dvd/bluray playback glitch (Voyager II Nvidia Geforce 640M)

[MadWitch]

I love this laptop, it is a seriously powerful piece of kit. It does everything I want it to do and never throws errors or crashes. There is one annoying glitch that I can't get rid of no matter what I do; on DVD or Blu-ray playback the picture freezes randomly. The sound continues to play, but the picture can take up to 30 seconds to start moving again.

[SEVERE EDITING FOLLOWING FURTHER FAULT FINDING]

Having done further testing it seems that DVDs play perfectly without any problems in Windows media player. The program that is causing the problems is the video codec installed by PC specialist. That program already contains a nag on start-up that is not the most up-to-date version of that program and to upgrade will cost $40.

Although DVDs will work through Windows media player Blu-ray will not, as it is not supported. This means that this shiny machine can't play Blu-rays, making the Blu-ray player a total waste of money.

It took me a lot of persuading to get my friend to buy this laptop through PC specialist, and here is a reason (to him) not to buy again. The hardware is fantastic; why spoil it with really really really bad software?

 

[MadWitch]

Video playback freezes randomly. Voyager II, Nvidia mobile graphics.

I have no clue why the forum is eating my posts.

The fault that I am trying to fix is that video playback freezes randomly. Audio continues but the picture is stuck on a single frame for up to 30 seconds. This hapens both on battery power and when plugged in and charging.

I've done more fault finding. DVD playback is perfect using Windows media player. This means that the fault lies with the installed software PC specialist put on the machine to handle video playback. That program contains a nag saying it is not the most up-to-date version and that to update to the most up-to-date version will cost $40.

Although we can play DVDs on the machine using Windows media player we can't play Blu-rays as Windows media player doesn't support Blu-ray.

PC specialist make fantastic machines and then install seriously shoddy software for an integral part of the machines use. I then get serious hassle from the person using the machine and have to pass that hassle on.

 

[Rakk]

I have no clue why the forum is eating my posts.

It didn't eat it, it just hid it because when you are new to the forums, threads and posts often go into the moderation queue and need to be approved before they can be seen, this also happens for edits of posts that have already been approved.