Video frame skipping issues

[VLC_help]

And vlc.exe CPU usage stays on same level with Direct3D output?

[Squidmaster]

I haven't checked that and I'm not sure how to set it up to see it that way. I know how to get to the task manager, but not how to get more specific than that. If you can instruct me on how that is done I will check that out, but keep in mind that this computer, which is having the same issues as the last one, is easily twice as fast, and in both cases the other software runs smooth playing DVDs.

Do the error strings I am sending shed any light on what is going on? I don't know how to read those for the most part.

Thanks again for all your help.

[Squidmaster]

Without having more specific instructions I happened to be in a position to pull up the CPU usage in the task manager. I discovered a few things at once. Firstly, CPU usage was topping out at no more than 2% during the time I watched it, with page file usage hanging around 450 MB (I have 3.5 gigs of recognizable RAM with XP.) Meanwhile, I was able to hear some of the little stops (not DVD-ROM-type skips at all) that are part of this problem even while the movie was playing out of full-screen mode. I thought full-screen might be part of the issue but it is apparently not.

[VLC_help]

Task manager CPU usage info is enough.

Problem isn't related to CSS or to video decoder because there isn't any errors indicating those problems. Non-DMA setup should create CPU spikes and more messages. Graphic card driver issues should vanish at least with one output module (WinGDI is usually the one that works always).

Did you install Chipset drivers after Windows install?

[Squidmaster]

Sure did. What do all the "buffer is late" messages mean?

[Squidmaster]

Ok, after trying to slog through the Incredibles, which has provided the worst playback yet (especially for audio), I tried watching and listening a bit with the messages on the screen.

main warning: buffer is 46860 late, triggering upsampling - I noticed these popping up at the same time as some of the smaller skips, either in audio, video, or both.
main warning: output PTS is out of range (335605), clearing out - This message pops up, sometimes with other warnings and sometimes clumped with other "clearing out" and "dropping buffer" messages in a row, when I get the more obvious stops in both audio and video simultaneously that feel like a reset when you're watching.

I feel like we've been sorta ignoring these, but these are at the core of the problem in some way. I probably already said this but it feels like the program is trying to play at the same time it's reading. That would explain the variance between different DVDs, as the number of skips would more heavily depend on the newness/cleanliness of the medium. Nothing I have played recently could be called a defective DVD, but ordinarily the little "fixable" errors would be caught and fixed before the buffer ran out.

It occurs to me a few minutes after writing this that you probably were aware of this all along and were just framing it differently. Hopefully my declaration of the obvious isn't insulting or anything.

[VLC_help]

Those are just generic sync error messages. They can come up from almost anything (corrupted file/stream, too slow CPU, too slow disc access, CPU spikes, etc.)

When you play stuff from hard drive, the DVD quality shouldn't matter so the issue isn't in quality of the disc, but disc errors might cause additional sync issues.

[Squidmaster]

Oh, interesting. Well, I'm not sure where else to go here. Literally the only component common between the 2 systems that have had this issue is the DVD drive itself. Both systems ran/run XP (different service packs), antivirus software (AVG on the first, Avast on this one), and Spybot, the latter two of which have resident elements if that makes any difference.

[VLC_help]

If you can disconnect DVD drive and boot to Windows without it, you can figure out if the DVD drive causes some problems (like SATA/ATA flood).

[Squidmaster]

I need to wait till I have some help to try this approach. Meanwhile, I've installed my little freeware version of WinDVD 4 again and I get no issues whatsoever. I still want to fix the problem.