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DVD player

I have an Abit KT7A mother with 512 MB ram, the video card is an Abit GF2MX SiluroGF2 w\32MB and tv output, it has a Pioneer 16X DVD drive.
Ok my problem is when playing a DVD the video has like a slight pausing as it plays, it only last for a fraction of a second, but it does this at regular intervals, like maybe 10 to 15 seconds. The pause lasts about maybe the blink of an eye, very short but this is annoying.
Any ideas?
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I would get the newest drivers for all of your hardware and motherboard.

See if you can move the IRQ of the video card to something that is less used.

Get any patches for your DVD player software and visit www.windowsupdate.com for any relevant patches.

ALso do a start-run - msconfig - startup TAB - disable anything running in the background !!

I hope this helps !
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DJ123

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I have the newest drivers as of a month ago, I will look for any updated ones.
IRQ is not shared with anything else
I have shut everything down except explorer and systray and pauses still there.
Are you using the monitor or through the TV output to a TV?
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to a monitor
which OS?
I find win98 good...win2000 is a mixed bag sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't - but then I haven't loaded the latest service packs.

Which video player software are you using?
Try a different one and see if that works.
Might be the beat frequency between the frame rate of the video and the refresh rate of the monitor.
Hi Roadwarrior...how's things?
What is beat frequency...and how would you adjust it...I've always wondered about "beat"...never found out what it means.
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I have it set up with a dual boot Win98 and Win2000, I usally only play the DVD's with Win98, I have tried it with Win2000 and it done the same thing

How do I find the best refresh rate, um I mean beat rate for my monitor and video card?
Beat frequency is the period where two dissimilar frequencies reinforce each other for a cycle or two, before going out of phase again. Actually the lag here would be where the cycles are completely antiphase. Usually the lowest value the frequencies are both a factor of is the beat frequency. This is most readily demonstrated when you have two tunable audio oscillators, as you tune one to the frequency of the other and get close, the beat frequency will fall into the audible range and you will begin to hear a warbling that gets faster as you get nearer to the frequency of the other oscillator, then when you match the frequencies exactly the warbling will stop, until you tune past that frequency and go upward again, then the warbles will start fast and slow down again and get lower, becoming inaudible as you increase the frequency way beyond that of the reference oscillator. You will often hear a warble from twin engined aircraft when their engines are nearly but not quite running the same speed.

You don't generally notice this phenomena when a frame takes two or more whole screen refreshes, but when it is just under or over one refresh, then you might begin to see glitchesmore readily due to this if you are sensitive to such things or are really looking for it. 60fps playing on a 72hz display, might seem to glitch every 360 frames, or every 6 seconds. 50fps on a 120Hz display might seem to glitch every 12 seconds, bit should be harder to detect, due to each frame lasting more than 2 screen refreshes. You can try looking at the frame rate of the video you are plying and adjusting the refresh rate of your monitor to match it more evenly, try 75Hz and 100Hz for 25 or 50fps for 30 or 60fps try 60Hz, 90Hz or 120Hz .
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RW
sorry, I thought you misspelled best, OK how do I adjust my settings for the refresh rate, I have seen it done but I don't remember what to do.
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and how do I find the frame rate
If you are in an NTSC television area, (USA, Japan) assume your DVDs will be optimised for 60fps, if you are in a PAL (UK, Europe) television area assume they are optimised for 50fps. For setting refresh rate, well, graphics card manufactuers can provide many and varied ways of doing this, but on my machine it's under display properties (from control panel or right click on desktop) then select the settings tab, then the advanced properties button, and depending on your monitor and video card combination there may be several settings available under the refresh rate drop down menu on that screen, if you only see a choice of Adapter default and optimal, try whichever is not currently selected in case it is different.
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I found it (refresh rate) but it only goes to 75mhz, could that be because I have monitor install as PNP monitor, I could get the actual monitor to install, it finds it (correct model) then when I go to install the drivers that model is not available, I tried to find the correct driver but I am told none is available since none is needed.
I can only assume I need the correct model listed in order to get the correct refresh rates for it. I know the video cards supports much higher rates, i read it in the specs.
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I am in the USA
Just give it a try on all the options you have, if none of them make a difference in the glitches or the timing of them, then we can assume it isn't anything to do with refresh rate and we need to look for something else.
Resonant frequency?
You might try a firmware upgrade from pioneer if all else fails.
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/ServiceAndSupport/SelfHelpForIndFirmware/0,1465,60~6020~60201100,00.html
What processor are you using??
Do you have DMA enabled on your DVD drive??

We had an issue that sounds exactly like the one that you are describing about a month ago. However, the system in this case had the Matrox G450 graphics card. Here's what we came up with...

'While it is true that the Matrox G450 video card is capable of "hardware assist", it is not a true hardware MPEG decoder.  Because of this, MediaMatics software is used to decode the DVD compressed data and display it on the monitor.  This is a very processor and memory intensive operation, which is easily handled by the Pentium III 933Mhz/1Ghz processors offered.  It is normal, however, for there to be "dropped frames".  When enough frames are dropped in a row, you may notice a slight alteration of the picture (it may "jerk" or "hiccup"). This should be a slight issue, and should by no means make the movie unwatchable.

