picture/audio problems playing DVD

Have a machine a home that came with Windows ME installed (bit old then) and worked fine then 18 months ago I bought the XP home upgrade.

Most software works fine but the CD burner/DVD rom (Matshita) is still giving problems. It plays and burns audio disks fine but on the rare occasion when I try to play a dvd the audio and picture are jumpy (sort of quick stop/start)

I have tried media player 10, PowerDVD and Real player with the same result. It has been suggested that this could this be a driver problem or a codec? problem. limited info, but any suggestions to solve it would be welcome

Thanks

Well to rule out codecs being a problem, you can uninstall them all and reinstall what you need. I have quick guide (and a deep guide) for what codecs to install here www.hazza.dsl.pipex.com/faq.htm

Thankyou for the reply, but that appears a bit complicated for an old'un like me (when I was 21 I have a cassette player that looked like a brick with 5 buttons on the front).

Looked at your website as suggested but couldn't get the (click "here")advice link to work.

Thanks anyway

How old is the hardware? I sounds like the hardware is working too hard. If you were running ME, windows XP would be a little bit too much for the compter unless you upgraded the memory.

Thanks for the advice, I'll check the memory etc tonight although I think it has 128mb RAM, not sure about the processor.

I didn't use it very often to play dvds but I'm sure it played them ok,even after the XP upgrade. The only major difference since then would be software updates like Windows SP2.

As a test I opened task manager and then put in a dvd, the CPU usage immediately went from 3% to 100% and stayed there.?

Now I'm making progress, upgraded the memery from 128Mb to 576Mb and the dvd appears to run ok. However the sound is still jumpy and out of sync.

This happens with CD's as well so I suspect a problem with the sound card.

Any suggestion to check this would be appreciated.

Thanks

Just get a new sound card. You can find a 5.1 card for about 40usd

Spoke to soon, dvd tries to play but both picture and sound are still jumpy and the CPU is maxed out. I have a copy of "Sherlock" that will list all the codecs on the machine and I can compare this to your list.

Should I and how do I delete any old or not required codecs. I'm in the dark on this. Any help, much appreciated

Correct me if i'm wrong but i think that memory upgrades (even if there are several modules) should only be done like the following: 128Mb RAM, 256Mb RAM, 512Mb RAM etc... Modules of different "capacities" can cause problems when mixed and matched.

Older motherboards with intergrated graphics and sound may also find it hard to keep up & play DVDs.

dont uninstall powerDVD tho that is ur dvd decoder, w/o that it wont work at all