Re: Weird DVD play issue

On 9/27/2009 4:44 PM, Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
> Hello --
>
> I am a computer tech trying to troubleshoot a Dell Inspiron with a
> strange issue: Most movie DVDs will play fine, but a few will cause the
> graphics to go berzerk -- You insert the disk, and as soon as the DVD
> player (PowerDVD) opens and starts to play, the display rapidly flashes
> on and off and I can't find the mouse pointer. In the flashing chaos, I
> am barely able to do a 3-finger salute to get Task Manager up, and do an
> <ALT>-E to do an End Task on PowerDVD, after which the flashing stops,
> but some window elements are not rendered, and there are black boxes on
> the screen they should be drawn.
>
> As I say, this happens only with SOME movie DVDs -- It appears to only
> occur with certain hybrid DVDs with some interactive content, such as
> the Harry Potter films, which always want to install "InterActual
> Player", thus forcing you to manually open the already-installed DVD
> player and hit "Play" (which is when the graphics go crazy).
>
> I realize the flashing screen, etc. sounds like an issue with the
> graphics controller, but why would it only happen with these hybrid
> DVDs?
>
> Here's the system info:
>
> Laptop: Dell Inspiron E1505
> Onboard graphics controller: Intel 945GM
> OS: Windows XP Pro
> DVD Player app: PowerDVD (OEM version)
>
> Any advice would be appreciated.
>
> Dave
>
>

Hi Dave,

If the problem is consistently reproducable then I would guess that
their is content on the DVDs in question that require a 'codec' that you
normal DVD player doesn't contain. It tries to use one of its built in
codecs and you end up with the weird screen.

If a lot of the DVDs in question do want to load the InterActual player
then that is probably one of the things you want to look at before you
make any decisions as to how best configure your machine.

Sincerely,
C.Joseph Drayton, Ph.D. AS&T

CSD Computer Services

Web site: http://csdcs.site90.net/
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