(Another) "My DVD won't play!" problem
 

I've always been a fan of using MPC for everything, with the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 1.5.0.3 as my assistant in ensuring everything works well. Somehow, all my media players won't play DVDs correctly. I hear the audio skipping and I find the whole movie slows down, from disk or image. I've reinstalled MPC and the codecs, same problem. In some cases, the disks skip a second here or there as if it was damaged, but I put a brand new movie in and got the same problem. It never happened before on my nVidia card. :\

Any suggestions or silimar incidents?

A few specs:
Windows 2000 SP4, 1.5 GB PC2100 RAM, ATI X1600 AGP, 10-20% CPU usage

Run (and crack) AnyDVD, it helps MPC play DVDs perfectly when it has problems. Hell, it makes the discontinued DVDDecrypter still relevant as well!

I forgot to add that, "DVD Player" opens saying "While setting up DVD-Player feedback, it was found that * Subpicture will not be available during playback.

Do you want to continue?"

Yes opens "DVD Player" and No doesn't do anything.

Same problem. This doesn't do anything. Here's the "Show information" window:

Summary for drive E: (AnyDVD 5.9.6.1)
Drive (Hardware) Region: 1

Media is a Data DVD.
Booktype: dvd-rom (version 1), Layers: 1
Total size: 2097488 sectors (4096 MBytes)

Video DVD (or CD) label: HG2
Media is not CSS protected.
Video Standard: NTSC
Media is locked to region(s): 1!

RCE protection not found.
DVD structure appears to be correct.
Structural copy protection not found.
Autorun not found on Video DVD.
Bad sector protection not found.

Double Post:
I should also note that the farther into a movie, the worse the skipping gets.

Double Post:
Now I notice the mplayerc.exe is using between 30 and 60% CPU and jumps around. The Memory Usage is still only 19,000

:\

Double Post:
Turns out it's just an issue with MPC. No idea yet why reinstalling the player and codecs doesn't change much.

Why don't you just use BSplayer as a temporary solution? If it doesn't work then maybe something's wrong with the DVD player.

I've tried with MPC, Media Player 9, WinDVD, the Windows DVD player...uhhhhhhhhh.......

they all seem to do the same thing. Then again, I did get a new video card (AGP X1600Pro 512MB) and a few strange things have happened. I just don't know where to start with that as far as fixing DVD playback.

I'd recommend a version of FFdShow over your K-Lite codec Pack. I use FFdShow, and MPC and have little/no problems. You can get a version of FFdShow here. Try this and get back to us.

Also, make sure in the MPC options that you try different rendering settings. (ie. System Default, Overlay, VMR7, VMR9 etc.)

I'd expect that K-Lite pack has broken compabitilty and harmony between the different codecs and filters. Either manually download ffdshow and splitters or download CCCP (includes ffdshow, Haali's splitter, etc) which sets it all up for you. Make sure you thoroughly delete everything else before you install it. If you have already tried that many players, I doubt it's the player at fault.

Also, make sure your video drivers are fully up to date.

Almost positive K-Lite has ffdshow. Although, I never see the tray icon for it anymore...hmm.

And yeah, I tried the View-->Options setting to change all the different playback settings, no dice.

I actually got the CCCP the other night, but it doesn't do much for me. I've reinstalled the video card and drivers a few times. I might go talk to the manufacturers of the video card next since it doesn't seem to be a software issue (I KNOW they'll say its the software).

"But sir, you're telling me EVERY piece of software I use to watch DVDs is bad? Tell me what YOU use!"

Have you tried VLC? After a format I only need install VLC and it'll play DVDs without me installing any codec packs. With VLC + CCCP I haven't come across anything yet that I can't play.

VLC isn't as bad, but its still choppy. I'll call the card manufacturer. Thanks for the suggestions up to here, but I've pretty much covered all of those. I'll report back when they respond.

Well, anyone wanna buy an AGP X1600 512MB Video Card? It seems that I can't get it replaced because its "not broken."

"Just play with the Catalyst Settings until the issue is fixed." Oh, and it won't start AGP.

(In other words, Fuck You Diamond tech support)

I've resolved the issue in everything but MPC now...and I've tried changing all the playback settings. No dice. Seems that reinstalling the chipset drivers helped. If nobody else has any other suggestions, I'll close this up and deem it an unsolvable problem.