DVD stuttering

[Jo-Anne]

I've begun playing DVD movies on my WinXP laptop with VLC Media Player.
Today, a brand new DVD kept "stuttering" all the way through. That is, both
video and sound would completely stop and then, after a few seconds, resume.
I thought the DVD was bad--but I played it on my WinXP desktop computer with
the same media player, and it seemed to run mostly OK (although there were
some places where I sensed very slight hesitations).

Could it be a marginal DVD? And if so, is there a way of making it work
better? (It's a DVD I bought a couple months ago, so I'm not sure I can
return it.) I've played a few other DVD movies on the laptop without any
stuttering.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

 

[Paul]

I've begun playing DVD movies on my WinXP laptop with VLC Media Player.
Today, a brand new DVD kept "stuttering" all the way through. That is, both
video and sound would completely stop and then, after a few seconds, resume.
I thought the DVD was bad--but I played it on my WinXP desktop computer with
the same media player, and it seemed to run mostly OK (although there were
some places where I sensed very slight hesitations).

Could it be a marginal DVD? And if so, is there a way of making it work
better? (It's a DVD I bought a couple months ago, so I'm not sure I can
return it.) I've played a few other DVD movies on the laptop without any
stuttering.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

Have you Googled the name of the movie title, to see what protection
methods might have been applied to it ? They're always inventing
new and evil means of protecting content, and perhaps that is
what you've run into. (For example, it may play smooth in a real
DVD player connected to your TV, but stutter when played back on
a PC.)

It could also be a problem with the manufacturing of the DVD itself.

Programs like this one, can be used to scan the sectors of the media
and indicate whether there are problems reading the media.

"Nero DiscSpeed 4.11.2.0"

http://majorgeeks.com/Nero_DiscSpeed_d118.html

There is also a disc quality scan option, that looks a bit like this.
If the graph goes into the thousands or tens of thousands of errors,
that might make the media stutter in the drive.

http://images.techtree.com/ttimages/story/101055_nero-discspeed-quality.jpg

You can use an approach like that, to test the disc. You would
compare the results, to some other, smoothly working DVD, to prove
it isn't the DVD drive itself.

But I really recommend Googling the title of the movie itself,
because there may be many disgruntled buyers of the movie title
already, who have figured this out for you.

Paul

 

[Rob Moir]

I've begun playing DVD movies on my WinXP laptop with VLC Media Player.
Today, a brand new DVD kept "stuttering" all the way through. That is,
both video and sound would completely stop and then, after a few seconds,
resume. I thought the DVD was bad--but I played it on my WinXP desktop
computer with the same media player, and it seemed to run mostly OK
(although there were some places where I sensed very slight hesitations).

Could it be a marginal DVD? And if so, is there a way of making it work
better? (It's a DVD I bought a couple months ago, so I'm not sure I can
return it.) I've played a few other DVD movies on the laptop without any
stuttering.

I have to agree with Paul - it's probably the DVD you're playing rather than
your DVD player, if you see what I mean. The fact that other DVD movies play
ok points strongly in that direction. Now the only question is whether or
not you have a faulty disk or if it's down to something like the protection
causing problems. If it's the latter then probably there will be plenty of
posts online from others having similar problems.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Have you Googled the name of the movie title, to see what protection
methods might have been applied to it ? They're always inventing
new and evil means of protecting content, and perhaps that is
what you've run into. (For example, it may play smooth in a real
DVD player connected to your TV, but stutter when played back on
a PC.)

It could also be a problem with the manufacturing of the DVD itself.

Programs like this one, can be used to scan the sectors of the media
and indicate whether there are problems reading the media.

"Nero DiscSpeed 4.11.2.0"

http://majorgeeks.com/Nero_DiscSpeed_d118.html

There is also a disc quality scan option, that looks a bit like this.
If the graph goes into the thousands or tens of thousands of errors,
that might make the media stutter in the drive.

http://images.techtree.com/ttimages/story/101055_nero-discspeed-quality.jpg

You can use an approach like that, to test the disc. You would
compare the results, to some other, smoothly working DVD, to prove
it isn't the DVD drive itself.

But I really recommend Googling the title of the movie itself,
because there may be many disgruntled buyers of the movie title
already, who have figured this out for you.

Paul

Thank you, Paul! I'll check out Nero DiscSpeed. I just Googled the movie and
couldn't find anything about the regular DVD, although there seemed to be
problems with the Blu-Ray version (not what I have). One person at Amazon
complained that two out of four discs in a DVD set that included my movie
stuttered but didn't specify this one. Mine came as one of four movies in a
different set; I guess I'd better play the others soon to determine if
they're OK.

One other question, probably off-topic: Do there tend to be more quality
issues in sets of unrelated DVD movies than in singles? The other movies
I've played so far have been singles.

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne

Jo-Anne

 

[Jo-Anne]

I have to agree with Paul - it's probably the DVD you're playing rather
than your DVD player, if you see what I mean. The fact that other DVD
movies play ok points strongly in that direction. Now the only question is
whether or not you have a faulty disk or if it's down to something like
the protection causing problems. If it's the latter then probably there
will be plenty of posts online from others having similar problems.

