dvd playback choppy

[OneSeventeen]

DVDs are currently unwatchable on my machine, as it looks to be reading the disc at 5FPS, but when I play back the same section it plays it much smoother, but insanely fast.

I am using ubuntu 5.04 - 32 bit on a 64-bit HP zv6000 laptop.

[xtophe]

Hmmm,

Maybe some hdparm problem (Is the drive stoping and restarting every second )
Also open the view/messages window and look for errors or warnings

Does this happen with all dvd or just a few? Do they play well with another player

[IceHand]

Is DMA enabled for your drive? You can check by typing "sudo hdparm -d /dev/cdrom" into the console (assuming /dev/cdrom is the path to your DVD-drive).

[haymann]

Is DMA enabled for your drive? You can check by typing "sudo hdparm -d /dev/cdrom" into the console (assuming /dev/cdrom is the path to your DVD-drive).

I too am experiencing choppy video, the audio is fine though.

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[root@FD4-PPC user]# sudo hdparm -d/dev/cdrom sudo: hdparm: command not found

Is this something that I can install? I should explain that i am pretty new to Linux, so I don't know many troubleshooting steps...

I don't know if this is helpful, but I am running Fedora Core 4 on a Mac PowerBook G3...

[IceHand]

I too am experiencing choppy video, the audio is fine though.

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[root@FD4-PPC user]# sudo hdparm -d/dev/cdrom sudo: hdparm: command not found

Is this something that I can install? I should explain that i am pretty new to Linux, so I don't know many troubleshooting steps...

I don't know if this is helpful, but I am running Fedora Core 4 on a Mac PowerBook G3...

I think your distribution don't use the sudo-system. Just type "hdparm -d /dev/cdrom" as root. (If that still doesn't work, you could search with google or try to ask in a Fedora Core forum -> How to enable DMA?)

If you type "hdparm -d /dev/cdrom" an get something like this:

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/dev/cdrom: using_dma = 0 (off)

then you should edit your hdparm.conf. You do this by typing (still as root):

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gedit /etc/hdparm.conf

or

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kate /etc/hdparm.conf

depending on your system (Gnome or KDE). Of course you could also use vim or emacs.
Go to the end of the file and add:

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/dev/cdrom { dma = on }

(Assuming your DVD-drive is located at "/dev/cdrom")