Problem playing DVD on new PC

[jayscott]

Hi everyone, I installed a combination CD/DVD player on a PC sometime last year. I remember the installation went smoothly and the CD ROM has worked fine. However this past weekend I bought a DVD movie and tried playing it. I got an error message that suggested that my screen resoultion might be too high or something about the color depth. I went into the control panel and adjusted the resoulution and number of colors as low as it allows, but still receive the same message. Has anyone been through this situation and can help me get this DVD to play?

I currently have Windows XP installed on this PC.


Thank you in advance for helping.

[RobH]

What are the details of your system?

[Andrewxcav]

Try getting different DVD playing software

[RJ]

You mean this "Overlay not available. Try reducing resolution or color depth" ?

DVDs are played back with "overlay". That means that the graphic card produces a picture with a black area where the dvd picture should be. Then the picture will be put over that area by the software.

If the overlay is not available. . try to reinstall your graphic drivers.
Maybe upgrade it. Can't exactly remember how we fixed it on a friend's laptop.

RJ

[jayscott]

The PC was given to me by my employer for home use, but from what I can tell.

Case: Enlight HP250G2
Motherboard: B683/B680 ???? 440BX chipset
Processor: Pentium II 350Mhz
BIOS Award 2MB PnP
Graphics Card Diamond Speedstar A70
DVD/CD Player LiteOn DVD-ROM LTD122


I don't think there is any special DVD Playing software on this PC, probably just uses what comes with Windows XP. I did a clean install of XP on this PC recently. Can anyone recommend really good DVD playing software?


Hi RJ, I'm pretty sure that is the message I was getting.
I have a couple other PC's that could use a DVD ROM so I'll probably just try it in one of those. I think this graphics card is really old and maybe that is part of the problem. I should have tried the DVD player when I first installed it. I didn't own any DVD's at the time but planned on learning to burn them from my own videos, still working on that.

[glc]

The Speedstar is not exactly a good DVD-playing card, you might want to spend $30 or so on an ATI Xpert 98 or something that comes with DVD hardware assist and a software DVD player. Note that a 350 MHz is marginal for software DVD decoding anyway.

[RobH]

I think the A70 is a 8meg card,never had much luck with DVD below a 32 meg card with a 667mhz processor (PIII)-but I may be the exception-HTH

[glc]

The Xpert 98 is an 8 meg card, but it has hardware DVD assist and I've seen it work acceptably on a 450 MHz P3.

[RobH]

I had a 667 PIII with a 16 meg vanta chipset that would play ok but on occasion freeze frame,sometimes it would play flawlessly for 10 minutes or so-but would eventually freeze for a second then contine on.

[jayscott]

I just took the DVD player out and installed it in my daughter's PC.
P III 850 with Extasy video card. I try to play the same new DVD and get the message about an error in the video subsystem that may be able to be resolved by lowering the resolution or color depth. I get this message from the player that comes on the DVD.

I think my problem is that I may need to buy a DVD Software Player. Any suggestions are welcome.

[RayH]

Search www.shareware.com There are free DVD players.

[Furius92]

You could pick up a Radeon 7000 or 7500 for under $65. These both have hardware DVD decoding, better than assisted DVD playback. Actually, any ATI card after, and including, the ATI Rage Pro will have an integrated hardware DVD decoder in it.

[glc]

What version of Windows is on your daughter's PC? It's possible that the DVD player software you are using is not compatible with DirectX 8 which is what comes with XP.

[jayscott]

GLC, my daughter's PC also uses XP home edition. When I start the DVD it brings up a player and asks if I want a free upgrade from the internet. I haven't done that yet because I wasn't sure if I even wanted it on the machine. Maybe the upgrade will work with XP.

I haven't tried playing DVD's on a PC before, so I'm not familiar with the software or hardware necessary. Are some DVD's unable to be played except with certain hardware or software? I'm not sure if the Xtasy video card has hardware DVD decoding.

Furious92, could you please explain the difference between hardware decoding and assisted DVD playback. If I have a card with built in decoding do i still need a software player?

