DVDs are choppy

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Ogg · #1 Post by **Ogg** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 3:57 pm

The 770x is WinXP, 128meg ram, with DEVA card. The DVD-ROM is a Toshiba (fru 11j8952) SD-C2002. The initial installation for the DEVA support and the DVD-ROM went well. The few DVD's that I used initally worked well. But recently DVD movies seem to be skipping or producing choppy results. The audio is unable to catch up. The discs work fine in stand-alone DVD players. The discs don't seem to have any excessive scratches or problems. The choppy/skipping problem seems to occur almost at exactly the same point all the time. If I skip ahead a little, the movie seems to resume playback ok. But that's a bit annoying because a portion of the movie is missed!

The player was purchased new and sealed. Would enabling DMA of the drive help eliminate the choppiness?

wa8yxm · #2 Post by **wa8yxm** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 5:41 pm

Is it possible that something is starting to tie up processor time? I know my 600E is SUPPOSED to play DVDs but alas, I don't have the internal (Ultra bay) Dvd drive and using a USB drive it takes abot 110% of the CPU's ability to play all but the simplist of DVDs.

Interestingly enough, it can play MPEG files just fine (Stored on a USB-Hard Drive which does not work just fine, but that is not a thinkpad issue, it is the drive's issue and it appears easily fixed)

Ogg · #3 Post by **Ogg** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 9:12 pm

I doubt that there is a processor-time issue. But.. there IS an old copy of AVG6.0 still running! I should remove that anyway. Other than that, there are no other intensive processes. There is no screen saver, etc.. The problem seems to point to the quality of the DVD disc itself. A purchased copy of a HarryPotter movie played smoothly all the way through. There is another purchased movie that had absolutely no problems either. But some of the other purchased movies all seem to start skipping/fragmenting/pixelating at the 1 hour point. This can continue for up to 4 minutes! But then the movie will recover. So... does this point to hardware/head problem with the DVD player? Or.. does it look like I need to avoid some specific brands (Production company) of DVDs? The latter would be a bummer.

whizkid · #4 Post by **whizkid** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 12:30 am

Solid state lasers, like those in all CD and DVD players, wear out. Yours is probably quite a few years old. It may be going.

Skipping at the hour point seems to point to a problem when changing layers on a dual-layer disc. That could be another sign of an aging laser, if it is having difficulty focusing.

wa8yxm · #5 Post by **wa8yxm** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 4:55 am

You might not notice a stealth application such as a program designed to assist a spammer sending out his annoying "Stuff" to millions using your comptuer as a forwarding point. (I run a whole lot of things from time to time which are designed to assist that kind of software into oblivion, Zone Alarm being one item)

For the peron who suggested an aging laser... In my case.. It was a brand new Backpack External DVD (And CD) reader/writer so I don't think it's the laser.

His system... Could be, Could be.

Ogg · #6 Post by **Ogg** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 11:14 am

whizkid wrote:Skipping at the hour point seems to point to a problem when changing layers on a dual-layer disc. That could be another sign of an aging laser, if it is having difficulty focusing.

Interesting... Are all commercial DVD movies double-layer discs? If so.. that might explain the jitter/choppiness at the 1-hour point as the player tries to coordinate image and sound in the transistion(?) A DVD disc plays from hub to edge right? What happens in the transition to the 2nd layer? Does the 2nd layer play in the reverse direction: edge to hub?

Anyway... The HarryPotter movie and one other long-playing disc had and still have absolutely no problems playing. Only the occasional other movies have the problem at the 1-hour point.

whizkid · #7 Post by **whizkid** » Tue Feb 08, 2005 11:20 am

Not all commercial DVD movies are double layer. Most are, especially newer ones. There's even the Superbit versions, which try to reduce compression as much as possible by filling both layers to their limits.

I don't know if DVD's are played from hub to edge on the second layer. I'm pretty sure they do. I do know that they do not reverse direction at the layer change. Some old stand-alone DVD players (like one of mine) does have problems on some discs at the layer change, but if you rewind a little bit, it does it the second time just fine.

f1hp · #8 Post by **f1hp** » Sat Feb 26, 2005 5:28 pm

How much "room" do you have available on your HDD? My 600e was 'choppy' as well... my 6.4gig hdd had only 400meg vacant. Upgraded to a 40 gig & everything is copacetic...

In other words: you probably need more empty space on your HDD... cache, y'know.

