DVD play problem

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Rickles

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#138646 12-Jan-2014 10:38

I have a commercial, locally produced DVD about business practices that will not play on my computer ... the green light comes on but none of the usual disk spinning/whirring sounds. Also, viewing the drive icon shows no disk/file/s. The drive works for every other videao, movie, sound disk I throw at it.

Now, the DVD in question WILL play when I connect and use an external, USB DVD drive, AND it will play on the DVD player connected to the TV.

I've checked the usual suspects like codecs, autoplay settings, file types etc etc.

Any ideas folks?

R.

RunningMan

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#965360 12-Jan-2014 10:56

Marginal quality or slightly damaged disc, combined with a dirty lens on your drive perhaps. Can you clean the lens on the problematic drive?

Zippity

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#965372 12-Jan-2014 11:12

Pay a visit to http://www.videohelp.com/ :-)

Rickles

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#965380 12-Jan-2014 11:53

>Marginal quality or slightly damaged discdirty lens on your drive perhaps<

Cleaned and OK for any other disk.

gzt

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#965381 12-Jan-2014 11:55

It is unlikely (explanations above are better) - but it is not uncommon for some drives to add additional disc format support after the initial release. You can check the current firmware version of your drive and see if there is later firmware for the exact same model. Firmware release notes (usually included in the download) will tell usually tell you if formats were added, so an install may not be required to know.

jpoc

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#965447 12-Jan-2014 13:26

Is the disk one that has been pressed or burned? If the latter, is the physical format one that your drive supports?

There are (older) drives that support DVD -R and not +R or vice versa for example.

Is the disk out of balance? I have seen DVDs produced by fringe manufacturers that were so out of balance that some drives would shutdown rather than spin the disk up to full speed in order to avoid physical damage to the drive.

Rickles

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#965461 12-Jan-2014 13:41

>Is the disk one that has been pressed or burned? If the latter, is the physical format one that your drive supports?Is the disk out of balance? I have seen DVDs produced by fringe manufacturers that were so out of balance that some drives would shutdown rather than spin the disk up to full speed in order to avoid physical damage to the drive. <

Hmmm, made by a commercial film producer.

Drive also plays - and + R disks.

Dell

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jpoc

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#965473 12-Jan-2014 13:53

Rickles: >Is the disk one that has been pressed or burned? If the latter, is the physical format one that your drive supports?Is the disk out of balance? I have seen DVDs produced by fringe manufacturers that were so out of balance that some drives would shutdown rather than spin the disk up to full speed in order to avoid physical damage to the drive. <

Hmmm, made by a commercial film producer.

Drive also plays - and + R disks.

Then I would suspect that the disk is slightly out of spec. The machines that are used to make the disks do wear out and when they reach end of life they are sold on to second or third tier producers.

Rickles

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#965485 12-Jan-2014 14:13

Just odd that it plays fine on two other drives.

I will fire it up again and see just what format the file/s are.

R.

gzt

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#965487 12-Jan-2014 14:20

'Format' in this context does not refer to the files. It can refer to the filesystem or dvd/cd type.

Rickles

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#965672 12-Jan-2014 19:51

Yes, I appreciate the term 'format' havinf a number of meanings in this respect.

BTW, the video files are standard .VOB types.