 3 that came on my laptop (the other two being RealOne and Windows Media Player), but now that PowerDVD has proven itself able to play videos that other software could not, I'm liking it more and more.

[vitualis]

The Windows platform can have difficulty with some MPEG-2 streams if you've installed several MPEG-2 codecs (which could arise if you install a number of DVD players or general media players) as it gets confused with which MPEG-2 codec to use.

There may be in fact nothing wrong with the disc but just some system/inter-software incompatibilities. If the same programs can play the said disc on another PC, it points to that being the issue.

Regards.

[Prospero424]

Well, it seems to me that we have established that the discs created by this producer CAN be played by all of the software that has been mentioned, as long as the everything else is ok. Therefore we can rule out the playback software alone as the culprit.

What I would do is this; simply get ahold of a first-run Hollywood DVD movie and attempt to play it back on all of the machines that have had trouble with your dance DVDs. If it works on all of the machines, then I would look into finding a different producer for your videos if it is important for these discs to be viewable on PCs.

If you encounter the same troubles with a "normal" DVD, then I would suspect that the problem lies in your (Windows) DirectShow configuration(s), i.e., what codecs were installed in what order with what software, just as Virtualis mentioned above.

We can certainly help you get these systems configured properly if that turns out to be the case, just keep in mind that these problems are very widespread and by no means are you alone in your woes



Cheers,

Prospero

[shira]

Well, it seems to me that we have established that the discs created by this producer CAN be played by all of the software that has been mentioned, as long as the everything else is ok. Therefore we can rule out the playback software alone as the culprit.

What I would do is this; simply get ahold of a first-run Hollywood DVD movie and attempt to play it back on all of the machines that have had trouble with your dance DVDs. If it works on all of the machines, then I would look into finding a different producer for your videos if it is important for these discs to be viewable on PCs.

Prospero, thanks for your willingness to help. Both of my computers are able to play other DVD's by other producers just fine using all the software applications that I have installed. With respect to the producer whose DVD's are problematic, I have 2 that play ok on my laptop (using all 3 software programs that I have on it), and 2 that do NOT play at all on any of the 3 software programs on my laptop. (But PowerDVD on my OTHER computer can play them. I don't have PowerDVD on the laptop.)

Does the symptom mean anything? Ie, a black screen window with sound that skips about once a second? It seems to be consistent across all 3 software applications that failed, across not only both of my computers, but also on a third computer owned by one of my friends.

This friend discussed the problem with someone else, who claimed that she believes that the problem is due to the misbehaving DVD's being encoded ONLY in DVD-Video, and not in DVD-ROM. I'm a little confused by this, because I thought DVD-ROM was one of the hardware standards for burnable DVD's. (The package does specify that it is DVD-Video.)

Although I have lots of computer experience, I'm comparatively new to DVD technology. If nothing else, this issue is giving me an interesting learning experience!