The VideoLAN Forums

Let me start by stating that I am somewhat computer illiterate. By this I mean that while I am competent in the basics, but when it comes to issues of configuring, programming, and a lot of the terminology I’ve been reading on the forums in searching for a solution to my problem, I am a bit behind the times. I have very little to no experience in dealing with the different types of media that are being discussed; I pretty much only use my computer for e-mail, creating word documents, internet research, and attending online classes in pursuit of a degree through distance education which is where my problem arises, and is how I came into contact with VideoLan. With that being said I present my problem: This quarter I am taking a class that uses a set of 33 DVD lectures that came with instructions to download VLC 0.8.6a because for whatever reason not all of them work on Windows Media or other players, but do on VLC. I have downloaded VLC but still have some problems. When I view the lectures that work for WMP on WMP they seem to work fine; the sound is a bit strange. It’s as if one were to move their finger up and down on their Adams apple when they were talking. It’s not terrible, a little annoying, but I can deal with it. Likewise, when I play a rented DVD on the Windows Media Player it plays perfectly. However, when I try to view a lecture on VLC, whether it is one that is VLC or WMP compatible, I run into issues. The lecture shows up, starts to play then stops. The video freezes (as if it were paused); the sound stops, but the slider bar and the counter/timer on the bottom keep moving. Eventually the video and sound skips ahead only to stop and repeat this process of stop, skip, play, stop, and so on. When I play the rented DVD on VLC it also has problems. It plays continuously but seems to be very skippy; as if I were quickly switching from play to pause to play to pause and on and on. I’m at my wits end as every day this problem persists I fall further behind in this class. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Here is some information on my set-up that may be of help:
-Windows XP Home Edition, Service Pack2
-Pentium 4, 1.6 GHz
-256 MB of RAM
I’m sure that my computer is a little under powered compared to today’s standards, but up until this point I have never had a problem running anything I’ve needed to. With that being said, is my computer to weak to run this type of function? At any rate please remember that I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to computer terminology but can follow instructions if provided in layman’s terms. lol.

Thanks for your time.

difficult to tell what is wrong in your case ..but, u may try the followings..

1. clean your DVD, may be the DVD is dirty
2. for 256M RAM, ...stop all other applications,
3. check with your classmates..may be ..it is not your problem,
4. in vlc, open the message windows..u may find out why vlc can't play well with your DVD ..re-cap and post the message here if u don't understand the message

good day ...

I tried your suggestions but to no avail. The problem still persists. The school is going to send me a new set, but i have a feeling that this is not the problem. there are a few trials that have led me to believe that is more likely the vlc player or a configuration problem. But as i stated, this is out of my knowledge base. Any other suggestions?

Thank you for your time.

Try playing a commercial DVD and open your task manager. What is the CPU usage?

Sorry to ask what probaly seems to be a silly question, but how do i go about doing this?

task manager? Control, alt, delete. all at once. then in performance tab you can see the cpu usage

While playing a DVD the CPU usage fluxuated anywhere between 15% to 30%. Does that help? Thanks for the direction - ericed.

Yes! You are missing the AGP or PCIe driver for the motherboard chip set for your video card assuming you are using the DirectX output module in VLC. If this were in place the CPU usage would be 1 to 2%.

I would also tend to believe from your description that the DMA settings for some or all of your drives (particularly your Optical drive) is not correct. But I would suggest correcting the first issue before looking at this one.

And if you do get around to looking at the second issue, here's some information that may help you: DMA reverts to PIO

Again i will have to confess my computer illiteracy. What is a AGP or PCIe driver, a DMA setting, and how would i go about checking and changing it?
I apoloigize for my incompetence; I've never really had any computer training or schooling. In my high school days computers were just starting to become a popular or viable tool (no such thing as the internet), and i guess i never really took an interest in them. Not a lot of need for it in concrete work. I obviously have a lot of catching up to do.

Thanks again for your time, and patience.

You can check your AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) or PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) by right-clicking on the desktop and going to: Properties, click on the tab that says "Settings", click on the "Advanced" button, click on the "Adapter" tab, click on the "Properties" button and then click on the "Drivers" tab. I know what you're thinking:
But it's not so bad. Once you have the module of your video card (ATI, Nvidia, ect) try going to the website that makes that video card and look for updated drivers (there should be a step-by-step on how to download them).

To check your DMA (Direct memory access) settings, go to the Start menu and Right-click on My Computer and scroll down to "Manage", a window will pop up, look for "Device Manager" and click on it, on the right side of that menu look for "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and click on the plus (+) next to it, right-click on the "Primary IDE channel" and go to "Properties" and when the window pops up go to the "Advanced Settings" tab. If the Current Transfer Mode says: DMA then it's probably not the hard drive, if it says: PIO then click on the link in my previous post and follow the instructions there. It may ask you to install a txt. (text) file and then it will scan your hard drive(s) and change the settings from PIO to DMA.

Again, I know what you're thinking: I hope it helps anyway.

It is unlikely new video drivers will resolve a missing AGP or PCIe driver as these are generally motherboard chip set specific.

I went through the steps as instructed by cloudstalker (thanks for the step through, and you're right; it wasn't that bad), but with no success. Actually VLC seems to a little worse and the cpu usage remains about the same. Also, when i play the movie on the Windows Media Player the cpu usage is up around 50% - 90% and seems to play slow, where as before it played pretty well to perfect. Any other thoughts?

If the output module in VLC is DirectX and the AGP or PCIe driver is present and working the CPU usage while playing a commercial DVD is 1 to 2%.