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[petervm]

Hi there,

I am using MC 10.0.173 in combination with PowerDVD 6.0 on a P4 2.4 Ghz HTPC connected to my PAL TV. When I play a DVD with PowerDVD, everything works fine and the video playback looks smooth. However when I play the same DVD with Media Center, the video playback is not fluent anymore. It looks like every second a few frames are lost. Especially with faster moving objects and panning this is very irritating.

Does anyone else experiences this same problem?

Best regards,

PetervM

[KingSparta]

I have seen this before, but it happened on all DVD players

I think it was my "New" video driver at that time when i went back to the orginal that was shiped with the computer it worked fine.

[raym]

I've noticed these problems before also but it's intermittent. In my case it's WinDVD. In WinDVD playback is fluent. In MC (using the same WinDVD filters), fast action scenes appear a bit jaggered. I've tried the whole update drivers strategy etc.

[petervm]

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling PowerDVD 5.0 and 6.0, WinDVD, and three different versions of the Nvidia driver. None of this solved the problem. However, it messed up the system so badly that at some point I could not play DVD's with both Windows Media Player and MC anymore.

So I ended up installing the whole system from scratch, but the problem remains. The CPU load never reaches 30%, so it can hardly be frameloss. What surpises me is that I have got tons of options in the video-properties of PowerDVD, but only a few in MC.

[GHammer]

Playing DVDs here is fine. All is fluid and clean.
Playing any AVI or MPG is annoying. After about 4-8 minutes the voices no longer track with the video. You know, mouths move then awhile later you hear the words. For old Godzilla movies, fine.

As an aside, when you are changing NVidia drivers, it is fun and easy to use Driver Cleaner from http://www.drivercleaner.net/

It will ensure you have no leftovers from earlier versions of a driver.

[milknkukis]

Media center (V11) has problems with playing sound correctly from DVD, i get little chirps and stutters all the way through. If i use PowerDVD to watch a DVD everything is fine....
Any ideas?
mark

[Simple]

In my case playing DVD's are not fluid anymore since V. 11. I suppose it could have to do with saving the database every few minutes.

The same seem's to happen for me concerning the visualization with G-Force. Never happened in V. 10.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=24620

Maybe I'm outdated :

Media Center Registered 11.0.109 -- C:\Programme\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 1989 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 523 MB, Free - 204 MB
....

[glynor]

In my case playing DVD's are not fluid anymore since V. 11. I suppose it could have to do with saving the database every few minutes.

The same seem's to happen for me concerning the visualization with G-Force. Never happened in V. 10.
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=24620

Maybe I'm outdated :

No, It's not you.  Other people are getting the "Saving Database" pauses as well, and dislike them.  See this thread: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=24620

I've always had problems with DVD playback in MC.  I've had crashes, skips, sputters, and dropped frames.  I just use PowerDVD to play the video back, though I wonder if it isn't MPEG2 software codec related.  Maybe the PowerDVD codec and MC don't get along.  I get errors on this machine when I go into Tools --> Options --> Playback --> DVD Playback.  It tells me the MPEG2 decoder isn't working (though it works fine through PowerDVD).

[Matt]

Database saving pauses should be gone in MC 11.

You can test by trying to play a DVD with an empty library.  If it still pauses, something else is the culprit.

Thanks.

[glynor]

Database saving pauses should be gone in MC 11.

You can test by trying to play a DVD with an empty library.  If it still pauses, something else is the culprit.

I can't say that this is why the DVD playback is messy, but the "Saving Database" pauses in visualization video are definately still there right up through 11.0.128.  Check out the WhiteCap thread I mentioned above (it's not just me).

I should mention my other video playback works fine (AVIs, ASFs, MPEGs, etc).  I'm mainly complaining about the Visualization pauses, and I haven't tested the DVD playback functionality recently (since MC11, but not very recently).  Honestly, the first thing I do when I buy a DVD is rip it onto my hard drive, convert it to MPEG4 (usually XviD), and Put It On The Shelf.  DVD Playback isn't a huge concern of mine.  

[Simple]

Thanks Matt.

Will try it and give you feedback.

[petervm]

Thanks for all the hints and tips. In my case I do not think it is the database saving problem, because it seems to me that this does not happen every second.

If I look at a panning shot in a DVD movie, the image 'jumps' in a consistent way. As said earlier, it looks like every second the last few frames are dropped. I have PowerDVD for the DVD video and audio codecs, and K-Lite Codec Pack for the DivX, Xvid and other codecs. All movies play well from harddisk, but playing a DVD from my NEC ND-2500 shows this problem.

Maybe I should give it a try to play a ripped VOB file from harddisk, to see if that does play well.