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Author Topic: Dvd player on my computer not right Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 12-05-2004 08:49 AM                     I just got an early Christmas present. A Lite-ON CD/DVD combo for my Dell computer. I'm running Win 2K professional. It works great, except when I go to play a Warner Bros. title. When I play one, a screen pops up telling me that I cant run this because it is copyguarded, and my video card for my TV is turned on. Trouble is, there is no video card, and I am stumped. All other DVD's look great on my monitor. Just the Warners dont. I want to watch 42nd Street! The box says that this is a 52x32x52x CD-RW 7 16X DVD ROM. I'm not wanting to dupe anything! I HATE copies, and bootlegs! Help?  |  IP: Logged Daniel Wright Expert Film Handler Posts: 163 From: Okmulgee, Ok , USA Registered: Oct 2003 posted 12-05-2004 09:22 AM                     I have a DVD burner in my laptop, I had the same problem with a movie I rented from block buster last week. It refused to play and cited macrovision problems. The only thing I could find online suggested upgradeing my video drivers. The movie was a cheap gory horror film called death watch. I assume this problem is popping up more and more. My computer is a Hewlett Packard Pavilion. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0286306/  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 12-05-2004 12:11 PM                     I've no idea where to look for this problem. I uninstalled the driver and reinstalled it, and have checked all that it tells me to check. So far, it runs all discs except WB discs. I have alot of Warner discs.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-05-2004 05:26 PM                        Have you checked that the drive's firmware is the latest version? If you go to Control Panel - System - Device Manager, that'll give you the exact model number. You may be able to get at the firmware version through one of the tabs on the properties window for the drive. In any case, try Googling under the drive model number and 'firmware', and if there's a more recent version that should take you to it. I have had an instance of an out-of-date firmware stopping me from playing a prerecorded DVD. This was the PAL release of Henry V, and when I first started to play it I assumed I'd got a duff disc or that Power DVD didn't like it (the DVD froze on the opening copyright notice). As it was only £2.99 in a sale I couldn't be bothered to take it back to the shop. But after I'd updated the firmware on the drive because it wouldn't burn 52x CDs properly I tried this DVD again on the offchance, and it played without any problem.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 12-06-2004 06:30 AM                     Leo, I think you hit the problem. I believe that I need to buy some more software for this thing. Stay Tuned for more!!  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-06-2004 08:58 AM                        Firmware updates shouldn't cost you anything. Try searching under the model number of your drive on this site for starters. Just one thing, though - be totally sure that the firmware you flash in is for your specific model of drive, because if you flash in the wrong one you could make it totally useless.  |  IP: Logged Tao Yue Expert Film Handler Posts: 209 From: Princeton, NJ Registered: Apr 2001 posted 12-06-2004 10:30 PM                        Bruce, your problem sounds much more like Daniel's than Leo's. Freezing on playback is one thing, but displaying an error message about copy protection seems very likely to be a Macrovision issue. Try updating the drivers for your video card (aka graphics card). Yes, your computer has one, otherwise you wouldn't be seeing anything on your monitor. Many video cards today support output to TVs as well as to computer monitors. Macrovision insists that video cards output Macrovision-encoded signals, and has gotten many software DVD players to check for this when playing DVDs. All this is to prevent you from making an analog copy of the DVD. Here's an intro page about Macrovision and TV-out. The block of links in the middle gives specific steps to take for disabling this copy protection "feature," either by fiddling with DVD playback software or with drivers/settings for your graphics card. http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/macrovision.html Of course, no guarantee of legality.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-07-2004 02:45 AM                        Interesting that Macrovision either doesn't or can't enforce this in the other direction. I have tried (purely as an experiment, of course!) playing MV-encoded VHS tapes through the s-video out of a player into my Matrox capture card. Result - a totally clean signal to do what I like with. Presumably this is because capture cards, like TV sets, don't have any AGC and therefore ignore the Macrovision encoding. As for DVDs, surely Macrovision must realise that (i) no-one would want to dupe them to VHS nowadays anyway, and (ii) you don't have to look very hard for free software which will strip out Macrovision, and CSS for that matter, from an encoded DVD? Of course using it to dupe copyright material without permission is completely illegal, but that fact is unlikely to deter those who are likely to pirate video recordings in the first place.