Vista Media Center DVD Playback problems

Hi folks,

I just finished setting up my Media Center on Vista Home Premium, got all the latest drivers and SP1 and updates.

DVD playback is giving me some trouble though, and I've resorted to playing them on my 4-5 year old DVD player instead, which is just plain stupid when I have this whole machine set up with Vista Media Center.

I've experienced several problems:
1) No sound.

I have the sound card stereo cable going into the back of the TV, it's possible that VMC isn't downsampling the 5.1 audio to stereo and that it's outputting it over a different port.

2) Drive noise

VMC spins up the drive, as if it's buffering up, then slows it down, then spins it up again, then slows down. It's really annoying as you can imagine. Is there a way to make it read the DVD video disc at a constant, lower speed? Say 2x or 4x ?

3) Jittery image

When played on a standalone player the DVD is fine. However on Vista Media Center it's a bit "jumpy". You can see this quite clearly for example on the credits, text appears (for example film title) and it's jittery, moving up and down a tiny bit. On the standalone player its perfectly stable.

4) Image colors

There's a warning text at the start of the DVD, the general copyright thing. The background is blue on a standalone player, but when played through VMC it's pink?! Definitely too much red on the output.

Does anyone know how to fix these things?

Hi Dezmond, and welcome to the forums

Although WMC should work "out of the box" due to the vast range of encoding methods I've found that WMC often needs a little help,

I use the Vista Codec Pack available Here and found that it plays all the file types I use

as for the sound output yo may want to right click on the speaker icon in the tray and select the Playback Devices option which will allow you to fine tune your sound system.

another option to check your settings are correct is to use a different player to Payback DVD and see if it works correctly, one I can recommend is VLC have a look Here

hope this helps

Thanks for your reply Nigel!

I tried playing the DVD from windows media player 11 and the sound was fine, colours were fine too, except the image is still jittery.

I already have the vista codec pack and it's a great thing indeed, no more hunting around for codecs for obscure formats like MKV etc.

I believe I might have to look for a better DVD codec than the one supplied. Maybe installing something like Cyberlink PowerDVD would fix it?

From this I would assume that it's a WMC dll problem did you try the SFC has solved many problems for many people, (not sure with this problem though - Are WMC DLL's classed as system files? )

I'd personally give VLC at try just to eliminate windows dll's from the equation, (VLC has codecs built in), it's also free so is ideal as a test-bed application

install k-lite codec pack . this will fix your issue. Guaranteed.
download k-lite codec from here
Download K-Lite Codec Pack 4.17 (Full) - FileHippo.com

Thanks dinesh,

that may well work if there is a conflict with Dezmond's system and the Codec Being used.

only warning I'd add is if following this course then ensure that The Vista Codec pack is totally un-installed before installing K-Lite multiple Codec packs a recipe for problems

In fact an uninstall and re-install of the Vista codec pack may solve any conflicts

Yes u r Right Nigel.