Thank you, Rob! It probably is my DVD, since I couldn't find much through
Google for this movie (except, as I mentioned to Paul, for the Blu-Ray
version).

Jo-Anne

 

[Paul]

Thank you, Paul! I'll check out Nero DiscSpeed. I just Googled the movie and
couldn't find anything about the regular DVD, although there seemed to be
problems with the Blu-Ray version (not what I have). One person at Amazon
complained that two out of four discs in a DVD set that included my movie
stuttered but didn't specify this one. Mine came as one of four movies in a
different set; I guess I'd better play the others soon to determine if
they're OK.

One other question, probably off-topic: Do there tend to be more quality
issues in sets of unrelated DVD movies than in singles? The other movies
I've played so far have been singles.

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne

I think I'd be a tiny bit concerned where these discs were coming from.
Are they legit ? Or are they counterfeits from China ? If the price was
too low, that might be a sign they've been pressed in somebody's basement.

You probably wouldn't have to look too hard, to find stories like this.

http://cathe.com/homeland-security-seizes-illegal-cathe-dvds

Paul

 

[Jo-Anne]

I think I'd be a tiny bit concerned where these discs were coming from.
Are they legit ? Or are they counterfeits from China ? If the price was
too low, that might be a sign they've been pressed in somebody's basement.

You probably wouldn't have to look too hard, to find stories like this.

http://cathe.com/homeland-security-seizes-illegal-cathe-dvds

Paul

Hi, again, Paul,

I bought this set from a legitimate remainder company, Hamilton Books. It
wasn't all that cheap, although it was substantially less than the original
retail price, as is the case for remainders in general. Hamilton has been
around for a lotta years, and I've bought from them regularly without
problems. Daedalus Books & Music, another remainder company I buy from,
shows the same set as being remaindered at a slightly higher price than
Hamilton's.

I downloaded and installed Nero DiscSpeed and am now trying to figure out
how to use it.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

 

[pjp]

I've read the other replies but thought I'd throw this at ya also ...

When I encounter a "bad" cd-dvd one of the first things I do is attempt to
make a copy of the disk. This can be problamatic with copyrighted disks but
it can be more or less easily done.

For example, if it's a music disk try to rip the songs of it.

If it's a dvd movie, copy it using something like DVD Shrink.

If it's a straight data cd-dvd copy the files to your hard disk.

Then try and create a new disk from the above and see if that works better.

Or use a product that creates an image of the disk then mount that image in
a virtual drive see if that works.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you, pjp! It's something I vaguely thought of but wasn't sure it was
possible. I'll check out DVD Shrink if my old burning software won't do it.

Jo-Anne

 

[smlunatick]

I've begun playing DVD movies on my WinXP laptop with VLC Media Player.
Today, a brand new DVD kept "stuttering" all the way through. That is, both
video and sound would completely stop and then, after a few seconds, resume.
I thought the DVD was bad--but I played it on my WinXP desktop computer with
the same media player, and it seemed to run mostly OK (although there were
some places where I sensed very slight hesitations).

Could it be a marginal DVD? And if so, is there a way of making it work
better? (It's a DVD I bought a couple months ago, so I'm not sure I can
return it.) I've played a few other DVD movies on the laptop without any
stuttering.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

FYI: DVD stuttering can be subject to other things than the security
of the disc. If your DVD drive uses a IDE / ATAPI / PATA connection,
you would probably need to have the correct UltraDMA drivers for you
motherboard. UltraDMA drivers tend to give better throughput than PIO
modes.

Also, RAM is very important. The more RAM available for the media
player the less likely the Windows would pause to swap out other
memory "chunks."

A finally, you might need to consider update the required media
CODECs.

 

[Jo-Anne]

I've begun playing DVD movies on my WinXP laptop with VLC Media Player.
Today, a brand new DVD kept "stuttering" all the way through. That is,
both
video and sound would completely stop and then, after a few seconds,
resume.
I thought the DVD was bad--but I played it on my WinXP desktop computer
with
the same media player, and it seemed to run mostly OK (although there were
some places where I sensed very slight hesitations).

Could it be a marginal DVD? And if so, is there a way of making it work
better? (It's a DVD I bought a couple months ago, so I'm not sure I can
return it.) I've played a few other DVD movies on the laptop without any
stuttering.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

<<FYI: DVD stuttering can be subject to other things than the security
of the disc. If your DVD drive uses a IDE / ATAPI / PATA connection,
you would probably need to have the correct UltraDMA drivers for you
motherboard. UltraDMA drivers tend to give better throughput than PIO
modes.

Also, RAM is very important. The more RAM available for the media
player the less likely the Windows would pause to swap out other
memory "chunks."

A finally, you might need to consider update the required media
CODECs.>>


Thank you! I'll do some checking in these areas too.

Jo-Anne