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 12-07-2004 07:17 AM                     Thanks, guys. When I get my next day off from work, I'll look into this. BTW: I think that I need some updates, probably. This unit was built in 2000.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-07-2004 07:24 AM                        I've usually found that BIOS and firmware updates for things which need them (usually the motherboard's BIOS, firmwares in optical drives and sometimes in the graphics card) tend to be issued thick and fast in the first year or two of the hardware's release and then dry up. Sometimes optical burners need firmware revisions in order to be able to burn media designed for a faster speed than the drive. That having been said there is an 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' argument, especially with BIOS updates. But it can't hurt to have a look and see if there are any updates from your current versions available, and if so what bugs they claim to fix and what new functionality they add. For example my last motherboard provoked a BSOD crash if you plugged a USB2.0 device into its onboard controller until a BIOS update was published which made it compatible (albeit at 1.0 speed only). Obviously this wasn't an issue until I got my first USB2.0 device.  |  IP: Logged Daniel Wright Expert Film Handler Posts: 163 From: Okmulgee, Ok , USA Registered: Oct 2003 posted 01-07-2005 06:34 AM                     I found a solution the problem. The DVD player stopped working correctly after I installed SERVICE PACK 2. Removeing it allowed it to play the affected disks. Can individual components of a service pack be removed???? I was using third party DVD player software.  |  IP: Logged Tao Yue Expert Film Handler Posts: 209 From: Princeton, NJ Registered: Apr 2001 posted 01-09-2005 03:53 AM                        If you're talking about Windows XP Service Pack 2, then no -- it installs or uninstalls as a unit. SP2 does "roll up" many security patches and bugfixes, though, so you can get individual components if you know exactly what you want. But this is not as convenient as installing SP2, and you'll miss some of the feature enhancements that only came with SP2. SP2 changes a lot of stuff in Windows, sort of like Win98 vs. Win95. It's not surprising that some programs will break, since many of the changes in SP2 push Windows toward the latter end of the convenience vs. security tradeoff. SP2 has been out long enough that most companies whose products experience problems have corrected them. So unless you're using a very obscure DVD playing program and your hardware drivers are no longer being updated, updating one or the other will likely make it work under SP2.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 01-23-2005 09:47 AM                     OK Here's where we are. I contacted Lite-ON and was amazed when they wrote me back. I have now upgraded the system somewhat using the firmware that they supplied. Now almost all movies will play, including Warner stuff... I just finished watching a DVD of Warner cartoons... beautiful! BUT my disc of 42nd Street (1933) WILL NOT PLAY! It plays on every DVD player that I have, including one that has a super-weak laser that skips on many discs. Again, there is no added video card of any kind on this computer. I am stumped. It's Sunday. It's 12 degrees outside, and wind gusts of 45 mph. I am glued to the computer today. I sure wish my furnace would shut off for more than a minute or two. I dread the gas bills!!! Thanks for any help!!  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 10-09-2005 08:32 AM                     **UPDATE ON THE PROBLEM** I all but gave up on this DVD player/recorder. I bought a copy of Win XP and installed it on this computer. On start-up, I now have the option to use WIN2K, or XP. It defaults to XP. I reinstalled the DVD software, without the update that Lite-ON has at their website. Now, it all works. Even 42nd Street plays. If I now use WIN2K, the DVD runs fine. Bizarre. Works great now. Thanks for all the comments and help and solution ideas.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 10-10-2005 02:17 PM                        This is what happens when the studios want to rule the world and control when and where you can play a movie you've ALREADY purchased. Also, your OS knows that movies were never intended to be viewed on a laptop monitor screen and is punishing you for trying.  |  IP: Logged

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