strange dvd playing problem

[mcinque103]

i just got a sony dru-510a. after installing it and power dvd, i can't play dvd movies. it plays cd's and will read dvd data discs, but wont play a movie. when i use power dvd and press play, the movie window will resize for a second then stop will appear in the upper right corner. then the movie window goes back to its origional size and nothing happens. movie just doesn't play. if i try to play agian, same problem. windows media player doesn't even recognize that there's a disc in the rive. sony tech support has no clue what could be wrong after 2hrs. on the phone with them. in my frustration i returned the drive and got a memorex duel format for only $98 after rebates. unfortonetly i still have the same exact proplem. i tried insalling the drive on an old computer that i had laying around. a 200mhz pentium, and it worked. the video was all choppy, i guess b/c the computer is super slow, but it worked. that means its not the dvd drive. i even thought that maybe it was my video card, so i took the one out of the old computer and put it in the newer one, but no luck. same problem again. anyone have any ideas?
computer specs:
800mhz athlon
512mb pc133
gigabyte ga-7zx motherboard
aopen pa700pro video card (w/ tv out)
sb live sound card
windows 2k pro spk 4
30gb 7200rpm hd

thanks for any help

[Richard_G]

Windows Media Player canonly play DVD disks if a suitable codec has been installed. A codec should have been installed when you installed PowerDVD but as neither app is working it suggests that the codec either wasn't installed properly or is conflicting with something else on your system. Have a look at the installed codecs in control panel and see if you can spot the problem.

You could try uninstalling PowerDVD and reinstalling it again.

[mcinque103]

i'm pretty new to this so i dont really know where to look in the control panel to see what codecs are installed. to be honest, even if i knew where to look, i dobt i'd be able to tell if there was something wrong with them. i tried unistalling and reinstalling power dvd several time with no luck. i just find it very odd that everything played ok on the old 200mhz computer...aside from the skipping. i also tried intalling the drive on one other computer i have... a 600mhz p3 dell. it kinda worked on that computer. palyed for a few seconds that got an error that said something about not being able play because the disc is copy protected and the computer cannot determin it the tv out is compatible with copy protected discs.... or something like that.

[Bodene]

PowerDVD is not exactly the easiest to use player out there, and it's glitchy and picky about what it will play. Some people swear it is the best, but on my system it all the sudden decided it wasn't going to work any more. Rather than jack with it repeatedly I uninstalled it and looked elsewhere.

I downloaded WinDVD 5 and use that now instead of Windows Media Player, even tho WMP will play any DVD I've tried it with. The WinDVD playback controls are better and easier to use.

Save yourself the trouble and dump PowerDVD.

[mcinque103]

i'll give win dvd a try...is it free? i'm actully in the middle of installing windows xp pro. i'm sure that's a bit of a drastic move, but i'm goin nuts with this whole thing.....i even had a dream about it last night...lol..
thanks for the suggestions

[Bodene]

I downloaded my free version from www.download.com, but I suspect u can get it at the intervideo site also.