I have a very annoying problem playing a music DVD - random, very short, but noticeable, intermittent "breaks" in audio stream. My system consists of a dedicated 2.4GHz, 512MB P4 with NEC3520A DVD drive (DMA mode), on-board sound hardware used in SPDIF pass-through mode via optical output to AV receiver. I use either WMP, Media Player Classic or PowerDVD Deluxe - same problem. Video is perfect.

Could it be that the DVD drive is dropping audio data occassionally, or is there something more obvious to look for? Can I change the DVD cache size (how do I do that?) or is there some way to "log" DVD drive read problems (read errors, buffer overflow, ...)??

Any help VERY welcome!!!