I have a DVD ROM drive in my computer. Sometimes I do use it to watch DVDs, especially when the family room is in use by our houseguest, or Ron and I want to watch something in bed.
Anyway, I got a new harddrive after the Magnet Incident (stupid, stupid Olivet) and had to reload everything, and now I only have Power DVD, which hangs up on me all the time. I mean, it just freezes, and I have to do a hard shut down.
I had InterActual on it before, and I liked that pretty well, but it wasn't on the new harddrive and I'm not sure where to get it.
So, I thought I'd ask you guys which ones you like best and why, as well as where to get 'em.
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
The Interactual player is often installed (whether you want it or not) by many movies when you first put them in. Disney seems fond of it, try one of your Disney DVD's, it'll probably prompt you for the install.
The LOTR disks may do it as well.
[ January 29, 2004, 04:08 PM: Message edited by: TheTick ]
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Hm. Okay
But is there one that you think works better?
Posted by TheTick (Member # 2883) on :
I would've said PowerDVD. WinDVD is good, but I'm not familiar with any free ones that would be better, anyway.
Posted by narrativium (Member # 3230) on :
Get a Mac
Just kidding. I would say PowerDVD. It's the best Windows DVD software I've used.
[ January 29, 2004, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: narrativium ]
Posted by Liquor and Fireworks (Member # 5785) on :
I have both power and winDVD, and have never used either, they just came with hardware when I was building my computer, I always use ATI's Multimedia Center, which you should be able to get if you have an ATI video card. Otherwise, I think windows media player will play DVDs.
(Don't use RealPlayer, they're much worse than microsoft, which is really saying something.)
[ January 29, 2004, 08:19 PM: Message edited by: Liquor and Fireworks ]
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
I always used a Mac before, and I like them.
So, then... does anybody have any ideas why PowerDVD is so horrible on my computer? Every few minutes it just freezes. Everything locks up and I have to hold down th power button to shut off the comp, restart and reload, etc.
It's freaking Annoying. My brother said his does that, too. I think he likes WinDVD.
I just want to watch my last season of the X-files without inflicting them on my husband. That show jumped the shark long before its last season, even though I liked Dogget and Robert Patrick...
Oh, wait. DVD drivers. This just sucks. It's just me being stubborn, saying I'll see the show through to the end, but this crap is making it more painful than it would be anyway. Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Which version of windows?
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
xp Home version.
I think I had 2000 professional on my old comp, so this systen takes some getting used to.
I had this problem where my D-Link wireless network card didn't work unless I had the AC plugged in. I actually had a tech support moron tell me that it couldn't support the wireless card on battery power. On my notebook. So, what is the point of being wireless, and why did it work okay for the first six months?
Turns out it was one of the Windows updates conflicting with D-Link hardware. We had to go to a user forum to fix it, because tech support wieners, at least the first tier kind, haven't got a clue.
Which is kind of why I'm asking you guys-- I have a feeling you know more than the average tech support guy. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Olivia, does your laptop do software or hardware decoding?
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
I really don't know. What's the difference? Posted by IdemosthenesI (Member # 862) on :
As far as I know, there is no free dvd decoder, which is what you need. There are, however, fairly cheap ones.
First, RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, etc. Don't actually play DVDs. They simply use the DVD decoder you already have as a plug-in basically. So if you have PowerDVD and use Media Player to watch a movie, you are watching your movie with PowerDVD, it's just in a media player window. I believe Interactual works the same way. The only reason it exists is that programs like WinDVD and PowerDVD don't support DVD-Rom content. For that, you need interactual. The actual movie playback in Interactual, however, is still done with the PowerDVD software.
That said, if you only want to spend about ten bucks, you can buy a plug-in that will allow Media Player to play DVD's independent of PowerDVD. You probably want to completely uninstall PowerDVD before fussing with anything else, though, since otherwise it could just keep using that.
Here is the website for the Media Player plug-ins. Should do nicely, just don't pick Cyberlink. That's PowerDVD all over again.
On a side note, make sure you turn off any file sharing software before starting up a DVD. I've found that can cause a huge performance hit.
Posted by solo (Member # 3148) on :
If I am understanding this right, the movie actually starts playing (menu comes up, you start watching, then it freezes). If this is the case, you already have the DVD decoder. My inlaws computer had this problem. I didn't figure out the root cause, but it had something to do with the screen saver. I think they have their screen saver set to require the password to get back in. I only mention that because I don't and I have never had this problem. Anyway, it seemed to be freezing after about the amount of time to start the screen saver would have kicked in. I disabled the screen saver and had no more problems. I don't know if this will help or not, but it worked for them.
Also, another thing to try is, if you have the PowerDVD disc, try uninstalling it and reinstalling it.
[ January 30, 2004, 01:04 PM: Message edited by: solo ]
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Hi, Idem!
I'll give it a try. I don't run file-sharing stuff, and I've actually taken to turning everything else off if I have a dvd to play, hoping that will help. *sigh*
Solo, I had to touch the mouse occasionally with Interactual when the screensaver kicked in, but it never froze. With PowerDVD it just freezes and the screen saver never kicks in. Everything just ... locks up.
Posted by IdemosthenesI (Member # 862) on :
Long time no see, Olivet. I'm just killing time, as I have a million things I need to do. When you are crushed under a huge load of obligations, what better response than to neglect them all and visit Hatrack for the first time in years!
Posted by Jexxster (Member # 5293) on :
Well, there have been lots of good suggestions so far, so I will try to offer something a little different.
First, uninstall Power DVD. Just wipe it off as much as possible. What kind of DVD-ROM drive do you have? It is possible that there are some newer drivers for it, always good to check out (but often DVD-ROM drives will just use a driver provided by Windows, at least my laptop does). If you aren't sure open up the Device Manager (right click on My Computer, hit Properties, hit the Hardware tab, then click on Device Manager and you should see something like CD-ROM drive or something, that should tell you the exact make and model of your drive). Post that and I am sure someone (myself included) would be willing to see about drivers for it (or you could of course do it yourself).
Once you have gotten rid of Power DVD, checked to see about an updated driver (and installed it if there is one available) then I would reinstall Power DVD clean. Just an idea.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
TOSHIBA DVD-ROM SD-R2312
It certainly couldn't hurt to re-install it clean, considering that updates sometimes cause unintended consequences. Thanks for the advice!
Idem, I'm sort of doing the same thing. Avoiding stuff, you know. Had a cotact lens break, can't drive one-eyed. So much to do...
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