DK6400Brian · #9 Post by **DK6400Brian** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:17 am

Enabling DMA would for sure eliminate the problem !

Kindest regards
Brian

paulchr · #10 Post by **paulchr** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 12:04 pm

I also have a new SD-C2002 in a 770 (now 770ED) and a couple of home-grown DVDs hang up in the same spot. Haven't noticed any glitches with commercial DVD layer transitions though. I think the C2002 2X is considered a 2nd generation reader that will play most any media you throw at it but some will cause it to hiccup. I tried the same 770 with the same DVDs that cause hiccups with an external Pioneer SCSI 6x DVD (via SelectaDock SCSI I/F) and they play just fine. I'm running Win98SE on the 770ED and have DMA enabled for the DVD drive.

You can easily check if the CPU is being maxed out with WinXP by Ctrl+Alt+Del > Task Mangler > and click on the Performance tab.

SeanM · #11 Post by **SeanM** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 5:33 pm

Ogg wrote:Would enabling DMA of the drive help eliminate the choppiness?

Probably.

calkeith · #12 Post by **calkeith** » Fri Apr 29, 2005 8:26 pm

I've found that reducing resolution to minimum & using NONE in desktop images will loosen up system resources enough in XPP (288Ram) to handle DVD with less than 100% CPU load. 600e 400mhz.

KC

ac tech · #13 Post by **ac tech** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:01 pm

hi,
can anyone help me to activate the dma on my 600E & 600X, running xp pro. i tried activating it under the device manager - ide controllers - secondary ide channel - device 1.
i selected dma if available, but 'PIO mode' is only shown for the current transfer mode. confirmed with nero toolkit.
the hard disc on primary uses udma mode 2.

when i try to burn a dvd the max speed it will burn at is about 1.5x speed due to the burnproof cutting in - lack of data speed?
i'm using a 5400rpm hdd and 350+mb ram.

anyone else had this problem burning dvd's ?

whats the minimum processor speed required to burn at 2x or 4x speed?

thanks to all who reply

#14 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sun Oct 23, 2005 8:26 pm

Regarding DMA, you really need it enabled to avoid choppiness. If you have trouble enabling it in Device Manager, do this (in Device Manager): First right click on the DVD drive and uninstall it. Next right click and uninstall all the devices under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Now reboot. Windows should reinstall the drivers and DMA will magically appear. Note that DMA for the DVD drive should show up under Secondary IDE Channel > Advanced Settings. It worked for me after having the same problem as ac tech. I discovered the solution on the web.

I have a 600E 400 that I passed on to my daughter. I have occasionally had trouble playing certain DVD's, but it does play most of them. I think whizkid is on to something regarding the problem occuring with changing layers on dual-layer discs (but perhaps not all dual-layer discs). I once bought a brand new DVD at the airport, and about halfway through it wouldn't play anymore. I couldn't get the scene selection feature to work at all, even after restarting the DVD. I tried the DVD again and the problem recurred. When I brought the DVD home it played just fine in my home DVD player. So I really believe the problem is with the DVD drive technology or firmware not being up-to-date with some of the latest DVD discs being sold.

ac tech · #15 Post by **ac tech** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:24 pm

Hi GomJabbar,
tried your dma methodon my 600e.
first i removed the dvd drive and then the secondary channel.
rebooted (took ages) to find the primary now on pio mode

secondary in multi word dma 2

after removing the primary channel and many 10 minute!! reboots the primary is now back to udma2

BUT!!
when i try to access any thing on the dvd drive or do a nero toolkit disc scan nothing happens apart from the pc freezing and the hard drive light on for ages.

tried it on the 600x next and the same thing happened !!

2 nearly dead thinkpads. HELP!!

ac tech · #16 Post by **ac tech** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:32 pm

managed to remove the secondary on the 600x, which made it return to the pio mode and now it works again. but slow i guess!

did you mean for me to uninstall/remove the
pci bus master ide controller option, for it to reinstall ? as i didn't.

guess i need by the word, idiot proof instructions

#17 Post by **GomJabbar** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 8:55 pm

As I recall, I removed everything under IDE/ATA ATAPI controllers. After I rebooted both the hard drive and the DVD drive were working in DMA Mode. I did this about a year ago, and at present I am about 1,500 miles from my old 600E, so I can't look at it for a reference. BTW, my 600E had Windows 2000 on it.

If doing the above doesn't help, try disabling the IR device to free up some resources, and see if it will work then. I did have the IR device disabled in my 600E.

