DVD Stutter/playback issues

[Taverneer]

Hi, I have a Dell Inspiron 1705, fairly new, with a dvd playback stutter. It's been this way since I got it and there's nothing Dell's tech support can do about it other than advise me to perform a system restore back to the original factory settings and lose all my programs.

I really don't want to this.

I am running xp media center os and have Power DVD, windows media player, current version, Divx, and xvid decoders, but not much else and not really any other DVD programs running that wold cause it the stutter.

The CPU usage while the dvd is playing runs between 46% and 52%.

Help!

Thanks and please let m know if you need any more info.

Taverneer

 

[HeySteve]

What graphic card and DVD drive have you got?

When you say stutter, does it do it randomly or all the way throught the film? Assume you have tried different DVD's?

 

[Taverneer]

The DVD drive is a sony and the graphics card is an Intel GMA 945GM express chipset family. It's an intergrated video card apparently.

 

[HeySteve]

that could be the problem. Intergated gfx cards arent that good. Might be worth buying a gfx card and seeing if that resolves the problem

 

[muckshifter]

You might want to consider dropping the screen resolution to 800x600 of your monitor/desktop. This doesn't cause a drop in video quality at all, as the maximum resolution of DVDs is 720x576 (PAL) / 720x480 (NTSC).

Also, close all the other applications while watching the DVDs. Remove non-esential Dell junk, this may help. If this doesn't help, you might consider upgrading your PC.

 

[Taverneer]

The funny thing is, the rest of my family have the Dell B130 which is reportedly not nearly as tricked out as the 1705, but none of them have any playback issues at all.
I read that if one were to play a music file muted in the background to keep the hard drive from slowing down then revving up and down and thus using precious CPU brain power. This did work somewhat, but it still stutters.
I don't understand how a computer with a faster CPU, more ram, and a better video card can work less effectively than a smaller, less decked out one.

Also I tried the lowest screen rez possible and there was no difference in performance.

Is there any other information I can get for you that might help understand my machine better?

Thanks for the effort guys!

Taverneer

 

[chelseafc2005]

Hi i had this problem a while back with an old dell laptop.

I bought new ram for it -didnt work
I reinstalled graphics drivers- didnt work
tried everything else i could think of-didnt work

then xp crashed so i had to re-install it it worked


Unfortunately i think you might have to re-install windows if nothing else has worked.
I am not saying that this will definately work but it did work with me

 

[Taverneer]

Yeah, that's what the tech chick said, but I really want to keep that as a last resort. Unfortunately, they didn't send me a reinstall dick, my only option in a complete system restore which will wipe out all of my programs. It will take me too long to reinstall everything to make it worth my while just to watch DVDs, so if that's the only option, I might be looking at just forgetting the whole thing.

Thanks!

Taverneer