Problem during playback of DVD's on NEC DVD+-RW 3500AG

[GBrushThreepwood]

This problem has just cropped up recently on me after a couple months of non-use with the player.

My NEC DVD+-R/RW 3500AG drive simply can't playback regular DVD movies in any application. I've tried Cyberlink PowerDVD, Windows Media Player, DiVX, none work.

They all worked when I first got the drive, but I haven't played any DVD's in a few months. When I went to play a movie I have a couple days ago, sound was present but the movie would not appear in the display area.
If I dragged the window around, the picture would appear, but as soon as I stopped dragging the window, the image turned black. If I full-screen the picture, the image also becomes black, though sound is present.

What can be the cause of this problem? I have the latest firmware update for the actual player itself. I re-installed PowerDVD. Could it be the codec that I am using to playback the movie?
I'm really stumped here, anybody have a clue??

[Skith]

Are these pressed DVDs? Burned (backups, home movies etc)?

What firmware are you using? Is it a hacked/moddified firmware?

Sounds like a codec, or mabey a video driver/setting issue. It is also could have something to do with Direct X (mabey, I am not sure if Direct X is used in Mpeg2 playback). Try downloading and using Media Player Classic as it has its own built in MPEG2 decoder.

If that does not solve the problems, you might want to try completely uninstalling and reinstalling PowerDVD (a simple reinstall might not fix the problem).

[GBrushThreepwood]

A little more info as you asked for:

These are legitimate, purchased DVD's. My video card is an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB. The firmware that I am using for the NEC 3500AG is the latest version available from the NEC website.

I will try updating my DirectX codecs and see what happens.

Another thing to keep in mind is that regular data CD's and DVD's work fine, just video playback is screwed up.