VIBM · #18 Post by **VIBM** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:41 pm

I have a 770E: 64MB RAM, 20GB H.D.(IBM DJSA-220),Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-C2002 drive, running Win98SE with latest updates.
I have PowerDVD installed, and playing a DVD is choppy, both with or without DMA activated.
Can playing a DVD without choppiness by done on this setup, or must I
install Win2000 or get RAM upgraded or change DVD player?

#19 Post by **GomJabbar** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:36 am

You definitely want to have DMA in use on the DVD drive. You probably need more RAM. I had 192MB on my 600E. One thing that helps with PowerDVD is to change the default video setting from Vivid to Original. Uses less resources that way.

Website · #20 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 9:45 am

You should add more ram than 64mb to play DVDs.

You might also want to check that you display is not set above 16bit. Even with 288MB ram, your DVDs wil be choppy if the display is set above 16bit.

sickofit · #21 Post by **sickofit** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 10:36 am

YES,MORE RAM..!!!,,,,,but unless you have the DEVA card installed,there's no way a 233-266Mhz 770E will play DVD's not choppy....not fast enough......Look under the main battery to see if there is 3 little ports under it....if so,thats the DEVA....If its a blank filler,the DEVA's are available on ebay for 15 bucks buy it now.....But even then,PowerDVD won't take use of the card you have to use DVDExpress,available on Bill's FTP site(Before entering forums),and the video mpeg features from the IBM site...

Later...

Greg St.L

ChrisL · #22 Post by **ChrisL** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 11:31 am

DK6400Brian wrote:Enabling DMA would for sure eliminate the problem !

Kindest regards
Brian

Why are you running a PIII 850 at 700(low multiplier)?

pianowizard · #23 Post by **pianowizard** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 3:30 pm

Does your laptop meet the system requirements of your software? I was considering whether to buy PowerDVD 5 or 6. Version 6 is newer but was only slightly more expensive than version 5, and so most people would go for version 6, but the catch is that it requires much more CPU power and memory than version 5. So I bought PowerDVD 5 even though it's slightly older, to make sure that all DVDs would play smoothly on all my computers (the slowest of which is a 700MHz Celeron).

And yes, make sure you enable DMA. The first time I installed a DVD drive, I didn't know that Windows 2000 wouldn't automatically turn on the DMA mode and all DVDs were played at half speed!

VIBM · #24 Post by **VIBM** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 2:37 am

Thank you all for your valuable advice.
I activated DMA, and set the display to 16bit.

GomJabbar, I can't find any video setting on PowerDVD Win98 that says
vivid or original. All I see is Configuration->Video->Video Mode: auto-select,
Force bob, or Force weave.

Greg, I am still not sure what and where the DEVA card looks like.
Are you talking about under bottom cover where the CMOS battery and
RAM is? or on the regular battery?
Will DEVA show up on a Bel-Arc scan?

I apologize for being such an ignorant novice, but really appreciate your
help.

sickofit · #25 Post by **sickofit** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 10:34 am

Not sure about the Bel-Arc scan,but its under the large regular battery....if you flip the laptop upside down,there will be 2 screws either holding just a plastic filler,or the DEVA card,with 3 small ports...

Here's a cheap one on ebay... http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-770-SE ... dZViewItem

Then get DVDExpress and the Mpeg drivers....or use windows 2000 or XP,using the 2000 Mpeg drivers(even with XP),and windows media player will play DVD's....I find that the best way to go....as driver installation is picky with 98...to be honest I never had ANY luck,buts lots of others here have,so...

Good luck...

Greg St.L

VIBM · #26 Post by **VIBM** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 11:40 am

Thanks Greg.
It appears that I just have 2 skrews and an empty space under the battery
compartment-so no DEVA. Also thanks for the ebay link.

#27 Post by **GomJabbar** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:09 pm

VIBM wrote:GomJabbar, I can't find any video setting on PowerDVD Win98 that says vivid or original. All I see is Configuration->Video->Video Mode: auto-select, Force bob, or Force weave.

Start PowerDVD. Right-click on the splash screen and choose Configuration... > Video tab > under Video Enhancement > Use color profile > choose Original.

This information is in the readme file for PowerDVD. You should take a look at this file regarding other options for optimizing performance. For PowerDVD 5, you can get to the file from Start > All Programs > Cyberlink PowerDVD > Readme.

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