Vista DVD Playback Problems

[JMMac]

I am having problems with jerky playback / dropped frames playing DVDs with Vista (using a variety of media players - WMP11, Media Center, ZoomPlayer, VLC). Things seem OK when playing back in a window - its going full screen that blows it up. I should also add the problem is more general than DVD sources - it happens playing xvid and DV files as well. I do find the problem is more severe with "high motion" scenes.

Configuration is:
E6600 dual core, 2.4GHz
2 GB RAM
400 MB HD
nVidia 7300LE graphics - latest drivers installed.

The odd thing about this - when this SAME hardware was running XP, this problem didn't exist. And I have run full screen DVD playback on far less capable machines.

OK, the obvious conclusion: Vista is evil. But... does this mean no-one can successfully play a DVD full screen in Vista? There are some reports out there on video problems with nVidia/Vista, but most seem related to game/3D issues, which I haven't even attempted.

Any thoughts / experiences?

[redwudz]

I suspect video driver problems. You might try to find a Nvidia forum and see if anyone is having similar problems. I don't notice any difference from XP in my Vista computer for video playback. But I did have to dig around a little to find the drivers to work with Vista.

With my setup, the OS automatically downloaded the proper drivers for my video card about 3 days after I installed the OS, and it now works better than it did with the drivers that I had installed. If you are hooked up to the internet, Vista may check for the best drivers by itself. I have Nvidia on-board video.

[JMMac]

An update...

The GOOD news is that some obvious tweaks made SOME of this problem go away. Now, I can watch full screen video in either Media Center OR VLC. That includes DVD sources or xvid (using ffdshow as the codec). Three problems remain that certainly appear to be Vista issues:

1. Playing a DVD full screen (or generally any reasonable complex video file) in WMP11 results in frame drops. DOESN'T happen in media center.

2. I don't know WHAT microsoft has supplied with Vista for a DVD decoder, but it don't work real well. Intermittantly, it seems to lose its mind and stop de-interlacing. I find this much MORE on home-made DVDs (DV source). It seems to work fairly well on commercial DVDs that are sourced from 24fps material (gspot can pick that up - very cool!).

3. This is an obscure one. I have some xvid files that are 720X480, with the PAR value set to result in 4:3 output (either at encode time or with MPEGmodifier). Gspot confirms this. I use ffdshow as the decoder for xvid. In XP, if I set ffdshow to "use overlay" and "hw deinterlace", two good things would happen - deinterlacing, and the aspect ration would come out correct (4:3). In Vista, the deinterlace part works, but the aspect ratio is NOT corrected - it displays at 720X480 with, of course, square pixels. Now, thanks to the flexibility in ffdshow, I can manually correct this under the "resize" menu, but gee - if the XP environment could support passing the PAR through to the renderer appropriately, why can't Vista?

Hopefully one day, there will be resolutions to these kinds of things! Until then, we download Vista patches and nVidia driver files...

[Krispy Kritter]

Hence the reason to NOT convert this early in the OS lifespan. I hate being a beta tester.

[oldandinthe way]

Too much hardware and software to make compatible. Vista had an enormous beta test.

Microsoft probably should have done it the Apple way. obsolete your entire base. But then no one would have upgraded.

[Markela]

I have almost exactly the same specs. Core 2 Duo E6600, but it can't be the video card, because
I have an ATI. My playback is jerky in WMP11, as yours. I am running Vista 64 Home Premium.

My motherboard is an Abit in9 32X-max. Hard drive is a Western Digital 220GB SATA.

This happens playing all files, even the default ones included with Vista. They included a sequence from Apollo 13 that's jerk-jerk-jerky. As you said, there's less of a problem in a window. My monitor is a Gatewag FPD2185W.

You hear all this stuff on-line, "Oh! This processor eats code for breakfast" then you buy the thing, and resource hoggy Windows puts the kai bash on that.

I downloaded a game, and the thing x'd out the processor as being too slow, if you can believe that. Tom Clancy's Rainbloat 6 Vegas.

However, I am just glad for now that the software I use for work -- works. But, it would be nice to pop a DVD into the durned drive once in a while in an OS expressly touted as being media friendly, and have it work.

Mark
Bit Long and Phosphor
http://www.dirtyrant.com

[Markela]

Problem solved, I switched to the latest Catalyst video driver. It WAS the video card, as I had not expectorated. At least it's good for something. I have been trying manifold different versions of it to try to get 1680 x 1050, but couldn't. I STILL can't get that resolution, my fonts look like a child's scrawl, but at least now I can play hiccup less DVDs.

Oh, I also downloaded the Realtek audio driver. I hope Abit does something to address the Vista'd off users with no driver support.

Here's something, when I was futzing about, the OS informed me that it has issues with video cards with less than 64K. I know I have a low-octane card, but sheesh. Something is rotten in the city of Redmond.

Mark
http://www.dirtyrant.com

[jman98]

All I can say after reading this thread is that a very wise man once said not to upgrade to a new version of Windows prior to the first service pack being released. There seems to be an endless amount of people who report various things just not working under Vista and equally endless number of mindless zombies who want to upgrade to it anyway.

[Marikar]

Hi, If you are still having trouble try some of the older DVD playback software. PowerDVD7 still doesn't work for me. It keeps stuttering. So I tried PowerDVD4. It works fine, no stuttering!

I don't know what the other players are like but it looks like it may be worth trying some of the really old versions of software.

I hope this will help others.

Edit: PowerDVD 5 works with no issues found by myself at the moment.

[arwenangel2487]

Maybe someone could help me. When I watch dvd's on my computer the credits for the movie are playing like captions on the top of the screen. Does anyone know how to turn that off?

[redwudz]

Markela, I had the same problem with 1650 X 1050. Both with a Nvidia and a ATI card. I could set the resolution, but it would reset to 1600 X 1200 on reboot. I was finally able to install the monitor's drivers and that fixed it. That was difficult.

You can get to 1650 X 1050 by going to your 'Displays>Monitors' and uncheck 'Hide modes that this monitor can't display'. For some reason Windows didn't believe that was a valid setting.

arwenangel2487, not exactly sure what you mean? Do the credits play the full length of the movie? That sounds more like some sort of closed caption. But if your screen is split into two parts, may be a driver problem, or something in your display settings. Does it only do this with DVDs or with one player? Have you tried VLC?

[arwenangel2487]

so far it's only happened when I watch Lord of the Rings. The captions say things like Billy Boyd- Pippin, Elijah Wood- Frodo, Peter Jackson- Writer/Director/Producer, etc. They seem to turn on and off randomly. They'll come on and flash through a few names quickly, stop for a while and then slowly go through the same names. I have windows vista and I been using the dvd player that came with the computer and I've only had this happen with LOTR so far, it's just really annoying during a 3+ hour movie.

[redwudz]

Maybe something peculiar to LOTR? My copy is packed away, so I can't test that with my Vista computer. Does it do it with other players?

[arwenangel2487]

nope, I've never had it do that before.

[melroed]

Hi there, I was wondering if arwenangel2487's problem was solved, re: credits displaying throughout the Lord of the Rings DVD playback. I have the same problem. Seems like it just spontaneously started happening some time ago on HP laptop w/ Vista. Seems to go away when I display regular English subtitles.
Thanks very much!