DVD playback on PCs

[t0rek]

Just wanna know what can I do for get the best DVD playing on my PC

1. What are the best programs, PowerDVD, WinDVD or another one? or just use Linux?
2. I also wanna know about what tweaks are possible to make on Windows or Linux to improve DVD playback.
3. Also is there any solution to improve playback of scratched DVDs that are difficult to play in PCs but they play almost in a perfect way in "stand alone" DVD players?

I currently have a Lite-On DVD-ROM drive (yeah I know it sucks), and it has the last firmware, so what else can I do?

 

[Eagle]

1. My mom has PowerDVD, it came with her Laptop and I love it. She has Aureal DVD has well but its not as good.

2. Your guess is as good as mine, The only reason I would have to tweak is because spiderman doesnt work on the pc due to its form of copyguard.

3. Well, I'm not sure but if you can find a way to increase the buffer it will reduce pausing when it hits a troublespot. The buffer is an area in memory which holds data that the disk reads, because of this buffer the disc can read ahead of what your actually seeing on your screen.

Many audio discman are coming with this feature now, mine holds 12 seconds of audio so if it gets shaken in the car or whatever, it just reads from the buffer and by the time the playback catches up to the reading, it has managed to get past the "trouble spot" and it is as if I never knew it had a problem.

If the problem with your DVD is that it is taking a bit longer to read one scratched area than it would normally, increasing the buffer would mean it might finish reading that area by the time the playback gets to it.

 

[-Shadow-]

1. I use PowerDVD for DVD playback , i had tried out WinDVD ( winamp and mediaplayer , too , it works with them if you have either WinDVD or PowerDVD installed ) , but i stay with PowerDVD because... errm... I just like it more There's no big difference between PowerDVD and WinDVD AFAIK .

 

[ScottJC]

1: Powerdvd
2: what are you kidding? your specs are more than enough for dvd play back.. what do you want, 2asai filtering?
3: I guess you could "rip" the dvd to hard disc and play the vobs.

also theres a proggie called AnyDVD you might want to try, it removes the copy protection in a fancy way without ripping... (if that has probs)

 

[Flash]

Just wanna know what can I do for get the best DVD playing on my PC

1. What are the best programs, PowerDVD, WinDVD or another one? or just
use Linux?

PowerDVD or WinDVD - not a big difference, same system reqs.
Linux ? Works too, Xine or MPlayer.

2. I also wanna know about what tweaks are possible to make on Windows or Linux to improve DVD playback.

More cache and faster CPU But my old 900MHz Celeron is more than enough to play DVDs.

3. Also is there any solution to improve playback of scratched DVDs that are difficult to play in PCs but they play almost in a perfect way in "stand alone" DVD players?

Best solution is to copy scratched DVD to DVD-R disc
Another way is to use Nero DriveSpeed and lock drive to lowest possible speed (2x).

I currently have a Lite-On DVD-ROM drive (yeah I know it sucks), and it has the last firmware, so what else can I do?

Nothing.
TEAC, Sony - they all Lite-Ons, believe me, it's not the worst drive.

And best thing is to buy DVD+RW drive

 

[-Shadow-]

1: Powerdvd
2: what are you kidding? your specs are more than enough for dvd play back.. what do you want, 2asai filtering?
3: I guess you could "rip" the dvd to hard disc and play the vobs.

also theres a proggie called AnyDVD you might want to try, it removes the copy protection in a fancy way without ripping... (if that has probs)

That 2xsai feature sounds good ! It's maybe a dumb question , but is there any possibility to use 2xsai for DVD video playback ?

 

[smegforbrain]

My comp came with PowerDVD, but I also have InterActual and Divx installed. My wife has something else (maybe WinDVD) on her laptop as well.

I too perfer PowerDVD.

 

[IceWarm]

My DVD recorder drive came with ULead DVD Studio which has a player. It works fine. I don't watch many DVDs on my PC anyway, unless I want to grab a screenshot of a scene or something like that.

 

[smcd]

Just wanna know what can I do for get the best DVD playing on my PC
2. I also wanna know about what tweaks are possible to make on Windows or Linux to improve DVD playback.

Make sure DMA is enabled?

 

[Malcolm]

3. Also is there any solution to improve playback of scratched DVDs that are difficult to play in PCs but they play almost in a perfect way in "stand alone" DVD players?

in linux copy the content of the DVD to a directory on your harddrive and then load up xine and have fun:

xine dvd://path/to/dvd

 

[matthew]

weird i don't have any problems with dvd playback even in my p3 500 with 128mb sdram

 

[willljjj]

Power DVD does work well. I like VLC too, though, and it's free too!

www.videolan.org

 

[Doomulation]

PowerDVD is an excellent player that I use. Remember that windows uses read ahead too. Otherwise most programs (I hope) also uses this feature.
I've encountered pretty much no problems playing DVDs on my computer.

 

[Modem]

I used to use PowerDVD, but since I got the newer version of WinDVD, I find this a lot better. More features, espically the customability of surround sound. Harder to fast farward (doesn't work with mouse scroll up/down), but that's the only downside I've found.
- Modem

 

[Modem]

I used to use PowerDVD, but since I got the newer version of WinDVD, I find this a lot better. More features, espically the customability of surround sound. Harder to fast farward (doesn't work with mouse scroll up/down), but that's the only downside I've found.
- Modem

 

[Stezo2k]

Media Player classic, has an integrated MPEG 2 codec, which is very nice, very lite app too

 

[Powerlord]

I use PowerDVD as well. Although it was better when I still had the computer hooked up to the stereo system...

Since I no longer have my PC connected to Surround Sound, it probably won't matter that much.