My friend suggested I try Power DVD software, but if a free player will work with all my DVD's I might want to try that.

Thanks for all the replies.

[glc]

Doesn't XP play DVD's natively in Windows Media Player? You always need some kind of DVD playing software regardless of whether the video card has hardware assist or decoding or not.

[Furius92]

Well the difference is the amount of decoding your CPU has to do. If you are running a lower speed computer, like you are, I would say you'd really want or even need hardware DVD decoding. Assisted is simply utilizing the video card's power to display the DVD, not to actually decode it.

Doing things in software is slower, less reliable, and not as good quality. If you have a game that offers software rendering, and something like Direct 3D or OpenGL, it's the difference between the software rendering and the OpenGL or Direct 3D. No software can do what hardware can. Also, if you buy an ATI card, it will probably come with DVD playing software that is compatible with your card. Basically, hardware decoding is faster, places less responsibilty on your CPU and is of higher quality than software decoding. No standard nVidia cards come with a DVD decoder, but all ATI cards since the Rage Pro come with one.

[jayscott]

I tried using Windows media player and received a message about a compatible DVD Decoder not being installed. I clicked on details and it listed some third party products, Power DVD Win DVD and some others. So it looks like XP provides the player but not the decoder for playing DVD's.

[glc]

Let's go back to an earlier post of mine - I really think you should replace the video card with one that at least has assist if not full decoding, and that comes with a software DVD player that is XP-compatible in the box. The other option is toss a Hollywood Plus PCI DVD decoder card in.

[HAL9000]

I agree, I don't think your system has quite enough umph to play back smoothly. If not the Hollywood Plus, look at a Radeon video card as they have full hardware decoding.

[jayscott]

Ok, here is my plan. I won't attempt to play DVD's in the 350 MHZ Pentium II machine since it may not have enough processor for good quality. But I'd like to leave it in my daughter's PC (P III 850MHZ) and just get a decoder to make it work with the Xtasy card in her machine.

I have a second DVD player (Sound Blaster) that I had planned on putting in her PC that I will now put in my other PC.(P IV 1.8GHz with ATI Radeon 8500 AIW). My Question is this: if there is a decoder that comes with the soundblaster DVD player could I use that in my daughter's PC? I wouldn't need it for my PC since it has a hardware decoder already integrated on the card.

Thanks for any advice.

[HAL9000]

Yes, if there is a decoder with your Creative DVD, you can use that in your daughters PC.

[jayscott]

Turns out the Creative Labs DVD ROM comes with it's own hardware DVD decoder card. It looks like I need to switch the DVD ROM's so that the Creative Labs will go in my daughter's PC to provide a hardware DVD decoder, since her Xtasy card doesn't have one. Then I can put the LiteON DVD ROM in my PC with the ATI Radeon 8500 AIW which should have full hardware decoding.

One question, does full hardware decoding work with all DVD players or are there compatibility issues with either the hardware DVD ROM's or software DVD players.

[pmaddock]

I don't know if this will help, but I'll try. When I first upgraded my Win98SE 800 MHZ P-3 system to WinXP back in November of last year, one of the things that I read was that the DVD capabilities that came with XP would not be good enough to play DVD's. I was kind of surprised by this, since I already had some DVD software that came with my Gateway computer back in 2000 when I bought it which worked fine in 98SE mode. I was instructed that I would have to purchase some DVD encoding software so that I could play movies on my computer as I had in the past. I purchased some recommended software from the internet (I'm not home right now and don't remember the name of the software) for about $20 and all was back to normal. Since then I built my first computer, installed WinXP on it, and one of the items that I purchased for my build (perhaps it came with my NVIDIA video card, or my DVD rom) came with some DVD encoding software (Power DVD or something like that) for free. It works very well. I hope that this helps you.


PM

[jayscott]

Thanks for the reply Pmaddock.

I have Power DVD on an old laptop and although I only used it once it seemed to do the job.

If I still have DVD decoder errors after switching the DVD Rom to my PC with the hardware decoding I will probably go the software decoding route and use Power DVD.