To get better performance from the system while playing back movies, it is often beneficial to stop applications from running in the back ground. This frees up resources for the DVD software, which may eliminate some (or even all!) of the dropped frames while watching a movie.  This can be easily accomplished by right clicking on the icons in the system tray. Select "disable" or "exit" from the context menu which usually opens. This will temporarily disable these applications while you watch a movie. When you are finished, simply restart the system to get the system tray applications to come back.'

I know that you have already closed all your background programs - maybe try getting hold of a different graphics card and try that in your system - maybe get one that is proven in playing DVDs - if possible.

Also try using different DVD playing software and see how that goes...

And Good Luck.

Suggest...
1. Set drive detection to AUTO in BIOS.
2. DVD works best(for movie playback) as Secondary IDE channel MASTER.
3. DMA must be enabled in Device Manager(CD-ROM).
4. Use ATA 66/100 cables.
5. Obtain PowerDVD 3.0.
Good luck...T
Ok this may sound silly, but took me a few days to figure it out on my system for the same issue....

What is the screensaver timer set to?

I played my DVDs in full screen, and every 25 mins it would do that. Now it was just for a fraction of a second like yours, as Im running a 1Ghz and 256MB ram. Wonder how long the pause would be a slower machines? Anyway I turned the screensaver option off (since I turn the monitor off when not using anyway), which was set to 25mins, and it stopped. Never had it happen again.
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What processor are you using??  
AMD Thunderbird 1.33

Do you have DMA enabled on your DVD drive??
Yes DMA is enabled

It is setup as Secondary IDE channel MASTER alone for now, I am going to add a CDRW in a few weeks and I was planning on setting the CDRW as master.

I am not using a ATA66 cable, just a standard IDE cable, should I use the ATA66 cable?

No screensaver is enabled

The software I have been using is I believe included on the DVD, I don't know what that is at this time.

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Since I am getting so much help I am increasing the points so I can do a points split when this is done.
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Could this problem be caused by my monitor, I am building this system right now and I have it hooked to a test monitor,  it is a 15" and I think the max refresh is only 85mhz, I am going to get a new 19" in a few weeks to use this with.

Am I worried about the "flashing screen" too soon?
2. DVD works best(for movie playback) as Secondary IDE channel MASTER.

I use Primary Slave for my DVD and it's faultless.

4. Use ATA 66/100 cables.

Yeah...but works fine without too.

5. Obtain PowerDVD 3.0.

Windows Media Player does a good job...ASUS DVD does a better one.

Also...in your system settings...what optimisations do you have on your CD?  In win98 there's a slider that you can change the buffer size of your CD drive...does changing that affect anything?  The setting is probably in 2000 too but I haven't looked for it...haven't needed to.
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I have the supplemental cache size to max

Optimize access pattern set to quad speed or faster


The DVD model number is DVD116, I checked pioneer's site (link above) and there is no update for it yet.
Have a look at the info within this link
http://pcsupport.about.com/compute/pcsupport/library/weekly/aa102300c.htm

and also have a look at the part related to disabling UDF file system here
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q181/9/66.ASP
I have had similar problems with the software that comes on the dvd. It was even more choppy than you have described (slower machine 850), but played fine with ATI's dvd player software. Maybe start with the software (as others have suggested).
Hey...I have that very same DVD drive...I downloaded some hacks for it that allow it to change zones as many times as you wish.  

Someone also gave me that drive for free as he had it stuck on the Japan zone (I'm in Australia).  So I found the hack...flashed it in and it works great.

I have it running as Primary slave...on ATA66 cables (the 80 core one)...I don't use it under Win2000...I haven't loaded the video card drivers properly...well I have, but I don't get all the goodies that I do under Win98, with tweaks, video players etc.  Under Win98 it runs like magic, and I have even hooked it up to a digital projector and watched "home cinema" with DVD's from the local library...very cool.

My video card is a GeForce V6600 (ASUS)...so yours should do better being a second gen.

Have you tried dropping your resolution back to 800x600 for better movie viewing resolution???  DVD's only use MPEG-2 anyway...so anything bigger than 800x600 is not going to get you any gains visually...in fact that video projector I used would get blocky if I used higher than 800x600 as it would convert higher resolutions back down to 800x600 anyway (and it wasn't too clever at doing that).

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I think this is solved, it worked fine today when I ran a test, so I would like to close this question out, since there is no clearcut answer that solved this then I feel everyone should get at least 50 points, I would raise this to 100 points each if possible (is it possible)
How do I do a points split?

SysExpert
rayt333
rogerhammond
RoadWarrior
genguy
Cokane
tmj883
krytical
 
I think you go to Community Support (left side toolbar) and put in a request to get the points assigned.

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Thank you for your help
You are quite welcome, anytime.

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