Travel Technology - Why dont certain dvd's play on my machine lately?

I have no idea what to do. I can watch my workout dvd, a French film dvd I just rented, but any major movie I rent will not play on my machine. It just stalls the player.

I have been using MSI MSIDVD for the past few years and really have not had any problems, but in the past few months, I've been getting a CPU 100% when I open the task manager while watching a dvd because it gets sluggish from time to time (plus I can't open my internet explorer and watch a dvd at the same time). I have loads of memory, that isn't a problem. I am running XP (have been for 2 years). I"ve tried installing the NVIDIA DVD player that came with my 'recently installed - 2 months ago' new graphics card, but it always says "cannot find nvidia.exe" (and I've tried calling nvidia with no help).

But when I put in a recent movie dvd, it just wont play. I've tried using windows media player as well and it wont play, but my workout dvd and this French film will work with no problems.

Any ideas?

The player may have locked itself it to a region. Are your French DVD's coded with a region?
Some software/hardware locks out using multizone DVD's from different regions after playing them.
Sometimes you only have 4 chances then it locks itself to a particular region.
Plenty of software out there to unlock this pesky problem.

I think the OP RENTED the French film in the US ;-)

Are you sure that Extras on the DVD are not auto starting?

have you tried uninstalling and then re-installing the SW for the payer. Remove unused players, shouldn't matter, but could.

Have you downloaded the latet firmware SW for your DVD player from the manufacturers website?

How much free hard disk space do you have?

Have you tried defragging you hard disk?

Is your computer generally much slower, or only on DVDS?

I am not 100% but I assume DVD play uses the swapfile....

Wanto watch dvd is a plane. The good thing is that the ptv's are great!! but some channels that has a boring movie blah :p . Better to bring your laptop equip with a dvd player. Hate to bring laptops but it is a great idea i think in the future all planes will be equip a ptv with a dvd player. Nice to have that stuff in all planes :D

Thanks all for taking the time to respond! They're not French DVDs' from France, but a French movie on DVD rented in my local video store here in the US . It should be region 1, I would assume (might have a generic region code on it as well as the workout dvd). It's just frustrating. I've had this set up for 2 yrs with no problems and now I can't watch my dvd's.

I think the OP RENTED the French film in the US ;-)

Are you sure that Extras on the DVD are not auto starting?

have you tried uninstalling and then re-installing the SW for the payer. Remove unused players, shouldn't matter, but could.

Have you downloaded the latet firmware SW for your DVD player from the manufacturers website?

How much free hard disk space do you have?

Have you tried defragging you hard disk?

Is your computer generally much slower, or only on DVDS?

I am not 100% but I assume DVD play uses the swapfile....

Thanks. Nothing autostarts. Nothing starts at all. It just sits there, unless it is one of the 'playable dvd's' (ie. the french movie, the workout dvd)

I have a lot of free space. I ll try defragging it.. Yes, the computer is slower when I play DVDS. I used to be able to surf web, now when I open up IE while watching movie, the CPU usage goes to 100% and the dvd player goes into a 'slower' mode for a bit. I've googled "cpu at 100% and see it's common problem especially with gamers, but I have no games.. I had my hard drive redone a few mos ago and had everything taken off.

i use MSI dvd (and have a Toshiba internal dvd player which is about 2.5 yrs old) . The player software is at least as old if not older. It came bundled with the machine. I dont thnk they are in existence anymore..

Thanks for the advice though..

Well as a simpleton, Im out.

Have you checked you RAM is actually working properly?

Right click My Computer and it should list the Memory under General tab, my laptop ram died once.....could be this.

If not...I'm out. You say one DVD you have runs fine....it *could* be that the laser is slightly out of focus, so on DVDs that are in mint condition its OK, but slihgtly blemished ones cause it to fail. rented ones are not noted for their superb condition.....

These are just thoughts I am no expert.

If it were me, I would backup, and reload my last ghost image, but thats my response to anything messing up in the lovely windows. It goes ga-ga too often to worry about troubleshooting ;-)

Also, maybe u need a new DVD player.....????

It sounds like you have a software compatability problem of some sort.

I would post a message on a DVD forum like http://forum.digital-digest.com and see if anyone there can help.