DVD Movies Won't Display in XP (But DVD Disks Work Fine)

[2Cold Scorpio]

I'm having a bit of a problem...when I try and play a DVD movie on my XP installation, the picture won't display at all: all I see is a blank screen; there's no picture. The blank screen might be a different color, and there might be a different colored square or two in the display. I can hear sound (a lot of the time anyways), but no picture. This problem does not occur in my Windows Vista installation on the same machine (and that installation has very little installed...including just the default Vista codecs). The DVD drive itself works fine; movies play perfectly in Vista, and even XP has no trouble reading DVDs (WMP11 in XP recognises the disk in the drive, games play with no problems, etc.). Even after installing FFDShow, it doesn't work. Any ideas?

[b0redom]

Install and use this:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

[2Cold Scorpio]

Thanks! I tried it earlier today, but...

Well, DVDs in VLC Player...don't look good. The picture is grainy (even at the standard DVD resolution using Windowed mode; full-screen amplifies this a lot, which I kinda expected) and looks washed out. Considering I have a pretty darn good LCD monitor (22" Samsung 226BW S-Panel @ 1680x1050), this strikes me as odd. Even stranger is that the test DVD, The Matrix, is a high visual-quality DVD. I mean, it looks better on my 9-year old standard definition television...

Also, even after installing VLC Player, I still can't play DVDs in WMP11 (my preferred DVD player, due to its better in-movie controls (in my opinion, of course) when the movie is full screen. I don't understand why WMP11 won't play movies, especially since my old laptop of several years (a Dell Inspiron 8100) could play movies in WMP without any issue...and it was an XP machine too (initially XP Home; I later changed it to XP Pro). I just ask because VLC's in-movie controls when full-screen seem a bit cumbersome. WMP11 also allows you to navigate on-screen menus with the mouse, which I always liked. I didn't expect installing VLC to fix this, but it does leaving me wondering what the heck *did* enable this on my old rig; I know i never bought any special programs, nor downloaded anything illegal. It just worked, even after my numerous re-installs of Windows... I wonder if it was something on one of those old Dell recovery disks... ^_^ Also, is it strange that the DVDs don't look very good in VLC, even in windowed mode (to replicate the typical DVD resolution). Because even windowed, it looked worse than on my old standard-def TV...

I thank you for your help so far, and hope you, or anyone else, can help me with the above. I just find it odd DVDs look worse on my computer monitor (which is *almost* high-def (and easily exceeds 720p...), and that my favorite player which worked fine on my old system does not now.

I don't mean to be a bother; I'm just trying to fully understand the issue and explore my options. One last question...would using the MPEG-4 decoders from FFDShow in VLC Player yield better-quality playback? If so, how do I get VLC to use them (I already have WMP11 using FFDShow's codecs, and I have seen some improvement in other file formats there, though nothing substantial).

Thanks again, in advance.

[ezri]

Your video overlay might be messed up in your drivers. If you go into the Nvidia Control Panel, then into the "Video & Television", you should have a bunch of options for the overlay. Try enabling the use of the overlay if they are disbled, or disable them if they are enable - you should be able to do both via the "Use the Nvidia Control Panel colour settings" checkbox.

Other than that, I'd maybe give the CCCP codecs a whirl and see if that helps you out. You can download them from CCCP-Project.net.

[2Cold Scorpio]

The odd thing is I had this problem with my old drivers (169.44 Beta), and upgrading to new ones (177.41s modifed to work with my GeForce 8800GT) didn't fix it.

Anyways, I'm not seeing anything with the name Overlay under that section in the nVidia CP, but under Video & Television > Adjust Video Color Settings, I changed it to use nVidia settings, and under V&D > Adjust Video Image Settings, I changed it ot use nVidia's Edge Enhancement, Noise Reduction, and Inverse Telecine. It seems to have helped the picture in VLC Player a little, so I'll fiddle with the settings a little more... Though it still looks pretty bad on full screen. Is there a good free player that does DVD upscaling?

A question: will the CCCP Project codecs conflict or interfere with FFDShow's codecs?

[ezri]

A question: will the CCCP Project codecs conflict or interfere with FFDShow's codecs?

Yes, I think they will. CCCP has FFDShow built into it, it's a collection of most of the best codecs around.

[2Cold Scorpio]

So I oughta uninstall FFDShow then, eh?

Also, will CCCP allow DVD playback in WMP11, or is this to improve the picture in VLC Player? Just curious...

[ezri]

Aye uninstall FFDShow. It should hopefully allow DVD playback in WMP11 as it features decoders for all sorts, including MPEG :) The only other explanation I can give as to why you can't play them if that you won't have a sufficient MPEG decoder which I used to get when I tried to play DVDs. This is probably why stuff works in VLC as it comes with it's own codecs and doesn't use external ones.

[2Cold Scorpio]

Alright, I'll try it as soon as I'm able to get them (My Internet connection has been really flakey the last couple of days; various websites usually will not work, including Hexus. I got lucky this time... ).

Edit: Looks like CCCP's site is down due to exceeding their bandwidth.

[2Cold Scorpio]

Update: I've downloaded and installed the latest stable version of CCCP with full options (except the Zoom player), but my DVDs still won't show in WMP11. Even stranger is that they won't show in Media Player Classic, which came with CCCP, despite it has the option to play DVDs.

What can I try now?