DVD wont play on Vista Laptop 1

[kwunder]

Hi
I've been trying to view a few DVDs on my new laptop, running Windows Vista Premium. The first play ads are fine, so are the menus, but when it comes to the actual film, the picture breaks up everywhere, and part of the menu is still visible.
They are running through Windows Media Player. Is this the problem ? Will a new codec solve it ? If so, where can I get it ?

Laptop is Centrino Duo with 1GB ram.

Cheers

 

[CertInProgress]

If the adds play the movie should have no problem (i would think), have you tried the DVDs in a stand alone DVD player and do they work there? I also recommend VLC Media player for all media files; as it plays anything you can throw at it.

Computers are like bikinis. They save people a lot of guesswork.
-Sam Ewing-

 

[Nelviticus]

You could be using early, flaky graphics card drivers. Try updating to the latest drivers, which you should be able to get either from the laptop manufacturer's web site or direct from ATI/nVidia.

Nelviticus

 

[kwunder]

Hi
The laptop is only a month old so I assumed the drivers would be up to date, but I'll check none the less.

The DVD's play absolutely fine on both my standalone players, and my in car DVD, as well as on my other PC.

Cheers

 

[Nelviticus]

The Vista drivers from ATI and nVidia are all pretty new so they're being updated quite frequently as bugs or performance issues are found. Also although your laptop is new, the software package could have been put together quite some time ago by the vendor.

Whenever I buy new electronics I check the manufacturer's web site for updated firmware/software and frequently there's newer stuff available even for brand new kit!

Nelviticus

 

[kwunder]

Just downloaded the latest intel chipset drivers, and the DVD's play perfectly !

Thanks guys !

 

[Frankenmacer]

This is why I avoid Vista until at least the first service pack comes out. All this DRM crap is going to cause a lot of headaches.

 

[Nelviticus]

This issue is nothing to do with DRM.

Nelviticus

 

[kwunder]

DRM ?

 

[Nelviticus]

Digital Rights Management" - basically a way of ensuring that digital media, such as music files, video clips, HD-DVDs and so on, can't be copied. Vista has loads of DRM stuff built in which (apparently) causes problems with some things and lots of people hate it.

But your problem was nothing to do with that, which is why you were able to fix it by updating the drivers.

Nelviticus