Problems playing burned dvds on my laptop

[Swordster]

I have a Dell inspiron 5100 laptop and a HL-DT-ST RW/DVD GCC-4240N Slim DVD player inside it. Whenever I try to play a burned dvd on my laptop it freezes after a few minutes of playing. This doesn't happen on the DVD player in my brother's tower or in our stand-alone player. I tried asking Dell and of course they have no idea. Please help me.

[rcb]

is the playback program on your laptop the very same as what your brother's tower uses ?

[Swordster]

Yes it is. But not only that I have tried various programs, including WinDVD and PowerDVD.

[lgh529]

I have a Dell 5000e and it works fine, but my last Dell laptop (Inspiron 7500 I think) wouldn't play anything I burned, on DVD-R or DVD-RW.

My bet is that its a hardware issue since most of the Dells on our company won't play them.

[Swordster]

Damn that sucks. Thanks for the info though.

[Swordster]

Heres some more info if anyone can help me:

what brand of disks are the movies burned on? Memorex 4x DVD-R

are the disks r-, r+, rw? DVD-R

are those type of disks compatible with your dvd-rom drive? Yes

have you checked dell website for new firmware upgrades for your dvd-rom drive? Yes and there were none

have you checked the dvd-rom manufacturing website to see if they have a knowledge base you can check? The company that makes the CD-ROM Drive I use no longer exists

can your dvd-rom drive read normal commercially made dvd's? Yes

do you have the most updated drivers for your dvd-rom drive/ide controller? Yes

is your dvd rom drive set to pio/dma? I don't know.

how does it not play? After five to ten minutes of play time it freezes and locks up the program

are you able to rip the dvd to your hd and play the movie from your hd? Haven't tried but I would rather not, cause I have a lot of DVDs and I like my hard drive free

are there scratches on the disk? No.

What's the CPU speed of your laptop? 2.39 GHz

Does it happen with both + and - disks? I don't know. Haven't tried + but I really don't want to as the burner I use is in california and I am in Hawaii.

Which program are you using to play the DVDs? Pleas try to read the posts you respond to. As I said earlier, WinDVD, PowerDVD and Windows Media Player.

[PhreakPhish]

was this burnt dvd compressed with dvdshrink?

[Swordster]

No, It was copied using DVD X Copy with no extra stuff.

[sitlet]

dvd x copy sucks monkey hair. use dvd shrink. its awesome and free

[Swordster]

Don't you still need a copy program?

[sitlet]

dvd shrink will copy the files to your hard drive while compressing them. all you need to do is burn with a burnign program like nero

[Swordster]

Can I get Nero for free?

[mec_modifier]

You can get Nero "Free" in one of two ways, not that they are really any good:

1. Buy a CD or DVD Burner that comes with bundled software that includes Nero - Of course, you have to buy a drive to get it.

2. You could obtain it Illegally, which is bad. I won't mention how to do this because it is wrong, and most everyone here knows how to do it anyway and it would bore them to describe the process ....that's a joke, mods!

You could always check with any friends or colleagues to see if they have an unused sealed copy. I have 3 sealed packages of the "Lite" Nero burning bundle laying around my office that came with various laptops and drives. Of course, this is also probably illegal.

Sometimes you just have to shell out some green to get the job done.

[fiw]

I think it depends on your Dvd drive. If it does not support Dvd-R Media then it will not be able to Play your copies. Use Nero drive Info to find out which Media your Drive support's

[sitlet]

you dont have to use nero. any burning software should work fine. check the tools on the left under burning software. i think there is some freeware in there

[Swordster]

Ok, thats great to know, but i don't think my problem is with the burner because it works fine on my standalone but not on my laptop.

[dencraig]

My bother in law just loaned me his Dell Inspiron 7500 and it plays all DVD's: commercial, burned DVD-R's and +R's fine, as well as commercial VCD's but not VCD's I made (bummer...)
I didn't expect it to cooperate as easily, but it sure did... now if it was a little faster!

[Skith]

Getting burned discs to play back is like astrology, you need "the moons aligned."

These are the "moons"

(1) DVD-Recorder & Firmware
(2) DVD Format (DVD+R/DVD+R bitset to DVD-ROM (only possible if the drive & firmware support this feature)/DVD-R)
(3) Media (poor media, or just plain incompatibilities with certain manufacturers/players)
(4) The DVD Drive/Player used to play back the disc.

If any one of these is off, well, your fortune does not look so good.

It is also important to note that BRAND does NOT equal MANUFACTURER when talking about media.

When you buy "Memorex 4x DVD-R" you could be getting Prodisc, Princo, CMC, or any of a host of other manufactured discs. It is like a "grab bag" you don't know what your going to get.

Known media: Verbatim (mitsubishi chemical corp. - Made in Singapore OR CMC using Mitsubishi equipment - Made in Taiwan). FujiFilm (Prodisc - Made in Taiwan, Taiyo Yuden - Made in Japan).
Maxell (Hitachi/Maxell - Made in Japan, Taiyo Yuden - Made in Japan, RICOH - Made in Taiwan, RITEK - Made in Taiwan).

My recommendation would be to try Verbatim, Fuji (made in Japan), or Maxell (made in Japan).

Or order a "sample pack" from www.rima.com or www.supermediastore.com and see what works.