Why are DVDs playing slow?

Conrad11

Conrad11

Conrad11

Soldato
Joined
12 Jun 2005
Posts
5,361
Hi there,

I have PowerDVD and the DVDs are not playing at full speed they are jurky and slow.

I would have thought that DVDs would have worked on this laptop but they do not seem to play at full speed.

The specs are:

P3 800Mhz
32MB SiS 630 Integrated Graphics (1024*768 High Colour 16-bit)
96MB RAM
DVD Drive 8x
Windows 2000 Pro

Why are they running slow or is it that the PC just isn't good enough to play DVDs.

Thanks.
 
Hi there,

Thats strange when installing the last version (PowerDVD 5) it said it recommended something over a P2 350Mhz for smooth playback?

I am guessing it will most probably be my RAM causing the problem, I need a bit more I'm thinking.

But I'm sure you don't need a that good of a PC for DVD playback....do you?

Thanks
 
Hi there,

You may be right about the RAM. The minimum RAM requirements for Windows 2000 is 64MB but you'll probably want at least double that to allow you to run some programs comfortably.

Ray.
 
Although that's a slow system for modern software, it really ought to be able to play DVDs smoothly. No reason at all why it shouldn't. Tried using alternative or older DVD playback software?
 
Can anyone recommend me some older software that will work on my system?

The original operating system for this machine was Windowss ME, I put 2K on there because I had a spare licence, so I may switch back.

Thanks
 
Last edited:
i used to use powerDVD 4 on a PII 266mhz jobby with 64 megs of ram (at least i think it had 64 megs lol) and i got XP on it. worked fine except for when it changed layers on dual layer disks, their'd be a slight pause but something you can easily live with (it even says on the box of dual layer dvds that their may be a slight pause)
 
might need a cleanup on that pc

run all the adaware, spybot, antivirus tools on it, and do a defrag

should be able to play them fine tbh



media player classic

try that instead!
 
Still haven't got this fixed.

I will try PowerDVD 4 soon.

The PC is on a clean install so that shouldnt be a problem.

I have already tried Media Player Classic and the same thing happens.

What do you mean by buffer?

Thanks
 
Try copying a file over to your HDD and see if it still plays slow. If it does - clean up your PC, try alternative players like VLC. If it plays fine from the HDD, make sure your ATA controller is set to use DMA and not PIO (from the device manager).
 
lol 96mb ram and windows 2000?

on my dads old laptop he had 128mb and 160mb used on startup, it took about 5minutes for everything to load up then it would really take the **** opening any types of movie files. no wonder powerdvd works slowly.

no need to be offensive but you could get a new system better than yours for about £40
 
Hi there,

Just to say, I tried VLC player and it still plays slow and I dont get any picture.

I have checked in task manager and during the playback on VLC player it was only using roughly 85MB of RAM, so it may not be the lack of ram causing the problem, or is it? It was using 100% of the CPU tho.

Thanks
 
try reducing your screen resolution - you wont lose quality coz DVDs are 720x576

if that doesnt work uninstall your dvd drive drivers and reboot

from microsoft support

WORKAROUND
To re-enable the typical, or faster, transfer mode for an affected device:
1. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then click Computer Management.
2. Click System Tools, and then click Device Manager.
3. Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers node.
4. Double-click the controller for which you want to restore the typical DMA transfer mode.
5. Click the Driver tab.
6. Click Uninstall.
7. When the process completes, restart your computer. When Windows restarts, the hard disk controller is re-enumerated and the transfer mode is reset to the default value for each device that is connected to the controller.
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom