Vista/Wiondows Media Player 11 Problems

[dafoe]

Circut City was having a sale on a Compaq Presario F500. I wasn't crazy about the specs: 1.8 Ghz CPU, 512 MB DDR Ram, 100 GB HD and NO DVD Burner. I also wasn't too crazy about Windows Vista (Home Basic) which it came with.

But at $400 I figured it was worth it. It's not like I'm going to play some insane video game with it or hack DOD. I just wanted a portable DVD/DivX player and MAME Emulator. Turns out it can't even do that.

I burned some avi files and they played fine from the DVD in WMP 11. Then I tried a DVD in the "HP DVD Player" The audio was fine but the picture stutters every second or two, making the disc unwatchable. I then tried Windows Media Player 11 which has no sound problems when playing Avi files. The picture was fine, but there is no audio! What kind of sick joke is this?

I tried copying the disc and playing the copy. I tried a few different retail discs. I tried adjusting the sound settings in the disc setup menu. I browsed through the WMP setting looking for something that might make a difference. I even tried a DVD recorded on my Set top recorder. Nothing works! It just refuses to play DVD audio.

Next, I tried to install WIN DVD8 which is what my girlfriend's XP laptop has. I burned it onto a disc and tried to set it up on my laptop. After an extraction proccess, I get a InstallShield Wizard window with the following message:

WinDVD requires tht the following requirements be installed on your computer prior to installing this application. Click OK to begin installing these requirements:

Pending Microsoft DirectX Feb2006 Runtime Web Installer`

After clicking install, I get a message: The installation of Microsoft DirectX Feb2006 Runtime Web Installer has failed. Setup will now exit.

So in summary, I paid $400 for a portable DVD player that does not play DVDs or, apparently, run software. This thing is either going on Ebay or it's going to get smashed into a bunch of little pieces because it is REALLY pissing me off.

If anybody has any idea how I can get this POS to play DVDs (audio AND video) I would really appreciate the help.

Thanks.

[Baldrick]

Have you tried any free players like Media Player Classic or VLC Media Player or KMPlayer?

[dafoe]

Not yet. I did browse around (not very hard) for freeware players. But I figured I would contact Compaq or Microsoft first.

There really is no reason this thing shouldn't play DVDs out of the box. I just don't get it. If it comes to that I will try the players you mentioned.

Thanks for the reply.

[jagabo]

You probably don't have an AC3 decoder.

[JohnnyMalaria]

The picture was fine, but there is no audio! What kind of sick joke is this?

The answer is: Home Basic.

You really need Home Premium or Ultimate to get the full Vista multimedia experience.

See http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx for comparisons.

[SanderMan]

Installing ffdshow should help also.

[dafoe]

The picture was fine, but there is no audio! What kind of sick joke is this?

The answer is: Home Basic.

You really need Home Premium or Ultimate to get the full Vista multimedia experience.

See http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx for comparisons.

No offence, but this is one more reason I don't want anything to do with "the full Vista experience". I am not wasting money on an "upgrade" I spent $400 on a DVD player that runs MAME. And I only bought it because it was cheap.

Thanks to everyone who replied. In the end I decided to give WinDVD another shot. I manually downloaded the Directx update it said I needed and was able to install and run Win DVD with no problems. That will buy me some time to check out some of the freeware apps you guys mentioned.

Thanks